{"v":"1082a00879","asOf":"2026-10","tiers":{"1":"Primary","2":"Official","3":"Masthead","4":"Trade","5":"Aggregator","X":"Unusable"},"articles":[{"id":"airline-rort/the-fare","title":"The fare","href":"/article/airline-rort/the-fare","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":15,"secs":["What the ACCC's own data shows","The profit picture: domestic versus international","Full planes and still not enough capacity","The challenger story: every competitor eventually fails","The international comparison: what competitive markets look like","What the airlines say","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2026/03/duopoly-controls-nearly-99-of-domestic-flights-says-accc/","l":"ACCC, 'Duopoly controls nearly 99% of domestic flights' (March 2026)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/accc-domestic-airline-competition-australia-may-2025.pdf","l":"ACCC, Domestic Airline Competition Report, May 2025","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/domestic-airline-competition-report-feb-2025.pdf","l":"ACCC, Domestic Airline Competition Report, February 2025","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2026/03/duopoly-controls-nearly-99-of-domestic-flights-says-accc/","l":"Federal competition taskforce data, cited by ACCC (January 2024)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-group/delivering-today-and-tomorrow/delivering-today.html","l":"Qantas Group, FY25 Full-Year Results (August 2025)","t":2},"6":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/strong-demand-and-reduced-domestic-competition-have-contributed-to-significant-earnings-for-qantas-group-and-virgin-australia","l":"ACCC, 'Strong demand and reduced domestic competition have contributed to significant earnings' (May 2025)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-monitoring-impact-on-domestic-aviation-amid-middle-east-conflict","l":"ACCC, 'ACCC monitoring impact on domestic aviation amid Middle East conflict' (March 2026)","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/domestic-airline-monitoring-report-december-2025.pdf","l":"ACCC, Domestic Airline Competition Report, December 2025","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/luke-hopewell/qantas-virgin-accc-market-share/","l":"Switzer Daily, 'Qantas and Virgin's insane market dominance revealed by ACCC' (May 2025)","t":4},"10":{"u":"https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/airports-networks/numbers-australia-q1-2025","l":"Aviation Week, 'By the Numbers: Australia Q1 2025' (March 2025)","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/8/31/australia-fumes-over-soaring-airfares-as-qatar-airways-bid-blocked","l":"Al Jazeera, 'Australia fumes over soaring airfares as Qatar Airways flights blocked' (August 2023)","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/return-to-pre-pandemic-levels-of-airline-travel-and-capacity","l":"ACCC, 'Return to pre-pandemic levels' / ongoing monitoring (May 2024 report)","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-group-posts-strong-result-while-delivering-for-customers-in-fy24","l":"Qantas, FY24 full-year results (August 2024)","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.ibisworld.com/australia/industry/domestic-airlines/472/","l":"IBISWorld, Domestic Airlines Australia (2025)","t":4}}},{"id":"airline-rort/the-duopoly","title":"The duopoly","href":"/article/airline-rort/the-duopoly","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":15,"secs":["The history: deregulation and its aftermath","The Jetstar response","The challenger record: every attempt, every outcome","The slot system: the physical control of competition","The Qantas-Virgin slot manager: a 28-year arrangement ends","Why challengers fail: the full picture","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Airlines_Policy","l":"Wikipedia: Two Airlines Policy (current)","t":5},"2":{"u":"https://www.airlineratings.com/articles/australias-turbulent-airline-industry","l":"AirlineRatings: 'Australia's turbulent airline industry'","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://simpleflying.com/ansett-australia-history/","l":"Simple Flying: 'The Rise and Fall of Ansett Australia'","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://www.airlineratings.com/articles/ansett-australia-20-years-great-airline-lousy-business","l":"Airline Ratings: 'Ansett Australia 20 years on: Great Airline, Lousy Business'","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://globalbusinessoutlook.com/magazine/industry/slot-hoarding-a-menace-in-australian-aviation/","l":"Global Business Outlook: 'Slot Hoarding: A menace in Australian aviation?' (January 2025)","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2024/11/categorically-no-slot-hoarding-insists-qantas/","l":"AFR / Australian Aviation: Sydney Airport slot data mid-2024","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-02-18/britains-airport-coordination-beats-qantas-virgin-jv-to-manage-slots-in-sydney","l":"Reuters / US News: 'Britain's Airport Coordination beats Qantas-Virgin JV to manage slots in Sydney' (February 2025)","t":5},"8":{"u":"https://airinsight.com/sydney-slots-shake-up-acl-impact-on-qantas-virgin-australia/","l":"AirInsight: 'Sydney Slots Shake-Up: ACL Impact on Qantas, Virgin Australia' (April 2025)","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure-transport-vehicles/aviation/airports/demand-management-sydney-airport","l":"Department of Infrastructure: Sydney Airport Demand Management (current, 2025)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/accc-domestic-airline-competition-australia-may-2025.pdf","l":"ACCC: Domestic Airline Competition Report, May 2025","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/luke-hopewell/qantas-virgin-accc-market-share/","l":"Switzer Daily: 'Qantas and Virgin's insane market dominance' (May 2025)","t":4},"14":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2024/02/80-20-rule-looks-to-survive-government-overhaul-of-sydney-slots/","l":"Australian Aviation: '80/20 rule looks to survive government overhaul of Sydney slots' (February 2024)","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/qantas-and-virgin-australia-under-scrutiny-as-sydney-airport-appoints-new-slot-coordinator-new-updates-you-need-to-know/","l":"Travel and Tour World: 'Qantas and Virgin Australia Under Scrutiny' (March 2025)","t":"X"}}},{"id":"airline-rort/the-qatar-block","title":"The Qatar block","href":"/article/airline-rort/the-qatar-block","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":15,"secs":["What Qantas said, and what it also said","The decision and its justifications","The Acting Prime Minister was not consulted","The Senate inquiry: a Joyce-shaped hole","The coda: Qatar arrived anyway"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/surprised-and-shocked-qatar-airways-found-out-about-extra-flights-rejection-from-the-media/5dgm55r0f","l":"SBS News · Surprised and shocked: Qatar Airways found out about extra flights rejection from the media (September 2023)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/17/qatar-airways-says-australian-decision-to-block-flights-very-unfair","l":"Al Jazeera · Qatar Airways CEO says Australian decision to block flights very unfair (September 2023)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/8/31/australia-fumes-over-soaring-airfares-as-qatar-airways-bid-blocked","l":"Al Jazeera · Australia fumes over soaring airfares as Qatar Airways flights blocked (August 2023)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/2023/09/07/catherine-king-qatar-airways","l":"The New Daily · Transport minister reveals context to Qatar Airways decision (September 2023)","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://simpleflying.com/australian-governement-denies-qatar-airways-request-increase-flights/","l":"Simple Flying · Australian Government Rejects Qatar Airways Request (July 2023)"},"6":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/qantas-embroiled-in-senate-inquiry-as-new-ceo-takes-charge/eex0nal5b","l":"SBS News · Qantas embroiled in Senate inquiry as new CEO takes charge (September 2023)","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://simpleflying.com/australian-senate-qatar-decision-must-reviewed/","l":"Simple Flying · Australian Senate Says Qatar Decision Must Be Reviewed Immediately (October 2023)","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/10/10/senate-inquiry-report-qatar-qantas-alan-joyce/","l":"Crikey · Senate inquiry report into Qatar decision has a giant Joyce-shaped hole (October 2023)","t":3},"9":{"u":"https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2023/09/26/alan-joyce-senate-inquiry-qantas","l":"The New Daily · Alan Joyce to be summoned by Senate inquiry (September 2023)","t":3},"10":{"u":"https://www.ch-aviation.com/news/137767-australian-senate-opts-not-to-restart-qatar-airways-inquiry","l":"ch-aviation · Australian Senate opts not to restart Qatar Airways inquiry (March 2024)","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://www.virginaustralia.com/us/en/newsroom/2025/2/virgin-australia-and-qatar-airways-partnership-takes-off/","l":"Virgin Australia / Qatar Airways · FIRB approval and ACCC authorisation for Qatar-Virgin alliance (February–March 2025)","t":2},"12":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/senate-questions-qantas-over-market-dominance-and-qatar-being-denied-extra-flights/q97yvoh91","l":"SBS News · Senate questions Qantas over market dominance and Qatar being denied extra flights (September 2023)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/senate-committee-says-government-should-immediately-review-its-rejection-of-qatar-flights-215263","l":"The Conversation · Senate committee says government should immediately review its rejection of Qatar flights (October 2023)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://dohanews.co/shocked-qatar-airways-found-out-about-rejected-australia-bid-via-the-media/","l":"Doha News · Shocked: Qatar Airways found out about rejected Australia bid via the media (September 2023)"}}},{"id":"airline-rort/joyce-and-the-politicians","title":"Alan Joyce and the politicians","href":"/article/airline-rort/joyce-and-the-politicians","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":16,"secs":["The Chairman's Lounge: what it is","The Prime Minister: 22 upgrades and a son's membership","Albanese's denial, and its limits","The lobbying system that isn't called lobbying","The full picture: what Qantas got from government","A bipartisan arrangement"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/labor-scrambles-to-save-anthony-albanese-from-scrutiny-over-claims-he-personally-asked-for-qantas-perks-c-16544181","l":"Joe Aston -- The Chairman's Lounge (October 2024); coverage in The Nightly, AFR, Nine newspapers","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8802784/anthony-albanese-compromised-over-qantas-alan-joyce-relationship/","l":"The Canberra Times -- 'Anthony Albanese compromised over Qantas-Alan Joyce relationship' (October 2024)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://travelweekly.com.au/albo-once-again-facing-scrutiny-for-his-relationship-with-ex-qantas-ceo-alan-joyce/","l":"Travel Weekly -- 'Albo once again facing scrutiny for his relationship with ex-Qantas CEO Alan Joyce' (October 2024)","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/australia/latika-m-bourke-why-anthony-albanese-and-alan-joyce-arent-to-blame-for-qantas-political-fiasco--c-16640442","l":"The Nightly -- 'Anthony Albanese and Alan Joyce aren't to blame for Qantas' political fiasco' (November 2024)","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/anthony-albanese-never-contacted-alan-joyce-over-qantas-flights-upgrades-c-16586234","l":"The Nightly -- 'Anthony Albanese's Qantas flight upgrade denials questioned' (October 2024)","t":3},"6":{"u":"https://www.indailyqld.com.au/news/just-in/2024/10/31/a-perk-too-far-when-it-comes-to-qantas-access","l":"InDaily -- 'A perk too far when it comes to Qantas access' (October-November 2024)","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/anthony-albanese-says-he-did-not-ever-call-the-qantas-ceo-to-ask-for-an-upgrade/dmtnreicw","l":"SBS News -- 'Albanese says he did not ever call the Qantas CEO to ask for an upgrade' (October 2024)","t":3},"8":{"u":"https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/11/02/bxkh-n02.html","l":"World Socialist Web Site -- 'Australian prime minister fails to stem Qantas upgrades scandal' (November 2024)","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://www.bordermail.com.au/story/8808108/trust-issues-in-australias-covid-response-inquiry/","l":"Bordermail -- 'Trust issues in Australia's COVID response inquiry' (October 2024)","t":3},"10":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/qantas-embroiled-in-senate-inquiry-as-new-ceo-takes-charge/eex0nal5b","l":"Senate inquiry (Qantas, Qatar) -- Virgin CEO testimony September 2023","t":3},"11":{"u":"https://www.indailyqld.com.au/news/just-in/2024/10/31/a-perk-too-far-when-it-comes-to-qantas-access","l":"InDaily -- lobbying law quote (October 2024)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-13/high-court-rules-in-qantas-twu-battle-over-ground-crew-staff/102848684","l":"ABC News, \"Qantas loses High Court appeal over sacking of 1,700 baggage handlers and cleaners during COVID-19 pandemic\" (13 September 2023)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/8/31/australia-fumes-over-soaring-airfares-as-qatar-airways-bid-blocked","l":"Al Jazeera -- Albanese/Joyce relationship and Qatar decision (August 2023)","t":3},"15":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-court-action-alleging-qantas-advertised-flights-it-had-already-cancelled","l":"Qantas ghost flights / cancelled tickets ACCC action","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.ag.gov.au/integrity/publications/lobbying-code-conduct","l":"Attorney-General's Department, \"Lobbying Code of Conduct\"","t":1}}},{"id":"airline-rort/the-frequent-flyer-machine","title":"The frequent flyer financial machine","href":"/article/airline-rort/the-frequent-flyer-machine","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":16,"secs":["How the business model works","Half of Australia enrolled","The devaluation problem","The investment case: an airline, or a loyalty business?","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/media-releases/qantas-group-posts-strong-result-while-delivering-for-customers-in-fy24","l":"Qantas -- FY24 full-year results (August 2024)","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Frequent_Flyer","l":"Wikipedia -- Qantas Frequent Flyer (current)","t":5},"5":{"u":"https://stocksdownunder.com/how-qantas-frequent-flyer-makes-money/","l":"Stocks Down Under -- 'Here's how Qantas Frequent Flyer makes money' (January 2025)","t":5},"6":{"u":"https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-group/delivering-today-and-tomorrow/delivering-today.html","l":"Qantas -- FY25 full-year results (August 2025)","t":2},"7":{"u":"https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/qantas-confirms-massive-frequent-flyer-change-following-925-million-profit-new-era-001523894.html","l":"Yahoo Finance -- 'Qantas confirms massive frequent flyer change following $925 million profit' (February 2026)","t":5},"9":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-court-action-alleging-qantas-advertised-flights-it-had-already-cancelled","l":"ACCC -- ghost flights action against Qantas (2023-2024)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.hcourt.gov.au/sites/default/files/assets/publications/judgment-summaries/2023/hca-27-2023-09-13.pdf","l":"High Court of Australia, judgment summary, \"Qantas Airways Limited v Transport Workers Union of Australia [2023] HCA 27\" (13 September 2023)","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/accc-domestic-airline-competition-australia-may-2025.pdf","l":"Qantas -- FY24 results context / domestic vs international margin","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Frequent_Flyer","l":"Qantas Frequent Flyer -- January 2024 points increase","t":5},"13":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Frequent_Flyer","l":"Woolworths / Qantas partnership history","t":5},"14":{"u":"https://stocksdownunder.com/how-qantas-frequent-flyer-makes-money/","l":"Stocks Down Under -- pandemic loyalty resilience","t":5},"15":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/accc-domestic-airline-competition-australia-may-2025.pdf","l":"ACCC -- Domestic Airline Competition Report, May 2025 (loyalty program context)","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://investor.qantas.com/FormBuilder/_Resource/_module/doLLG5ufYkCyEPjF1tpgyw/file/annual-reports/2020-Annual-Report-ASX.pdf","l":"Qantas Airways, 2020 Annual Report (August 2020)"}}},{"id":"airline-rort/who-owns-the-airports","title":"Who owns the airports","href":"/article/airline-rort/who-owns-the-airports","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":19,"secs":["How the airports were sold","The numbers: EBITDA margins that exceed nearly every peer","The regulatory gap","The superannuation paradox","The coming cost"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/major-airports-increase-infrastructure-investment-but-higher-costs-will-likely-flow-through-to-passengers","l":"ACCC, Airport Monitoring Report FY2024-25 (March 2026)","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/publications/serial-publications/airport-monitoring-reports/airport-monitoring-report-2023-24","l":"ACCC, Airport Monitoring Report FY2023-24 (March 2025)"},"3":{"u":"https://www.routesonline.com/suppliers/10554/capa-centre-for-aviation/news/299664459/australian-major-airports-2023-4-revenues-were-stratospheric-as-light-handed-regime-persists/","l":"CAPA, Centre for Aviation, 'Australian major airports 2023-4: revenues were stratospheric' (April 2025)","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://www.ifminvestors.com/news-and-insights/media-centre/acquisition-of-sydney-airport-complete/","l":"IFM Investors, 'Acquisition of Sydney Airport Complete' (February 2022)","t":2},"6":{"u":"https://www.anao.gov.au/sites/default/files/anao_report_1998-99_48.pdf","l":"Australian National Audit Office, \"Phase 2 of the Sales of the Federal Airports\", Audit Report No. 48 1998-99","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2024/05/australias-big-four-airports-are-back-in-the-black/","l":"Australian Aviation, 'Australia's Big 4 Airports Are Back in the Black' (May 2024)","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/09/monopolist-airports-defend-price-gouging/","l":"MacroBusiness, 'Monopolist airports defend their price gouging' (2018, citing ACCC 2017 data)","t":4},"12":{"u":"https://www.ifminvestors.com/news-and-insights/media-centre/confirmation-of-approach-to-sydney-airport/","l":"IFM Investors / AustralianSuper, superannuation fund airport ownership portfolio","t":2},"13":{"u":"https://www.enginecowl.com/accc-rising-airfares-airports/","l":"Engine Cowl, ACCC warning on airport charges and airfares (March 2026)"},"15":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2024/04/sydney-airport-sees-588m-loss-despite-return-to-pre-covid-earnings/","l":"Western Sydney Airport, opening timeline and competitive implications","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:%22media/pressrel/7BU66%22;src1=sm1","l":"Minister for Finance and Administration and Minister for Transport and Regional Services, \"Sydney Airport sells for $5.588 billion\" (media release, 25 June 2002), via ParlInfo","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.anao.gov.au/sites/default/files/anao_report_2002-2003_43.pdf","l":"Australian National Audit Office, \"The Sale of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport\", Audit Report No. 43 2002-03","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.anao.gov.au/sites/default/files/ANAO_Report_1997-98_38.pdf","l":"Australian National Audit Office, \"Sale of Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth Airports\", Audit Report No. 38 1997-98","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/1994/06/issue-97-june-1994/","l":"Australian Aviation, issue 97 (June 1994)","t":4}}},{"id":"airline-rort/what-the-media-covered","title":"What the media covered","href":"/article/airline-rort/what-the-media-covered","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":16,"secs":["What a content partnership means","The Chairman's Lounge and the media","What got covered, and how","The Chairman's Lounge book: broke late, in a Nine publication","The structural competition story: consistently underreported","What independent coverage looked like"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.bandt.com.au/qantas-unveils-new-tv-digital-news-partnerships-with-nine-news-the-abc/","l":"B&T, 'Qantas Unveils New TV & Digital News Partnerships With Nine, News Corp & The ABC' (July 2022)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas","l":"Wikipedia, Qantas (inflight media section, current)","t":5},"3":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/labor-scrambles-to-save-anthony-albanese-from-scrutiny-over-claims-he-personally-asked-for-qantas-perks-c-16544181","l":"Joe Aston, The Chairman's Lounge (2024); AFR/Nine publication","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/9-news-australia/","l":"Media Bias Fact Check, Nine News (Australia)","t":5},"5":{"u":"https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/australia","l":"Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Australia Digital News Report 2025","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/accc-domestic-airline-competition-australia-may-2025.pdf","l":"ACCC Domestic Airline Competition Reports, media coverage assessment","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/10/10/senate-inquiry-report-qatar-qantas-alan-joyce/","l":"Crikey, Joe Aston Senate inquiry reporting, Qatar block coverage (October 2023)","t":3},"8":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/8/31/australia-fumes-over-soaring-airfares-as-qatar-airways-bid-blocked","l":"Al Jazeera, Qatar block consumer coverage (August-September 2023)","t":3},"9":{"u":"https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-australian/","l":"Media Bias Fact Check, The Australian (News Corp)","t":5},"10":{"u":"https://www.indailyqld.com.au/news/just-in/2024/10/31/a-perk-too-far-when-it-comes-to-qantas-access","l":"InDaily, media figures as Chairman's Lounge members (October 2024)","t":3},"11":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/surprised-and-shocked-qatar-airways-found-out-about-extra-flights-rejection-from-the-media/5dgm55r0f","l":"SBS News, Qatar inquiry coverage (September-October 2023)","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2026/nielsen-reveals-australias-top-ad-spenders-and-categories-for-2025/","l":"Nielsen, \"Nielsen reveals Australia's top ad spenders and categories for 2025\" (2026)","t":2},"13":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/senate-committee-says-government-should-immediately-review-its-rejection-of-qatar-flights-215263","l":"The Conversation, Qatar block Senate inquiry report coverage (October 2023)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://www.bandt.com.au/qantas-unveils-new-tv-digital-news-partnerships-with-nine-news-the-abc/","l":"ABC News, Qantas inflight coverage and editorial independence","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-court-action-alleging-qantas-advertised-flights-it-had-already-cancelled","l":"Qantas ghost flights ACCC action, coverage pattern","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2026/03/duopoly-controls-nearly-99-of-domestic-flights-says-accc/","l":"Australian Aviation, 'Duopoly controls nearly 99% of domestic flights, says ACCC' (25 March 2026)","t":4}}},{"id":"airline-rort/what-would-fix-it","title":"What would fix it","href":"/article/airline-rort/what-would-fix-it","caseLabel":"The Airline Rort","caseHref":"/case/airline-rort","date":"2026-04-03","refCount":19,"secs":["Reform 1: Fifth freedom rights and bilateral air services liberalisation","Reform 2: Slot management and use-it-or-lose-it enforcement","Reform 3: Airport re-regulation","Reform 4: Transparency and competition powers","Reform 5: Political integrity","What is already working","The political obstacle","The Airline Rort: series complete"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2026/03/duopoly-controls-nearly-99-of-domestic-flights-says-accc/","l":"Federal competition taskforce data, cited by ACCC (January 2024)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://airinsight.com/sydney-slots-shake-up-acl-impact-on-qantas-virgin-australia/","l":"ACCC / AirInsight, ACL slot management reform (April 2025)","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.virginaustralia.com/us/en/newsroom/2025/3/qatar-airways-group-and-virgin-australia-receive-final-go-ahead-from-the-accc-for-integrated-alliance/","l":"Virgin Australia / Qatar Airways ACCC alliance authorisation (March 2025)","t":2},"4":{"u":"https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/10/10/senate-inquiry-report-qatar-qantas-alan-joyce/","l":"Crikey / Senate inquiry, divestiture powers and ACCC inquiry recommendation (October 2023)","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-modes/air/single-european-sky_en","l":"EU Single Aviation Market, European comparison","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2024/05/australias-big-four-airports-are-back-in-the-black/","l":"Australian Aviation, ACCC airport regulation recommendations","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-monitoring-impact-on-domestic-aviation-amid-middle-east-conflict","l":"ACCC, Domestic Airline Competition Report, March 2026","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.indailyqld.com.au/news/just-in/2024/10/31/a-perk-too-far-when-it-comes-to-qantas-access","l":"InDaily, Chairman's Lounge ban / lobbying reform calls (October 2024)","t":3},"9":{"u":"https://simpleflying.com/australian-senate-qatar-decision-must-reviewed/","l":"Senate inquiry Qatar block, bilateral air services reform recommendations (October 2023)","t":4},"10":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-court-action-alleging-qantas-advertised-flights-it-had-already-cancelled","l":"ACCC / Qantas, ghost flights settlement and consumer protection gaps","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.industry.gov.au/mining-oil-and-gas/oil-and-gas/securing-australian-domestic-gas-supply","l":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources, \"Domestic gas supply\"","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2024/04/sydney-airport-sees-588m-loss-despite-return-to-pre-covid-earnings/","l":"Western Sydney Airport / competition implications (2026)","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://www.qantas.com/au/en/qantas-group/delivering-today-and-tomorrow/delivering-today.html","l":"Qantas, FY25 results / political reform context","t":2},"16":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/labor-scrambles-to-save-anthony-albanese-from-scrutiny-over-claims-he-personally-asked-for-qantas-perks-c-16544181","l":"Joe Aston -- The Chairman's Lounge (October 2024); coverage in The Nightly, AFR, Nine newspapers","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2023/08/tighten-slot-rules-to-95-5-says-sydney-airport/","l":"Australian Aviation, \"Tighten slot rules to 95-5, says Sydney Airport\" (August 2023)","t":4}}},{"id":"cartel-switch/thirteen-days","title":"Thirteen days, pointed backwards","href":"/article/cartel-switch/thirteen-days","caseLabel":"The Cartel Switch","caseHref":"/case/cartel-switch","date":"2026-09","refCount":16,"secs":["Thirteen days","The switch","The test that stopped being a test","The mechanism to watch is the authorisation nobody sees","Backdated fifty-six days, used for two","What the old route looked like","The case for it"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2026A00048/asmade/2026-05-26/text/original/pdf","l":"Parliament of Australia, \"Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Act 2026\" (Act No. 48 of 2026, as made, assented 26 May 2026), Federal Register of Legislation C…","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/s1493_ems_f0feb713-366e-40b3-9555-235a7dd2dc18/upload_pdf/JC018356.pdf","l":"Parliament of Australia, Revised Explanatory Memorandum to the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 (bill s1493)"},"3":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2526/26bd064","l":"Parliamentary Library, \"Bills Digest No. 64, 2025-26: Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026\" (22 May 2026)","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s1493","l":"Parliament of Australia, bill homepage, \"Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026\" (s1493)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2026L00769/asmade/2026-06-22/text/original/pdf","l":"Treasurer, \"Competition and Consumer (Exceptional Circumstances) (No. 1) Declaration 2026\" (F2026L00769, as made), Federal Register of Legislation","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2026L00769/asmade/2026-06-22/es/original/pdf","l":"Explanatory statement to the Competition and Consumer (Exceptional Circumstances) (No. 1) Declaration 2026 (F2026L00769), Federal Register of Legislation","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2026L01068/asmade/2026-08-18/text/original/pdf","l":"\"Competition and Consumer (Exceptional Circumstances) (No. 1) Amendment Declaration 2026\" (F2026L01068, as made, registered 18 August 2026 and in force from the next day), Federal Register of Legisla…","t":1}}},{"id":"compliance-machine/two-machines-two-clocks","title":"Two machines, two clocks","href":"/article/compliance-machine/two-machines-two-clocks","caseLabel":"The Compliance Machine","caseHref":"/case/compliance-machine","date":"2026-09","refCount":13,"secs":["The machine that already broke","What compensation has paid, and who was never asked","The machine nobody investigated","Five pauses, two clocks","The assurance behind the restart","What the number is, and what it isn't","The response, and the silence"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.dewr.gov.au/assuring-integrity-targeted-compliance-framework/announcements/update-work-return-targeted-compliance-framework-lawful-administration","l":"DEWR, 'Update on work to return the Targeted Compliance Framework to lawful administration' (4 August 2026)","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.ombudsman.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/320750/Automation-in-the-Targeted-Compliance-Framework.pdf","l":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, 'Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework: when the law is changed but the system isn't' (August 2025)","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.ombudsman.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/323205/Fairness-in-the-Targeted-Compliance-Framework.pdf","l":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, 'Fairness in the Targeted Compliance Framework: when decisions are made beyond your control' (December 2025)","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://consultations.dewr.gov.au/digital-protections-framework-and-section-40y-guidelines","l":"DEWR Consultation Hub, \"Digital Protections Framework and Section 40Y Guidelines\" (consultation opened August 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"consultancy-rort/the-crackdown-that-cost-more","title":"The crackdown that cost more","href":"/article/consultancy-rort/the-crackdown-that-cost-more","caseLabel":"The Consultancy Rort","caseHref":"/case/consultancy-rort","date":"2026-07","refCount":5,"secs":["The crackdown was announced. The bill went up.","The Big Four were cut. The saving never arrived.","The work did not stop. It moved down the food chain.","The pattern did not end. It hardened into 2026.","Meanwhile, the state forgets how to do the job itself.","Extraction, re-badged as reform."],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/labors-spending-consultancy-firms-higher-under-morrison-data-reveals","l":"Australian Greens, 'Labor's spending on consultancy firms higher than under Morrison, data reveals' (26 August 2025)","t":2},"2":{"u":"https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9061287/rise-of-mid-tier-consultancies-amid-big-four-contract-cuts/","l":"Canberra Times, 'Rise of mid-tier consultancies amid Big Four contract cuts' (8 October 2025, updated 16 October 2025)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://awardedtenders.au/articles/awardedtendersau/market-insights/consulting-mid-tier-fy26/","l":"Psithur / Awarded Tenders, 'Life After the Big 4: The Mid-Tier Firms Winning Federal Consulting Work' (FY26)","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9302187/pat-conroy-defence-bureaucrats-blamed-for-cost-blowouts-delays/","l":"Canberra Times, 'Pat Conroy: Defence bureaucrats blamed for cost blowouts, delays' (July 2026)","t":3}}},{"id":"gambling-rort/the-default-is-exposure","title":"The default is exposure","href":"/article/gambling-rort/the-default-is-exposure","caseLabel":"The Gambling Rort","caseHref":"/case/gambling-rort","date":"2026-08-20","refCount":20,"secs":["A register of the people who asked to be left alone","The evidence was on the table, and it pointed the other way","Self-exclusion, all the way down","What the deal traded","The votes, as the record shows them","What the law genuinely does","The money, and the watch"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7520","l":"Parliament of Australia, bill homepage for the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, r7520, including the proposed amendment sheets (read 19-20 August 2026)","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/journals/63319979-3e7c-498f-badc-fecdd8074f46/toc_pdf/sen-jn.pdf","l":"Parliament of Australia, Journals of the Senate No. 63 (19 August 2026)","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/votes/4ed3c0dd-1162-4239-887e-0067fc1558b4/toc_pdf/reps-vp.pdf","l":"Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives Votes and Proceedings No. 76, proof (18 August 2026)","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Social_Policy_and_Legal_Affairs/Onlinegamblingimpacts/Report/List_of_recommendations","l":"Parliament of Australia, 'You win some, you lose more', list of recommendations (28 June 2023)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/reportsen/RB000889/toc_pdf/InteractiveGamblingAmendment(GamblingReform)Bill2026andNationalSelf-exclusionRegister(CostRecoveryLevy)AmendmentBill2026.pdf","l":"Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, report on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and the National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Ame…","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r7520_first-reps/toc_pdf/26099b01.pdf","l":"Parliament of Australia, Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, first reading print (2 July 2026)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r7520_ems_26aebb01-84f7-4ae3-857f-bdcb6a25cd03/upload_pdf/JC018580.pdf","l":"Australian Government, explanatory memorandum to the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 (2 July 2026)","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://oia.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/posts/2026/04/Wagering%20Advertising%20Reform%20-%20Impact%20Analysis.pdf","l":"Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, Wagering Advertising Reform Impact Analysis (April 2026)","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r7534_ems_7a0824c2-258b-46e9-a93a-db0e660e6ba1/upload_pdf/Interactive%20Gambling%20(Cost%20Recovery%20Levy)%20Bill%202026%20-%20EM.pdf","l":"Australian Government, explanatory memorandum to the Interactive Gambling (Cost Recovery Levy) Bill 2026 (17 August 2026)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-17/labor-gets-coalition-support-for-gambling-laws-after-amendments/107047766","l":"ABC News (Armstrong), 'Labor gets Coalition support for gambling laws after amendments' (17 August 2026, updated 18 August)","t":3},"11":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2627/27bd008","l":"Parliamentary Library, Bills Digest No. 8, 2026-27 (7 August 2026)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-19/gambling-reforms-include-red-flag-system-for-problem-gamblers/107052290","l":"ABC News (Armstrong), 'Gambling reforms include red-flag system for problem gamblers' (19 August 2026)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-18/federal-politics-live-blog-august-18/107048590","l":"ABC News, federal politics live blog (18 August 2026)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://sarahhenderson.com.au/interactive-gambling-amendment-gambling-reform-bill-2026-second-reading/","l":"Senator Sarah Henderson, second reading speech on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, office transcript (19 August 2026)","t":2},"15":{"u":"https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/aug/19/peta-murphy-called-for-gambling-reform-three-years-ago-her-husband-says-labors-changes-fall-well-short","l":"The Guardian (Josh Butler), report on the Murphy family's response to the gambling deal (19 August 2026)","t":3},"16":{"u":"https://responsiblewagering.com.au/unnecessary-complex-amendments-play-into-hands-of-offshore-cartels/","l":"Responsible Wagering Australia, 'Unnecessary complex Amendments play into hands of Offshore cartels' (18 August 2026)","t":2},"17":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/am/gambling-reforms-pass-parliament-/107056524","l":"ABC AM, gambling reforms pass parliament (aired 20 August 2026)","t":3},"18":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/who-are-the-biggest-donors-to-australias-political-parties/ojow9dhy3","l":"SBS News, 'Who are the biggest donors to Australia's political parties?' (3 February 2025)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fjournals%2Fb8bbfe55-0311-4489-87ec-94489b8103af%2F0021%22","l":"Parliament of Australia, Journals of the Senate No. 64 (20 August 2026), item 20, 'AdStop, Proposed order for production of documents'","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7520","l":"Parliament of Australia, bill homepage, \"Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026\"","t":1}}},{"id":"gas-rort/we-gave-away-the-gas","title":"We gave away the gas","href":"/article/gas-rort/we-gave-away-the-gas","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":16,"secs":["The size of what we’re giving away","More than half of it goes for free","The INPEX case study","The Japan paradox: they pay less than we do","What Japan does with Australian gas","How we got here: a deliberate architecture","Western Australia had a different idea","Who takes the gas","What A$53 billion looks like","What this series is for"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://gasoutlook.com/analysis/no-quick-fix-for-australias-gas-reserve-depletion-quandary/","l":"Gas Outlook, ‘No quick fix for Australia’s gas reserve depletion’ (February 2026)","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://www.climateandcapitalmedia.com/australias-great-big-gas-paradox/","l":"Climate and Capital Media, ‘Australia’s great big gas paradox’ (November 2025)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://thepoint.com.au/news/251118-japan-imports-australian-gas-yet-has-cheaper-electricity-than-australia","l":"The Point, ‘Japan imports Australian gas yet has cheaper electricity than Australia’ (2025)","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/initiative/gas-the-facts/","l":"Australia Institute, ‘Gas: The Facts’","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australians-are-fed-up-with-our-governments-giving-our-gas-resources-away-for-free/","l":"Australia Institute, ‘Australians are fed up with our governments giving our gas resources away for free’ (February 2026)","t":4},"13":{"u":"https://rogermontgomery.com/australias-gas-crisis-rich-in-resources-but-struggling-with-energy-costs/","l":"Roger Montgomery / IGU, ‘Australia’s gas crisis’ analysis (May 2025)","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A03551/latest","l":"Federal Register of Legislation, \"Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987\" (Act No. 142, 1987, in force)","t":1}}},{"id":"gas-rort/beer-hecs-broken-tax","title":"Beer, HECS, and the broken tax","href":"/article/gas-rort/beer-hecs-broken-tax","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":21,"secs":["The numbers confirmed on the record","What the PRRT is, and why it was always going to fail LNG","How companies avoid paying: the deductions machine","The gas transfer pricing problem","The reform the industry supported, and what it revealed","The subsidy paradox: paying them to take it","The hidden cost: a decommissioning bill coming for taxpayers","What would actually work","The industry’s response","The rort"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9182352/anthony-albanese-hits-out-at-david-pococks-over-gas-companies/","l":"Canberra Times: ‘Anthony Albanese hits out at David Pocock over gas companies’ (February 2026)","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/what-is-the-prrt/","l":"Australia Institute: ‘What is the PRRT?’ (April 2024)","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/in-2023-24-australians-paid-more-than-4-times-on-hecs-help-than-gas-companies-did-on-prrt/","l":"Australia Institute: ‘In 2023-24 Australians paid more than 4 times on HECS/HELP than gas companies did on PRRT’ (March 2025)","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://theenergy.co/article/calls-for-energy-justice-put-the-heat-back-on-prrt","l":"The Energy: ‘Groundswell for climate and energy justice puts heat back on PRRT’ (July 2025)","t":4},"10":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/what-is-the-prrt/","l":"Australia Institute: ‘What is the PRRT?’ / ANU Tax Policy Institute","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australians-are-fed-up-with-our-governments-giving-our-gas-resources-away-for-free/","l":"Australia Institute: ‘Australians are fed up with governments giving gas resources away for free’ (2026)","t":4},"18":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-02/david-pocock-viral-video-shift-gas-beer-tax-narrative/106626360","l":"ABC News, Evelyn Manfield, 2 May 2026 (added 7 October 2026)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fjournals%2Fdca27c74-848a-42ca-8c5c-9ae85b395dca%2F0018%22","l":"Journals of the Senate No. 39, 12 March 2026, item 17 (select committee motion, 17 to 23)","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Chapter_1_-_Report","l":"Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report, 7 May 2026, chapter 1","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A03551/latest","l":"Federal Register of Legislation, \"Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987\" (Act No. 142, 1987, in force)","t":1}}},{"id":"gas-rort/what-norway-built","title":"What Norway built","href":"/article/gas-rort/what-norway-built","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":18,"secs":["The fund: what it is and what it has become","How Norway built it: three deliberate decisions","The comparison in full","What Norway does with the money","What Australia built instead","The objection: but Norway had oil, not gas","What it would mean for Australia","The rort"],"refs":{"4":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/articles/newsroom/2026/01/norway-sovereign-fund-earned-a350-billion-in-2025.html","l":"CommBank Newsroom: ‘Norway’s sovereign wealth fund earned A$350 billion in 2025’ (January 2026)","t":2},"6":{"u":"https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/petroleum-tax/","l":"Norskpetroleum.no: ‘The Petroleum Tax System’ (official Norwegian government data)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenues/","l":"Norskpetroleum.no: ‘The Government’s revenues’ (official data)","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://fortune.com/europe/2025/07/30/how-sparsely-populated-norway-amassed-1-8-trillion-sovereign-wealth-fund/","l":"Fortune: ‘How sparsely populated Norway amassed $1.8 trillion’ (July 2025)","t":3},"10":{"u":"https://www.marketscreener.com/news/norway-s-sovereign-wealth-fund-earns-eur565m-a-day-ce7e5bdddb8df22c","l":"MarketScreener: ‘Norway’s sovereign wealth fund earns EUR565m a day’ (January 2026)","t":5},"12":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/a-tale-of-two-fossil-superpowers-what-australia-can-learn-from-norway/","l":"Michael West Media: ‘A tale of two fossil superpowers: what Australia can learn from Norway’ (2023)","t":3},"15":{"u":"https://clime.com.au/oil-and-gas-wealth/","l":"Clime Investment Management: ‘Oil and Gas Wealth: Norway, Britain and Australia’s Divergent Paths’ (September 2025)","t":4}}},{"id":"gas-rort/who-profits","title":"Who profits","href":"/article/gas-rort/who-profits","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":19,"secs":["The companies extracting Australian gas","Woodside Energy: dividends over PRRT","The CEO who left for double the pay","Chevron: first PRRT payment after sixteen years","Santos: an Australian company listed on the ASX","Shell and INPEX: the foreign companies that paid almost nothing","Who the extractors are and what Australia keeps","What remains: the decommissioning liability","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.woodside.com/docs/default-source/investor-documents/major-reports-(static-pdfs)/2024-annual-report/008-woodside-releases-full-year-2024-results.pdf","l":"Woodside Energy, Full-Year 2024 Results (February 2025)","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://australia.chevron.com/news/2025/chevron-australia-tax-and-royalty-payments-surpass-20-billion","l":"Chevron Australia, Tax Transparency Report 2024 (October 2025)","t":2},"7":{"u":"https://www.shell.com/sustainability/our-approach/tax-transparency/tax-contribution-report","l":"Shell, Tax Contribution Report 2024 (Australia section)","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/appea-members-pay-no-income-tax-on-income-of-138-billion/","l":"Australia Institute, ‘APPEA members pay no income tax on income of $138 billion’ (May 2022)","t":4},"10":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/inpex-and-australias-gas-rip-off-billions-in-revenue-crumbs-in-tax/","l":"Michael West Media, ‘INPEX and Australia’s gas rip-off’ (January 2026)","t":3},"17":{"u":"https://ieefa.org/resources/ieefa-australias-us405-billion-clean-bill-its-offshore-oil-and-gas-industry","l":"IEEFA: ‘Australia’s US$40.5 billion clean up bill for its offshore oil and gas industry’","t":4},"18":{"u":"https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/australian-offshore-oil-and-gas-decommissioning-liability-estimate-2025","l":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources: ‘Australian offshore oil and gas decommissioning liability estimate 2025’","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.woodside.com/docs/default-source/investor-documents/major-reports-(static-pdfs)/2024-annual-report/annual-report-2024.pdf","l":"Woodside Energy Group, 2024 Annual Report, section 6.4 Shareholder statistics (information as at 11 February 2025)"}}},{"id":"gas-rort/political-connections","title":"The political connections","href":"/article/gas-rort/political-connections","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":17,"secs":["The money: what the gas industry pays to both parties","The platinum pass: buying a seat at the table","The revolving door: from parliament to the gas lobby","The Ferguson case: a reported breach, unpunished","The Macfarlane case and the bipartisan pattern","The dark money problem: what we don’t know","The return on investment","Who does not take gas money","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://climateintegrity.org.au/latest/coal-and-gas-2025-election-donations","l":"Climate Integrity: 'Dirty Data: How coal and gas money fueled 2025 election campaigns' (February 2026)","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/revealed-the-extent-of-job-swapping-between-public-servants-and-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-88695","l":"The Conversation / UOW: 'Revealed: the extent of job-swapping between public servants and fossil fuel lobbyists' (2018)","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/martin-ferguson/","l":"Michael West Media: Martin Ferguson profile","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://publicintegrity.org.au/research_papers/closing-the-revolving-door/","l":"Centre for Public Integrity: 'Closing the revolving door' / 'A Seat at the Table' (June–July 2025)","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajph.12986","l":"Australian Journal of Politics & History: 'Gaslighting Australia: The Instrumental Power of Australia's Mining and Energy Industries' (Mikler, 2024)","t":4},"17":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/revealed-revolving-doors-public-servants-fossil-fuel-lobbyists/","l":"Michael West Media (Adam Lucas): 'Revealed: revolving doors between public servants and fossil fuel lobbyists' (5 March 2018)","t":3}}},{"id":"gas-rort/how-they-killed-the-mining-tax","title":"How they killed the mining tax","href":"/article/gas-rort/how-they-killed-the-mining-tax","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":18,"secs":["The Epstein files: what the strategists said in private","The Xstrata investment suspension: manufactured outrage","The 53-day timeline","What was lost: A$33 billion and counting","The Gillard deal: negotiated with three companies, handed to the industry","The template: how the campaign became routine","The economics: why the tax was right","What happened to Mandelson: the 2026 aftermath","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerals_Resource_Rent_Tax","l":"Wikipedia: Minerals Resource Rent Tax (current)","t":5},"2":{"u":"https://www.accountingtimes.com.au/tax/explosive-epstein-emails-give-fresh-insights-into-mining-tax-smear-campaign","l":"Accounting Times: ‘Explosive Epstein emails give fresh insights into mining tax smear campaign’ (February 2026)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_of_Peter_Mandelson_and_Jeffrey_Epstein","l":"Wikipedia: Relationship of Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein (current)","t":5},"7":{"l":"ANZSOG Case Program: ‘Undermining the Resources Super Profits Tax’ (2013). Published as ANZSOG Case 2013-152.1; original PDF no longer hosted at anzsog.edu.au. RSPT announced May 2, 2010. Mining comp…"},"9":{"u":"https://www.pbo.gov.au/publications-and-data/publications/costings/lost-revenue-original-mining-tax","l":"Parliamentary Budget Office, \"Lost revenue from the original mining tax\" (costing requested by Adam Bandt MP, Australian Greens; released 30 March 2021)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://newmatilda.com/2013/02/12/why-mining-tax-wont-pay-bills/","l":"New Matilda: ‘Why The Mining Tax Won’t Pay The Bills’ (2013)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/how-to-deal-with-fossil-fuel-lobbying-and-its-growing-influence-in-australian-politics-188515","l":"Joo-Cheong Tham (University of Melbourne) and Yee-Fui Ng (Monash University): ‘How to deal with fossil fuel lobbying and its growing influence in Australian politics’ (The Conversation, 19 August 202…"},"14":{"u":"https://www.equaltimes.org/the-dark-side-of-australias-mining-boom","l":"Equal Times: ‘The dark side of Australia’s mining boom’","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-02/peter-mandelson-on-rudds-mining-super-profits-tax-epstein-files/106295236","l":"ABC News, \"Epstein files suggest Mandelson kept paedophile informed on Rudd's mining super profits tax\" (2 February 2026)","t":3},"17":{"u":"https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/04062010/xstrata_suspends_mining_investments/","l":"World Coal, \"Xstrata suspends mining investments\" (4 June 2010)","t":4},"18":{"u":"https://www.rttnews.com/1323491/xstrata-suspends-a-586-mln-spending-on-two-australian-projects-update.aspx","l":"RTTNews, \"Xstrata Suspends A$586 Mln Spending On Two Australian Projects - Update\" (June 2010)","t":4}}},{"id":"gas-rort/why-nothing-changes","title":"Why nothing changes","href":"/article/gas-rort/why-nothing-changes","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":28,"secs":["The PRRT in 2026: still falling","The pattern: five reform attempts, five failures","The 2026 moment: a new windfall, a familiar campaign","Why nothing changes: the structural explanation","What is different in 2026","The rort, in real time"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.accountingtimes.com.au/tax/taking-the-piss-david-pocock-slams-prrt-rort-amid-4bn-revenue-downgrade","l":"Accounting Times: ‘Taking the piss: David Pocock slams PRRT rort amid $4bn revenue downgrade’ (June 2025)","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://www.miningweekly.com/article/gas-majors-warn-australia-against-taxing-lng-windfall-profits-2026-03-31","l":"Mining Weekly / Marine Link: ‘Gas majors oppose Australia LNG windfall tax as prices surge’ (March 31, 2026)","t":4},"13":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/how-to-deal-with-fossil-fuel-lobbying-and-its-growing-influence-in-australian-politics-188515","l":"Joo-Cheong Tham (University of Melbourne) and Yee-Fui Ng (Monash University): ‘How to deal with fossil fuel lobbying and its growing influence in Australian politics’ (The Conversation, 19 August 202…"},"16":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/content/bp2/download/bp2_2026-27.pdf","l":"Australian Government: Budget Paper No. 2, 2026-27 (12 May 2026)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/content/bp1/download/bp1_2026-27.pdf","l":"Australian Government: Budget Paper No. 1, 2026-27, Statement 5: Revenue (12 May 2026)","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/king/media/securing-more-affordable-gas-australians","l":"Joint media release: Securing more affordable gas for Australians, The Hon Madeleine King MP, 10 September 2026","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Chapter_1_-_Report","l":"Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report, 7 May 2026 (added 7 October 2026). Chapter 1","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fjournals%2Fdca27c74-848a-42ca-8c5c-9ae85b395dca%2F0018%22","l":"Journals of the Senate No. 39, 12 March 2026, item 17 (select committee motion, 17 to 23)","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-02/david-pocock-viral-video-shift-gas-beer-tax-narrative/106626360","l":"ABC News, Evelyn Manfield, 2 May 2026 (added 7 October 2026)","t":3},"25":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/revealed-revolving-doors-public-servants-fossil-fuel-lobbyists/","l":"Michael West Media (Adam Lucas): 'Revealed: revolving doors between public servants and fossil fuel lobbyists' (5 March 2018)","t":3},"26":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A03551/latest","l":"Federal Register of Legislation, \"Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987\" (Act No. 142, 1987, in force)","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://www.accountingtimes.com.au/tax/explosive-epstein-emails-give-fresh-insights-into-mining-tax-smear-campaign","l":"Accounting Times: ‘Explosive Epstein emails give fresh insights into mining tax smear campaign’ (February 2026) (added 8 October 2026)","t":4},"28":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-02/peter-mandelson-on-rudds-mining-super-profits-tax-epstein-files/106295236","l":"ABC News, \"Epstein files suggest Mandelson kept paedophile informed on Rudd's mining super profits tax\" (2 February 2026) (added 8 October 2026)","t":3}}},{"id":"gas-rort/what-the-media-covers","title":"What the media covers and how","href":"/article/gas-rort/what-the-media-covers","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":18,"secs":["Who owns Australian media","The Stokes conflict: documented and ongoing","News Corp: no direct gas interest, consistent editorial posture","Nine and the Financial Review: the markets framing","The viral gap: why 8.7 million views, as reported in February 2026, didn’t become a front page","The revolving door connects to the newsroom","What independent media does","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9182352/anthony-albanese-hits-out-at-david-pococks-over-gas-companies/","l":"Canberra Times / multiple regional mastheads: ‘Anthony Albanese hits out at David Pocock over gas companies’ (February 2026)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/kerry-stokes/","l":"Michael West Media: Kerry Stokes profile","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://www.boilingcold.com.au/mcgowan-onshore-gas-export-banned-unless-its-stokes-waitsia/","l":"Boiling Cold / Crikey: Stokes/Beach Energy/Waitsia conflict (2020-2022)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/16/australians-fed-up-with-news-corps-climate-scepticism","l":"Al Jazeera: ‘Australians fed up with News Corp’s climate scepticism’ (2020)","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://thepoint.com.au/factchecks/260217-david-pocock-is-right-more-tax-comes-from-beer-than-from-petroleum-tax","l":"The Point: ‘David Pocock is right: more tax is raised from beer than from petroleum tax’ (February 2026)","t":3},"15":{"u":"https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Summative-Report-COP26.pdf","l":"Institute for Strategic Dialogue, \"Deny, Deceive, Delay: Documenting and Responding to Climate Disinformation at COP26 and Beyond\" (June 2022)","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-02/david-pocock-viral-video-shift-gas-beer-tax-narrative/106626360","l":"ABC News, Evelyn Manfield, 2 May 2026 (added 7 October 2026)","t":3},"17":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/revealed-revolving-doors-public-servants-fossil-fuel-lobbyists/","l":"Michael West Media (Adam Lucas): 'Revealed: revolving doors between public servants and fossil fuel lobbyists' (5 March 2018)","t":3},"18":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-01/sky-news-suspended-youtube-for-one-week-covid-19-misinformation/100341386","l":"ABC News, \"YouTube suspends Sky News Australia for breaching COVID-19 misinformation guidelines in deleted videos\" (1 August 2021)","t":3}}},{"id":"gas-rort/decommissioning-rort","title":"The decommissioning rort","href":"/article/gas-rort/decommissioning-rort","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":15,"secs":["The infrastructure: what needs to come out","Who pays: the tax mechanism","The Northern Endeavour: a preview of what goes wrong","Active liabilities: wells are already leaking","The CCS avoidance strategy","The arithmetic of extraction and cleanup"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/australias-offshore-resources-decommissioning-roadmap","l":"Australian Government (Dept Industry Science and Resources): ‘Australia’s Offshore Resources Decommissioning Roadmap’ (October 2025)","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://ieefa.org/resources/ieefa-australias-us405-billion-clean-bill-its-offshore-oil-and-gas-industry","l":"IEEFA: ‘Australia’s US$40.5 billion clean up bill for its offshore oil and gas industry’","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://australia.chevron.com/news/2025/chevron-australia-tax-and-royalty-payments-surpass-20-billion","l":"Chevron Australia: Tax Transparency Report 2024 / 2023","t":2},"8":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/what-is-the-prrt/","l":"Australia Institute: PRRT decommissioning deductibility mechanism","t":4},"12":{"u":"https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-08/review-of-circumstances-that-led-to-the-administration-of-noga-executive-summary-and-recommendations.pdf","l":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources, \"Review of the Circumstances that Led to the Administration of the Northern Oil and Gas Australia (NOGA) Group: Executive summary and recommendations\" (…","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.boilingcold.com.au/big-taxpayer-bills-for-failed-northern-endeavour-start/","l":"Boiling Cold, \"Big taxpayer bills for failed Northern Endeavour start\"","t":4},"14":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/woodside-leaves-oil-rig-for-taxpayers-to-clean-up-is-exxon-next-in-the-bass-strait/","l":"Michael West Media, \"Woodside leaves oil rig for taxpayers to clean up; is Exxon next in the Bass Strait?\"","t":3},"15":{"u":"https://www.boilingcold.com.au/failed-oiler-northern-endeavour-owes-165m/","l":"Boiling Cold, \"Failed oiler Northern Endeavour owes $165M\" (2020)","t":4}}},{"id":"gas-rort/east-coast-gas-cartel","title":"The east coast gas cartel","href":"/article/gas-rort/east-coast-gas-cartel","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":12,"secs":["How the concentration happened","The swing gas problem","The WA comparison: what a reservation policy looks like","The manufacturing casualties","The ACCC’s limits","The rort within the rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://ieefa.org/resources/ieefa-op-ed-gas-oligopoly-gouging-australia","l":"IEEFA: ‘Gas oligopoly is gouging Australia’ (2018, documented patterns continuing)","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/deteriorating-short-term-outlook-for-east-coast-gas-supply","l":"ACCC: ‘Deteriorating short-term outlook for east coast gas supply’ (June 2025)","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australias-gas-policy-mess/","l":"Australia Institute: ‘We gave away the gas’ / Article 1 of Gas Rort series","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australias-gas-crunch-is-a-sovereignty-issue-not-a-market-quirk/","l":"John Coyne, ASPI The Strategist, ‘Australia’s gas crunch is a sovereignty issue, not a market quirk’ (4 August 2025)"},"10":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/accc-gas-inquiry-interim-report-december-2024.pdf","l":"ACCC Gas Inquiry 2017-2030: ongoing findings","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/inquiries-and-consultations/gas-inquiry-2017-30","l":"ACCC: WA comparison (gas reservation policy)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/business/industry-codes/gas-market-code","l":"ACCC, \"Gas Market Code\"","t":1}}},{"id":"gas-rort/gas-and-climate","title":"Gas and climate: the final rort","href":"/article/gas-rort/gas-and-climate","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":11,"secs":["The NWS extension: the decision that defined the contradiction","The accounting trick: exported emissions don’t count","A$16.3 billion in subsidies, a 43% target, and COP31","The Pacific dimension","The renewable energy success that changes nothing","The connection to the rort","The final rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/australia/","l":"Climate Action Tracker: Australia rating (current, 2025-2026)","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/11/australia-has-dropped-its-bid-to-host-the-cop31-climate-talks-heres-what-happened-and-whats-next","l":"UNSW: ‘Australia has dropped its bid to host COP31’ (November 2025)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://www.worldenergynews.com/news/experts-say-that-australia-investment-natural-gas-761774","l":"World Energy News / experts: NWS extension and climate credibility (May 2025)"},"6":{"u":"https://greencentralbanking.com/2025/06/04/australian-government-juggles-climate-transition-with-support-for-gas-projects/","l":"Green Central Banking: ‘Australian government juggles climate transition with support for gas projects’ (June 2025)","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australias-gas-policy-mess/","l":"Australia Institute: Australia’s exported emissions vs domestic emissions","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-australia-2025/","l":"Australia Institute: fossil fuel subsidies 2025 / COP contradiction","t":4}}},{"id":"gas-rort/switched-off-not-paid-for","title":"The A$60 billion boomerang: who cleans up the offshore rigs when the gas money is gone","href":"/article/gas-rort/switched-off-not-paid-for","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-07","refCount":15,"secs":["A regulator signed off a shutdown without confirming the money exists","The bill is estimated at A$60 billion, and the money is not fully set aside","The tax system quietly hands the cleanup back to the operator","Northern Endeavour already proved who the backstop is","The cleanest extraction loop in the model"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/australias-offshore-resources-decommissioning-roadmap","l":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources, 'Australia's Offshore Resources Decommissioning Roadmap' (2024)","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://ieefa.org/resources/australias-decommissioning-challenge-raises-financial-risks-governments-and-shareholders","l":"IEEFA, 'Australia's decommissioning challenge raises financial risks for governments and shareholders'","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://www.bairdmaritime.com/offshore/column-spraying-cash-around-northern-endeavour-decommissioning-head-for-1-billion-bill-britoil-newbuilds-in-china-nigeria-bans-cash-throwing-at-parties-as-over-one-hundred-drown-offshore-accounts","l":"Baird Maritime, 'Offshore Accounts: Northern Endeavour decommissioning heads for $1 billion bill'","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://www.boilingcold.com.au/gas-producers-face-200m-ocean-clean-up-bill-after-pilot-energy-enters-administration/","l":"Boiling Cold, 'Gas producers face $200m ocean clean-up bill after Pilot Energy enters administration' (July 2026)","t":4},"13":{"u":"https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2026/2026fca1082","l":"Federal Court of Australia, 'Wilderness Society Ltd v National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority [2026] FCA 1082' (7 August 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"gas-rort/the-inquiry-that-couldnt-agree","title":"The inquiry that couldn't agree","href":"/article/gas-rort/the-inquiry-that-couldnt-agree","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-07","refCount":8,"secs":["The inquiry documented the problem, then recorded that it could not agree","The numbers the inquiry heard: billions in revenue, near-zero resource tax","The public take is falling as the clean-up credits rise","Reform was modelled, costed, and set aside","The silence is the mechanism"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://apo.org.au/node/334338","l":"Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, 'Final report' (tabled 7 May 2026), Analysis & Policy Observatory","t":5},"3":{"u":"https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2026-05-12.153.1&m=100952","l":"OpenAustralia, Senate Hansard, 12 May 2026","t":5},"6":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/the-way-australia-taxes-gas-production-is-stuck-in-the-past-this-is-why-companies-arent-paying-their-fair-share-287785","l":"The Conversation, 'The way Australia taxes gas production is stuck in the past' (2026)","t":3},"8":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Chapter_1_-_Report","l":"Parliament of Australia, Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, \"Chapter 1 - Report\" (tabled 7 May 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"gas-rort/the-boom-that-paid-woodside-back","title":"The boom that paid Woodside back","href":"/article/gas-rort/the-boom-that-paid-woodside-back","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-08","refCount":8,"secs":["A 28 per cent revenue jump lands, and the resource tax line moves the other way","The benefit is lawful accounting, and the lawfulness is the story","Even Australia's largest PRRT payer opens its boom half with a benefit","Scarborough starts the next deduction mountain in the same set of accounts","The boom is industry-wide, and so is the pattern in the accounts","The guidance became a record, and the expense line vanished"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.woodside.com/docs/default-source/investor-documents/quarterly-and-half-yearly-pdfs-and-data-tables/2026/second-quarter-2026-report.pdf","l":"Woodside Energy Group Ltd, \"Second Quarter Report for Period Ended 30 June 2026\" (ASX release, 29 July 2026)","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://investingnews.com","l":"Investing News Network, reproduction of the Woodside Second Quarter Report 2026"},"3":{"u":"https://finance.yahoo.com","l":"Yahoo Finance, reproduction of the Woodside Second Quarter Report 2026","t":5},"4":{"u":"https://www.woodside.com/docs/default-source/media-releases/2025/woodside-paid-a3-5-billion-in-australian-taxes-for-the-2023-24-year.pdf","l":"Woodside Energy Group Ltd, \"Woodside paid A$3.5 billion in Australian taxes for the 2023-24 year\" (media release, 2 October 2025)","t":2},"5":{"u":"https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/resources-and-energy-quarterly-june-2026","l":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources, \"Resources and energy quarterly: June 2026\"","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.originenergy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/285/Origin-Energy-FY26-ASX-Media-Release.pdf","l":"Origin Energy Ltd, \"Full Year Results 2026\" (ASX/media release, 13 August 2026)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.woodside.com/docs/default-source/investor-documents/quarterly-and-half-yearly-pdfs-and-data-tables/2026/half-year-2026-report.pdf","l":"Woodside Energy Group Ltd, \"Half-Year Report for Period Ended 30 June 2026\" (released 25 August 2026)","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.santos.com/news/2026-half-year-results/","l":"Santos Ltd, 2026 half-year results (19 August 2026)","t":2}}},{"id":"gas-rort/the-buyer-and-the-backstop","title":"The buyer and the backstop","href":"/article/gas-rort/the-buyer-and-the-backstop","caseLabel":"Australia's Gas Heist","caseHref":"/case/gas-rort","date":"2026-09","refCount":16,"secs":["First gas, and the date on the record","Who paid for the pipe and who paid for the plant","The contract signed in April 2024","The mechanism to watch: the Territory is both the buyer and the backstop","What comes back, and the sold-only rule","The $224 million from Canberra, most of it road","The case for the deal, and what is still sealed"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.apa.com.au/news/asx-and-media-releases/beetaloo-basin-s-first-gas-to-flow-through-apa-s-newly-constructed-sturt-plateau-pipeline/","l":"apa.com.au","t":2},"6":{"u":"https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1997652/000119312524189916/d865166dex991.htm","l":"sec.gov","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://budget.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1609744/2026-27-budget-bp2.pdf","l":"budget.nt.gov.au","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://hydraulicfracturing.nt.gov.au/_resources/documents/factsheets/fact-sheet-royalties.pdf","l":"hydraulicfracturing.nt.gov.au","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://ir.tamboran.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/49/tamboran-delivers-first-gas-sales-from-the-beetaloo-basin","l":"ir.tamboran.com","t":2}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/the-two-inflations","title":"The two inflations","href":"/article/inflation-rort/the-two-inflations","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":35,"secs":["The rate cycle: the biggest since 1990","The supply-side case","The demand element: why the RBA acted","The wrong tool alone: the distributional consequence"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://www.ratecity.com.au/home-loans/news/melbourne-cup-rate-hike-live-possibility-13th-hike-mean-forborrowers","l":"RateCity, article on the prospect of a 13th rate rise (2023)","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-19-cent-december-2022-quarter","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics, \"CPI rose 1.9 per cent in the December 2022 quarter\" (media release, 25 January 2023)","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.amp.com.au/resources/insights-hub/olivers-insights-rba-starts-year-off-with-rate-hike","l":"AMP, Dr Shane Oliver, \"RBA starts the year off with a rate hike\" (published 3 February 2026; read 8 October 2026)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/accc-suing-supermarkets-as-price-gouging-drives-inflation-rate-hikes/","l":"Australia Institute: greedflation and supply-shock argument","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/nov/domestic-financial-conditions.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2023, domestic financial conditions","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2022/sp-gov-2022-11-22.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, Governor, \"Price Stability, the Supply Side and Prosperity\" (CEDA Annual Dinner address, Melbourne, 22 November 2022)","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://rbareview.gov.au/final-report","l":"Review of the Reserve Bank of Australia, \"An RBA Fit for the Future\", final report (presented to the Treasurer 31 March 2023)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/real-wage-falls-and-rate-rises-make-for-a-double-whammy/","l":"Australia Institute: double whammy of real wage falls and rate rises","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://www.oecd.org/en/data/insights/statistical-releases/2025/05/growth-and-economic-well-being-fourth-quarter-2024-oecd.html","l":"OECD, \"Growth and economic well-being: Fourth quarter 2024\" (statistical release, May 2025)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/oct/developments-in-wages-growth-across-pay-setting-methods.html","l":"RBA: WPI real wages declined 5% since 2021 (October 2024 Bulletin)","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/accc-finds-australias-supermarkets-are-among-the-worlds-most-profitable-but-doesnt-accuse-them-of-price-gouging-250503","l":"ACCC: supermarkets inquiry (supply-side margin expansion evidence)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/apr/cash-rate-pass-through-to-outstanding-mortgage-rates.html","l":"RBA Bulletin (Benjamin Ung), \"Cash Rate Pass-through to Outstanding Mortgage Rates\" (April 2024)","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia, homepage","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f1.1-data.csv","l":"RBA: Table F1.1 (series FIRMMCRI), publication date 1 September 2026","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: Cash Rate Target table, fetched 29 September 2026","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27, Statement by the Monetary Policy Board, 29 September 2026, 2.30 pm AEST","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/may/box-b-have-business-profits-contributed-to-inflation.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2023, Box B, ‘Have business profits contributed to inflation?’","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/Estimates/economics/add2324/Hansard/Economics_Legislation_Committee_2024_02_15.pdf","l":"Senate Economics Legislation Committee, Proof Hansard, 15 February 2024, pp. 11-12","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/aug/an-input-cost-decomposition-of-the-household-consumption-deflator.html","l":"RBA Bulletin: Isobel McKay, ‘An input cost decomposition of the household consumption deflator’, 27 August 2026 (a staff article, not a view of the Board)","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/corporate-profits-increase-inflation-fact-sheet/","l":"Australia Institute: corporate profits and inflation fact sheet, 11 November 2024","t":4},"23":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-05-05.html","l":"RBA: Governor’s media conference, 5 May 2026 (prepared remarks and answers)","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/outlook.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, outlook, Table 3.1","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/may/overview.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2026, overview","t":1},"26":{"u":"https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-march-2026","l":"International Energy Agency, Oil Market Report, 12 March 2026","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/feb/overview.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, February 2026, overview","t":1},"28":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-46-year-march-2026","l":"ABS: media release on the March 2026 CPI, 29 April 2026","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/content/bp1/download/bp1_bs-3.docx","l":"Australian Government: Budget Paper No. 1, Statement 3, 2026-27 Budget, 12 May 2026","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/weo/2026/update/july/english/text.pdf","l":"IMF: World Economic Outlook Update, ‘Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology’, July 2026","t":1},"31":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/gas-price-cap-take-effect","l":"Acting Treasurer Gallagher and Minister Bowen, media release on the gas price cap taking effect, 22 December 2022","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/labor-delivers-biggest-ever-back-back-surpluses","l":"Treasurer, media release on back-to-back surpluses, 30 September 2024","t":1},"33":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/economic-conditions.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, economic conditions","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/final-budget-outcome-2025-26","l":"Treasurer and Minister for Finance, media release on the 2025-26 Final Budget Outcome, 28 September 2026","t":1},"35":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/may/margins-mark-ups-and-consumer-prices-theory-measurement-and-implications.html","l":"RBA Bulletin: ‘Margins, mark-ups and consumer prices: theory, measurement and implications’, 28 May 2026","t":1}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/greedflation","title":"Greedflation","href":"/article/inflation-rort/greedflation","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":25,"secs":["The market structure: why competition doesn’t work here","What happened to margins during the inflation peak","The misleading pricing legal action","What the inquiry found and what it didn’t"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/accc-finds-australias-supermarkets-are-among-the-worlds-most-profitable-but-doesnt-accuse-them-of-price-gouging-250503","l":"ACCC: Supermarkets Inquiry final report (March 2025)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-03-20/australias-supermarkets-grew-profit-margins-as-living-costs-soared-says-regulator","l":"Reuters / US News: ‘Australia’s Supermarkets Grew Profit Margins as Living Costs Soared’ (March 2025)","t":5},"4":{"u":"https://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Article/2025/04/02/australia-supermarket-report-more-grocery-competition-needed-to-break-oligopoly-but-barriers-may-be-too-high","l":"Food Navigator Asia: ACCC supermarket oligopoly report","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-03-20/australias-supermarkets-grew-profit-margins-as-living-costs-soared-says-regulator","l":"Woolworths and Coles share price reaction to ACCC final report","t":5},"12":{"u":"https://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Article/2025/04/02/australia-supermarket-report-more-grocery-competition-needed-to-break-oligopoly-but-barriers-may-be-too-high","l":"ACCC: Woolworths 38%, Coles 29% market share final report","t":4},"14":{"u":"https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-03-20/australias-supermarkets-grew-profit-margins-as-living-costs-soared-says-regulator","l":"ACCC: 24% grocery price increase over 5 years","t":5},"16":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-recommends-supermarket-reforms-to-provide-better-outcomes-for-consumers-and-suppliers","l":"ACCC: media release, ‘ACCC recommends supermarket reforms to provide better outcomes for consumers and suppliers’ (21 March 2025)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/may/margins-mark-ups-and-consumer-prices-theory-measurement-and-implications.html","l":"RBA Bulletin: ‘Margins, Mark-ups and Consumer Prices: Theory, Measurement and Implications’ (Davis, Hambur, Lane, Megow, Rafter, Sullivan; 28 May 2026)","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/aug/an-input-cost-decomposition-of-the-household-consumption-deflator.html","l":"RBA Bulletin: ‘An Input Cost Decomposition of the Household Consumption Deflator’ (Isobel McKay, 27 August 2026; a staff article, not a Board view)","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-08-11.html","l":"RBA: Governor’s media conference transcript (11 August 2026)","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27, Monetary Policy Decision (29 September 2026, 14:30 AEST)","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2025/media-releases/price-gouging-large-supermarkets-illegal-1-july-2026","l":"Treasury ministers: Andrew Leigh, media release on price gouging by large supermarkets becoming illegal from 1 July 2026 (27 June 2026)","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/news/media-updates/mandatory-food-and-grocery-code-of-conduct-comes-into-effect-today","l":"ACCC: ‘Mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct comes into effect today’ (1 April 2025)","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/new-merger-control-regime-off-to-positive-start","l":"ACCC: ‘New merger control regime off to positive start’ (9 April 2026)","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/may/box-b-have-business-profits-contributed-to-inflation.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2023, Box B, ‘Have Business Profits Contributed to Inflation?’","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-19-cent-december-2022-quarter","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics, \"CPI rose 1.9 per cent in the December 2022 quarter\" (media release, 25 January 2023)","t":1}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/why-the-rba-did-all-the-work","title":"Why the RBA did all the work","href":"/article/inflation-rort/why-the-rba-did-all-the-work","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":51,"secs":["The fiscal position: surpluses while borrowers suffered","What the UK and EU did instead","The windfall that wasn’t taxed","The political choice"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: 13 rate rises, cash rate history","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://rbareview.gov.au/final-report","l":"Review of the Reserve Bank of Australia, \"An RBA Fit for the Future\", final report (presented to the Treasurer 31 March 2023)","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.amp.com.au/resources/insights-hub/olivers-insights-rba-starts-year-off-with-rate-hike","l":"AMP / Oliver: government’s contribution to inflation","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/final-budget-outcome-shows-first-surplus-15-years","l":"Treasurer Jim Chalmers, \"Final Budget Outcome shows first surplus in 15 years\" (media release, 2023)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-living-support/energy-profits-levy-factsheet-26-may-2022","l":"HM Treasury, \"Energy Profits Levy Factsheet - 26 May 2022\"","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32022R1854","l":"Council of the European Union, Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 of 6 October 2022 on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices (EUR-Lex)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/by-industry/petrol-and-fuel/fuel-and-petrol-monitoring","l":"Australia: temporary fuel excise halving March-September 2022","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/richard-denniss-huge-profits-are-driving-inflation-not-low-paid-workers/","l":"The Australia Institute, Richard Denniss, \"Huge profits are driving inflation, not low-paid workers\"","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics","l":"Senate Economics Committee: bank profits hearings 2023","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.amp.com.au/resources/insights-hub/olivers-insights-rba-starts-year-off-with-rate-hike","l":"AMP / Oliver: AMP’s paraphrase of Governor Lowe on public spending (2023)","t":4},"12":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/","l":"Fiscal drag vs monetary tightening","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://grattan.edu.au/","l":"Grattan Institute: monetary and fiscal policy interaction","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/cracking-down-supermarkets-get-better-deal-australians","l":"Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Minister Julie Collins and Assistant Minister Andrew Leigh, 'Cracking down on the supermarkets to get a better deal for Australians' (joint media release, 21 March 2025)"},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: cash rate target history (table begins January 1990), fetched 29 September 2026","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f1.1-data.csv","l":"RBA: Table F1.1, interbank overnight cash rate series FIRMMCRI, publication date 1 September 2026","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/gas-price-cap-take-effect","l":"Acting Treasurer Gallagher and Minister Bowen, 'Gas price cap to take effect', 22 December 2022","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/markets/gas-markets/gas-market-code","l":"DCCEEW: Gas Market Code, updated 22 December 2025","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/gas-market-review-report.pdf","l":"DCCEEW and DISR: Gas Market Review Report, December 2025","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/markets/gas-markets/gas-market-review-reforms","l":"DCCEEW: Gas Market Review reforms, updated 10 September 2026","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/labor-delivers-biggest-ever-back-back-surpluses","l":"Treasurer, 'Labor delivers biggest ever back-to-back surpluses', 30 September 2024","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/final-budget-outcome-2025-26","l":"Treasurer and Finance Minister, Final Budget Outcome 2025-26, 28 September 2026","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/fossil-fuel-subsidies-hit-14-5-billion-in-2023-24-up-31/","l":"Australia Institute: fossil fuel subsidy series, each year's own edition","t":4},"25":{"u":"https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-05/Increase%20to%20the%20rate%20of%20the%20Major%20Bank%20Levy%20by%2010%20percent.pdf","l":"Parliamentary Budget Office: Increase to the rate of the Major Bank Levy by 10 per cent, 14 May 2024","t":1},"26":{"u":"https://transparency.aec.gov.au/Download/AllAnnualData","l":"AEC Transparency Register, Annual Data bulk download (Donations Made, 2024-25), zip last modified 22 September 2026","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/content/bp1/download/bp1_bs-3.docx","l":"Budget Paper No. 1, Statement 3, 12 May 2026","t":1},"28":{"u":"https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/weo/2026/update/july/english/text.pdf","l":"IMF: World Economic Outlook Update, 'Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology', July 2026","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-02-03.html","l":"RBA: Governor's press conference, 3 February 2026","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-05-05.html","l":"RBA: Governor's press conference, 5 May 2026","t":1},"31":{"u":"https://www.pm.gov.au/media/fuel-excise-halved-three-months","l":"Prime Minister, fuel excise halved for three months, 30 March 2026","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-02/further-fuel-excise-cut-from-gst-revenue/106525678","l":"ABC News, 'Further fuel excise cut from GST revenue', 2 April 2026","t":3},"33":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026, 14:30 AEST","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/rba-board-minutes/2026/2026-03-17.html","l":"RBA: Minutes of the Monetary Policy Board, 16 and 17 March 2026","t":1},"35":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/rba-board-minutes/2026/2026-05-05.html","l":"RBA: Minutes of the Monetary Policy Board, meeting of 4 and 5 May 2026","t":1},"36":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/oct/do-housing-investors-pass-through-changes-in-their-interest-costs-to-rents.html","l":"RBA Bulletin, 'Do housing investors pass through changes in their interest costs to rents?', 17 October 2024","t":1},"37":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/resilience-of-australian-households-and-businesses.html","l":"RBA: Financial Stability Review, March 2026, 'Resilience of Australian households and businesses'","t":1},"38":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Australian_Greens_Additional_Comments","l":"Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report, Australian Greens’ additional comments, para 1.183 (quoting Treasury officials at the committee hearing), 2026","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Coalition_Senators_Additional_Comments","l":"Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report, Coalition Senators’ additional comments, 7 May 2026","t":1},"40":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-29/federal-politics-blog-housing-energy-fastrack/106616572","l":"ABC News, federal politics live blog, 29 April 2026","t":3},"41":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-10/gas-tax-revenue-up-in-federal-budget/106663036","l":"ABC News, Jane Norman, 10 May 2026","t":3},"42":{"u":"https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/10318-mortgage-stress-risk-july-2026","l":"Roy Morgan, mortgage stress findings for July 2026, 1 September 2026","t":4},"43":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/may/box-b-have-business-profits-contributed-to-inflation.html","l":"RBA Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2023, Box B, on whether business profits contributed to inflation","t":1},"44":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2025/media-releases/price-gouging-large-supermarkets-illegal-1-july-2026","l":"Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, 27 June 2026, and ACCC","t":1},"45":{"u":"https://www.apra.gov.au/quarterly-authorised-deposit-taking-institution-performance-statistics-highlights-1","l":"APRA: Quarterly authorised deposit-taking institution performance statistics, workbook Sep 2004 to Jun 2026 (September 2026 release)","t":1},"46":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/nov/domestic-financial-conditions.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2023, domestic financial conditions","t":1},"47":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fjournals%2F521e5623-a639-4d7e-b49b-bbbe193dfb7b%2F0013%22","l":"Journals of the Senate No. 46, 1 April 2026, item 12","t":1},"48":{"u":"https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/pdf/acts/20240096.pdf","l":"Treasury Laws Amendment (Reserve Bank Reforms) Act 2024, assented 29 November 2024, in force 1 March 2025, s 9B","t":1},"49":{"u":"https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/government-revenues-from-uk-oil-and-gas-production--2/government-revenues-from-oil-and-gas-production-september-2025","l":"HMRC, \"Government revenues from oil and gas production September 2025\" (24 September 2025)","t":1},"50":{"u":"https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/les-mesures-exceptionnelles-de-lutte-contre-la-hausse-des-prix-de-lenergie","l":"Cour des comptes, \"Les mesures exceptionnelles de lutte contre la hausse des prix de l’énergie\" (public thematic report, March 2024)","t":1},"51":{"u":"https://www.iea.org/policies/15621-price-control-in-the-iberian-electricity-market-mibel","l":"International Energy Agency, policies database, \"Price control in the Iberian Electricity Market (MIBEL)\"","t":4}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/who-rate-rises-hurt","title":"Who rate rises hurt","href":"/article/inflation-rort/who-rate-rises-hurt","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":50,"secs":["Mortgage holders: A$1,210 more per month","Fixed-rate rollovers: the shock in a single day","Renters: the indirect hit","First home buyers: locked out","Real wages: the compound effect"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.ratecity.com.au/home-loans/news/melbourne-cup-rate-hike-live-possibility-13th-hike-mean-forborrowers","l":"RateCity, article on the prospect of a 13th rate rise (2023)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/big-bank-profits-interest-rates-mortgage-stress-RBA","l":"Roy Morgan via UNSW BusinessThink (October 2023 figure, withdrawn)","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/apr/cash-rate-pass-through-to-outstanding-mortgage-rates.html","l":"RBA Bulletin (Benjamin Ung), \"Cash Rate Pass-through to Outstanding Mortgage Rates\" (April 2024)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/big-bank-profits-interest-rates-mortgage-stress-RBA","l":"UNSW BusinessThink: mortgage stress and bank profits December 2023","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://www.oecd.org/en/data/insights/statistical-releases/2025/05/growth-and-economic-well-being-fourth-quarter-2024-oecd.html","l":"OECD, \"Growth and economic well-being: Fourth quarter 2024\" (statistical release, May 2025)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics","l":"Small business: rate rises and business loans","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.housingaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-04/state_of_the_nations_housing_2023_-_event_presentation.pdf","l":"National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (now Housing Australia), \"State of the Nation’s Housing 2023\" (event presentation, April 2023)","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2025/jan/an-update-on-the-household-cash-flow-channel-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"RBA Bulletin (Jennison and Miller): An Update on the Household Cash Flow Channel of Monetary Policy, 30 January 2025","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/rba-cash-rate-september-2026-hike-25/","l":"Canstar (Alasdair Duncan): RBA September Cash Rate Hike, 29 September 2026","t":4},"18":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"CBA, Westpac, NAB and ANZ rate pages, re-checked 4.44 pm to 4.46 pm AEST on 29 September 2026","t":2},"19":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/selected-living-cost-indexes-australia/latest-release","l":"ABS: Selected Living Cost Indexes, Australia, June quarter 2026, 5 August 2026","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/10318-mortgage-stress-risk-july-2026","l":"Roy Morgan: Mortgage stress risk, July 2026, 1 September 2026","t":4},"21":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/resilience-of-australian-households-and-businesses.html","l":"RBA Financial Stability Review, March 2026: Resilience of Australian Households and Businesses, 19 March 2026","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/pdf/financial-stability-review-2026-03.pdf","l":"RBA Financial Stability Review, March 2026 (full document), March 2026","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/may/pdf/developments-in-banks-funding-costs-and-lending-rates.pdf","l":"RBA Bulletin (Hutchinson, Manning and Searle): Developments in Banks’ Funding Costs and Lending Rates, 28 May 2026","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/may/financial-conditions.html","l":"RBA Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2026: Financial Conditions, 1 May 2026","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2024/sp-ag-2024-11-18.html","l":"RBA (Christopher Kent): speech, 18 November 2024","t":1},"26":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/feb/box-a-mortgage-interest-payments-in-advanced-economies.html","l":"RBA Statement on Monetary Policy, February 2023, Box A: Mortgage Interest Payments in Advanced Economies, 10 February 2023","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-02-03.html","l":"RBA: Governor’s press conference transcript, 3 February 2026","t":1},"28":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release","l":"ABS: Consumer Price Index, Australia, July 2026, 26 August 2026","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/oct/do-housing-investors-pass-through-changes-in-their-interest-costs-to-rents.html","l":"RBA Bulletin: Do Housing Investors Pass Through Changes in Their Interest Costs to Rents?, 17 October 2024","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-25/rate-rise-home-ownership-impact-study/107191644","l":"ABC News (Michael Janda): rate rise and home ownership study, 25 September 2026","t":3},"31":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Statement by the Monetary Policy Board, Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026, 2.30 pm AEST","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/outlook.html","l":"RBA Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026: Outlook, Table 3.1","t":1},"33":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia/aug-2026","l":"ABS: Labour Force, Australia, August 2026, 24 September 2026","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: Cash Rate Target history","t":1},"35":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2026/macquarie-banks-response-to-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: “Macquarie Bank’s response to the RBA’s interest rate decision”, media release, 29 September 2026, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"36":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/home-loans/home-loan-rates.html","l":"Macquarie: Home loan rates page, owner-occupier principal and interest, fixed rates for loans up to 70% of the property value. Live page, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"37":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/macquarie-fixed-home-loan-rate-increase","l":"Media reports of the dates of Macquarie’s two September fixed-rate rises (secondary; the sizes are from Macquarie’s own pages), all fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026. savings.com.au (Denise Rawar…","t":4},"38":{"u":"https://www.tmbl.com.au/news-centre/teachers-mutual-bank-announces-increase-interest-rates","l":"Teachers Mutual Bank Limited: announcement of increased interest rates, news centre, dated 29 September 2026, fetched 04:59 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"39":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"The four major banks’ own rate pages, fetched between 04:59 and 05:00 AEST on 30 September 2026. CBA home loans","t":2},"40":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-40-year-august-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: media release, “CPI rose 4.0% in the year to August 2026” (Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026), released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1},"41":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/aug-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026, release page, released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1},"42":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): home loan rate announcement page","t":2},"43":{"u":"https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2026/30-september/","l":"Westpac: media release, “Westpac announces interest rate changes”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"44":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/news/interest-rates/nab-announces-home-loan-interest-rate-changes","l":"NAB: news release, “NAB announces home loan interest rate changes”, headed “30 September”, and listed as 30 September 2026 in Related Articles on NAB’s older home loan rate page (below)","t":2},"45":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/newsroom/media/2026/september/anz-changes-variable-home-loan-rates/","l":"ANZ: media release, “ANZ changes variable home loan rates”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"46":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/anz-macquarie-cutting-fixed-rates/","l":"Canstar (Laine Gordon), “ANZ, Macquarie go against the tide, cutting fixed rates: could we be at the peak?”, 5 June 2026","t":4},"47":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/home-loans/nab-fixed-rate-home-loan","l":"NAB: fixed rate home loan page","t":2},"48":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/nab-cuts-fixed-home-loan-rates","l":"NAB’s 22 July fixed-rate cut. Savings.com.au, news article published 22 July 2026","t":4},"49":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nabrwd/documents/terms-and-conditions/loans/home-loan-general-terms.pdf","l":"NAB: Home Loan General Terms, the edition on NAB’s site on 4 October 2026 (footer “©2024 National Australia Bank Limited ... A164714-1024”)","t":2},"50":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/nov/domestic-financial-conditions.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2023, domestic financial conditions","t":1}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/who-rate-rises-helped","title":"Who rate rises helped","href":"/article/inflation-rort/who-rate-rises-helped","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":54,"secs":["The margin: what the gap between loan and deposit rates did","The structural reason: oligopoly and deposit stickiness","The committee hearings: documented, unchanged","The wealth transfer"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/big-bank-profits-interest-rates-mortgage-stress-RBA","l":"UNSW BusinessThink: big bank profits and interest rates (December 2023)","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/About_the_House_News/Media_Releases/Big_Four_Banks_to_face_Economics_Committee","l":"Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, \"Big Four Banks to face Economics Committee\" (media release, July 2023)","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/real-wage-falls-and-rate-rises-make-for-a-double-whammy/","l":"Australia Institute: wealth transfer analysis","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/big-bank-profits-interest-rates-mortgage-stress-RBA","l":"UNSW: net interest margin widened ‘dramatically.’","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/apr/bank-funding-and-the-recent-tightening-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"RBA Bulletin, Box A: bank funding and the recent tightening of monetary policy (18 April 2024)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.apra.gov.au/quarterly-authorised-deposit-taking-institution-performance-statistics-highlights-1","l":"APRA: Quarterly ADI Performance Statistics workbook, September 2004 to June 2026 (September 2026)","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: cash rate target history (fetched 29 September 2026, 14:37 AEST)","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27 (29 September 2026, 14:30 AEST)","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f5-data.csv","l":"RBA: Table F5, Indicator lending rates (published 7 September 2026)","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f4.1-data.csv","l":"RBA: Table F4.1, Paid deposit rates (published 7 September 2026)","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f6-data.csv","l":"RBA: Table F6, Housing lending rates (published 7 September 2026)","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f4-data.csv","l":"RBA: Table F4, Retail deposit and investment rates (published 7 September 2026)","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/latest-release","l":"ABS: Australian National Accounts, National Income, Expenditure and Product, June quarter 2026 (2 September 2026)","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/help/personal/home-loans/understanding-your-home-loan-interest-rates-and-fees/viewing-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: viewing the RBA interest rate decision (fetched 16:39 AEST, 29 September 2026)","t":2},"26":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"The big four banks’ rate pages, re-checked 16:44 to 16:46 AEST, 29 September 2026: CBA","t":2},"27":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/content/dam/commbank-assets/investors/2026/CBA-2026-Full-Year-Results-ASX-Announcement.pdf","l":"CBA: FY2026 full-year results, ASX Announcement 215/2026 (12 August 2026)","t":1},"28":{"u":"https://kpmg.com/au/en/insights/industry/big-four-major-banks-australia-half-year-results-2026.html","l":"KPMG Australia: major banks half-year results 2026 (5 May 2026)","t":4},"29":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/may/developments-in-banks-funding-costs-and-lending-rates.html","l":"RBA Bulletin, May 2026: developments in banks’ funding costs and lending rates (28 May 2026)","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Retail-deposits-inquiry-final-report.pdf","l":"ACCC: Retail deposits inquiry final report (15 December 2023)","t":1},"31":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fjournals%2F0015ac45-4920-4169-a691-14e803cfe492%2F0046%22","l":"Journals of the Senate, 2026, searched by THE RORT for “bank” and “levy” (29 September 2026), on the Parliament of Australia’s ParlInfo service (parlinfo.aph.gov.au). One documents entry (11 August 2…","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-05/Increase%20to%20the%20rate%20of%20the%20Major%20Bank%20Levy%20by%2010%20percent.pdf","l":"Parliamentary Budget Office: increase to the rate of the Major Bank Levy by 10 percent (14 May 2024)","t":1},"33":{"u":"https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-06/PBO-ECR-2025-3046-Big%20corporations%20tax%20(banks).pdf","l":"Parliamentary Budget Office: ECR-2025-3046, Big corporations tax (banks) (June 2025)","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://transparency.aec.gov.au/Download/AllAnnualData","l":"Australian Electoral Commission: Transparency Register, Donations Made 2024-25, returns of CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ and the Australian Banking Association (bulk download last modified 22 September 2026)","t":1},"35":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Economics/FourMajorBanksReview48","l":"Parliament of Australia: House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Review of Australia’s four major banks (inquiry page)"},"36":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2023/pdf/notes.pdf","l":"RBA: Annual Reports 2023, 2024 and 2025, Note 4 (Interest income and expense)","t":1},"37":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2024/sp-ag-2024-10-09.html","l":"RBA: Christopher Kent, A Review of the RBA’s Term Funding Facility (9 October 2024)","t":1},"38":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2025/jan/an-update-on-the-household-cash-flow-channel-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"RBA Bulletin: an update on the household cash flow channel of monetary policy (Jennison and Miller, 30 January 2025)","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2026/macquarie-banks-response-to-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: “Macquarie Bank’s response to the RBA’s interest rate decision”, media release, 29 September 2026, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"40":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/everyday-banking/term-deposits.html","l":"Macquarie: Term deposits page, Digital Term Deposit rates for deposits of $1 million or under, interest paid at maturity. Live page, fetched 05:17 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"41":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/home-loans/home-loan-rates.html","l":"Macquarie: Home loan rates page, owner-occupier principal and interest, fixed rates for loans up to 70% of the property value. Live page, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"42":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/macquarie-fixed-home-loan-rate-increase","l":"Media reports of the dates of Macquarie’s two September fixed-rate rises (secondary; the sizes are from Macquarie’s own pages), all fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026. savings.com.au (Denise Rawar…","t":4},"43":{"u":"https://www.tmbl.com.au/news-centre/teachers-mutual-bank-announces-increase-interest-rates","l":"Teachers Mutual Bank Limited: announcement of increased interest rates, news centre, dated 29 September 2026, fetched 04:59 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"44":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"The four major banks’ own rate pages, fetched between 04:59 and 05:00 AEST on 30 September 2026. CBA home loans","t":2},"45":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): home loan rate announcement page","t":2},"46":{"u":"https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2026/30-september/","l":"Westpac: media release, “Westpac announces interest rate changes”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"47":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/news/interest-rates/nab-announces-home-loan-interest-rate-changes","l":"NAB: news release, “NAB announces home loan interest rate changes”, headed “30 September”, and listed as 30 September 2026 in Related Articles on NAB’s older home loan rate page (below)","t":2},"48":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/newsroom/media/2026/september/anz-changes-variable-home-loan-rates/","l":"ANZ: media release, “ANZ changes variable home loan rates”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"49":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/anz-macquarie-cutting-fixed-rates/","l":"Canstar (Laine Gordon), “ANZ, Macquarie go against the tide, cutting fixed rates: could we be at the peak?”, 5 June 2026","t":4},"50":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nab/documents/reports/corporate/2026-half-year-results-investor-presentation.pdf","l":"NAB: 2026 Half Year Results investor presentation","t":1},"51":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nab/documents/reports/corporate/2025-full-year-results-summary.pdf","l":"NAB results documents, fetched 12:23 AEST, 3 October 2026. 2025 full year results summary","t":1},"52":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/about-us/shareholder-centre/financial-calendar","l":"NAB: financial calendar","t":2},"53":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/bank-accounts/savings-accounts","l":"NAB: savings accounts page","t":2},"54":{"u":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260327050611id_/https://www.nab.com.au/personal/bank-accounts/savings-accounts","l":"NAB savings rate history. Archived copies of NAB’s savings accounts page: 27 March 2026","t":2}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/the-fiscal-tools-they-didnt-use","title":"The fiscal tools they didn’t use","href":"/article/inflation-rort/the-fiscal-tools-they-didnt-use","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":47,"secs":["What the UK did","What the EU did","What Australia did","Why the comparison matters"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-living-support/energy-profits-levy-factsheet-26-may-2022","l":"HM Treasury, \"Energy Profits Levy Factsheet - 26 May 2022\"","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1854/oj/eng","l":"EUR-Lex, \"Council Regulation (EU) 2022/1854 of 6 October 2022 on an emergency intervention to address high energy prices\"","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/by-industry/petrol-and-fuel/fuel-and-petrol-monitoring","l":"Australia: fuel excise halving March–September 2022","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://nationalseniors.com.au/news/latest-news/surprises-in-supermarket-pricing-report","l":"ACCC: supermarkets inquiry: 20 recommendations, no structural remedy","t":5},"7":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australians-pay-the-price-for-fossil-fuel-dependence-while-coal-and-gas-exporters-make-windfall-profits/","l":"The Australia Institute, \"Australians Pay the Price for fossil fuel dependence while coal and gas exporters make windfall profits\" (2 June 2022)","t":4},"8":{"l":"Withdrawn, 7 October 2026. This reference pointed to the Senate Economics Committee homepage, not to a record of a bank windfall levy being proposed and rejected; no such record was found, and no tex…"},"12":{"u":"https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/les-mesures-exceptionnelles-de-lutte-contre-la-hausse-des-prix-de-lenergie","l":"Cour des comptes, \"Les mesures exceptionnelles de lutte contre la hausse des prix de l’énergie\" (public thematic report, March 2024)","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/windfall-profits-taxes-europe/","l":"Tax Foundation Europe, \"Windfall Profits Taxes in Europe, 2026\"","t":4},"14":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-09-07.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, Governor, \"Some Closing Remarks\" (speech, 7 September 2023)","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: Cash Rate Target table","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/eu/eu-windfall-profits-taxes-oil-gas/","l":"Tax Foundation Europe: EU windfall profits taxes on oil and gas, 10 September 2024","t":4},"18":{"u":"https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2024/143/article-A001-en.xml","l":"IMF Working Paper WP/24/143, Maneely and Ratnovski, 9 July 2024 (staff paper, not an IMF Board view)","t":4},"19":{"u":"https://news.yahoo.com/france-caps-electricity-gas-price-161316605.html","l":"Bloomberg via Yahoo, 14 September 2022","t":5},"20":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/gas-price-cap-take-effect","l":"Acting Treasurer Gallagher and Minister Bowen, 'Gas price cap to take effect', 22 December 2022","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/markets/gas-markets/gas-market-code","l":"DCCEEW: Gas Market Code, updated 22 December 2025","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/gas-market-review-report.pdf","l":"DCCEEW and DISR: Gas Market Review Report, December 2025","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/fossil-fuel-subsidies-hit-14-5-billion-in-2023-24-up-31/","l":"Australia Institute: fossil fuel subsidy series, each year's own edition","t":4},"24":{"u":"https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-05/Increase%20to%20the%20rate%20of%20the%20Major%20Bank%20Levy%20by%2010%20percent.pdf","l":"Parliamentary Budget Office: Increase to the rate of the Major Bank Levy by 10 per cent, 14 May 2024","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.pm.gov.au/media/fuel-excise-halved-three-months","l":"Prime Minister, fuel excise halved for three months, 30 March 2026","t":1},"26":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-02/further-fuel-excise-cut-from-gst-revenue/106525678","l":"ABC News, 'Further fuel excise cut from GST revenue', 2 April 2026","t":3},"27":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-30/fuel-excise-halved-three-months-petrol-diesel/106510432","l":"ABC News, ‘Fuel excise halved for three months’, 30 March 2026","t":3},"28":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-35-year-july-2026","l":"ABS: media release, ‘CPI rose 3.5% in the year to July 2026’, 26 August 2026","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/outlook.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, outlook","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2025/media-releases/price-gouging-large-supermarkets-illegal-1-july-2026","l":"Andrew Leigh, media release on price gouging by large supermarkets, 27 June 2026","t":1},"31":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/content/bp1/download/bp1_bs-3.docx","l":"Budget Paper No. 1, Statement 3, 12 May 2026","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/weo/2026/update/july/english/text.pdf","l":"IMF: World Economic Outlook Update, 'Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology', July 2026","t":1},"33":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-20/government-explores-new-tax-for-gas-coal-to-buffer-fuel-costs/106475100","l":"ABC News (Isobel Roe), ‘Government explores new tax for gas, coal to buffer fuel costs’, 20 March 2026","t":3},"34":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-10/gas-tax-revenue-up-in-federal-budget/106663036","l":"ABC News (Jane Norman), 10 May 2026","t":3},"35":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Australian_Greens_Additional_Comments","l":"Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report tabled 7 May 2026, Australian Greens additional comments (para 1.183)","t":1},"36":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-29/federal-politics-blog-housing-energy-fastrack/106616572","l":"ABC News, federal politics live blog, 29 April 2026","t":3},"37":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/labor-delivers-biggest-ever-back-back-surpluses","l":"Treasurer, media release, 30 September 2024","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.apra.gov.au/quarterly-authorised-deposit-taking-institution-performance-statistics-june-2026-highlights","l":"APRA: bank (ADI) profit after tax, year to June 2026 (the APRA workbook, desk pack D91). $42.5 billion, up 7.5 per cent. This is a figure for all authorised deposit-taking institutions, not for the b…","t":1},"40":{"u":"https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/government-revenues-from-uk-oil-and-gas-production--2/government-revenues-from-oil-and-gas-production-september-2025","l":"HMRC, \"Government revenues from oil and gas production September 2025\" (24 September 2025)","t":1},"41":{"u":"https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/government-revenues-from-uk-oil-and-gas-production--2/government-revenues-from-oil-and-gas-production-september-2024","l":"HMRC, \"Government revenues from oil and gas production September 2024\"","t":1},"42":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/40","l":"legislation.gov.uk, \"Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022\" (c. 40)","t":1},"43":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2022/mr-22-12.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia, \"Statement by Philip Lowe, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision\" (media release 2022-12, 3 May 2022)","t":1},"44":{"u":"https://www.iea.org/policies/15621-price-control-in-the-iberian-electricity-market-mibel","l":"International Energy Agency, policies database, \"Price control in the Iberian Electricity Market (MIBEL)\"","t":4},"45":{"u":"https://www.iea.org/policies/17535-electricity-gas-and-heating-price-brakes","l":"International Energy Agency, policies database, \"Electricity, gas and heating price brakes\" (Germany)","t":4},"46":{"u":"https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/eu/windfall-tax-europe-2023/","l":"Tax Foundation Europe, \"Windfall Tax Policies in Europe, 2023\"","t":4},"47":{"u":"https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.asp","l":"Bank of England, Bank Rate history"}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/the-political-connections","title":"The political connections","href":"/article/inflation-rort/the-political-connections","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":34,"secs":["The bank donation pattern","The fossil fuel sector: subsidised during the inflation it drove","The supermarkets: an inquiry about 14 months after the peak","The structural pattern: same as every series"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.aec.gov.au/parties_and_representatives/political_disclosures/","l":"AEC: political donations: banks, supermarkets, energy companies. Formerly cited to an AEC section page","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/accc-finds-australias-supermarkets-are-among-the-worlds-most-profitable-but-doesnt-accuse-them-of-price-gouging-250503","l":"ACCC Supermarkets Inquiry: directed about 14 months after the peak","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/About_the_House_News/Media_Releases/Big_Four_Banks_to_face_Economics_Committee","l":"House of Representatives, Standing Committee on Economics, “Big Four Banks to face Economics Committee” (media release, July 2023)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/","l":"Senate crossbench: windfall levy proposals. Formerly cited to the Parliament’s home page","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.grattan.edu.au/","l":"Political economy of windfall taxes. Formerly cited to the Grattan Institute’s home page","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://www.aec.gov.au/parties_and_representatives/political_disclosures/","l":"Both major parties: bank donations pattern. Formerly cited to an AEC section page","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/","l":"Australia Institute: case for windfall tax during inflation. Formerly cited to the Australia Institute’s home page","t":4},"13":{"u":"https://www.fsunion.org.au/what-does-a-labor-conference-have-to-do-with-finance-workers/","l":"Finance Sector Union, “What does a Labor conference have to do with finance workers?”","t":2},"14":{"u":"https://transparency.aec.gov.au/AnnualDonor","l":"Woolworths and Coles: political donation pattern (corrected 30 September 2026). AEC Transparency Register, Annual Donor Returns"},"16":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/sites/ministers.treasury.gov.au/files/2019-05/Final-EM-Major-Bank-Levy.pdf","l":"Explanatory Memorandum, Major Bank Levy (2017); Parliamentary Budget Office, Increase to the rate of the Major Bank Levy by 10 per cent (14 May 2024)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/gas-price-cap-take-effect","l":"Acting Treasurer Gallagher and Minister Bowen, gas price cap takes effect (22 December 2022); Prime Minister, Energy Price Relief Plan (9 December 2022)","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-recommends-supermarket-reforms-to-provide-better-outcomes-for-consumers-and-suppliers","l":"ACCC, ACCC recommends supermarket reforms (21 March 2025)","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/news/media-updates/mandatory-food-and-grocery-code-of-conduct-comes-into-effect-today","l":"ACCC, Mandatory Food and Grocery Code of Conduct comes into effect today (1 April 2025)","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/new-merger-control-regime-off-to-positive-start","l":"ACCC, New merger control regime off to positive start (9 April 2026); Treasurer, second reading speech, Treasury Laws Amendment (Mergers and Acquisitions Reform) Bill (10 October 2024)","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2025/media-releases/price-gouging-large-supermarkets-illegal-1-july-2026","l":"Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, price gouging by large supermarkets illegal from 1 July 2026 (27 June 2026); ACCC, supermarkets excessive pricing prohibition","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2025/media-releases/unfair-trading-tricks-and-traps-be-banned","l":"Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, unfair trading tricks and traps to be banned (2 July 2026)","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/gas-market-review-report.pdf","l":"DCCEEW and DISR, Gas Market Review Report (December 2025)","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/markets/gas-markets/gas-market-review-reforms","l":"DCCEEW, Gas Market Review reforms (last updated 29 September 2026); joint media releases of 22 December 2025 and 7 May 2026","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/fossil-fuel-subsidies-hit-14-5-billion-in-2023-24-up-31/","l":"Australia Institute, fossil fuel subsidies series (13 May 2024; 21 March 2025; 12 March 2026)","t":4},"26":{"u":"https://transparency.aec.gov.au/Download/AllAnnualData","l":"Australian Electoral Commission, Transparency Register bulk download, Donations Made, 2023-24 and 2024-25","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fjournals%2F521e5623-a639-4d7e-b49b-bbbe193dfb7b%2F0013%22","l":"Journals of the Senate and House Votes and Proceedings, 2026, as compiled by THE RORT (Journals of the Senate Nos 39, 45, 46, 54 and 59; House Votes and Proceedings Nos 57 and 61). ParlInfo ids: cham…","t":1},"28":{"u":"https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-06/PBO-ECR-2025-3046-Big%20corporations%20tax%20(banks).pdf","l":"Parliamentary Budget Office, Big corporations tax (banks), ECR-2025-3046 (June 2025)","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-29/federal-politics-blog-housing-energy-fastrack/106616572","l":"ABC, federal politics live blog (29 April 2026)","t":3},"30":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-10/gas-tax-revenue-up-in-federal-budget/106663036","l":"ABC News, Jane Norman (10 May 2026)","t":3},"31":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Coalition_Senators_Additional_Comments","l":"Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report (7 May 2026), Coalition Senators’ Additional Comments","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Chapter_1_-_Report","l":"Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report (7 May 2026), Chapter 1, Labor senators’ additional comments (paragraphs 1.65 and 1.170, Recommendation 2; paragraph 1.170 added 7 October 20…","t":1},"33":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/may/box-b-have-business-profits-contributed-to-inflation.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia, Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2023, Box B: Have business profits contributed to inflation?","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/aug/an-input-cost-decomposition-of-the-household-consumption-deflator.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia, Bulletin, An Input Cost Decomposition of the Household Consumption Deflator (27 August 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/the-reckoning","title":"The reckoning","href":"/article/inflation-rort/the-reckoning","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":47,"secs":["The lasting damage: real wages","The lasting damage: housing","What has not changed","The next supply shock","What would have helped, and what would help next time"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://www.afr.com/","l":"AFR / Chris Richardson: real household disposable income 2027 recovery. Formerly cited to the Australian Financial Review’s home page","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://nhfic.gov.au/media/nhfic-releases-flagship-state-nations-housing-2022-23-research-report","l":"National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, “NHFIC releases flagship State of the Nation’s Housing 2022-23 research report” (media release, 3 April 2023)","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/big-bank-profits-interest-rates-mortgage-stress-RBA","l":"Roy Morgan via UNSW BusinessThink (October 2023 figure, withdrawn)","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://nhfic.gov.au/","l":"Housing affordability crisis: rate cycle compounding existing shortage. Formerly cited to the NHFIC home page","t":2},"12":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/","l":"Australia Institute: lesson not learned about tool selection. Formerly cited to the Australia Institute’s home page","t":4},"14":{"u":"https://grattan.edu.au/","l":"What would have helped: policy recommendations. Formerly cited to the Grattan Institute’s home page","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-02-september-2024-quarter","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics, “CPI rose 0.2% in the September 2024 quarter” (media release, 30 October 2024)","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-35-year-july-2026","l":"ABS: Consumer Price Index media release for July 2026 (26 August 2026)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/feb/overview.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, February 2026, overview","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2024/nov/outlook.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2024, outlook","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: cash rate target table (fetched 29 September 2026)","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/outlook.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, outlook","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-growing-faster-than-ndis-hitting-16-3-billion-in-2025-26/","l":"Australia Institute: fossil fuel subsidies series, each year’s edition. Edition of 12 March 2026","t":4},"22":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2025/media-releases/price-gouging-large-supermarkets-illegal-1-july-2026","l":"Treasury: Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh, media release on price gouging by large supermarkets becoming illegal from 1 July 2026 (27 June 2026)","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/new-merger-control-regime-off-to-positive-start","l":"ACCC: ‘New merger control regime off to positive start’ (9 April 2026)","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.apra.gov.au/news-and-publications/apra-announces-update-on-macroprudential-settings","l":"APRA: ‘APRA announces update on macroprudential settings’ (23 July 2025)","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/markets/gas-markets/gas-market-review-reforms","l":"DCCEEW: gas market review reforms (updated 10 September 2026)","t":1},"26":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/sites/ministers.treasury.gov.au/files/2019-05/Final-EM-Major-Bank-Levy.pdf","l":"Treasury: Explanatory Memorandum, Major Bank Levy (2017)","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-20/government-explores-new-tax-for-gas-coal-to-buffer-fuel-costs/106475100","l":"ABC News, Isobel Roe (20 March 2026)","t":3},"28":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fjournals%2Fdca27c74-848a-42ca-8c5c-9ae85b395dca%2F0007%22","l":"Parliament of Australia, records read by THE RORT on 29 September 2026. Recorded divisions on a 25 per cent gas export tax in 2026 (corrected 7 October 2026: ‘25 per cent’ added; a 30 March Senate ur…","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://kpmg.com/au/en/insights/industry/big-four-major-banks-australia-half-year-results-2026.html","l":"KPMG Australia: analysis of the major banks’ half-year results (5 May 2026)","t":4},"30":{"u":"https://www.apra.gov.au/quarterly-authorised-deposit-taking-institution-performance-statistics-highlights-1","l":"APRA: Quarterly Authorised Deposit-taking Institution Performance Statistics workbook, September 2004 to June 2026 (September 2026 edition)","t":1},"31":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-03.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-03, Monetary Policy Decision (3 February 2026)","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-08.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-08, Monetary Policy Decision (17 March 2026)","t":1},"33":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-12.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-12, Monetary Policy Decision (5 May 2026)","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27, Monetary Policy Decision (29 September 2026, 14:30 AEST)","t":1},"35":{"u":"https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-march-2026","l":"International Energy Agency, Oil Market Report, March 2026 (12 March 2026)","t":1},"36":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-37-year-february-2026","l":"ABS: Consumer Price Index media release for February 2026 (25 March 2026)","t":1},"37":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-10/gas-tax-revenue-up-in-federal-budget/106663036","l":"ABC News, Jane Norman (10 May 2026)","t":3},"38":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Coalition_Senators_Additional_Comments","l":"Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, report (additional comments dated 7 May 2026), Coalition senators’ additional comments (Senators Susan McDonald and Dean Smith), paragraphs 1…","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f4.1-data.csv","l":"RBA statistical tables, each published 7 September 2026. Table F4.1 (paid deposit rates)","t":1},"40":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-19.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-19, Monetary Policy Decision (11 August 2026)","t":1},"41":{"u":"https://therort.com.au/article/inflation-rort/the-political-connections","l":"THE RORT, ‘The political connections’ (this series), correction of 29 September 2026"},"42":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/nov/domestic-financial-conditions.html","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2023, domestic financial conditions","t":1},"43":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2025/jan/an-update-on-the-household-cash-flow-channel-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"RBA Bulletin, ‘An Update on the Household Cash Flow Channel of Monetary Policy’ (Jennison and Miller, 30 January 2025)","t":1},"44":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/latest-release","l":"ABS: Australian 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in Energy, 7 April 2026","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-35-year-july-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: CPI rose 3.5% in the year to July 2026, 26 August 2026","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-46-year-march-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: CPI rose 4.6% in the year to March 2026, 29 April 2026","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/feb/overview.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, February 2026, overview","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/outlook.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, Outlook","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/pdf/statement-on-monetary-policy-2026-08.pdf","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026 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URL added 30 September 2026","t":3},"29":{"u":"https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-adelaide-8","l":"Prime Minister of Australia: Press conference, Adelaide, 29 September 2026 (before the decision)","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/rba-interest-rate-decision-live-australians-brace-for-15-year-high-as-really-tough-period-forecast-223511140.html","l":"Yahoo Finance Australia: live blog, Tom Flanagan, 29 September 2026. URL added 30 September 2026","t":5},"31":{"u":"https://www.liberal.org.au/2026/09/29/16th-rba-rate-hike-forced-albanese-active-inflation-agenda-built-on-spending-addiction","l":"Liberal Party of Australia: media release by Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson, 29 September 2026","t":2},"32":{"u":"https://www.facebook.com/reel/1731439414782221/","l":"David Pocock, Independent Senator for the ACT: Facebook video and caption, 29 September 2026","t":2},"33":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/help/personal/home-loans/understanding-your-home-loan-interest-rates-and-fees/viewing-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: Viewing the RBA interest rate decision, help page","t":2},"34":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"CBA, Westpac, NAB and ANZ rate-change pages, each re-fetched between 4.44 pm and 4.46 pm AEST on 29 September 2026","t":2},"35":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-09-22.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor Michele Bullock, Fireside Chat at CEDA, Sydney, 22 September 2026 (RBA transcript)","t":1},"36":{"u":"https://archive.budget.gov.au/2025-26/fbo/download/00_fbo_2025-26.pdf","l":"Australian Government: Final Budget Outcome 2025-26, Part 1, September 2026","t":1},"37":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-02-03.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor’s media conference transcripts, 3 February 2026","t":1},"38":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/labor-delivers-biggest-ever-back-back-surpluses","l":"Treasurer of Australia: media releases, 30 September 2024","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.woodside.com/docs/default-source/investor-documents/quarterly-and-half-yearly-pdfs-and-data-tables/2026/half-year-2026-report.pdf","l":"Woodside Energy Group: Half-Year Report 2026","t":1},"40":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f4.1-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F4.1, Paid deposit rates","t":1},"41":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-29/federal-politics-blog-housing-energy-fastrack/106616572","l":"ABC News: federal politics live blog, 29 April 2026","t":3},"42":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Taxation_of_Gas_Resources/TaxationofGasResources/Report/Chapter_1_-_Report","l":"Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources: report, 7 May 2026, with the additional comments of Labor senators and of Coalition senators","t":1},"43":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2026/macquarie-banks-response-to-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: “Macquarie Bank’s response to the RBA’s interest rate decision”, media release, 29 September 2026, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"44":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/everyday-banking/term-deposits.html","l":"Macquarie: Term deposits page, Digital Term Deposit rates for deposits of $1 million or under, interest paid at maturity. Live page, fetched 05:17 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"45":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/macquarie-nudges-new-digital-term-deposit-rates-lower","l":"savings.com.au (Denise Raward): “Macquarie nudges new digital term deposit rates lower”, published 5 August 2026, fetched 05:17 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":4},"46":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/home-loans/home-loan-rates.html","l":"Macquarie: Home loan rates page, owner-occupier principal and interest, fixed rates for loans up to 70% of the property value. Live page, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"47":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/macquarie-fixed-home-loan-rate-increase","l":"Media reports of the dates of Macquarie’s two September fixed-rate rises (secondary; the sizes are from Macquarie’s own pages), all fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026. savings.com.au (Denise Rawar…","t":4},"48":{"u":"https://www.tmbl.com.au/news-centre/teachers-mutual-bank-announces-increase-interest-rates","l":"Teachers Mutual Bank Limited: announcement of increased interest rates, news centre, dated 29 September 2026, fetched 04:59 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"49":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"The four major banks’ own rate pages, fetched between 04:59 and 05:00 AEST on 30 September 2026. CBA home loans","t":2},"50":{"u":"https://www.ausbanking.org.au/news/","l":"Australian Banking Association: news page","t":2},"51":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-40-year-august-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: media release, “CPI rose 4.0% in the year to August 2026” (Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026), released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1},"52":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/aug-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026, release page, released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1},"53":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): home loan rate announcement page","t":2},"54":{"u":"https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2026/30-september/","l":"Westpac: media release, “Westpac announces interest rate changes”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"55":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/news/interest-rates/nab-announces-home-loan-interest-rate-changes","l":"NAB: news release, “NAB announces home loan interest rate changes”, headed “30 September”, and listed as 30 September 2026 in Related Articles on NAB’s older home loan rate page (below)","t":2},"56":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/newsroom/media/2026/september/anz-changes-variable-home-loan-rates/","l":"ANZ: media release, “ANZ changes variable home loan rates”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"57":{"u":"https://www.ausbanking.org.au/news/","l":"Australian Banking Association: news page","t":2},"58":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/anz-macquarie-cutting-fixed-rates/","l":"Canstar (Laine Gordon), “ANZ, Macquarie go against the tide, cutting fixed rates: could we be at the peak?”, 5 June 2026","t":4}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/global-war-national-rate","title":"A global war, a national rate","href":"/article/inflation-rort/global-war-national-rate","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-09-29","refCount":49,"secs":["What the Bank says caused it","The war and the timing","How much of it is the war, on the Bank's own numbers","What a national rate cannot do","Why the Board tightened anyway","What other central banks did","What the referees say","The other side, and what is still open"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27, Monetary Policy Decision, 29 September 2026, 14:30 AEST","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: cash rate target table","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-08.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-08, 17 March 2026","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-12.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-12, 5 May 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2026","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-09-22.html","l":"RBA: Fireside Chat at CEDA, Governor Michele Bullock, Sydney, 22 September 2026","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-07-28.html","l":"RBA: \"Monetary Policy in an Era of Shocks\", Governor Michele Bullock, Anika Foundation lunch, 28 July 2026","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-summary-and-minutes/2026/february-2026","l":"Bank of England: Monetary Policy Summary and Minutes, February 2026 (5 February) and September 2026 (17 September)","t":1},"26":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/rba-board-minutes/2026/2026-03-17.html","l":"RBA: Minutes of the Monetary Policy Board, meeting of 16 and 17 March 2026","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-ag-2026-07-08.html","l":"RBA: \"Understanding Supply Shocks and Their Implications for Monetary Policy\", Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter, 8 July 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Japan: monetary policy decisions of 16 June and 18 September 2026","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://www.norges-bank.no/en/topics/monetary-policy/Monetary-policy-meetings/2026/may-2026/","l":"Norges Bank: Monetary policy meetings, May 2026 (7 May) and September 2026 (announced 24 September)","t":1},"35":{"u":"https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/press-and-published/notices-and-press-releases/press-releases/2026/policy-rate-unchanged-at-16.75-per-cent","l":"Sveriges Riksbank: press release, 24 September 2026","t":1},"36":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/rba-board-minutes/2026/2026-06-16.html","l":"RBA: Minutes of the Monetary Policy Board, meeting of 16 June 2026","t":1},"37":{"u":"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm","l":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Price Index, August 2026, 11 September 2026","t":1},"38":{"u":"https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/2-17092026-ap","l":"Eurostat: Euro indicators, flash and final HICP, 17 September 2026","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2026/html/ecb.sp260325~ac2916a211.en.html","l":"European Central Bank: \"The ECB and Its Watchers\", President Christine Lagarde, 25 March 2026","t":1},"40":{"u":"https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/consumers-price-index-june-2026-quarter/","l":"Stats NZ: Consumers price index, June 2026 quarter, 21 July 2026","t":1},"41":{"u":"https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/weo/2026/april/english/execsum.pdf","l":"International Monetary Fund: World Economic Outlook, April 2026, \"Global Economy in the Shadow of War\", Executive Summary","t":1},"42":{"u":"https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/weo/2026/update/july/english/text.pdf","l":"International Monetary Fund: World Economic Outlook Update, July 2026, \"Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology\"","t":1},"43":{"u":"https://www.bis.org/press/p260628.htm","l":"Bank for International Settlements: Annual Economic Report, 28 June 2026, press release","t":1},"44":{"u":"https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/bis-urges-central-banks-overreact-energy-price-spike/","l":"Global Banking & Finance Review, citing Reuters: BIS urges central banks not to overreact to energy price spike, 16 March 2026","t":5},"45":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2022/sp-gov-2022-11-22.html","l":"RBA: Governor Philip Lowe, 22 November 2022","t":1},"46":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-mpb-2026-09-22.html","l":"RBA: speech by Monetary Policy Board member Iain Ross, 22 September 2026","t":1},"47":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/schedules-events/board-meeting-schedules.html","l":"RBA: Board meeting schedules","t":1},"48":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-40-year-august-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: media release, \"CPI rose 4.0% in the year to August 2026\" (Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026), released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1},"49":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/aug-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026, release page, released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/what-a-rise-buys","title":"What a rate rise buys","href":"/article/inflation-rort/what-a-rise-buys","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-09-29","refCount":20,"secs":["How the tool works, in the Bank’s words","What 100 basis points buys","What that means in people","What the Bank has not published","An old worked example","What the rises cannot buy","The Board’s case: the cost of waiting","The other side of that case"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026, 2.30 pm AEST","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"RBA: Cash rate target history","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2025/apr/monetary-policy-transmission-through-the-lens-of-the-rbas-models.html","l":"RBA Bulletin: Monetary Policy Transmission Through the Lens of the RBA’s Models, Mulqueeney, Ballantyne and Hambur, 24 April 2025","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2019/2019-07/full.html","l":"RBA Research Discussion Paper 2019-07: MARTIN Has Its Place","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/may/pdf/statement-on-monetary-policy-2026-05.pdf","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2026 (PDF), section 3.5","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/pdf/statement-on-monetary-policy-2026-08.pdf","l":"RBA: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026 (PDF)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/the-transmission-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"RBA: The Transmission of Monetary Policy (explainer, undated)","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-ag-2023-10-11.html","l":"RBA: Assistant Governor Christopher Kent, speech, 11 October 2023","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2020/2020-01/full.html","l":"RBA Research Discussion Paper 2020-01, Benjamin Beckers, January 2020","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia/aug-2026","l":"ABS: Labour Force, Australia, August 2026 (released 24 September 2026)","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/schedules-events/board-meeting-schedules.html","l":"RBA: Board meeting schedules","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-05-05.html","l":"RBA: Governor Michele Bullock, prepared remarks and media conference, 5 May 2026","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/rba-board-minutes/2026/2026-05-05.html","l":"RBA: Minutes of the Monetary Policy Board, meeting of 4 and 5 May 2026","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-07-28.html","l":"RBA: Governor Michele Bullock, Monetary Policy in an Era of Shocks, Anika Foundation lunch, 28 July 2026","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2022/sp-gov-2022-11-22.html","l":"RBA: Governor Lowe, speech, 22 November 2022","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.bis.org/press/p260628.htm","l":"BIS: press release on the Annual Economic Report, 28 June 2026","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.bis.org/publications/bulletin-131-energy-shocks-and-inflation-challenges-monetary-policy.pdf","l":"BIS Bulletin 131, Banerjee, De Fiore, Lombardi and Lombardo, 5 August 2026 (staff views, not the BIS’s)","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/rba-board-minutes/2026/2026-03-17.html","l":"RBA: Minutes of the Monetary Policy Board, 16 and 17 March 2026","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-08-11.html","l":"RBA: Governor Michele Bullock, media conference transcript, 11 August 2026","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-mpb-2026-09-22.html","l":"RBA: Iain Ross, Monetary Policy Board member, speech, 22 September 2026 (his own views, not the Board’s)","t":1}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/paying-for-the-rises","title":"Who pays for the rises","href":"/article/inflation-rort/paying-for-the-rises","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-09-29","refCount":54,"secs":["The repayment: four rises, one mortgage","One rise, two incomes","The rise as a living cost","Who has a mortgage, and who gains","Renters: little direct effect, twice the stress","Jobs: the forecast and the count","The young first","Where: by state","Small business","Home buyers","Mortgage stress, two measures","The other side: the Reserve Bank’s case"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026, 2.30 pm AEST","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: cash rate target history","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/rba-cash-rate-september-2026-hike-25/","l":"Canstar: “RBA September Cash Rate Hike”, Alasdair Duncan, 29 September 2026","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f5-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F5, Indicator lending rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f6-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F6, Housing lending rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/may/pdf/developments-in-banks-funding-costs-and-lending-rates.pdf","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, “Developments in Banks’ Funding Costs and Lending Rates”, Hutchinson, Manning and Searle, 28 May 2026","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/feb/financial-conditions.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, February 2026, financial conditions, 3 February 2026","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2024/sp-ag-2024-11-18.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Christopher Kent, speech, 18 November 2024","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/financial-stability-report/2026/financial-stability-report-july-2026.pdf","l":"Bank of England: Financial Stability Report, July 2026","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"Big four banks, rate pages re-checked between 4.44 pm and 4.46 pm AEST, 29 September 2026. CBA","t":2},"11":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/help/personal/home-loans/understanding-your-home-loan-interest-rates-and-fees/viewing-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: “Viewing the RBA interest rate decision”, Macquarie Help, fetched 4.39 pm AEST, 29 September 2026","t":2},"12":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2025/pdf/rba-annual-report-2025-part-3.pdf","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Annual Report 2025, Part 3, Table 3.2.3","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/employee-earnings/latest-release","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Employee Earnings, 12 December 2025","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.remtribunal.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-06/2026%20Remuneration%20Review%20Statement%20-%20FINAL.pdf","l":"Remuneration Tribunal: 2026 Remuneration Review Statement, decision notified 11 June 2026","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/selected-living-cost-indexes-australia/latest-release","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Selected Living Cost Indexes, Australia, June quarter 2026, 5 August 2026","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-08-11.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor’s media conference, transcript, 11 August 2026","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/housing/housing-occupancy-and-costs/latest-release","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Housing Occupancy and Costs, 2019-20, released 25 May 2022","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/housing/housing-census/latest-release","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Housing, Census 2021, 28 June 2022","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-statements/survey-income-and-housing-results-will-not-be-released","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: media statement, Survey of Income and Housing results will not be released, 17 July 2025","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2025/jan/an-update-on-the-household-cash-flow-channel-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, “An Update on the Household Cash Flow Channel of Monetary Policy”, Jennison and Miller, 30 January 2025","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-ag-2023-10-11.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor, speech, 11 October 2023","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f4.1-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F4.1, Paid deposit rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/resilience-of-australian-households-and-businesses.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Financial Stability Review, March 2026, 19 March 2026","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-02-03.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor’s media conference, transcript, 3 February 2026","t":1},"25":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Consumer Price Index, Australia, July 2026, 26 August 2026","t":1},"26":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/oct/do-housing-investors-pass-through-changes-in-their-interest-costs-to-rents.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, “Do Housing Investors Pass Through Changes in Their Interest Costs to Rents?”, 17 October 2024","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/outlook.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, outlook","t":1},"28":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia/aug-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Labour Force, Australia, August 2026, 24 September 2026","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-09-22.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor Michele Bullock, fireside chat at CEDA, 22 September 2026","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-29/asx-markets-business-news-live-updates-tuesday-29-september/107206212","l":"ABC News: live blog, 29 September 2026","t":3},"31":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2018/jun/labour-market-outcomes-for-younger-people.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, “Labour Market Outcomes for Younger People”, Zoya Dhillon and Natasha Cassidy, 21 June 2018","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f7-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F7, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"33":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/financial-stability-assessment.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Financial Stability Review, March 2026, financial stability assessment","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-25/rate-rise-home-ownership-impact-study/107191644","l":"ABC News: “Rate rise home ownership impact study”, Michael Janda, 25 September 2026","t":3},"35":{"u":"https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/10318-mortgage-stress-risk-july-2026","l":"Roy Morgan: “Mortgage stress risk, July 2026”, 1 September 2026","t":4},"36":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/content/dam/commbank-assets/investors/2026/CBA-2026-Full-Year-Results-ASX-Announcement.pdf","l":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia: ASX Announcement 215/2026, full year results, 12 August 2026","t":1},"37":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-09-18.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor Michele Bullock, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, 18 September 2026","t":1},"38":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2024/sp-gov-2024-09-05.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor Michele Bullock, speech, 5 September 2024","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2022/sp-gov-2022-11-22.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor Philip Lowe, speech, 22 November 2022","t":1},"40":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-07-28.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor Michele Bullock, “Monetary Policy in an Era of Shocks”, Anika Foundation lunch, 28 July 2026","t":1},"41":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-05-05.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor’s media conference, transcript, 5 May 2026","t":1},"42":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2026/macquarie-banks-response-to-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: “Macquarie Bank’s response to the RBA’s interest rate decision”, media release, 29 September 2026, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"43":{"u":"https://www.tmbl.com.au/news-centre/teachers-mutual-bank-announces-increase-interest-rates","l":"Teachers Mutual Bank Limited: announcement of increased interest rates, news centre, dated 29 September 2026, fetched 04:59 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"44":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"The four major banks’ own rate pages, fetched between 04:59 and 05:00 AEST on 30 September 2026. CBA home loans","t":2},"45":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/cpi-rose-40-year-august-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: media release, “CPI rose 4.0% in the year to August 2026” (Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026), released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1},"46":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/aug-2026","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Consumer Price Index, Australia, August 2026, release page, released 30 September 2026, 11:30am AEST","t":1},"47":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): home loan rate announcement page","t":2},"48":{"u":"https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2026/30-september/","l":"Westpac: media release, “Westpac announces interest rate changes”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"49":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/news/interest-rates/nab-announces-home-loan-interest-rate-changes","l":"NAB: news release, “NAB announces home loan interest rate changes”, headed “30 September”, and listed as 30 September 2026 in Related Articles on NAB’s older home loan rate page (below)","t":2},"50":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/newsroom/media/2026/september/anz-changes-variable-home-loan-rates/","l":"ANZ: media release, “ANZ changes variable home loan rates”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"51":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/news/interest-rates/nab-announces-home-loan-interest-rate-changes","l":"NAB: news release, “NAB announces home loan interest rate changes”, headed “30 September” and listed as 30 September 2026 in NAB’s interest-rates news index","t":2},"52":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/home-loans/nab-fixed-rate-home-loan","l":"NAB: fixed rate home loan page","t":2},"53":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/nab-cuts-fixed-home-loan-rates","l":"NAB’s 22 July fixed-rate cut. Savings.com.au, news article published 22 July 2026","t":4},"54":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/credit-cards/card-updates","l":"NAB: “Credit card changes from 1 October 2026”","t":2}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/what-rates-do-to-business","title":"Are corporations untouched?","href":"/article/inflation-rort/what-rates-do-to-business","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-09-29","refCount":35,"secs":["The income split, 2022 to 2026","Big firms and small firms","Investment and debt","Firms raising prices","Margins: what the Bank found, and what others say","Tax paid","What the statements do not mention","The other side"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Media Release 2026-27, Monetary Policy Decision, 29 September 2026, 2.30 pm AEST","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/jun-2026/5206024_Selected_Analytical_Series.xlsx","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Australian National Accounts, National Income, Expenditure and Product, June 2026 (released 2 September 2026), Table 24 Selected Analytical Series and Table 5206007 I…","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/latest-release","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics: Australian National Accounts, June quarter 2026, latest release (2 September 2026)","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f6-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statistical Table F6 Housing Lending Rates and Table F4.1 Paid Deposit Rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/resilience-of-australian-households-and-businesses.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Financial Stability Review, March 2026, chapter 2, Resilience of Australian Households and Businesses","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f7-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statistical Table F7 Business Finance Rates, published 7 September 2026 (APRA and RBA data)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f5-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statistical Table F5 Indicator Lending Rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/financial-stability-assessment.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Financial Stability Review, March 2026, Financial Stability Assessment","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.asic.gov.au/about-asic/corporate-publications/statistics/insolvency-statistics","l":"Australian Securities and Investments Commission: insolvency statistics, Series 1 and 2 workbook, Table 1, released 28 September 2026","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/2026/mar/resilience-of-the-australian-financial-system.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Financial Stability Review, March 2026, Resilience of the Australian Financial System","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-15.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Media Releases 2026-15 (16 June 2026) and 2026-19 (11 August 2026), and the Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, Outlook chapter, Table 3.1","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-08.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Media Release 2026-08, Monetary Policy Decision, 17 March 2026","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-ag-2023-10-11.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Assistant Governor Christopher Kent, speech, 11 October 2023","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-12.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Media Release 2026-12, Monetary Policy Decision, 5 May 2026","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-08-11.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor’s media conference transcript, 11 August 2026","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-gov-2026-09-18.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor Michele Bullock, opening statement to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, 18 September 2026","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/may/box-b-have-business-profits-contributed-to-inflation.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2023, Box B, Have Business Profits Contributed to Inflation?","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/may/margins-mark-ups-and-consumer-prices-theory-measurement-and-implications.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, 28 May 2026, Margins, Mark-ups and Consumer Prices: Theory, Measurement and Implications (Davis, Hambur, Lane, Megow, Rafter, Sullivan)","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/aug/an-input-cost-decomposition-of-the-household-consumption-deflator.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, 27 August 2026, An Input Cost Decomposition of the Household Consumption Deflator (Isobel McKay)","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-ag-2026-07-08-q-and-a-transcript.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter, speech Q&A transcript, 8 July 2026","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/Estimates/economics/add2324/Hansard/Economics_Legislation_Committee_2024_02_15.pdf","l":"Senate Economics Legislation Committee: Proof Hansard, 15 February 2024, pp. 11 to 12 (Governor Bullock)","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/outlook.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, Outlook chapter","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/corporate-profits-increase-inflation-fact-sheet/","l":"The Australia Institute: fact sheet on corporate profits and inflation, 11 November 2024","t":4},"24":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/oecd-report-shows-corporate-profits-contributed-far-more-to-inflation-in-australia-than-wages/","l":"The Australia Institute: OECD report shows corporate profits contributed far more to inflation in Australia than wages, 8 June 2023","t":4},"25":{"u":"https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/rba-wrong-to-punish-workers/","l":"The Australia Institute: RBA wrong to punish workers, 26 February 2026","t":4},"26":{"u":"https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/270726-workers-have-paid-the-price-for-inflation-driven-by-corporate-profits-oecd-report-confirms","l":"The Point: Workers have paid the price for inflation driven by corporate profits, OECD report confirms (Greg Jericho), 27 July 2026","t":4},"27":{"u":"https://www.australianunions.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/InquiryIntoPriceGouging_Report_web.pdf","l":"Inquiry into Price Gouging (Fels inquiry, with the ACTU), report, February 2024","t":4},"28":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-recommends-supermarket-reforms-to-provide-better-outcomes-for-consumers-and-suppliers","l":"Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: media release, ACCC recommends supermarket reforms to provide better outcomes for consumers and suppliers, 21 March 2025","t":1},"29":{"u":"https://archive.budget.gov.au/2025-26/fbo/download/00_fbo_2025-26.pdf","l":"Australian Government: Final Budget Outcome 2025-26, Table 1.3, and the 2024-25 and 2023-24 Final Budget Outcomes","t":1},"30":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-03.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: the six 2026 decision statements (Media Releases 2026-03, 3 February","t":1},"31":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/rba-board-minutes/2026/2026-03-17.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Minutes of the Monetary Policy Board, meetings of 16 and 17 March 2026 and 4 and 5 May 2026","t":1},"32":{"u":"https://www.commsec.com.au/market-news/the-markets/2026/jul-26-fy2026-review.html","l":"CommSec: FY2026 review, 1 July 2026","t":2},"33":{"u":"https://www.investegate.co.uk/announcement/rns/rio-tinto--rio/rio-tinto-2026-half-year-results/9692256","l":"Rio Tinto: 2026 half year results announcement, 29 July 2026 (via RNS)","t":1},"34":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/nov/domestic-financial-conditions.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2023, Domestic Financial Conditions","t":1},"35":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/business/rba-interest-rate-rise-threatens-cba-westpac-and-nab-profits-as-australian-mortgage-and-house-prices-weaken-c-22917765","l":"The Nightly (Tom Richardson): RBA interest rate rise threatens CBA, Westpac and NAB profits as Australian mortgage and house prices weaken, 24 September 2026","t":3}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/the-savers-share","title":"The savers’ share","href":"/article/inflation-rort/the-savers-share","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-09-29","refCount":48,"secs":["What was paid and what was charged","The savers who got little or none","The savers who kept pace, on conditions","Borrowers: the full advertised rise, in the month","The first moves on the fourth rise","How banks earn on deposits, in the Reserve Bank’s words","History: 2022-23 and 2025","The other side"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: cash rate target history","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026, 14:30 AEST","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f4.1-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F4.1, Paid deposit rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f6-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F6, Housing lending rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f4-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F4, Retail deposit and investment rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f5-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F5, Indicator lending rates, published 7 September 2026","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/financial-conditions.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026, Financial conditions","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2026/may/developments-in-banks-funding-costs-and-lending-rates.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, May 2026, “Developments in banks’ funding costs and lending rates” (Hutchinson, Manning, Searle), 28 May 2026","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Retail-deposits-inquiry-final-report.pdf","l":"Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: Retail deposits inquiry, final report, 15 December 2023","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/feb/financial-conditions.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, February 2026, Financial conditions, 3 February 2026","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/may/financial-conditions.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, May 2026, Financial conditions (page metadata 1 May 2026)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/help/personal/home-loans/understanding-your-home-loan-interest-rates-and-fees/viewing-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: Help, Viewing the RBA interest rate decision, fetched 16:39 AEST, 29 September 2026","t":2},"13":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/everyday-banking/savings-account.html","l":"Macquarie: Savings account page, fetched 29 September 2026, still displaying the rates before 15 October","t":2},"14":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2026/savers-are-back-in-the-box-seat-as-rba-lifts-cash-rate.html","l":"Macquarie: “Savers are back in the box seat as RBA lifts cash rate”, 3 February 2026","t":2},"15":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/rba-savings-accounts-sept-2026","l":"Savings.com.au (Denise Raward): RBA savings accounts, 29 September 2026","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://www.finder.com.au/rba-cash-rate/sept-2026-savings-account-cash-rate-increase","l":"Finder: September 2026 savings account cash rate increase, 29 September 2026","t":4},"17":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"CBA, Westpac, NAB and ANZ rate announcement pages, each re-fetched between 16:44 and 16:46 AEST on 29 September 2026","t":2},"18":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/apr/bank-funding-and-the-recent-tightening-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, April 2024, Box A, “Bank funding and the recent tightening of monetary policy”, 18 April 2024","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2023/nov/domestic-financial-conditions.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, April 2024 (as [18]); Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2023, Domestic financial conditions","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2025/nov/financial-conditions.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, November 2025, Financial conditions","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-ag-2023-10-11.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor, speech, 11 October 2023","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2025/jan/an-update-on-the-household-cash-flow-channel-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Bulletin, January 2025, “An update on the household cash flow channel of monetary policy” (Jennison and Miller), 30 January 2025","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://kpmg.com/au/en/media/media-releases/2025/11/australian-major-banks-post-steady-fy25-results.html","l":"KPMG Australia: media release on the major banks’ FY25 results, 10 November 2025","t":2},"24":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2026/macquarie-banks-response-to-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: “Macquarie Bank’s response to the RBA’s interest rate decision”, media release, 29 September 2026, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"25":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/everyday-banking/term-deposits.html","l":"Macquarie: Term deposits page, Digital Term Deposit rates for deposits of $1 million or under, interest paid at maturity. Live page, fetched 05:17 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"26":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/macquarie-nudges-new-digital-term-deposit-rates-lower","l":"savings.com.au (Denise Raward): “Macquarie nudges new digital term deposit rates lower”, published 5 August 2026, fetched 05:17 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":4},"27":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/home-loans/home-loan-rates.html","l":"Macquarie: Home loan rates page, owner-occupier principal and interest, fixed rates for loans up to 70% of the property value. Live page, fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"28":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/macquarie-fixed-home-loan-rate-increase","l":"Media reports of the dates of Macquarie’s two September fixed-rate rises (secondary; the sizes are from Macquarie’s own pages), all fetched 05:01 AEST, 30 September 2026. savings.com.au (Denise Rawar…","t":4},"29":{"u":"https://www.tmbl.com.au/news-centre/teachers-mutual-bank-announces-increase-interest-rates","l":"Teachers Mutual Bank Limited: announcement of increased interest rates, news centre, dated 29 September 2026, fetched 04:59 AEST, 30 September 2026","t":2},"30":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"The four major banks’ own rate pages, fetched between 04:59 and 05:00 AEST on 30 September 2026. CBA home loans","t":2},"31":{"u":"https://www.ausbanking.org.au/news/","l":"Australian Banking Association: news page","t":2},"32":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/rate-announcement.html","l":"Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): home loan rate announcement page","t":2},"33":{"u":"https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2026/30-september/","l":"Westpac: media release, “Westpac announces interest rate changes”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"34":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/news/interest-rates/nab-announces-home-loan-interest-rate-changes","l":"NAB: news release, “NAB announces home loan interest rate changes”, headed “30 September”, and listed as 30 September 2026 in Related Articles on NAB’s older home loan rate page (below)","t":2},"35":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/newsroom/media/2026/september/anz-changes-variable-home-loan-rates/","l":"ANZ: media release, “ANZ changes variable home loan rates”, dated 30 September 2026","t":2},"36":{"u":"https://www.ausbanking.org.au/news/","l":"Australian Banking Association: news page","t":2},"37":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f5-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F5, indicator lending rates","t":1},"38":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/credit-cards/card-updates","l":"NAB: “Credit card changes from 1 October 2026”","t":2},"39":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/personal/credit-cards/card-changes/","l":"ANZ: credit card changes page","t":2},"40":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/anz-macquarie-cutting-fixed-rates/","l":"Canstar (Laine Gordon), “ANZ, Macquarie go against the tide, cutting fixed rates: could we be at the peak?”, 5 June 2026","t":4},"41":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/bank-accounts/savings-accounts","l":"NAB: savings accounts page","t":2},"42":{"u":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260327050611id_/https://www.nab.com.au/personal/bank-accounts/savings-accounts","l":"NAB savings rate history. Archived copies of NAB’s savings accounts page: 27 March 2026","t":2},"43":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/interest-rates-fees-and-charges/indicator-rates-selected-term-deposit-products","l":"NAB: term deposit indicator rates","t":2},"44":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/savings-rate-announcement.html","l":"CBA: savings rates announcement","t":2},"45":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/productdata/productdata.asp?output=json&country=AU&section=PDA&subsection=","l":"ANZ: product rate feed","t":2},"46":{"u":"https://www.ubank.com.au/banking/savings-account","l":"Ubank pages, read in a browser between 1:55 pm and 1:56 pm AEDT, 4 October 2026. Savings account","t":2},"47":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/home-loans/nab-fixed-rate-home-loan","l":"NAB: fixed rate home loan page","t":2},"48":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/nab-cuts-fixed-home-loan-rates","l":"NAB’s 22 July fixed-rate cut. Savings.com.au, news article published 22 July 2026","t":4}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/rba-pays-the-banks","title":"What the Reserve Bank pays the banks","href":"/article/inflation-rort/rba-pays-the-banks","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-09-29","refCount":12,"secs":["How the Bank pays interest on reserves","What it paid","Why the balances were so large","The Term Funding Facility","Who carried the loss","The other side"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"RBA: Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026, 14:30 AEST","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-so-2026-08-25.html","l":"RBA: David Jacobs, Head of Domestic Markets, ‘The Road to Ample’, 25 August 2026","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2025/sp-ag-2025-04-02.html","l":"RBA: Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor, 2 April 2025","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/how-rba-implements-monetary-policy.html","l":"RBA: explainer, How the RBA implements monetary policy (undated)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2020/operations-in-financial-markets.html","l":"RBA: history of the Exchange Settlement rate. Annual Report 2020, operations in financial markets","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2023/pdf/notes.pdf","l":"RBA: Annual Reports 2023, 2024 and 2025, Note 4 (interest)","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2025/pdf/rba-annual-report-2025-part-3.pdf","l":"RBA: Annual Report 2025, Part 3 (part 3.4)","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2024/sp-ag-2024-04-02.html","l":"RBA: Christopher Kent, 2 April 2024","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/mkt-operations/term-funding-facility/","l":"RBA: Term Funding Facility","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2024/sp-ag-2024-10-09.html","l":"RBA: Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor, ‘A Review of the RBA’s Term Funding Facility’, 9 October 2024","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2022/sp-dg-2022-09-21.html","l":"RBA: Michele Bullock, then Deputy Governor, ‘Review of the Bond Purchase Program’, 21 September 2022","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/rba/2022/earnings-distribution-and-capital.html","l":"RBA: Annual Reports 2022 to 2025, earnings, distribution and capital","t":1}}},{"id":"inflation-rort/is-it-the-only-way","title":"Is it the only way?","href":"/article/inflation-rort/is-it-the-only-way","caseLabel":"The Inflation Rort","caseHref":"/case/inflation-rort","date":"2026-09-29","refCount":63,"secs":["One instrument, by law","The Budget’s own sentence, and the referee beside it","Gas at home: the price that held","Fuel: cut, then reversed","Electricity: rebates move measured inflation both ways","Competition levers","APRA’s levers","The profit-side levers: what was not used","What other countries did","Proposals on the table","The case against the alternatives"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: cash rate table","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-27.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026, 2.30 pm AEST","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-02-03.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Governor’s media conference transcripts, 3 February 2026 and 5 May 2026","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/pdf/acts/20240096.pdf","l":"Treasury Laws Amendment (Reserve Bank Reforms) Act 2024 (assented 29 November 2024, in force 1 March 2025, s 9B and s 8AA)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/sp-ag-2026-07-08-q-and-a-transcript.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter, question and answer transcript, 8 July 2026","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/the-transmission-of-monetary-policy.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: explainer, The Transmission of Monetary 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Quarterly Energy Dynamics Q1 2026 (April 2026) and Q2 2026 (July 2026)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/gas-inquiry-june-2026-interim-report_1.pdf","l":"ACCC: Gas Inquiry 2017-2030, June 2026 interim update, 10 July 2026","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/gas-price-cap-take-effect","l":"Acting Treasurer and Minister for Climate Change and Energy: media release, gas price cap to take effect, 22 December 2022","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/markets/gas-markets/gas-market-code","l":"DCCEEW: Gas Market Code, updated 22 December 2025","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/gas-market-review-report.pdf","l":"DCCEEW and DISR: Gas Market Review Report, December 2025","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/markets/gas-markets/gas-market-review-reforms","l":"DCCEEW: Gas market review reforms, updated 10 September 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Savings account","t":2},"21":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/interest-rates-fees-and-charges/home-loan-interest-rates","l":"NAB: home loan interest rates page","t":2},"22":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nabrwd/documents/terms-and-conditions/loans/home-loan-general-terms.pdf","l":"NAB: Home Loan General Terms, the edition on NAB’s site on 4 October 2026 (footer “©2024 National Australia Bank Limited ... A164714-1024”)","t":2},"23":{"u":"https://www.brokernews.com.au/news/breaking-news/nab-and-anz-lift-fixed-rates-as-rba-decision-day-draws-near-289987.aspx","l":"Australian Broker (brokernews.com.au; Mina Martin), 17 September 2026","t":4},"24":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/help-support/personal-banking/manage-home-loan/interest-repayment-changes","l":"NAB: help page on interest and repayment changes","t":2},"25":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-30/asx-markets-business-live-news/107210136","l":"ABC News live blog, 30 September 2026","t":3},"26":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2026/aug/overview.html","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Statement on Monetary Policy, August 2026. Overview","t":1},"27":{"u":"https://www.mpamag.com/au/mortgage-industry/market-updates/cba-westpac-nab-anz-pass-rba-rate-rise-in-full/591867","l":"Mortgage Professional Australia (Mina Martin), 1 October 2026","t":4},"28":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-02/asx-markets-business-news-live-updates/107136842","l":"ABC News live blog, 2 October 2026","t":3},"29":{"u":"https://tradingeconomics.com/australia/3-year-note-yield","l":"Trading Economics, Australia 3-year and 2-year bond yield pages","t":5},"30":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/pile-on-for-fixed-rate-hikes-as-westpac-joins-the-club/","l":"Canstar, news article of 18 September 2026","t":4},"31":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/cba-hikes-fixed-rates-almost-2-standard-rba-hikes/","l":"Canstar, news article of 22 September 2026","t":4},"32":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/macquarie-hikes-fixed-rates-twice-in-three-weeks/","l":"Canstar, news article of 24 September 2026","t":4},"33":{"u":"https://www.brokernews.com.au/news/breaking-news/fixed-rate-uturn-13-lenders-lift-312-rates-before-rba-call-290069.aspx","l":"Australian Broker (brokernews.com.au), 29 September 2026","t":4},"34":{"u":"https://www.savings.com.au/news/macquarie-fixed-home-loan-rate-increase","l":"Macquarie’s fixed rates. Savings.com.au, published 8 September 2026","t":4},"35":{"u":"https://api.commbank.com.au/public/cds-au/v1/banking/products/cb2ddd5cbeb14704a9e20bcc2b78bb82","l":"Open-banking (Consumer Data Right) product data and bank pages, fetched 3 October 2026. The open-banking addresses below answer only a request that names a Consumer Data Right version, so a browser o…","t":2},"36":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/business/rba-interest-rate-rise-threatens-cba-westpac-and-nab-profits-as-australian-mortgage-and-house-prices-weaken-c-22917765","l":"The Nightly, 24 September 2026","t":3},"37":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/interest-rates-fees-and-charges/indicator-rates-selected-term-deposit-products","l":"NAB: term deposit indicator rates","t":2},"38":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Retail-deposits-inquiry-final-report.pdf","l":"ACCC: Retail deposits inquiry, final report (December 2023)","t":1},"39":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/nab-hikes-variable-rates-stays-silent-for-savers/","l":"Canstar, 18 March 2026","t":4},"40":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/cash-rate/","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: cash rate target table","t":1},"41":{"u":"https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2026/30-september/","l":"Westpac: media release, 30 September 2026","t":2},"42":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/news/savings-rate-announcement.html","l":"CBA: savings rates announcement","t":2},"43":{"u":"https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/first-major-lender-passes-rate-050843901.html","l":"Yahoo Finance (NewsWire; Micallef and Fryer), published 6:31 pm AEST, 1 October 2026","t":5},"44":{"u":"https://www.macquarie.com.au/help/personal/home-loans/understanding-your-home-loan-interest-rates-and-fees/viewing-the-rba-interest-rate-decision.html","l":"Macquarie: RBA decision help page","t":2},"45":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/productdata/productdata.asp?output=json&country=AU&section=PDA&subsection=","l":"ANZ: product rate feed","t":2},"46":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/westpac-nab-and-anz-announce-rate-hikes/","l":"Canstar (Laine Gordon), 30 September 2026","t":4},"47":{"u":"https://www.commbank.com.au/banking/term-deposits.html","l":"Twelve-month term deposits, pages fetched 14:23 AEDT, 4 October 2026. CBA","t":2},"48":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nab/documents/reports/corporate/2025-full-year-results-summary.pdf","l":"NAB results documents, fetched 12:23 AEST, 3 October 2026. 2025 full year results summary","t":1},"49":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/content/dam/nab/documents/reports/corporate/2026-half-year-results-investor-presentation.pdf","l":"NAB: 2026 Half Year Results investor presentation","t":1},"50":{"u":"https://www.apra.gov.au/quarterly-authorised-deposit-taking-institution-performance-statistics-june-2026-highlights","l":"APRA: Quarterly authorised deposit-taking institution performance statistics, June 2026 highlights, “Published 17 September 2026”","t":1},"51":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/about-us/shareholder-centre/financial-calendar","l":"NAB: financial calendar","t":2},"52":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/ACCC%20Home%20Loan%20Price%20Inquiry%20-%20Interim%20report%20-%2030%20March%202020.pdf","l":"ACCC: Home loan price inquiry, interim report (provided to the Treasurer on 30 March 2020, published 27 April 2020)","t":1},"53":{"u":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260810105447if_/https://www.nab.com.au/personal/credit-cards/card-updates","l":"NAB card notices, earlier copies, and Canstar. Archived copy of NAB’s card-updates page taken 10 August 2026, 8:54 pm AEST","t":2},"54":{"u":"https://web.archive.org/web/20231209221813id_/https://www.nab.com.au/personal/credit-cards/nab-rewards-cards","l":"NAB card rates before 2026. Archived NAB rewards cards page of 9 December 2023","t":2},"55":{"u":"https://www.anz.com.au/personal/credit-cards/card-changes/","l":"Other banks’ card rates, fetched 15:01 AEDT, 4 October 2026. ANZ","t":2},"56":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/statistics/tables/csv/f5-data.csv","l":"Reserve Bank of Australia: Table F5, indicator lending rates","t":1},"57":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A00109/2026-09-16/2026-09-16/text/original/epub/OEBPS/document_1/document_1.html","l":"Legislation, current compilations on legislation.gov.au, fetched 12:35 AEST, 3 October 2026. Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (compilation of 16 September 2026): section 46","t":1},"58":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/supermarket-price-gouging-will-be-banned-from-july-will-consumers-actually-end-up-better-off-272060","l":"The Conversation, “Published: December 17, 2025”","t":3},"59":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-31/nt-revives-1940s-law-overrule-fuel-prices-regulate-gouging/106516720","l":"ABC News, 31 March 2026","t":3},"60":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s1430","l":"Parliament of Australia, bill page","t":1},"61":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/mortgage-pricing-not-strongly-competitive","l":"ACCC records of Treasurer directions, read in a browser between 12:41 and 12:43 AEST, 3 October 2026: “On 9 May 2017 the Treasurer, the Hon. Scott Morrison MP, issued a direction to the ACCC to inqui…","t":1},"62":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/andrew-leigh-2025/media-releases/banning-unfair-trading-tricks-and-traps","l":"Treasury ministers, media release, 1 April 2026","t":1},"63":{"u":"https://www.canstar.com.au/news/fourth-cash-rate-hike-what-borrowers-need-to-know/","l":"Canstar","t":4},"64":{"u":"https://www.ausbanking.org.au/banking-code/2025-banking-code-of-practice-screen-reader-friendly/","l":"Australian Banking Association: Banking Code of Practice (2025)","t":2},"65":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/news/economy-markets/rba-watch-nab-expects-rba-to-hike-in-sept","l":"NAB, “RBA Watch: NAB now expects the RBA to hike in September” (Monetary Policy Update, 27 August 2026)","t":2},"66":{"u":"https://www.nab.com.au/personal/bank-accounts/savings-accounts","l":"NAB: savings accounts page","t":2}}},{"id":"media-ownership/who-owns-australian-media","title":"Who owns the news you think you’re reading","href":"/article/media-ownership/who-owns-australian-media","caseLabel":"Media Ownership","caseHref":"/case/media-ownership","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":24,"secs":["Three companies. Most of Australia’s news.","The Murdoch Machine","Nine Entertainment: the ‘other’ concentration","Kerry Stokes: the conflict you haven’t heard about","This didn’t happen by accident","The ABC: publicly funded, systematically attacked","Who is doing the work","Why The Rort exists"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media_in_Australia","l":"Wikipedia: Mass media in Australia","t":5},"4":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corp_Australia","l":"Wikipedia: News Corp Australia","t":5},"14":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/kerry-stokes/","l":"Michael West Media: Kerry Stokes profile","t":3},"17":{"u":"https://www.uts.edu.au/news/2025/10/the-australian-media-is-more-concentrated-than-ever-here-are-the-3-moments-that-got-us-here","l":"UTS News: ‘The Australian media is more concentrated than ever’ (October 2025)","t":4},"21":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=s527","l":"Parliament of Australia, \"Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006\" (bill home page)","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/crossmedia/report/c02","l":"Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, report on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 and related bills, Chapter 2, \"Media Owner…","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2017A00113","l":"Federal Register of Legislation, \"Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Act 2017\" (C2017A00113)","t":1},"24":{"u":"https://www.sevengroup.com.au/our-businesses/beach-energy","l":"Seven Group Holdings: Beach Energy (our businesses)"}}},{"id":"media-ownership/kerry-stokes-mining-media","title":"The mining company that owns your news","href":"/article/media-ownership/kerry-stokes-mining-media","caseLabel":"Media Ownership","caseHref":"/case/media-ownership","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":19,"secs":["Who is Kerry Stokes, and what does he actually own?","The non-media assets, in plain language","The structural conflicts that define coverage","The Fortescue case: when the conflict became a formal complaint","The Ben Roberts-Smith case","The ‘Dark Companies’ problem","‘The man who really runs the state’","The rort"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/kerry-stokes/","l":"Michael West Media: Kerry Stokes profile","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.alphaspread.com/security/asx/svw/summary","l":"AlphaSpread: Seven Group Holdings (SVW) ASX financial summary","t":"X"},"6":{"u":"https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/seven-group-holdings-small-cap-quality-with-three-strengthening-themes","l":"Fundsquire: Seven Group Holdings analysis","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/billionaire-stoush-over-alleged-media-bias-highlights-the-need-for-greater-media-diversity-200354","l":"The Conversation: Billionaire stoush over alleged media bias","t":3},"9":{"u":"https://mumbrella.com.au/andrew-forrest-vs-kerry-stokes-escalated-to-minister-for-alleged-misuse-of-media-775992","l":"Mumbrella: Forrest vs Stokes escalated to minister","t":4},"12":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Roberts-Smith","l":"Wikipedia: Ben Roberts-Smith","t":5},"19":{"u":"https://www.sevengroup.com.au/our-businesses/beach-energy","l":"Seven Group Holdings: Beach Energy (our businesses)"}}},{"id":"media-ownership/property-platform-owns-your-news","title":"The property platform that owned your property reporter","href":"/article/media-ownership/property-platform-owns-your-news","caseLabel":"Media Ownership","caseHref":"/case/media-ownership","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":16,"secs":["The scale of the problem, in plain numbers","News Corp: from listing to mortgage","Nine Entertainment and Domain: the same story, then sold","What the coverage looked like, and what it missed","The policy debate the owners had the most to lose from","The data harvest you agreed to","The rort"],"refs":{"4":{"u":"https://www.marketindex.com.au/asx/rea","l":"Market Index: REA Group Ltd (ASX:REA)","t":"X"},"6":{"u":"https://investors.costargroup.com/news-releases/news-release-details/costar-group-enters-binding-agreement-acquire-leading-australian","l":"CoStar Group: Binding agreement to acquire Domain Holdings","t":2},"9":{"u":"https://www.pbo.gov.au/publications-and-data/publications/costings/cost-negative-gearing-and-capital-gains-tax-discount","l":"Parliamentary Budget Office, \"Cost of Negative Gearing and Capital Gains Tax Discount\" (July 2024)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.maxchandlermather.com/new_pbo_analysis_finds_negative_gearing_and_capital_gains_discount_will_cost_165_billion_over_the_decade","l":"Max Chandler-Mather: PBO analysis: $165 billion cost over the decade","t":2},"11":{"u":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-09/costar-agrees-to-buy-real-estate-portal-domain-for-1-92-billion","l":"Bloomberg: CoStar agrees to buy Domain for A$3 billion","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/tax-forgone-from-negative-gearing-capital-gains-tax-concessions-set-to-double-c-21927607","l":"The Nightly, \"Tax forgone from negative gearing, capital gains tax concessions set to double\"","t":3},"15":{"u":"https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/cgt-discount-now-quarter-trillion-dollar-rort","l":"Australian Greens, \"CGT discount now a quarter trillion dollar rort\" (media release)","t":2},"16":{"u":"https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1564708/000156470826000175/nws-20260630.htm","l":"News Corp, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2026 (filed with the US SEC)"}}},{"id":"media-ownership/sky-news-regional-capture","title":"Sky News and the regional capture","href":"/article/media-ownership/sky-news-regional-capture","caseLabel":"Media Ownership","caseHref":"/case/media-ownership","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":10,"secs":["What Sky News Australia actually is","How it got into regional living rooms","The information equity problem","What regional Australians are being served","A tale of two Australias","The rebrand nobody is talking about: News24","The rort"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_News_Australia","l":"Wikipedia: Sky News Australia","t":5},"2":{"u":"https://tvblackbox.com.au/page/2025/07/14/network-ten-signs-new-agreement-to-keep-sky-news-regional-on-free-to-air/","l":"TV Blackbox: Network 10 signs new agreement to keep Sky News Regional on free-to-air","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.paramountanz.com.au/news/network-10-and-sky-news-enter-multi-year-content-distribution-agreement/","l":"Paramount Australia: Network 10 and Sky News multi-year content agreement","t":2},"4":{"u":"https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/02/media/sky-news-australia-youtube-suspension-intl-hnk/index.html","l":"CNN: YouTube suspended Sky News Australia for COVID misinformation","t":3},"6":{"u":"https://www.niemanlab.org/reading/sky-news-australia-is-a-global-hub-for-climate-misinformation-report-says","l":"Nieman Journalism Lab: Sky News Australia is a global hub for climate misinformation","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_News_Australia#Rebrand","l":"Wikipedia: News24 rebrand","t":5}}},{"id":"media-ownership/revolving-door-politics-media","title":"The revolving door between politics and media","href":"/article/media-ownership/revolving-door-politics-media","caseLabel":"Media Ownership","caseHref":"/case/media-ownership","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":13,"secs":["Case 1: The Minister Who Changed the Laws","Case 2: The Minister Who Regulated, Then Lobbied, Then Broadcast, Then Boarded","Case 3: From the Prime Minister’s Office to Primetime","Case 4: The News Corp Executive Who Cycled Through the ABC and Then Nine","Case 5: The Nine CEO Who Now Runs the ABC","The regulatory gap: 18 months, and almost no rules","Why this matters more than it looks"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Coonan","l":"Wikipedia: Helen Coonan","t":5},"7":{"u":"https://www.c21media.net/peter-tonagh-nine-entertainment-board","l":"C21 Media: Peter Tonagh: News Corp, Foxtel, REA, ABC Board, Nine board sequence","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://if.com.au/hugh-marks-appointed-abc-managing-director","l":"IF Magazine: Hugh Marks ABC appointment December 2024","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6366092/liberal-fundraiser-a-mistake-says-nine/","l":"Canberra Times: Liberal fundraiser ‘a mistake’, says Nine","t":3},"10":{"u":"https://publicintegrity.org.au/research_papers/closing-the-revolving-door/","l":"Centre for Public Integrity: Closing the revolving door","t":4},"13":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/crossmedia/report/c02","l":"Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, report on the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006 and related bills, Chapter 2, \"Media Owner…","t":1}}},{"id":"media-ownership/501876-signatures-nothing-happened","title":"501,876 signatures and nothing happened","href":"/article/media-ownership/501876-signatures-nothing-happened","caseLabel":"Media Ownership","caseHref":"/case/media-ownership","date":"2026-03-31","refCount":14,"secs":["The petition: what it called for and why","The Senate inquiry: what it found","What happened next: a timeline of inaction","This is not the first time: a pattern forty years old","Why nothing ever happens: the fear factor","The Murdoch meeting","What would actually change things","The end of the series. The beginning of the watchdog."],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/kevin-rudd-news-corp-petition-royal-commission/","l":"Pedestrian.tv: Rudd petition 501,876 signatures","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/09/media/australia-murdoch-media-diversity-intl-hnk","l":"CNN: Senate inquiry report December 2021","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Mediadiversity","l":"Parliament of Australia: Senate media diversity inquiry","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/10-years-after-finkelstein-media-accountability-has-gone-backwards-159530","l":"The Conversation: 10 years after Finkelstein, media accountability has gone backwards","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=f9e3c3cc-3f1d-4ff6-a6d7-82160447ec01","l":"Australian Government: Response to Senate Media Diversity Inquiry, August 2024. /sites/therort/assets/documents/government-response-media-diversity-inquiry-2024.pdf. Government ‘noted’ every recommen…","t":1}}},{"id":"media-ownership/the-levy-designed-to-raise-nothing","title":"The levy that was designed to raise nothing","href":"/article/media-ownership/the-levy-designed-to-raise-nothing","caseLabel":"Media Ownership","caseHref":"/case/media-ownership","date":"2026-09","refCount":16,"secs":["A gap built to be closed","The rate that climbed twice, and the base that narrowed","What the industry got changed","Who pays, and what is carved out","A promise to return it, and a promise to still raise it","The pushback, and what hasn't happened since"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://storage.googleapis.com/files-au-treasury/treasury/p/prj38f28c23f2accd6993e91/page/c2025_718159.pdf","l":"Treasury, 'News Bargaining Incentive: Consultation paper' (November 2025). Supports the announcement date, the zero-net-revenue design intent, the 2021 code's reach and its historical deal value, and…","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.thedailyaus.com.au/politics/news-bargaining-incentive-03-08-2026","l":"The Daily Aus, 'Tech giants face new News Bargaining Incentive levy' (3 August 2026). Supports the as-introduced design and the 'raise a similar amount' government framing.","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://kpmg.com/us/en/taxnewsflash/news/2026/09/australia-enactment-news-media-bargaining-incentive-law-targeting-large-digital-platforms.html","l":"KPMG, 'Australia: Enactment of news media bargaining incentive law targeting large digital platforms' (September 2026). Supports the assent date, the enacted rate and threshold, and the financial-yea…","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://www.mediaweek.com.au/labor-retreats-on-tech-levy-after-media-backlash","l":"Mediaweek, 'Labor retreats on tech levy after media backlash' (12 August 2026). Supports the cap, publisher-count and look-back changes, the AAP earmark, and Mulino's quote.","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://thenextweb.com/news/australia-news-bargaining-incentive-passes-parliament","l":"TheNextWeb, 'Meta, Google, TikTok, and LinkedIn now face an Australian news law whether they carry news or not' (20 August 2026). Supports the platform list, the AI exclusion and the free trade agree…","t":4},"14":{"u":"https://www.bandt.com.au/not-the-role-of-platforms-to-pay-to-rescue-public-interest-journalism-meta-slams-news-bargaining-incentive/","l":"B&T, Meta submission quotes (4 June 2026). Supports Meta's direct, verbatim opposition to the scheme.","t":4}}},{"id":"nature-rort/one-project-zero-certificates","title":"The pay-to-clear switch: national approvals wired to an offset market with three projects and zero certificates","href":"/article/nature-rort/one-project-zero-certificates","caseLabel":"The Nature Rort","caseHref":"/case/nature-rort","date":"2026-07","refCount":7,"secs":["The entire market is three projects in New South Wales","In 2023 the certificates were banned from offsetting. In 2025 the ban was quietly written out.","The supply cannot exist before 2027. The demand is scheduled for 2026.","Pathway 2: write the cheque, clear the habitat","The people who build these markets say this one is not built","The switch, and who is standing under it"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.claytonutz.com/insights/2026/may/biodiversity-offsets-under-scrutiny-in-nature-repair-market-consultation","l":"Clayton Utz, 'Biodiversity offsets under scrutiny in Nature Repair Market consultation' (May 2026)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://www.minterellison.com/articles/offsets-restoration-contributions-and-net-gain","l":"MinterEllison, 'Offsets, restoration contributions and net gain' (2026)","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.claytonutz.com/insights/2026/june/epbc-act-reforms-and-national-epa-commencing-soon-what-proponents-need-to-know-from-1-july-2026","l":"Clayton Utz, 'EPBC Act reforms and national EPA commencing soon: what proponents need to know from 1 July 2026' (June 2026)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://biodiversitycouncil.org.au/resources/submission-to-the-nature-repair-market-ongoing-development","l":"Biodiversity Council Australia, 'Submission to the Nature Repair Market: Ongoing development' (May 2026)","t":2},"6":{"u":"https://cer.gov.au/markets/reports-and-data/biodiversity-market-register","l":"Clean Energy Regulator, Biodiversity Market Register (fetched live 9 September 2026 and again 8 October 2026, when it read 'Last updated 2 October 2026')","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform/stronger-environmental-protection-restoration","l":"DCCEEW, 'Stronger environmental protection and restoration' (last updated 24 August 2026)","t":2}}},{"id":"nature-rort/two-paddocks-and-a-deadline","title":"Two paddocks and a deadline","href":"/article/nature-rort/two-paddocks-and-a-deadline","caseLabel":"The Nature Rort","caseHref":"/case/nature-rort","date":"2026-09","refCount":14,"secs":["The government's own timeline, in the government's own words","Two paddocks, not one, and still zero certificates","No method yet turns a certificate into an offset","The one channel available now has an empowered minister and nothing else","The Standard has three official dates, one day apart each","Approvals keep moving regardless","What this desk checked and could not stand behind"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/epbc/epbc-act-reform/stronger-environmental-protection-restoration","l":"DCCEEW, \"Stronger environmental protection and restoration\" (last updated 24 August 2026)","t":2},"4":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/about/news/new-environmental-standards-available-as-more-reforms-begin","l":"DCCEEW, news article (24 August 2026, last updated 25 August 2026)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://cer.gov.au/markets/reports-and-data/biodiversity-market-register","l":"Clean Energy Regulator, Biodiversity Market Register (fetched live 9 September 2026)","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.dcceew.gov.au/about/news/nature-repair-market-gains-momentum","l":"DCCEEW, \"Nature Repair Market gains momentum\" (28 May 2026)","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/watt/media-releases/joint-media-release-significant-milestone-achieved-supply-new-homes","l":"Ministers Watt and O'Neil, joint media release (21 August 2026)","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.nationalepa.gov.au/about/news/all","l":"National Environmental Protection Agency, \"All news\" listing (as read 9 September 2026)","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://cer.gov.au/markets/reports-and-data/biodiversity-market-register","l":"Clean Energy Regulator, Biodiversity Market Register (read 8 October 2026; page reads 'Last updated 2 October 2026')","t":1}}},{"id":"pork-barrel/the-only-golf-club","title":"The only golf club","href":"/article/pork-barrel/the-only-golf-club","caseLabel":"The Pork Barrel","caseHref":"/case/pork-barrel","date":"2026-09","refCount":6,"secs":["The question","The fund","The rule that ended a ministry","Ten September","The pattern"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-09/albanese-undeclared-honorary-membership-marrickville-golf-club/107130762","l":"ABC News (Jake Evans), ‘report on Anthony Albanese’s undeclared honorary membership of Marrickville Golf Club’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-when-whats-good-for-the-goose-is-not-okay-for-the-gander-290829","l":"The Conversation (Michelle Grattan), ‘column on the Marrickville Golf Club grant and the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-10/federal-politics-live-blog-grants/107135214","l":"ABC News, ‘federal politics live blog covering the 10 September Question Time exchanges’ (10 September 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://www.anao.gov.au/work/request/major-and-local-community-infrastructure-program-and-supporting-multicultural-communities-program","l":"Australian National Audit Office, request for audit, \"Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program, and Supporting Multicultural Communities Program\" (September 2026)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport/MLCIP2026","l":"Parliament of Australia, Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, inquiry into the \"Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program\" (referred 14 September 2026)","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-07/marrickville-golf-club-five-additional-grants/107237400","l":"ABC News, \"Marrickville Golf Club received closed non-competitive grants on five past occasions\" (7 October 2026)","t":3}}},{"id":"prison-contract-rort/every-failure-and-no-price","title":"Every failure listed, none priced","href":"/article/prison-contract-rort/every-failure-and-no-price","caseLabel":"The Prison Contract Rort","caseHref":"/case/prison-contract-rort","date":"2026-09","refCount":17,"secs":["What the deed prices","The two years anyone can see","What happened when Parliament asked","The mechanism to watch: the law asks for a report, not a number","The recommendation that is still Partially Achieved","The last report before the gate closes","What ends, and what runs to 2040"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://inspectorcustodial.nsw.gov.au/documents/inspection-reports/Parklea_CC_report_JUN22.pdf","l":"inspectorcustodial.nsw.gov.au","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/files/191883/ICS%20Annual%20Report%202024-25%20-%2030OCT25.pdf","l":"parliament.nsw.gov.au","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/lcdocs/other/16934/Responses%20to%20Questions%20on%20Notice.pdf","l":"parliament.nsw.gov.au","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.nsw.gov.au/ministerial-releases/minns-labor-government-to-bring-parklea-correctional-centre-back-into-public-hands","l":"nsw.gov.au","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://dcj.nsw.gov.au/documents/resource-centre/annual-reports/dcj-2023-24-annual-report-volume-1.pdf","l":"dcj.nsw.gov.au","t":1}}},{"id":"privacy-rort/one-penalty","title":"One penalty","href":"/article/privacy-rort/one-penalty","caseLabel":"The Privacy Rort","caseHref":"/case/privacy-rort","date":"2026-09","refCount":12,"secs":["What the law requires","Who can fine","The ledger","Two open, one traded","The regulator’s resources","Enforced once"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/data-breach-notifications-increase-to-all-time-high-in-2025,-new-ndb-stats-show","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/australian-clinical-labs-ordered-to-pay-penalties-in-relation-to-medlab-pathology-data-breach-in-first-for-privacy-act","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/annual-report-highlights-oaics-work-on-privacy-and-information-access-rights-and-strengthened-regulatory-approach","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/australian-information-commissioner-takes-civil-penalty-action-against-optus","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/landmark-settlement-of-$50m-from-meta-for-australian-users-impacted-by-cambridge-analytica-incident","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.corrs.com.au/insights/changes-to-australias-privacy-act-bolster-enforcement-and-investigative-powers","l":"corrs.com.au","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://www.atmosgroup.com.au/resources/the-privacy-commissioner-the-infringement-notice-and-the-low-tier-civil-penalty","l":"atmosgroup.com.au","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/oaic-takes-civil-penalty-action-against-medibank","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.slatergordon.com.au/class-actions/current-class-actions/optus-data-breach","l":"slatergordon.com.au","t":4},"10":{"u":"https://www.innovationaus.com/oaic-slashes-staff-to-meet-11m-budget-crunch/","l":"innovationaus.com","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://idm.net.au/article/0015590-funding-squeeze-hits-oaic-privacy-reforms-land","l":"idm.net.au","t":4},"12":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2022A00083/asmade/2022-12-12/text/original/pdf","l":"legislation.gov.au"}}},{"id":"privacy-rort/nearly-five-years","title":"Nearly five years","href":"/article/privacy-rort/nearly-five-years","caseLabel":"The Privacy Rort","caseHref":"/case/privacy-rort","date":"2026-09","refCount":21,"secs":["The clock","Who can impose a civil penalty","How the rest ended","What a finding looks like","One penalty, and what is still open"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/privacy-commissioner-finds-against-optus-in-white-pages-breach","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/landmark-settlement-of-$50m-from-meta-for-australian-users-impacted-by-cambridge-analytica-incident","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/joint-australianew-zealand-investigation-into-latitude-group","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.privacy.org.nz/tuhono-connect/statements-media-releases/new-zealand-australia-investigation-into-latitude-breach-begins/","l":"privacy.org.nz","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/oaic-takes-civil-penalty-action-against-medibank","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/representative-complaints","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/australian-information-commissioner-takes-civil-penalty-action-against-optus","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-assessments-and-decisions/privacy-decisions/enforceable-undertakings/meta-platforms-inc-enforceable-undertaking","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.slatergordon.com.au/class-actions/current-class-actions/optus-data-breach","l":"slatergordon.com.au","t":4},"10":{"u":"https://www.mlex.com/mlex/articles/2421321/optus-class-action-regulatory-cases-over-australian-data-breach-to-be-heard-in-2027","l":"mlex.com","t":4},"11":{"u":"https://www.mlex.com/mlex/articles/2485551/optus-data-breach-class-allowed-to-intervene-in-australian-watchdog-s-case","l":"mlex.com","t":4},"12":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-the-OAIC/our-regulatory-approach/privacy-regulatory-action-policy","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/statement-on-medisecure-data-breach-september-2024","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/privacy-commissioner-completes-preliminary-inquiries-into-qantas-2025-data-incident","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/statement-on-clearview-ai","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/vinomofo-did-not-protect-personal-information-from-security-risks,-privacy-commissioner-finds","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/australian-privacy-commissioner-orders-american-express-australia-limited-to-compensate-complainant-following-interference-in-privacy","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/privacy-commissioner-finds-privacy-breaches-in-third-party-tracking-pixel-investigation","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://aapnews.aap.com.au/news/medibank-loses-bid-to-stop-information-commission-probe","l":"aapnews.aap.com.au","t":3},"20":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/oaics-action-in-relation-to-the-2023-latitude-data-breach-and-information-to-update-and-assist-individuals","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2026/09/building-stronger-optus","l":"optus.com.au"}}},{"id":"privacy-rort/promised-in-2019","title":"Promised in 2019","href":"/article/privacy-rort/promised-in-2019","caseLabel":"The Privacy Rort","caseHref":"/case/privacy-rort","date":"2026-10","refCount":16,"secs":["The 2019 promise","A penalty promise before the promise","Three tiers, prospective only","The second round","Right of reply","Newer than every data breach"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Digital%20platforms%20inquiry%20-%20final%20report.pdf","l":"accc.gov.au"},"2":{"u":"https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-12/Government-Response-p2019-41708.pdf","l":"treasury.gov.au"},"3":{"u":"https://treasury.gov.au/publication/p2019-41708","l":"treasury.gov.au"},"4":{"u":"https://consultations.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/privacy-reform/","l":"consultations.ag.gov.au"},"5":{"u":"https://consultations.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/privacy-reform/user_uploads/exposure-draft-bill-2026.pdf","l":"consultations.ag.gov.au","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/australian-clinical-labs-ordered-to-pay-penalties-in-relation-to-medlab-pathology-data-breach-in-first-for-privacy-act","l":"oaic.gov.au","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2022A00083/asmade/2022-12-12/text/original/pdf","l":"legislation.gov.au"},"8":{"u":"https://www.corrs.com.au/insights/changes-to-australias-privacy-act-bolster-enforcement-and-investigative-powers","l":"corrs.com.au","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2024A00128/asmade/2024-12-10/text/original/pdf","l":"legislation.gov.au"},"10":{"u":"https://www.afsa.gov.au/professionals/resource-hub/penalty-units","l":"afsa.gov.au"},"11":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-centre/privacy-compliance-sweep-to-put-privacy-policies-under-the-spotlight","l":"oaic.gov.au"},"12":{"u":"https://www.oaic.gov.au/news/speeches/paw-2026-iapp-keynote","l":"oaic.gov.au"},"13":{"u":"https://oaic.writemsg.com/em/message/email/view.php?id=1698085&a=57903&k=pJxprds124aaDM1lzMY8aN7-pAxQJW4IiJp1DiDZz5g","l":"oaic.writemsg.com"},"14":{"u":"https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/transcripts/press-conference-blue-room-31-08-2026","l":"ministers.ag.gov.au"},"15":{"u":"https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/publications/government-response-privacy-act-review-report","l":"ag.gov.au"},"16":{"u":"https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/privacy/review-privacy-act-1988","l":"ag.gov.au"}}},{"id":"randwick/beds-not-homes","title":"Beds, not homes","href":"/article/randwick/beds-not-homes","caseLabel":"Randwick","caseHref":"/case/randwick","date":"2026-07","refCount":5,"secs":["The 90 per cent line","What a density bonus actually does","Beds counted against homes","The bypass, and the ask to switch it off","What happens next"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.randwick.nsw.gov.au/about-us/news/news-items/2026/february/wrap-up-from-february-2026-randwick-council-meeting","l":"Randwick City Council, Wrap-up from the February 2026 Randwick council meeting (February 2026)","t":2},"2":{"u":"https://cityhub.com.au/randwick-city-council-student-housing-developments/","l":"City Hub, Randwick City Council student housing developments (2026)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.neighbourhoodmedia.com.au/post/randwick-vs-student-housing","l":"Neighbourhood Media, Randwick vs student housing (2026)","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/pdf/inforce/2025-03-27/epi-2021-0714","l":"NSW Legislation, \"State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021\" (in force version of 27 March 2025)","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/Housing%20SEPP%20consultation%20draft%20frequently%20asked%20questions.pdf","l":"NSW Planning Portal, \"Housing SEPP consultation draft: frequently asked questions\" (2021)","t":1}}},{"id":"randwick/buying-storeys","title":"Buying storeys: how Anzac Parade developers pay for height, and the affordable-housing return is banked as cash","href":"/article/randwick/buying-storeys","caseLabel":"Randwick","caseHref":"/case/randwick","date":"2026-07","refCount":3,"secs":["The corridor with a height dial","Cash instead of keys","The Kensington number, marked estimated","The number nobody has published"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.randwick.nsw.gov.au/about-council/news/news-items/2019/december/kingsford-to-kensington-planning-proposal-given-the-green-light","l":"Randwick City Council, \"Kingsford to Kensington planning proposal given the green light\" (December 2019)","t":2},"2":{"u":"https://www.yoursay.randwick.nsw.gov.au/voluntaryplanningagreements","l":"Randwick City Council, voluntary planning agreements portal (16-18 Rainbow Street, exhibited 16 March to 13 April 2026)","t":2},"3":{"u":"https://www.yoursay.randwick.nsw.gov.au/voluntary-planning-agreement-177-197-anzac-parade-kensington","l":"Randwick City Council, voluntary planning agreement, 177-197 Anzac Parade, Kensington","t":1}}},{"id":"randwick/accepted-then-refused","title":"Accepted in principle, refused in public","href":"/article/randwick/accepted-then-refused","caseLabel":"Randwick","caseHref":"/case/randwick","date":"2026-09","refCount":12,"secs":["The two offers Council accepted in principle","The two refusals the panel handed down sixteen days later","The mechanism to watch, a deemed refusal that moves the decision to the Court","The affordable housing contribution that appears in no published document","What the record says against this reading","Where the two appeals stand, and what we asked Council"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://randwick.infocouncil.biz/Open/2026/07/OC_28072026_MIN_4127_AT.PDF","l":"randwick.infocouncil.biz","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://randwick.infocouncil.biz/Open/2026/08/PPP_13082026_MIN_4283_AT.PDF","l":"randwick.infocouncil.biz","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://randwick.infocouncil.biz/Open/2026/08/PPP_13082026_AGN_4283_AT.PDF","l":"randwick.infocouncil.biz","t":1}}},{"id":"reporting-rort/the-inbox-checked-once-a-day","title":"The inbox checked once a day","href":"/article/reporting-rort/the-inbox-checked-once-a-day","caseLabel":"The Reporting Rort","caseHref":"/case/reporting-rort","date":"2026-09-24","refCount":64,"secs":["What the agent did","Eighty-four days in one lane","The inbox","Up the chain","The dates beside it","What nothing 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\"Consumer Price Index, Australia, September Quarter 2025\"","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/6401.0Main%20Features3Sep%202017?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=6401.0&issue=Sep%202017&num=&view=","l":"Australian Bureau of Statistics, \"6401.0 Consumer Price Index, Australia, Sep 2017\""}}},{"id":"roads-rort/the-model","title":"The model","href":"/article/roads-rort/the-model","caseLabel":"The Roads Rort","caseHref":"/case/roads-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":19,"secs":["How the concession model works","The WestConnex transaction: anatomy of a deal","When the model fails: bankruptcy and consolidation","The risk that isn’t: traffic guarantees and government backstops","The concession model in summary"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WestConnex","l":"Wikipedia: WestConnex (current)","t":5},"2":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/privatising-westconnex-is-the-biggest-waste-of-public-funds-for-corporate-gain-in-australian-history-102790","l":"The Conversation, Chris Standen, \"Privatising WestConnex is the biggest waste of public funds for corporate gain in Australian history\" (2018)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.morningstar.com.au/stocks/asx-income-play-lifts-distribution-forecast","l":"Morningstar: Transurban wide moat analysis (2024)","t":4},"6":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-12/transurban-launches-bid-for-sydney27s-troubled-cross-city-tunn/5086578","l":"ABC News, \"Transurban launches bid for Sydney's troubled Cross City tunnel\" (12 November 2013)","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://www.greenleft.org.au/2021/1320/news/westconnex-privatisation-highway-robbery-massive-scale","l":"Green Left: full Transurban network dominance post-WestConnex","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/investor-centre/04/2014_Annual_Report.pdf","l":"Transurban, \"2014 Transurban Annual Report\" (2014)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-14/cross-city-tunnel-owners-blame-government-for-debt-woes/4958084","l":"ABC News, \"Sydney's Cross City Tunnel enters voluntary administration, blames Government for financial woes\" (14 September 2013)","t":3},"18":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-10/lane-cove-tunnel-sold-for-630-million/428602","l":"ABC News, \"Lane Cove Tunnel sold for $630 million\" (10 May 2010)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/investor-centre/04/TRN021_AR2010_FA_Single_pg.pdf","l":"Transurban, \"Driving growth: 2010 security holder review\" (2010)","t":1}}},{"id":"roads-rort/transurban-the-monopoly","title":"Transurban: the monopoly","href":"/article/roads-rort/transurban-the-monopoly","caseLabel":"The Roads Rort","caseHref":"/case/roads-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":24,"secs":["The network logic","How the monopoly was built","The financial machine","The political infrastructure"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/investor-centre/01/FY25-ASXRelease.pdf","l":"Transurban FY25 results ASX release (August 2025)","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.ibisworld.com/australia/company/transurban-group/9956/","l":"IBISWorld: Transurban toll roads portfolio","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.morningstar.com.au/stocks/asx-income-play-lifts-distribution-forecast","l":"Morningstar: Transurban FY24 wide moat analysis","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://www.greenleft.org.au/2021/1320/news/westconnex-privatisation-highway-robbery-massive-scale","l":"Green Left: Transurban network dominance","t":4},"7":{"u":"https://www.morningstar.com.au/stocks/asx-income-play-lifts-distribution-forecast","l":"Morningstar: concession network synergies explained","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/whither-the-westconnex-cash-berejiklian-buries-tracks-on-transurbans-11bn-toll-road-windfall/","l":"Michael West Media: WestConnex deal and political context","t":3},"16":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/investor-centre/04/2014_Annual_Report.pdf","l":"Transurban, \"2014 Transurban Annual Report\" (2014)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-12/transurban-launches-bid-for-sydney27s-troubled-cross-city-tunn/5086578","l":"ABC News, \"Transurban launches bid for Sydney's troubled Cross City tunnel\" (12 November 2013)","t":3},"18":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-14/cross-city-tunnel-owners-blame-government-for-debt-woes/4958084","l":"ABC News, \"Sydney's Cross City Tunnel enters voluntary administration, blames Government for financial woes\" (14 September 2013)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-10/lane-cove-tunnel-sold-for-630-million/428602","l":"ABC News, \"Lane Cove Tunnel sold for $630 million\" (10 May 2010)","t":3},"20":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/investor-centre/04/TRN021_AR2010_FA_Single_pg.pdf","l":"Transurban, \"Driving growth: 2010 security holder review\" (2010)","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://greens.org.au/vic/news/media-release/transurbans-donations-old-parties-put-mega-toll-roads-question-say-greens","l":"The Australian Greens (Victoria), \"Transurban's donations to old parties put mega toll roads into question, say the Greens\"","t":2},"22":{"u":"https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/com/CEJRTC-213C/C20242025-1CC1/4.2%20Correspondence%20from%20Transurban.pdf","l":"Transurban, letter to the Chair, Clean Economy Jobs, Resources and Transport Committee, Queensland Parliament (2 August 2024)","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/transurban-pdfs/02/corporate-governance/Political_Contributions_Policy_AU.pdf","l":"Transurban, \"Political Contributions Policy (Australia)\"","t":2},"24":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/roads-and-projects/sydney","l":"Transurban, \"Sydney\" (roads and projects)","t":2}}},{"id":"roads-rort/the-fuel-price-cycle","title":"The fuel price cycle","href":"/article/roads-rort/the-fuel-price-cycle","caseLabel":"The Roads Rort","caseHref":"/case/roads-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":19,"secs":["How the cycle works","The market structure","Perth: prices locked a day ahead","The excise: a government toll that also rises automatically","Regional Australia: no cycle, just high prices","Twenty years of monitoring without teeth"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/by-industry/petrol-and-fuel/fuel-and-petrol-monitoring","l":"ACCC: Fuel and petrol monitoring (current, updated December 2025)","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/market-composition-through-australias-evolving-petroleum-industy.pdf","l":"ACCC, \"Market composition through Australia's evolving petroleum industry\""},"4":{"u":"https://www.consumerprotection.wa.gov.au/fuelwatch-and-fuel-prices","l":"Consumer Protection WA, \"FuelWatch and fuel prices\"","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/petrol-and-fuel/petrol-price-cycles-in-the-5-largest-cities","l":"ACCC, \"Petrol price cycles in the 5 largest cities\"","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://espace.curtin.edu.au/handle/20.500.11937/30596","l":"Harry Bloch and Nick Wills-Johnson, \"The shape and frequency of Edgeworth price cycles in an Australian retail gasoline market\", Centre for Research in Applied Economics working paper 201005, Curtin…","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://service.vic.gov.au/find-services/transport-and-driving/servo-saver/help-centre/how-the-fuel-price-cap-works","l":"Service Victoria, \"How the fuel price cap works\" (Servo Saver help centre)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/daily-fuel-price-cap-now-place-stop-price-gouging","l":"Premier of Victoria, \"Daily Fuel Price Cap Now In Place To Stop Price Gouging\" (10 March 2026)","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/new-analysis-on-petrol-price-cycles-shows-how-motorists-can-save-money","l":"ACCC, \"New analysis on petrol price cycles shows how motorists can save money\" (media release, 6 December 2018)","t":1},"19":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/Completed_inquiries/2008-10/fuelwatch_08/interim_report/c04","l":"Senate Standing Committee on Economics, National Fuelwatch inquiry, interim report (2008), chapter 4, \"FuelWatch in Western Australia\"","t":1}}},{"id":"roads-rort/the-political-connections","title":"The political connections","href":"/article/roads-rort/the-political-connections","caseLabel":"The Roads Rort","caseHref":"/case/roads-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":20,"secs":["The donation architecture","Infrastructure Australia: advisory to approval pipeline","The revolving door","The concession terms: commercially confidential","The bipartisan consensus"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.greenleft.org.au/2021/1320/news/westconnex-privatisation-highway-robbery-massive-scale","l":"Green Left, \"WestConnex privatisation is ‘highway robbery on a massive scale’\" (2021)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://www.aec.gov.au/media/2025/01-29c.htm","l":"Australian Electoral Commission, \"2023-24 annual financial disclosure return information to be published on Monday 3 February 2025\" (29 January 2025)","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/whither-the-westconnex-cash-berejiklian-buries-tracks-on-transurbans-11bn-toll-road-windfall/","l":"Michael West Media: WestConnex sale political context","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/c-king/media-release/infrastructure-australia-board-appointments","l":"Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, \"Infrastructure Australia Board appointments\"","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20230920/pdf/05v29c25yln8jy.pdf","l":"Transurban, ASX announcement on the CEO transition (20 September 2023)","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/privatising-westconnex-is-the-biggest-waste-of-public-funds-for-corporate-gain-in-australian-history-102790","l":"The Conversation, Chris Standen, \"Privatising WestConnex is the biggest waste of public funds for corporate gain in Australian history\" (2018)","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://elections.nsw.gov.au/faqs/candidate-faqs/political-donations","l":"NSW Electoral Commission, \"Political donations FAQs\"","t":2},"8":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WestConnex","l":"Wikipedia: WestConnex bipartisan support","t":5},"9":{"u":"https://www.sydneyairport.com.au/corporate/media/corporate-newsroom/sydney-airport-appoints-new-chief-executive-officer","l":"Sydney Airport, \"Sydney Airport appoints new Chief Executive Officer\" (2023)","t":2},"11":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-will-not-oppose-transurban-consortium-westconnex-bid-following-undertaking","l":"ACCC, \"ACCC will not oppose Transurban consortium WestConnex bid following undertaking\" (2018)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/our-work/reports/westconnex-assurance-to-the-government","l":"Audit Office of New South Wales, \"WestConnex: Assurance to the Government\" (December 2014)","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2022/westconnex-m4-m5-link-project-deed-explanatory-table.pdf","l":"Transport for NSW, \"WestConnex M4-M5 Link Project Deed explanatory table\" (2022)","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-06/Final_WestConnex_Project_Evaluation_Summary.pdf","l":"Infrastructure Australia, \"WestConnex: Project Evaluation Summary\"","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-no-joe-america-should-not-be-copying-australias-asset-recycling-misdirection-108663","l":"The Conversation, Richard Holden, \"Vital Signs: No, Joe, America should not be copying Australia's 'asset recycling' misdirection\"","t":3},"16":{"u":"https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/com/CEJRTC-213C/C20242025-1CC1/4.2%20Correspondence%20from%20Transurban.pdf","l":"Transurban, letter to the Chair, Clean Economy Jobs, Resources and Transport Committee, Queensland Parliament (2 August 2024)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/transurban-pdfs/02/corporate-governance/Political_Contributions_Policy_AU.pdf","l":"Transurban, \"Political Contributions Policy (Australia)\"","t":2},"18":{"u":"https://greens.org.au/vic/news/media-release/transurbans-donations-old-parties-put-mega-toll-roads-question-say-greens","l":"The Australian Greens (Victoria), \"Transurban's donations to old parties put mega toll roads into question, say the Greens\"","t":2},"19":{"u":"https://australianaviation.com.au/2022/03/consortium-takes-the-reins-at-sydney-airport/","l":"Australian Aviation, \"Consortium takes the reins at Sydney Airport\" (March 2022)","t":4},"20":{"u":"https://realassets.ipe.com/news/transurban-consortium-takes-full-ownership-of-westconnex-toll-road/10055041.article","l":"Real Assets IPE, report on the Transurban consortium taking full ownership of WestConnex (2021)","t":4}}},{"id":"roads-rort/who-owns-the-roads","title":"Who owns the roads","href":"/article/roads-rort/who-owns-the-roads","caseLabel":"The Roads Rort","caseHref":"/case/roads-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":19,"secs":["Who specifically owns what","IFM: the industry super infrastructure empire","Queensland: the same owners","The NSW toll relief paradox"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://realassets.ipe.com/news/transurban-consortium-takes-full-ownership-of-westconnex-toll-road/10055041.article","l":"Real Assets IPE: WestConnex full acquisition consortium (2021)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://www.ifminvestors.com/news-and-insights/media-centre/unprecedented-emissions-targets-set-across-iconic-critical-infrastructure-assets/","l":"IFM Investors, \"Unprecedented emissions targets set across iconic critical infrastructure assets\"","t":2},"3":{"u":"https://www.australiansuper.com/about-us","l":"AustralianSuper, \"About Us\"","t":2},"5":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/transurban-pdfs/03/debt-investors/TQ-Group-FY22-AnnualReport.pdf","l":"Transurban Queensland Holdings 1 Pty Limited, Annual Report FY22","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://www.ifminvestors.com/news-and-insights/media-centre/acquisition-of-sydney-airport-complete/","l":"IFM Investors, \"Acquisition of Sydney Airport Complete\" (March 2022)","t":2},"15":{"u":"https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/toll-relief-registration","l":"NSW toll relief programs: means-tested rebates","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.ifminvestors.com/en-au/news-and-insights/media-centre/leading-uk-pension-fund-nest-to-join-ownership-group-of-industry-fund-collective-manager-ifm-in-global-private-markets-push/","l":"IFM Investors, \"Leading UK pension fund Nest to join ownership group of industry fund collective manager IFM in global private markets push\"","t":2},"17":{"u":"https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/files/189077/20240716_TollReview_FinalReport_MotoristsFirst.pdf","l":"Independent Toll Review, Motorists First: Final Report (July 2024)","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/roads-and-projects/sydney","l":"Transurban, \"Sydney\" (roads and projects)","t":2},"19":{"u":"https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/organization/about/ausgrid","l":"Data.NSW, \"About Ausgrid\" (organisation page)","t":2}}},{"id":"roads-rort/what-the-media-covered","title":"What the media covered","href":"/article/roads-rort/what-the-media-covered","caseLabel":"The Roads Rort","caseHref":"/case/roads-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":15,"secs":["What got covered","What didn’t get covered","Why: the state press gallery problem","Who covered it well"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://michaelwest.com.au/whither-the-westconnex-cash-berejiklian-buries-tracks-on-transurbans-11bn-toll-road-windfall/","l":"Green Left / Michael West Media: WestConnex media coverage analysis","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/australian-petroleum-market-report-december-2025.pdf","l":"ACCC, \"Report on the Australian petroleum market, December quarter 2025\" (March 2026)","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/privatising-westconnex-is-the-biggest-waste-of-public-funds-for-corporate-gain-in-australian-history-102790","l":"The Conversation, Chris Standen, \"Privatising WestConnex is the biggest waste of public funds for corporate gain in Australian history\" (2018)","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/australia","l":"Reuters Institute: Australia Digital News Report 2025 (newsroom cuts)","t":4},"9":{"u":"https://www.iselect.com.au/car-insurance/insights/top-priced-tolls/","l":"iSelect toll analysis: media ignored the data","t":"X"},"12":{"u":"https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/03/12/transurban-toll-roads-private-companies-public-services/","l":"Crikey, \"It is time to seize Transurban! Governments must fix the toll road monster they created\" (12 March 2024)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/content/dam/investor-centre/01/FY25-ASXRelease.pdf","l":"Transurban, FY25 results ASX release (August 2025)","t":1}}},{"id":"roads-rort/what-would-fix-it","title":"What would fix it","href":"/article/roads-rort/what-would-fix-it","caseLabel":"The Roads Rort","caseHref":"/case/roads-rort","date":"2026-04","refCount":23,"secs":["Reform 1: Toll road concession redesign","Reform 2: Toll relief: what exists, what’s needed","Reform 3: Fuel price cycle: FuelWatch for the east","Reform 4: Public ownership as the default","What is already happening","The political obstacle: same as every series","The Roads Rort: series complete"],"refs":{"2":{"u":"https://www.consumerprotection.wa.gov.au/fuelwatch-and-fuel-prices","l":"Consumer Protection WA, \"FuelWatch and fuel prices\"","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transaction/toll-relief-registration","l":"NSW toll relief program: current and proposed extensions","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://questions.assemblee-nationale.fr/q16/16-5219QE.htm","l":"Assemblée nationale (France), written question no. 5219, \"Modèle économique des sociétés concessionnaires d'autoroutes\", and the government's answer","t":1},"9":{"u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sydney_Airport","l":"Wikipedia: Western Sydney Airport government ownership","t":5},"10":{"u":"https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/full-final-report-of-independent-toll-review","l":"NSW Government, \"Full final report of the Independent Toll Review\" (16 July 2024)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.iselect.com.au/car-insurance/insights/top-priced-tolls/","l":"iSelect: toll pricing and commuter burden data","t":"X"},"13":{"u":"https://www.greenleft.org.au/2021/1320/news/westconnex-privatisation-highway-robbery-massive-scale","l":"Green Left: WestConnex future pipeline","t":4},"14":{"u":"https://www.morningstar.com.au/stocks/asx-income-play-lifts-distribution-forecast","l":"Morningstar: Transurban earnings resilience to reform","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/files/189077/20240716_TollReview_FinalReport_MotoristsFirst.pdf","l":"Independent Toll Review, \"Motorists First: Final Report\" (July 2024)","t":1},"17":{"u":"https://www.transurban.com/roads-and-projects/sydney","l":"Transurban, \"Sydney\" (roads and projects)","t":2},"18":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/privatising-westconnex-is-the-biggest-waste-of-public-funds-for-corporate-gain-in-australian-history-102790","l":"The Conversation, Chris Standen, \"Privatising WestConnex is the biggest waste of public funds for corporate gain in Australian history\" (2018)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/com/CEJRTC-213C/C20242025-1CC1/4.2%20Correspondence%20from%20Transurban.pdf","l":"Transurban, letter to the Chair, Clean Economy Jobs, Resources and Transport Committee, Queensland Parliament (2 August 2024)","t":1},"20":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/petrol-and-fuel/petrol-price-cycles-in-the-5-largest-cities","l":"ACCC, \"Petrol price cycles in the 5 largest cities\"","t":1},"21":{"u":"https://service.vic.gov.au/find-services/transport-and-driving/servo-saver/help-centre/how-the-fuel-price-cap-works","l":"Service Victoria, \"How the fuel price cap works\" (Servo Saver help centre)","t":1},"22":{"u":"https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/daily-fuel-price-cap-now-place-stop-price-gouging","l":"Premier of Victoria, \"Daily Fuel Price Cap Now In Place To Stop Price Gouging\" (10 March 2026)","t":1},"23":{"u":"https://greens.org.au/vic/news/media-release/transurbans-donations-old-parties-put-mega-toll-roads-question-say-greens","l":"The Australian Greens (Victoria), \"Transurban's donations to old parties put mega toll roads into question, say the Greens\" (2 February 2018)","t":2}}},{"id":"shellharbour/shell-cove-three-hats","title":"Three hats: the Shellharbour council that is a developer, a regulator's named co-developer, and a seller that cannot fund its own build","href":"/article/shellharbour/shell-cove-three-hats","caseLabel":"Shellharbour","caseHref":"/case/shellharbour","date":"2026-07","refCount":3,"secs":["The joint venture: hat one","The named co-developer: hat two","The seller that cannot fund its own build: hat three","The budget that only balances on a dividend","The structure, not the people"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/8683526/shellharbour-housing-defects-blame-shared-by-council-and-developer/","l":"Illawarra Mercury, \"Shellharbour housing defects blame shared by council and developer\" (3 July 2024)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/8955689/shellharbour-council-faces-deficits-post-shell-cove/","l":"Illawarra Mercury, \"Shellharbour council faces deficits post Shell Cove\" (2025)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/9231834/shellharbour-council-why-multi-million-dollar-shell-cove-lots-are-for-sale/","l":"Illawarra Mercury, \"Shellharbour council: why multi-million dollar Shell Cove lots are for sale\" (2026)","t":3}}},{"id":"shellharbour/backroom-decisions","title":"'Backroom decisions': Shellharbour widens CEO oversight","href":"/article/shellharbour/backroom-decisions","caseLabel":"Shellharbour","caseHref":"/case/shellharbour","date":"2026-07","refCount":3,"secs":["Three lines in the minutes","From four to nine","Who voted to keep it narrower","The interpretation, and where it stops","Why the record is the story"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/8926010/council-expands-ceo-review-panel-to-all-members/","l":"Illawarra Mercury, 'Council expands CEO review panel to all members' (2025)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://regionillawarra.com.au/shellharbour-councillors-agree-to-governance-overhaul-to-end-backroom-decisions/55455/","l":"Region Illawarra, \"Shellharbour councillors agree to governance overhaul to end 'backroom decisions'\" (27 March 2025)","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://regionillawarra.com.au/councillor-kellie-marsh-re-elected-unopposed-as-shellharbour-city-deputy-mayor/41339/","l":"Region Illawarra, \"Councillor Kellie Marsh re-elected unopposed as Shellharbour City Council Deputy Mayor\" (October 2024)","t":3}}},{"id":"smear/own-it-or-delete-it","title":"Own it or delete it","href":"/article/smear/own-it-or-delete-it","caseLabel":"The Smear","caseHref":"/case/smear","date":"2026-09","refCount":4,"secs":["The cartoon","Own it or delete it","It’s satire","The revolt","The play"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-09/andrew-hastie-demands-one-nation-delete-traitor-cartoon-on-x/107134606","l":"ABC News, ‘Andrew Hastie demands One Nation delete cartoon calling him a “traitor”’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-10/federal-politics-lambie-blasts-hanson-over-hastie-cartoon/107137036","l":"ABC News, “‘Bloody coward’: Lambie blasts Hanson over ‘disgusting’ Hastie traitor cartoon” (10 September 2026)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/lying-cowards-hastie-lashes-hanson-and-joyce-over-cartoon-dispute/5n6tlyym9","l":"SBS News, “‘Lying cowards’: Hastie lashes Hanson and Joyce over cartoon dispute” (September 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/andrew-hastie-lashes-pauline-hanson-and-barnaby-joyce-over-one-nation-traitor-claims-and-name-calling-c-22846232","l":"The Nightly, ‘Andrew Hastie lashes Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce over One Nation “traitor” claims and name-calling’ (September 2026)","t":3}}},{"id":"smear/the-writ","title":"The writ","href":"/article/smear/the-writ","caseLabel":"The Smear","caseHref":"/case/smear","date":"2026-09","refCount":6,"secs":["The weapon","What the court found","The witness","The charge","The inversion"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/7/australian-soldier-ben-roberts-smith-arrested-over-alleged-war-crimes","l":"Al Jazeera, ‘Australia charges ex-soldier Roberts-Smith with Afghan war crimes’ (7 April 2026)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/1/judge-rules-australian-elite-soldier-killed-afghans-as-suit-fails","l":"Al Jazeera, ‘Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith loses war crimes suit’ (1 June 2023)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/1/australia-braces-for-judgement-in-war-crimes-defamation-case","l":"Al Jazeera, ‘Australia braces for ruling in Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case’ (1 June 2023)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/04/09/andrew-hastie-ben-roberts-smith-war-crimes-charges/","l":"Crikey, ‘Andrew Hastie’s previous evidence against Ben Roberts-Smith was weaponised against him, will it happen again?’ (9 April 2026)","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://www.andrewhastie.com.au/statement_brs_20260409","l":"Andrew Hastie MP, ‘Statement on Criminal Charges Against Ben Roberts-Smith’ (9 April 2026)","t":2},"6":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/6/australian-soldier-ben-roberts-smith-complicit-in-murder-judge","l":"Al Jazeera, ‘Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith complicit in murder, judge finds’ (6 June 2023)","t":3}}},{"id":"smear/who-pays","title":"Who pays","href":"/article/smear/who-pays","caseLabel":"The Smear","caseHref":"/case/smear","date":"2026-09","refCount":8,"secs":["A spat, supposedly","The witness’s bill","The reporter’s bill","The court’s bill","The public’s bill"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-09/andrew-hastie-demands-one-nation-delete-traitor-cartoon-on-x/107134606","l":"ABC News, ‘Andrew Hastie demands One Nation delete cartoon calling him a “traitor”’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/andrew-hastie-lashes-pauline-hanson-and-barnaby-joyce-over-one-nation-traitor-claims-and-name-calling-c-22846232","l":"The Nightly, ‘Andrew Hastie lashes Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce over One Nation “traitor” claims and name-calling’ (September 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/7/australian-soldier-ben-roberts-smith-arrested-over-alleged-war-crimes","l":"Al Jazeera, ‘Australia charges ex-soldier Roberts-Smith with Afghan war crimes’ (7 April 2026)","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/1/judge-rules-australian-elite-soldier-killed-afghans-as-suit-fails","l":"Al Jazeera, ‘Australian soldier Ben Roberts-Smith loses war crimes suit’ (1 June 2023)","t":3},"6":{"u":"https://www.andrewhastie.com.au/statement_brs_20260409","l":"Andrew Hastie MP, ‘Statement on Criminal Charges Against Ben Roberts-Smith’ (9 April 2026)","t":2},"8":{"u":"https://www.mondaq.com/australia/human-rights/1557916/protecting-public-participation-the-urgent-need-for-anti-slapp-legislation-in-australia","l":"Mondaq, ‘Protecting Public Participation: The Urgent Need for Anti-SLAPP Legislation in Australia’ (2026)","t":4}}},{"id":"smear/the-pattern","title":"The pattern","href":"/article/smear/the-pattern","caseLabel":"The Smear","caseHref":"/case/smear","date":"2026-09","refCount":9,"secs":["An old machine","The minister who sued the broadcaster","The man who came back for his hat","The deputy premier and the satirist","The senator who was vindicated","The reading"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-31/abc-christian-porter-discontinue-defamation/100179392","l":"ABC News, ‘Christian Porter ends defamation action against the ABC’ (31 May 2021)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-19/christian-porter-resigns-as-minister-over-conflict-of-interest/100474754","l":"ABC News, ‘Christian Porter 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resource, and it is rationed"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/9328536/motherhood-statements-fear-gag-order-vow-falls-short/","l":"Illawarra Mercury (ACM mastheads), \"'Motherhood statements': fear gag order vow falls short\" (11 August 2026)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://thedailyaus.com.au","l":"The Daily Aus, coverage of the pledge (11-12 August 2026)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://theconversation.com/secrecy-in-victorias-courts-is-rife-here-are-6-reforms-that-would-make-the-system-better-286756","l":"Jason Bosland, The Conversation, \"Secrecy in Victoria’s courts is rife. Here are 6 reforms that would make the system better\" (7 July 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://www.melbournepressclub.com/uploads/News/News-2026/McMillan%20and%20Lidberg%20State%20of%20play%2025.pdf","l":"Alicia McMillan and Johan Lidberg, Monash University, \"The State of Play: Limitations to Public Interest Journalism in Victoria in 2025\", commissioned by the Melbourne Press Club (3 March 2026)","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://aapnews.aap.com.au/news/crisis-point-study-reveals-systemic-state-secrecy","l":"AAP, \"'Misleading': top judge rejects court secrecy claims\" (March 2026; first published as 'Crisis point': study reveals systemic state secrecy), also carried by ACM mastheads","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/eds-blog/a-high-profile-man-has-been-convicted-of-rape-but-still-cant-be-named/","l":"Women's Agenda, \"A 'high profile' man has been convicted of rape, but still can't be named\" (29 July 2026)","t":4},"8":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-04/police-more-charges-alleged-childcare-paedophile-joshua-brown/106100140","l":"ABC News, \"Alleged childcare paedophile Joshua Dale Brown hit with more than 80 additional charges\" (4 December 2025)","t":3},"9":{"u":"https://obriensolicitors.com.au/all-charges-dropped-against-our-client-hannah-thomas/","l":"O'Brien Solicitors, \"All Charges Dropped Against Our Client Hannah Thomas\" (September 2025)","t":2},"10":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/tom-silvagnis-suppression-order-was-lifted-but-what-actually-is-it/by5wu6cti","l":"SBS News, \"Tom Silvagni can now be named in the press. How do suppression orders work?\" (December 2025)","t":3},"11":{"u":"https://lawreform.nsw.gov.au/documents/Publications/Reports/Report%20149.pdf","l":"NSW Law Reform Commission, Report 149, \"Open Justice: Court and tribunal information: access, disclosure and publication\" (27 May 2022)","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.noise11.com/news/ralph-carr-named-after-rape-conviction-20260803","l":"Noise11, \"Ralph Carr Conviction Shakes Australian Music And Sports Management\" (3 August 2026)","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/678da4aff83358cb2ec66de7/682aaf0a3520fbfb6f1ed556_AJF-White-Paper-2024.pdf","l":"Alliance for Journalists' Freedom, \"Press Freedom in Australia: White Paper\" (November 2024), Recommendation 7, p. 18, 'Master count 2023'"}}},{"id":"suppression-rort/the-order-the-act-cannot-reach","title":"The order the Act cannot reach","href":"/article/suppression-rort/the-order-the-act-cannot-reach","caseLabel":"The Suppression 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2026)","t":3},"5":{"u":"https://www.uts.edu.au/news/2026/08/ab-v-abc","l":"UTS Faculty of Law, 'AB v ABC' (August 2026)","t":4},"15":{"u":"https://www.wottonkearney.com/private-group-chats-can-attract-equitable-protection-nsw-supreme-court-confirms/","l":"Wotton Kearney, 'Private group chats can attract equitable protection, NSW Supreme Court confirms' (2026)","t":4},"16":{"u":"https://inforrm.org/2026/07/06/law-and-media-round-up-6-july-2026/","l":"Inforrm, 'Law and Media Round Up, 6 July 2026' (6 July 2026)","t":4},"18":{"u":"https://www.thedailyaus.com.au/politics/suppression-orders-victoria-reform-11-08-2026","l":"The Daily Aus, 'Victoria plans to curb suppression orders for rapists' (11 August 2026)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://www.mediaweek.com.au/court-stops-the-abc-publishing-an-athletes-private-text-messages","l":"Mediaweek, \"Court stops the ABC publishing an athlete’s private text messages\"","t":4}}},{"id":"surcharge-rort/a-line-off-the-receipt","title":"A line off the 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price"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/credit-and-debit-card-surcharges-end-today","l":"ministers.treasury.gov.au","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://x.com/AlboMP/status/2105222849959211287","l":"x.com","t":2},"3":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/conclusions-paper/pdf/conclusions-paper.pdf","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/non-tech-summary.html","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2026/mc-gov-2026-09-29.html","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/conclusions-paper/executive-summary.html","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/ending-card-surcharges-help-cost-living","l":"ministers.treasury.gov.au","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://1027wbow.com/2026/10/01/australian-businesses-raise-prices-as-card-surcharge-ban-takes-effect/","l":"Reuters 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site","t":5},"9":{"u":"https://www.smartcompany.com.au/finance/albanese-card-surcharge-ban-angry-posts/","l":"smartcompany.com.au","t":4},"10":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2026/mr-26-10.html","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2025-07/consultation-paper/executive-summary.html","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2025-07/pdf/review-of-merchant-card-payment-costs-and-surcharging.pdf","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/conclusions-paper/faqs/","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/F2026L00434/asmade/2026-04-14/text/original/pdf","l":"legislation.gov.au","t":1},"15":{"u":"https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/card-surcharges","l":"ACCC page, as at 2 October 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www.themandarin.com.au/321343-ato-deletes-credit-cards-takes-lead-in-government-payments-crackdown/","l":"themandarin.com.au","t":4},"54":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_estimates/Next_hearings","l":"aph.gov.au","t":1},"55":{"u":"https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2026-03/non-tech-summary.html","l":"rba.gov.au","t":1}}},{"id":"surveillance-rort/the-sunset-that-wont-set","title":"The sunset that won't set","href":"/article/surveillance-rort/the-sunset-that-wont-set","caseLabel":"The Surveillance Rort","caseHref":"/case/surveillance-rort","date":"2026-08","refCount":17,"secs":["A sunset only disciplines power if the sun can go down","The reckoning arrived on time, and it was filed","An omnibus is where a hard argument goes to be brief","The standing excuse is a reform that never arrives","While Parliament argues about the sunset, the ledger keeps filling","The same play is running next door"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7449","l":"Parliament of Australia, Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026, bill homepage r7449 (2026)","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2526/26bd053","l":"Parliamentary Library, Bills Digest No. 53 of 2025-26. 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The correction of the previously claimed account takeover warrant arrest to 'Nil'","t":1},"12":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2026A00070","l":"Federal Register of Legislation, Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Act 2026, No. 70, 2026 (C2026A00070)","t":1},"13":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r7449_ems_dcac9a8c-ab35-4ee9-86e8-02fa33f843d3/upload_pdf/JC017741.pdf","l":"Parliament of Australia, Explanatory Memorandum, Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026 (bill introduced 11 March 2026)","t":1},"14":{"u":"https://www.inslm.gov.au/news-and-media/cyber-power-safeguards-not-fit-purpose","l":"Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, news release, 'Cyber power safeguards not fit for purpose' (11 February 2026)","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/criminal-justice/electronic-surveillance/reform-of-australias-electronic-surveillance-framework","l":"Department of Home Affairs, \"Reform of Australia’s electronic surveillance framework\"","t":2},"17":{"u":"https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-to-overhaul-electronic-surveillance-laws-after-intelligence-review-558609","l":"iTnews, \"Govt to overhaul electronic surveillance laws after intelligence review\" (December 2020)","t":4}}},{"id":"surveillance-rort/the-order-that-replaces-the-warrant","title":"The order that replaces the warrant","href":"/article/surveillance-rort/the-order-that-replaces-the-warrant","caseLabel":"The Surveillance Rort","caseHref":"/case/surveillance-rort","date":"2026-08","refCount":7,"secs":["The judge stays, the warrant goes","A gangland label on a list that includes fraud","Two bills, one brand","The extraction fleet is already parked at the station","Gantries and licence photos join the same file"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/parliamentary-business/bills/bill-details?billId=18942","l":"NSW Parliament, bill record: Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Further Organised Crimes Reforms) Bill 2026 (introduced 6 August 2026)","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.nsw.gov.au/ministerial-releases/new-laws-to-target-organised-crime","l":"NSW Government, ministerial media release, Police Minister Yasmin Catley, \"NSW Government introduces sweeping new laws to target organised crime\" (6 August 2026)","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://nswcourts.com.au/articles/the-proposed-nsw-organised-crime-laws-explained/","l":"nswcourts.com.au, \"The Proposed NSW Organised Crime Laws Explained\" (11 August 2026)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/criminal-justice/files/telecommunications-interception-and-access-reports/telecommunications-interception-access-act-1979-annual-report-24-25.pdf","l":"Department of Home Affairs, \"Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 and Part 15 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 Annual Report 2024-25\"","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au","l":"Department of Home Affairs, SDA Annual Report 2024-25","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.nsw.gov.au/ministerial-releases/crimes-amendment-passes-parliament","l":"NSW Government, ministerial release, \"Tough new powers to tackle organised crime pass NSW Parliament\" (25 September 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"surveillance-rort/the-internet-asks-for-id","title":"The internet asks for ID","href":"/article/surveillance-rort/the-internet-asks-for-id","caseLabel":"The Surveillance Rort","caseHref":"/case/surveillance-rort","date":"2026-08","refCount":18,"secs":["One ban became a timetable","The wedge works because no decent person argues with it","A guaranteed market is the quietest subsidy","The penalty doubled before the first fine was issued","December 2026 closes the loop"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.esafety.gov.au/industry/codes/faq-access-to-online-porn-and-other-adult-content","l":"eSafety Commissioner, search-engine industry code pages. esafety.gov.au. Supports the code's commencement (27 December 2025) and age assurance in force for logged-in Google and Bing users (since 27 J…","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-04/Age-restricted-Material-Codes-fact-sheet-April2026.pdf","l":"eSafety Commissioner, Phase 2 industry codes fact sheet. esafety.gov.au. Supports the codes' registration (9 September 2025), commencement (9 March 2026) and app-store age-check obligations (from 9 S…","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=f5zj08ey","l":"Apple, developer notice (24 February 2026). developer.apple.com. Supports Apple blocking unverified 18+ app downloads in Australia from that date","t":2},"5":{"u":"https://www.digitalidsystem.gov.au/the-australian-government-digital-id-system-agdis","l":"Digital ID System, 'The Australian Government Digital ID System (AGDIS)'","t":2},"9":{"u":"https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/publications/age-assurance-technology-trial-final-report","l":"Age Assurance Technology Trial, final report. infrastructure.gov.au. Supports the 1.3-1.5 year error figure for the best-performing systems; the verbatim demographic-accuracy finding (Part A, A.27.6)…","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/five-social-media-platforms-flagged-for-compliance-issues","l":"eSafety Commissioner, 'Five social media platforms flagged for compliance issues' (31 March 2026)","t":1},"11":{"u":"https://www.claytonutz.com/insights/2026/may/social-media-minimum-age-restrictions-the-net-widens-enforcement-begins-and-gaming-platforms-in-the-frame","l":"Clayton Utz, 'Social media minimum age restrictions: the net widens, enforcement begins and gaming platforms in the frame' (May 2026)","t":4},"13":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2026A00083/asmade/2026-09-11/text/original/pdf","l":"Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2026, No. 83, as made","t":1}}},{"id":"triple-zero-rort/the-calls-that-did-not-connect","title":"The calls that did not 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months"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-11/Investigation%20report%20-%20Optus%20outage%201Nov23%20%28redacted%29.pdf","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-11/optus-pays-12-million-penalty-triple-zero-outage","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-11/Infringement%20notice%20-%20Optus%20Mobile%20%28redacted%29.pdf","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2026-07/acma-takes-optus-mobile-court-over-september-2025-triple-zero-outage","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-12/telstra-pays-3-million-penalty-triple-zero-outage","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-03/optus-penalised-15m-public-safety-failures","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/content/dam/optus/cloud/documents/about-us/media-centre/speeches-and-reports/2025/Senate_Environment_and_Communications_Committee_Triple_Zero_service_outage_Optus_Submission.pdf","l":"optus.com.au","t":2},"8":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2026/09/building-stronger-optus","l":"optus.com.au"}}},{"id":"triple-zero-rort/factual-accuracy","title":"Factual 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show"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/foi/2025-02/log-153-request-documents-relating-penalty-notices-issued-acma-telstra-optus-and-southern-phone-company","l":"acma.gov.au"},"2":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-02/Log%20153.zip","l":"acma.gov.au"},"3":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-03/optus-penalised-15m-public-safety-failures","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://static.aph.gov.au/-/media/Estimates/ec/add2526/Environment_and_Communications_-AE2526_10_Feb_2026.pdf","l":"static.aph.gov.au"},"5":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/correcting-record-acma-compliance-and-enforcement-actions","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"6":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A05145/2026-06-04/2026-06-04/text/original/epub/OEBPS/document_2/document_2.html","l":"legislation.gov.au"},"7":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-28/telecommunications-regulator-optus-telstra-parliamentary-inquiry/104862920","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"8":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/Estimates/ec/add2425/25_Feb_2025_Comms_and_Arts.pdf","l":"aph.gov.au"},"9":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Senate_estimates/ec","l":"aph.gov.au"},"10":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/TripleZero48P/Report/Chapter_7_-_The_role_and_effectiveness_of_the_ACMA","l":"aph.gov.au"},"11":{"u":"https://static.aph.gov.au/-/media/Estimates/ec/bud2627/27526__Proof_Hansard__EC_BE20267.pdf","l":"static.aph.gov.au"},"12":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2023-12/telstra-pays-24-million-penalties-and-refunds-after-wrongly-charging-customers","l":"acma.gov.au"},"13":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-07/telstra-penalised-15m-scam-rule-breaches","l":"acma.gov.au"},"14":{"u":"https://telcocentral.com.au/abc-bungles-acma-investigation/","l":"telcocentral.com.au"},"15":{"u":"https://www.uts.edu.au/research/centres/centre-media-transition/projects-and-research/enforcement-telecommunications-consumer-protections","l":"uts.edu.au"},"16":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2026/09/building-stronger-optus","l":"optus.com.au"}}},{"id":"triple-zero-rort/one-thousand-and-five","title":"One thousand and five","href":"/article/triple-zero-rort/one-thousand-and-five","caseLabel":"The Triple Zero Rort","caseHref":"/case/triple-zero-rort","date":"2026-09","refCount":13,"secs":["How it happened, as Optus tells it","Ten days later","Not a notice, but the court","The responses","Reforms already under way","What is not settled"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/content/dam/optus/cloud/documents/about-us/media-centre/speeches-and-reports/2025/Senate_Environment_and_Communications_Committee_Triple_Zero_service_outage_Optus_Submission.pdf","l":"optus.com.au","t":2},"2":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2026-07/acma-takes-optus-mobile-court-over-september-2025-triple-zero-outage","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"3":{"u":"https://www.itnews.com.au/news/optus-sees-fresh-triple-zero-failure-after-tower-site-outage-620638","l":"itnews.com.au","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/wells/media-release/statement-2025-optus-triple-zero-service-outage-court-proceedings-launched","l":"minister.infrastructure.gov.au","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-30/acma-takes-optus-to-federal-court-over-2025-outage/106975412","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"6":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-21/triple-zero-senate-inquiry-recommendations/107162636","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/news/government-outlines-its-response-bean-review-optus-outage","l":"infrastructure.gov.au","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-22/optus-triple-0-failure-analysis/105800592","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"9":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/content/dam/optus/cloud/documents/about-us/media-centre/speeches-and-reports/2025/Independent_Report_Triple_Zero_Outage_at_Optus_18_September_2025.pdf","l":"optus.com.au","t":1},"10":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-18/optus-releases-triple-zero-report/106157268","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"11":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-24/death-perth-man-unlikely-to-be-connected-optus-outage/106045648","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2026/09/building-stronger-optus","l":"optus.com.au"},"13":{"u":"https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2025A00050/asmade/text","l":"legislation.gov.au"}}},{"id":"triple-zero-rort/who-answers-for-triple-zero","title":"Who answers for Triple Zero","href":"/article/triple-zero-rort/who-answers-for-triple-zero","caseLabel":"The Triple Zero Rort","caseHref":"/case/triple-zero-rort","date":"2026-10","refCount":29,"secs":["After the first outage","At the second major outage: what each side says was done","The Schott Review: at least ten mistakes","The Senate committee: eleven recommendations","How much: one duty, three price tags","What customers got","Right of reply","What comes next"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/news/government-outlines-its-response-bean-review-optus-outage","l":"infrastructure.gov.au","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-22/optus-triple-0-failure-analysis/105800592","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/content/dam/optus/cloud/documents/about-us/media-centre/speeches-and-reports/2025/Independent_Report_Triple_Zero_Outage_at_Optus_18_September_2025.pdf","l":"optus.com.au","t":1},"4":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/TripleZero48P/Report/Chapter_10_-_Committee_view_and_recommendations","l":"aph.gov.au"},"5":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-21/triple-zero-senate-inquiry-recommendations/107162636","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"6":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-11/Infringement%20notice%20-%20Optus%20Mobile%20%28redacted%29.pdf","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"7":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2026-07/acma-takes-optus-mobile-court-over-september-2025-triple-zero-outage","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"8":{"u":"https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r7379_aspassed/toc_word/25082b01.docx;fileType=application%2Fvnd%2Eopenxmlformats%2Dofficedocument%2Ewordprocessingml%2Edocument","l":"parlinfo.aph.gov.au"},"9":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/OptusNetworkOutage/Report","l":"aph.gov.au"},"10":{"u":"https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/media-communications/phone/triple-zero-custodian/triple-zero-legislative-and-regulatory-review","l":"infrastructure.gov.au"},"11":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/content/dam/optus/cloud/documents/about-us/media-centre/speeches-and-reports/2025/Senate_Environment_and_Communications_Committee_Triple_Zero_service_outage_Optus_Submission.pdf","l":"optus.com.au","t":2},"12":{"u":"https://itwire.com/it-industry-news/telecoms-and-nbn/optus-performance-in-fy26-driven-by-mobile-growth-and-transformation-progress","l":"itwire.com"},"13":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-18/optus-releases-triple-zero-report/106157268","l":"abc.net.au","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/TripleZero48P","l":"aph.gov.au"},"15":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/TripleZero48P/Report","l":"aph.gov.au"},"16":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-01/temporary-disaster-roaming-for-mobile-coverage-starts-today/107206260","l":"abc.net.au"},"17":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/articles/2024-12/telstra-pays-3-million-penalty-triple-zero-outage","l":"acma.gov.au","t":1},"18":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-11/Infringement%20notice%20-%20Optus%20Networks%20%28redacted%29.pdf","l":"acma.gov.au"},"19":{"u":"https://www.acma.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-11/Infringement%20notice%20-%20Optus%20Internet%20%28redacted%29.pdf","l":"acma.gov.au"},"20":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7379","l":"aph.gov.au"},"21":{"u":"https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/media-communications/phone/triple-zero-custodian","l":"infrastructure.gov.au"},"22":{"u":"https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/wells/media-release/delivering-stronger-oversight-triple-zero","l":"minister.infrastructure.gov.au"},"23":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2526/26bd022","l":"aph.gov.au"},"25":{"u":"https://www.corrs.com.au/insights/government-to-enhance-telco-consumer-protection-with-strengthened-acma-enforcement-powers","l":"corrs.com.au"},"26":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2425/25bd051","l":"aph.gov.au"},"27":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7317","l":"aph.gov.au"},"28":{"u":"https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7358","l":"aph.gov.au"},"29":{"u":"https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2026/09/building-stronger-optus","l":"optus.com.au"}}},{"id":"war-trade/sixteen-minutes","title":"Sixteen minutes","href":"/article/war-trade/sixteen-minutes","caseLabel":"The War Trade","caseHref":"/case/war-trade","date":"2026-09","refCount":38,"secs":["The ballroom","The bettors","The president’s accounts","Sixteen minutes","The ceasefire day, and the probe","The only man who paid","The product, the family’s other business, and where it stands"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-wages-iran-war-situation-room-mar-lago-rcna261389","l":"NBC News, ‘report on how Trump waged the Iran war from a Mar-a-Lago situation room’ (7 March 2026)","t":3},"2":{"u":"https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hosts-big-money-party-as-missiles-are-fired-at-americans/","l":"The Daily Beast, ‘report on the Republican fundraiser held at Mar-a-Lago as the Iran strikes began’ (1 March 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/polymarket-saw-529m-traded-bets-190535088.html","l":"TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance, ‘report on US$529 million traded on Polymarket around the timing of the Iran strikes’ (2 March 2026)","t":5},"5":{"u":"https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2026/03/28/this-is-unbelievable-corruption-us-lawmakers-question-fishy-trades-that-moved-oil-sp-futures-before-trumps-iran-posts/214226","l":"AFP via Malay Mail, ‘report on suspicious oil and S&P futures trades ahead of Trump’s Iran posts’ (28 March 2026)","t":5},"6":{"u":"https://fortune.com/2026/05/18/trump-stock-trading-iran-war-conflict-of-interest-ethics/","l":"Fortune, ‘report on Trump family trading and conflicts of interest during the Iran war’ (18 May 2026)","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/09/trump-oil-gas-holdings-iran-war.html","l":"CNBC, ‘report on Trump’s oil and gas holdings and trades during the Iran war’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"8":{"u":"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trumps-oil-gas-stock-trades-iran-war/","l":"CBS News, ‘report on Trump’s oil, gas and stock trades during the Iran war’ (29 August 2026)","t":3},"9":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/strait-hormuz-reopen-us-lift-iran-sanctions-14-point-deal-seeking-end-rcna350513","l":"NBC News, ‘report on the US-Iran fourteen-point framework and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz’ (17 June 2026)","t":3},"10":{"u":"https://newrepublic.com/post/214840/trump-invests-defense-contractors-iran-war-stock-trades","l":"The New Republic, ‘report on Trump’s investments in defence contractors during the Iran war’ (27 August 2026)","t":3},"11":{"u":"https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/23/volume-in-stock-and-oil-futures-surged-minutes-before-trumps-market-turning-post.html","l":"CNBC, ‘report on the volume spike in stock and oil futures minutes before Trump’s market-turning post’ (23 March 2026)","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-24/oil-market-sees-spike-in-trades-ahead-of-trump-s-iran-pivot-post","l":"Bloomberg, ‘report on the spike in oil market trades ahead of Trump’s Iran pivot post’ (24 March 2026)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5798756-murphy-trump-oil-iran-insider-trading/","l":"The Hill, ‘report on Senator Murphy’s comments on oil and Iran insider trading concerns’ (25 March 2026)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://ritchietorres.house.gov/posts/rep-torres-demands-sec-and-cftc-investigate-suspicious-oil-futures-trade-made-ahead-of-trump-iran-announcement","l":"Rep. Ritchie Torres, press release demanding that the SEC and CFTC investigate suspicious oil futures trades made ahead of Trump’s Iran announcement (8 April 2026)","t":2},"15":{"u":"https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/warren-whitehouse-probe-suspicious-oil-trades-surrounding-trump-iran-announcements","l":"US Senate Banking Committee minority (Warren, Whitehouse), press release on the probe of suspicious oil trades surrounding Trump’s Iran announcements (April 2026)","t":2},"16":{"u":"https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/commodities/articles/us-probes-suspicious-oil-trades-185104849.html","l":"Reuters via Yahoo Finance, ‘report on US probes into suspicious oil trades’ (15 April 2026)","t":5},"17":{"u":"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/03/nx-s1-5917167/trump-calls-off-strike-against-iran-says-a-deal-is-close","l":"NPR, ‘report on Trump calling off a renewed strike against Iran, citing a close deal’ (3 August 2026)","t":3},"18":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/us-launched-large-powerful-strikes-iran-trump-says-rcna595581","l":"NBC News, ‘report on US strikes on Iran and Trump’s comments on their scale’ (2 September 2026)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://fortune.com/2026/09/09/oil-prices-100-gas-diesel-middle-east/","l":"Fortune / AP, ‘report on oil prices passing US$100 and record diesel prices’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"24":{"u":"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-white-house-teleprompter-operator-fined-insider-bets-kalshi-gabriel-perez/","l":"CBS News / AP, ‘report on the fine imposed on a former White House teleprompter operator for insider bets on Kalshi’ (28 August 2026)","t":3},"25":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/business/media/trump-media-early-access-truth-social-posts-rcna587912","l":"Reuters via NBC News, ‘report on Trump Media’s early-access Truth Social posts product’ (16 July 2026)","t":3},"26":{"u":"https://www.npr.org/2026/08/01/nx-s1-5912219/trump-truth-social-access-insider-trading","l":"NPR, ‘report on Trump Media’s Truth Social data access product and insider trading concerns’ (1 August 2026)","t":3},"27":{"u":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/01/trump-2025-financial-disclosure-crypto-world-liberty-financial/","l":"TIME, ‘report on Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure and World Liberty Financial crypto income’ (1 July 2026)","t":3},"28":{"u":"https://unchainedcrypto.com/world-liberty-financial-quietly-sold-billions-in-tokens-as-early-investors-remained-locked-out/","l":"Unchained, ‘report that World Liberty Financial quietly sold billions in tokens while early investors remained locked out’ (4 May 2026)","t":4},"29":{"u":"https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/09/trump-world-liberty-financial-crypto-alt5-sigma.html","l":"CNBC, ‘report on Trump, World Liberty Financial and Alt5 Sigma’ (9 June 2026)","t":3},"30":{"u":"https://www.citizen.org/article/trump-crypto-world-liberty-financial-binance-iran-sanctions/","l":"Public Citizen, ‘Conflict Coin’ (27 April 2026)","t":4},"31":{"u":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2025/10/06/how-19-year-old-barron-trump-is-worth-150-million/","l":"Forbes, ‘How 19-Year-Old Barron Trump Is Worth $150 Million’ (6 October 2025)","t":3},"32":{"u":"https://abcnews.com/Business/trump-linked-crypto-venture-world-liberty-trust-granted/story?id=135668756","l":"ABC News (US), ‘report that a Trump-linked crypto venture, World Liberty, was granted a trust charter’ (15 August 2026)","t":3},"33":{"u":"https://abcnews.com/US/doj-probing-26-billion-oil-trades-related-iran/story?id=132738007","l":"ABC News (US), ‘report that the DOJ is probing about US$2.6 billion in oil trades related to Iran’ (7 May 2026)","t":3},"34":{"u":"https://www.aol.com/articles/regulators-looking-three-firms-over-190440000.html","l":"The Wall Street Journal via AOL / The Independent, ‘report that regulators are looking at three firms over suspicious oil trades before Trump’s Iran announcement’ (20 May 2026)","t":5},"35":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/doj-probes-oil-prediction-markets-iran-news-rcna344135","l":"NBC News, ‘report that the DOJ and CFTC are probing oil and prediction-market trades tied to Iran news’ (May 2026)","t":3},"36":{"u":"https://www.oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Traders-Placed-430M-Bets-Minutes-Before-Trump-Extended-Iran-Ceasefire.html","l":"OilPrice.com, ‘Traders placed US$430 million in bets minutes before Trump extended the Iran ceasefire’ (21 April 2026)","t":4},"37":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-threat-whole-civilization-will-die-iran-war-deadline-hormuz-rcna267059","l":"NBC News, \"Trump announces 2-week Iran ceasefire after he'd warned 'a whole civilization will die tonight'\"","t":3},"38":{"u":"https://media.defense.gov/2026/Mar/12/2003898258/-1/-1/1/OPERATION-EPIC-FURY-FACT-SHEET-THE-FIRST-13-DAYS.PDF","l":"US Department of War, \"Operation Epic Fury Fact Sheet: The First 13 Days\" (12 March 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"war-trade/ninety-seven-per-cent","title":"Ninety-seven per cent","href":"/article/war-trade/ninety-seven-per-cent","caseLabel":"The War Trade","caseHref":"/case/war-trade","date":"2026-09","refCount":9,"secs":["The twelve-minute account","Ninety-seven per cent","The letters","What it is, and what it is not"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/polymarket-saw-529m-traded-bets-190535088.html","l":"TechCrunch via Yahoo Finance, ‘report on US$529 million traded on Polymarket around the timing of the Iran strikes’ (2 March 2026)","t":5},"2":{"u":"https://www.opb.org/article/2026/04/10/well-timed-bets-on-polymarket-tied-to-the-iran-war-draw-calls-for-investigations-from-lawmakers/","l":"OPB / NPR, ‘Well-timed bets on Polymarket tied to the Iran war draw calls for investigations from lawmakers’ (10 April 2026)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/04/09/newly-made-polymarket-accounts-won-massively-on-us-iran-ceasefire-bets","l":"Euronews, ‘Newly made Polymarket accounts won massively on US-Iran ceasefire bets’ (9 April 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://kvia.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2026/08/21/polymarket-referred-dozens-of-possible-military-insider-trading-cases-to-doj-source-says/","l":"CNN via KVIA, ‘Polymarket referred dozens of possible military insider trading cases to DOJ, source says’ (21 August 2026)","t":5},"5":{"u":"https://www.jpost.com/international/article-892764","l":"The Jerusalem Post, international section, article 892764 (13 April 2026)","t":3},"6":{"u":"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-white-house-teleprompter-operator-fined-insider-bets-kalshi-gabriel-perez/","l":"CBS News / AP, ‘report on the CFTC penalty against a former White House teleprompter operator for insider bets on Kalshi’ (28 August 2026)","t":3},"7":{"u":"https://abcnews.com/US/doj-probing-26-billion-oil-trades-related-iran/story?id=132738007","l":"ABC News (US), ‘report that the DOJ is probing about US$2.6 billion in oil trades related to Iran’ (7 May 2026)","t":3},"8":{"u":"https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2026/03/28/this-is-unbelievable-corruption-us-lawmakers-question-fishy-trades-that-moved-oil-sp-futures-before-trumps-iran-posts/214226","l":"AFP via Malay Mail, ‘report on suspicious oil and S&P futures trades ahead of Trump’s Iran posts’ (28 March 2026)","t":5},"9":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-threat-whole-civilization-will-die-iran-war-deadline-hormuz-rcna267059","l":"NBC News, \"Trump announces 2-week Iran ceasefire after he'd warned 'a whole civilization will die tonight'\"","t":3}}},{"id":"war-trade/the-australian-position","title":"The Australian position","href":"/article/war-trade/the-australian-position","caseLabel":"The War Trade","caseHref":"/case/war-trade","date":"2026-09","refCount":20,"secs":["The filer","The first quarter of the war","The second quarter","The party","The same names","The Commonwealth’s ledger","Where it stands"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/mining-tycoon-gina-rinehart-reveals-144646372.html","l":"Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance, ‘report on Hancock Prospecting’s US portfolio and the 13F disclosure requirement’ (15 August 2026)","t":5},"2":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/business/gina-rinehart-boosts-investment-in-donald-trumps-truth-social-while-beefing-up-us-portfolio--c-19691812","l":"The Nightly (Danielle Le Messurier), ‘report on Hancock Prospecting’s June 2025 quarter US portfolio filing’ (15 August 2025)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-wages-iran-war-situation-room-mar-lago-rcna261389","l":"NBC News, ‘report on the start of the US and Israeli operation against Iran’ (7 March 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2026-05-17/gina-rineharts-hancock-prospecting-adds-defence-stocks-to-us-portfolio","l":"Reuters (Melanie Burton) via US News, ‘report on Hancock Prospecting’s March 2026 quarter defence stock purchases’ (17 May 2026)","t":5},"5":{"u":"https://www.billionaires.africa/2026/08/14/australian-mining-billionaire-gina-rineharts-biggest-us-bet-is-now-elon-musks-spacex/","l":"Billionaires.Africa, ‘report on Gina Rinehart’s SpaceX investment’ (14 August 2026)"},"6":{"u":"https://whbl.com/2026/05/06/as-trump-adjacent-populism-surges-in-australia-wealthy-donors-join-in/","l":"Reuters (Byron Kaye and Melanie Burton), ‘As Trump-adjacent populism surges in Australia, wealthy donors join in’ (6 May 2026)","t":5},"7":{"u":"https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/05/29/pauline-hanson-barnaby-joyce-gina-rinehart-the-world-iran-us-ceasefire/","l":"Crikey (Anton Nilsson), ‘report on Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce’s travel aboard The World’ (29 May 2026)","t":3},"10":{"l":"Withdrawn 7 October 2026. The passage this reference supported was removed; see the correction in the section “The same names”"},"11":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-20/government-explores-new-tax-for-gas-coal-to-buffer-fuel-costs/106475100","l":"ABC News (Isobel Roe), ‘report on the government’s request to Treasury to model a new gas tax’ (20 March 2026)","t":3},"12":{"u":"https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/australia-to-halve-fuel-tax-as-global-energy-crisis-deepens","l":"Al Jazeera, ‘report on Australia halving its fuel tax’ (30 March 2026)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/politics/anthony-albanese-fuel-excise-cut-to-end-as-iran-us-conflict-threatens-petrol-prices-c-22409388","l":"The Nightly (AAP, Tess Ikonomou), ‘report on the fuel excise cut’s scheduled end’ (10 June 2026)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-21/gas-tax-debate-heats-up-ahead-of-budget/106585424","l":"ABC News (Clare Armstrong), ‘report on the Senate gas tax inquiry’ (21 April 2026)","t":3},"15":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-10/gas-tax-revenue-up-in-federal-budget/106663036","l":"ABC News (Jane Norman), ‘report on the government dropping the gas tax’ (10 May 2026)","t":3},"16":{"u":"https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3359235/australia-expects-gain-extra-us26-billion-exports-after-iran-war-raises-prices","l":"South China Morning Post (Bloomberg), ‘report on Australia’s forecast export gains from the Iran war’ (3 July 2026)","t":5},"17":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-28/middle-east-war-economic-impact-to-worsen-treasury-warns/106963778","l":"ABC News (Tom Crowley), ‘report on Treasury’s warning on the economic impact of the war’ (28 July 2026)","t":3},"18":{"u":"https://fortune.com/2026/09/09/oil-prices-100-gas-diesel-middle-east/","l":"Fortune / AP, ‘report on oil prices passing US$100 a barrel’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"19":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/content/bp1/download/bp1_bs-1.docx","l":"Australian Government, Budget Paper No. 1, Budget Strategy and Outlook 2026-27, Statement 1 (12 May 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"war-trade/the-round-trip","title":"The round trip","href":"/article/war-trade/the-round-trip","caseLabel":"The War Trade","caseHref":"/case/war-trade","date":"2026-09","refCount":7,"secs":["Up","Down","The other side of the trade","Who rode it"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.fool.com.au/2026/03/02/santos-and-woodside-shares-surging-higher-on-monday-as-oil-price-in-focus-amid-iran-strikes/","l":"The Motley Fool Australia, ‘Santos and Woodside shares surging higher on Monday as oil price in focus amid Iran strikes’ (2 March 2026)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://thenightly.com.au/business/oil-prices-us-iran-war-gains-wiped-out-as-ceasefire-hammers-asx-energy-stocks-including-woodside-and-santos--c-22109729","l":"The Nightly, ‘Oil prices: US-Iran war gains wiped out as ceasefire hammers ASX energy stocks including Woodside and Santos’ (8 April 2026)","t":3},"3":{"u":"https://www.fool.com.au/2026/03/26/droneshield-shares-rocket-20-higher-what-has-happened/","l":"The Motley Fool Australia, ‘DroneShield shares rocket 20% higher: what has happened?’ (26 March 2026)","t":4},"4":{"u":"https://www.fool.com.au/2026/03/13/electro-optic-systems-shares-jump-on-new-middle-east-contract-win/","l":"The Motley Fool Australia, ‘Electro Optic Systems shares jump on new Middle East contract win’ (13 March 2026)","t":4},"5":{"u":"https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2026-05-17/gina-rineharts-hancock-prospecting-adds-defence-stocks-to-us-portfolio","l":"Reuters (Melanie Burton) via US News, ‘report on Hancock Prospecting’s March 2026 quarter defence stock purchases’ (17 May 2026)","t":5},"6":{"u":"https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3359235/australia-expects-gain-extra-us26-billion-exports-after-iran-war-raises-prices","l":"South China Morning Post (Bloomberg), ‘report on Australia’s forecast export gains from the Iran war’ (3 July 2026)","t":5},"7":{"u":"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-threat-whole-civilization-will-die-iran-war-deadline-hormuz-rcna267059","l":"NBC News, \"Trump announces 2-week Iran ceasefire after he'd warned 'a whole civilization will die tonight'\"","t":3}}},{"id":"war-trade/five-dollars","title":"Five dollars","href":"/article/war-trade/five-dollars","caseLabel":"The War Trade","caseHref":"/case/war-trade","date":"2026-09","refCount":16,"secs":["The scale","What the machinery can see"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-09/albanese-undeclared-honorary-membership-marrickville-golf-club/107130762","l":"ABC News (Jake Evans), ‘report on Anthony Albanese’s undeclared honorary membership of Marrickville Golf Club’ (9 September 2026)","t":3},"4":{"u":"https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2026-05-17/gina-rineharts-hancock-prospecting-adds-defence-stocks-to-us-portfolio","l":"Reuters (Melanie Burton) via US News, ‘report on Hancock Prospecting’s shift toward defence stocks and gold’ (17 May 2026)","t":5},"5":{"u":"https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/commodities/articles/us-probes-suspicious-oil-trades-185104849.html","l":"Reuters via Yahoo Finance, ‘report on the CFTC’s investigation into oil futures trades around Trump’s Iran policy shifts’ (15 April 2026)","t":5},"6":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-10/gas-tax-revenue-up-in-federal-budget/106663036","l":"ABC News (Jane Norman), ‘report on gas tax revenue and the dropped windfall levy’ (10 May 2026)","t":3},"8":{"u":"https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/mining-tycoon-gina-rinehart-reveals-144646372.html","l":"Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance, ‘report on Hancock Prospecting’s June-quarter US portfolio’ (15 August 2026)","t":5},"9":{"u":"https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3359235/australia-expects-gain-extra-us26-billion-exports-after-iran-war-raises-prices","l":"South China Morning Post (Bloomberg), ‘report on the Department of Industry, Science and Resources and its forecast export income lift from the war’ (3 July 2026)","t":5},"10":{"u":"https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/warren-whitehouse-probe-suspicious-oil-trades-surrounding-trump-iran-announcements","l":"US Senate Banking Committee minority (Warren, Whitehouse), ‘press release on the CFTC investigation into oil futures trades surrounding Trump’s Iran announcements’ (April 2026)","t":2},"11":{"u":"https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/inquiry-calls-gas-tax-review-after-middle-east-conflict","l":"Australian Greens, ‘media release on the Select Committee into the taxation of Australia’s gas resources’ (7 May 2026)","t":2},"12":{"u":"https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/albanese-rejects-calls-for-gas-export-tax-hike/ifyn4btf3","l":"SBS News, ‘report on Albanese rejecting calls for a gas export tax hike’ (14 May 2026)","t":3},"13":{"u":"https://abcnews.com/US/doj-probing-26-billion-oil-trades-related-iran/story?id=132738007","l":"ABC News (US), ‘report that the DOJ is probing about US$2.6 billion in oil trades related to Iran’ (7 May 2026)","t":3},"14":{"u":"https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-29/federal-politics-blog-housing-energy-fastrack/106616572","l":"ABC News, ‘federal politics live blog’ (29 April 2026)","t":3},"15":{"u":"https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-07/resources-and-energy-quarterly-june-2026.pdf","l":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources (Office of the Chief Economist), ‘Resources and Energy Quarterly, June 2026’","t":1},"16":{"u":"https://budget.gov.au/content/bp1/download/bp1_bs-3.docx","l":"Australian Government, ‘Budget Paper No. 1, Statement 3’ (12 May 2026)","t":1}}},{"id":"waverley/the-two-step","title":"The two-step: a rezoning more than doubled this Oxford Street site and delisted four heritage terraces, then the state stacked a tower on top","href":"/article/waverley/the-two-step","caseLabel":"Waverley","caseHref":"/case/waverley","date":"2026-07","refCount":3,"secs":["Two numbers on a portal page","The state adds height","Not a first draft: the consent it replaced","The objections that did not carry","The Democratic Bypass, one block at a time"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/ppr/lep-decision/194-214-oxford-street-and-2-nelson-street-bondi-junction","l":"NSW Planning Portal, LEP decision page for 194-214 Oxford Street and 2 Nelson Street, Bondi Junction","t":1},"2":{"u":"https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/bondi-junction-oxford-street-stargate-property-beach-hall-street-approved-court","l":"The Urban Developer, report on the Bondi Junction Oxford Street approval","t":4},"3":{"u":"https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/projects/shop-top-housing-infill-affordable-housing-oxford-and-nelson-street-bondi-junction","l":"NSW Planning Portal, major-projects page, shop-top housing and infill affordable housing, Oxford and Nelson Street, Bondi Junction","t":1}}},{"id":"waverley/deemed-refusal-drift","title":"Deemed-refusal drift: nine-figure projects decided by the court, not the council residents elected","href":"/article/waverley/deemed-refusal-drift","caseLabel":"Waverley","caseHref":"/case/waverley","date":"2026-07","refCount":5,"secs":["The clock, not the merits","The Waverley run","Who gains, who pays","A capacity story, not a conspiracy"],"refs":{"1":{"u":"https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/orosi-developments-apartments-wellness-rose-bay-land-envrionment-court-waverley-council-approval","l":"The Urban Developer, \"Orosi Developments apartments and wellness, Rose Bay, Land and Environment Court, Waverley Council approval\" (December 2025)","t":4},"2":{"u":"https://www.theurbandeveloper.com/articles/central-element-bondi-pearl-sandridge-wilga-street-luxury-approved","l":"The Urban Developer, \"Central Element, Bondi, Pearl, Sandridge and Wilga Street luxury approved\" (May 2025)","t":4},"3":{"l":"NSW Land and Environment Court records. Appeals 2024/71549 and 2024/71554 (Clutch, Curlewis Street, A$57.4 million); the separate 7-19 Bondi Road matter (no stated value); NB Capital DA-455/2025, dec…"},"4":{"l":"Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW), s 8.11, \"Circumstances in which consent taken to have been refused for purposes of appeal rights\"","t":1},"5":{"u":"https://lec.nsw.gov.au/content/dcj/ctsd/lec/lec/coming-to-court/what-it-might-cost.html","l":"Land and Environment Court of NSW, \"What it might cost\" (read 8 October 2026)"}}}],"chunks":[{"a":0,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Two airline groups carry almost 99 per cent of domestic flights. Federal data shows the price per kilometre is halved when three competitors fly a route instead of one.","r":[1,4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In the first half of 2024-25, Qantas Domestic's operating margin was **16.1 per cent**, against 7.1 per cent on competitive international routes.","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Planes are near-full, yet domestic seat capacity in Q1 2025 was 2.7 per cent below 2019 levels.","r":[3,10]},{"a":0,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Challengers keep failing: Bonza collapsed in April 2024 and Rex left capital city routes in July 2024.","r":[3]},{"a":0,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Average domestic airfares in December 2025 were 4.3 per cent higher than twelve months earlier.","r":[7]},{"a":0,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In 2023, a Sydney resident trying to book flights to Bali for the school holidays was quoted more than A$6,000 for a family of four. [11] Before the pandemic, the same trip would have cost around A$400 per person. [11] She cancelled the holiday. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":0,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Her experience was not unusual. Across Australia's domestic and international routes, airfares surged in the years after COVID-19 and have not returned to anything approaching pre-pandemic norms. [1,7] In December 2025, average domestic airfares were 4.3 per cent higher than they had been twelve months earlier. [1,7] Airfares in October 2025 were the highest since December 2022. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":0,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The airlines, meanwhile, are doing exceptionally well. The Qantas Group reported record underlying earnings of A$1.59 billion for the first half of the current financial year. [1,7] Virgin Australia, a private company that does not publish detailed financials, described record profits in the same period. [6] The two airline groups together account for almost 99 per cent of every domestic flight in Australia. [1]","r":[6,1]},{"a":0,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"This article is the first in The Rort's Airline Rort series. It establishes the basic facts: what Australians pay, what the airlines earn, and what the competition regulator's own data says about what concentration does to fares."},{"a":0,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been directed to monitor Australia's domestic airline market continuously since November 2023. [2] It publishes a report every quarter. The reports are detailed, technically rigorous, and largely unread by the general public.","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"They contain data that should be national news. The most important single figure is this: the price per kilometre on an Australian domestic route depends almost entirely on how many airlines are competing for that route. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That table was presented to parliament by the Assistant Minister for Competition, Dr Andrew Leigh, in January 2024. [4] It is derived from the government's own competition taskforce analysis. [4] Its implication is unambiguous: the price Australians pay to fly is determined not by the cost of fuel, or the cost of labour, or the cost of aircraft maintenance, all of which are real factors, but by the number of airlines competing for their ticket. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"39.6c vs 19.2c","t":"Price per kilometre with one carrier versus three carriers on Australian domestic routes. The fare is almost halved by adding competition, not by improving operations.","src":"Federal competition taskforce data, January 2024 [4]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia's domestic market has two carriers on almost every route it has. [1] It had three briefly, when Rex attempted to enter capital city routes with Boeing 737s in 2022. Rex exited those routes in July 2024. [3] It had a prospective fourth in Bonza, a low-cost carrier that launched in 2023 and collapsed in April 2024. [3] After both exits, the ACCC documented higher fares and increased concentration. [9]","r":[1,3,9]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"q","t":"In other words, the price per kilometre is halved when three competitors fly a route compared with the situation when there is only a single monopoly airline. With four or five competitors, the price drops further still.","x":"Dr Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition","src":"January 2024 [4]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"There is one number in Qantas's most recent financial results that tells the story of Australia's aviation market more clearly than any other. It is the operating margin comparison between Qantas's domestic business and its international business. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"16.1% vs 7.1%","t":"Qantas Domestic operating margin versus Qantas International operating margin in H1 FY24-25. The difference is competition.","src":"ACCC Domestic Airline Competition Report, May 2025 [2]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In the first half of the 2024-25 financial year, Qantas Domestic recorded an operating margin of 16.1 per cent. [2] In the same period, Qantas's international operations recorded an operating margin of 7.1 per cent. [2] The ACCC noted this comparison explicitly in its May 2025 report. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The difference is competition. On international routes, Qantas competes with Emirates, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Air New Zealand, Korean Air, and dozens of other carriers. [2] Those carriers force prices down and margins compress accordingly. [2] On domestic routes, Qantas competes primarily with Virgin and Jetstar, its own budget subsidiary. [2] The margin is more than double.","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The overall group results confirm the pattern. Qantas Group reported underlying profit before tax of A$2.39 billion for the full year to June 2025, up 15 per cent on the prior year. [5] Statutory profit after tax was A$1.61 billion, up 28 per cent. [5] Total industry revenue in FY24-25 was approximately A$17 billion. [14]","r":[5,14]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"These are not crisis-recovery earnings. They are structural profits generated by a market that, as the ACCC's own data confirms, has limited competition and consistently high load factors. [2,6]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The airline industry uses load factors, the percentage of available seats that are filled, as a measure of supply meeting demand. [2] High load factors indicate strong demand; very high load factors indicate insufficient capacity relative to demand. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Australia's domestic market is running at historically high load factors. Jetstar recorded a load factor of 91.2 per cent in January 2025, the highest recorded for any Australian airline since January 2019. [2] Virgin Australia hit 93.4 per cent in December 2024. [3] The industry average in March 2025 was 80.1 per cent, 1.8 percentage points above March 2019. [2]","r":[2,3]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"q","t":"High load factors indicate strong demand and are generally considered positive with respect to an airline's profit margins, but they can limit an airline's ability to respond flexibly to flight disruptions, reducing its network resilience.","x":"ACCC","src":"Domestic Airline Competition Report, February 2025 [3]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Translation: the planes are so full that when something goes wrong, a delay, a cancellation, a missed connection, there are no spare seats to rebook passengers onto. [3] High profits and poor service are connected. The market structure that produces one also produces the other. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Meanwhile, total domestic seat capacity in Q1 2025 was 2.7 per cent below 2019 levels. [10] Six years after the last normal operating year, Australia's airlines are still flying fewer seats than they were. Not because there is insufficient demand (load factors confirm there is more than enough demand) but because neither airline group has the economic incentive to add capacity when the existing capacity is already full and profitable. [2,3]","r":[10]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"f","x":"2.7% below 2019","t":"Domestic seat capacity in Q1 2025. Industry load factor: 80%+. Both airlines reporting record or near-record profits. The planes are full, fares are high, and neither airline is in a hurry to add more seats into a market they dominate.","src":"Aviation Week / ACCC [2][3][10]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Australia has a long history of new airlines attempting to challenge Qantas's dominance. The history is also a long history of failure. [9,12]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Under the Two Airline Policy that governed Australian aviation from 1952 until deregulation in 1990, only two carriers were permitted to operate domestic routes: government-owned Trans Australia Airlines and privately-owned Ansett. [3] Deregulation was supposed to open the market. And for a period, it did: by the early 2000s, carriers including Compass, Impulse, Virgin Blue, and Tiger Airways all entered the market with varying degrees of success. [9]","r":[3,9]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The pattern that emerged was consistent: a challenger would enter, fares would fall as competition intensified, and then the challenger would either exit or be absorbed. Compass collapsed in 1991 and again in 1992. Impulse was bought by Qantas in 2001. Ansett collapsed spectacularly in 2001. Tiger Airways was eventually acquired by Virgin. [9]","r":[9]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The most recent chapter follows the same arc. Rex Airlines, a regional carrier, attempted to expand onto capital city routes using Boeing 737 aircraft from July 2022. [3,9] The project was undercapitalised and operationally ambitious. Rex entered voluntary administration in July 2024, exiting all capital city routes. [3,9] Bonza, a new low-cost carrier that launched in early 2023, collapsed in April 2024 after operating for only about a year. [3,12] It served 37 routes, 30 of which were unserved by any other airline. [12] After its collapse, those 30 routes went dark.","r":[12]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The second failed attempt at a third domestic carrier in a decade.","x":"ACCC","src":"Switzer Daily, May 2025 [9]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"And in the same breath: March 2025 airfares up 9.6 per cent, 'a pattern that may become familiar in a low-competition environment.' [9]","r":[9]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The argument that Australia's geography, its vast distances and relatively small population, justifies higher airfares is one the industry makes repeatedly, and it contains some truth. Flying Sydney to Melbourne is not the same as flying London to Paris. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"But the ACCC's own data refutes the geography argument when it comes to competition. The comparison is not Australia versus Europe. It is Australian routes with one carrier versus Australian routes with two carriers versus Australian routes with three carriers. [4] Same geography. Same distances. Same fuel. Different number of airlines. Fares almost halved. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The European Union's Single Aviation Market, established in 1993, allows any EU-registered carrier to fly between any two EU cities. [4] The result was the emergence of Ryanair and easyJet as transformative competitive forces that drove European airfares to a fraction of what Australian domestic travel costs, even accounting for shorter distances. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Australia does not have an open aviation market. International carriers like Qatar Airways can fly into Australian airports, but their ability to pick up passengers and fly them to other Australian cities, what aviation calls 'fifth freedom rights', is tightly controlled through bilateral air service agreements. [4] As this series will document in Article 3, when Qatar Airways applied to add 21 flights per week in 2023, the government blocked the application at the explicit request of Qantas.","r":[4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Qantas regularly publishes data showing that its fares have moderated from post-COVID peaks. In its FY24 results, the airline noted that 'Group domestic fares were 8 per cent lower than last year.' [13] This is technically accurate: after the extraordinary post-COVID fare spike, prices did ease somewhat as capacity returned. [13]","r":[13]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"But the relevant comparison is not year-on-year from the peak. The relevant comparison is with the structural baseline, with what fares would be if the market had the competitive structure that the ACCC's data shows is needed to produce lower prices for consumers. [4] And by that measure, fares remain elevated. December 2025 prices are 4.3 per cent above December 2024 prices. [7] October 2025 prices were the highest since December 2022. [8]","r":[4,7,8]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Virgin Australia's position is worth noting too. Under Bain Capital's private ownership, Virgin does not publish detailed financial results. [2] The market has two dominant carriers, only one of which is required to disclose its financial performance to the public. The ACCC receives non-public data from both under its monitoring direction, but that data is not available to consumers, journalists, or researchers.","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Treasurer's direction to the ACCC to monitor the market runs until December 2026. [2] Monitoring is not the same as intervention. The ACCC can document concentration, report on it, and express concern about it. What it cannot do is mandate a new entrant, reallocate slots, or compel either airline to add capacity. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The basic facts of the Australian domestic aviation market are these, all sourced from the competition regulator's own quarterly reports: [1,2,4,7]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"f","x":"Almost 99%","t":"Two airline groups control almost 99 per cent of all domestic flights, according to the ACCC.","src":"ACCC, March 2026 [1]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The price per kilometre on a route with three carriers is half the price on a route with one carrier, according to federal government data. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Domestic operating margins (16.1 per cent) are more than double international margins (7.1 per cent) for the same airline. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Load factors are at near-record highs, indicating demand well in excess of supply. [2,3]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Domestic seat capacity is still below 2019 levels despite record profits. [3,10]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Both carriers reported record or near-record earnings as of the most recent reporting period. [1,6]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Airfares remain above pre-COVID levels by multiple measures. [7,8]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b8","s":6,"k":"p","t":"This is not a post-COVID recovery story. It is the structural condition of a market in which two companies have divided most of the country between them, entry by challengers has failed twice in a decade, and the competitive pressure that would lower prices has been kept out, including, as this series will document, by a decision of the federal government made at the request of the dominant carrier. [9,11]"},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b9","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Article 2 of this series examines how the duopoly was built, and why every challenge to it has failed."},{"a":0,"at":"at-s6-b11","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This article said, in its subtitle, opening, fact box and key facts, that two airline groups control 94 to 99 per cent of domestic flights. The ACCC figure it cites [1] is almost 99 per cent of domestic flights; the 94.4 per cent figure is a different measure, share of passenger carriage as at March 2025 [9]. Those passages now say almost 99 per cent.","r":[1,9]},{"a":1,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Two Airlines Policy ended in 1990, but the duopoly came back: slot control, network depth, loyalty lock-in and scale have ground down every challenger.","r":[1,10]},{"a":1,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"From 1997 until April 2025, Sydney Airport's slots were allocated by a joint venture owned by Qantas and Virgin.","r":[7]},{"a":1,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In mid-2024 Qantas held 103 morning peak take-off slots at Sydney; Rex held 7. The 80/20 rule survived the 2024 reforms.","r":[6,14]},{"a":1,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Qantas Group and Virgin held **94.4 per cent** of domestic passenger carriage as of March 2025.","r":[11]},{"a":1,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"An independent British manager, ACL, took over Sydney slots from 1 April 2025. Whether that opens peak slots to new entrants is not yet known.","r":[7,8]},{"a":1,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 30 October 1990, the Australian government ended the Two Airlines Policy, the legislation that had, since 1952, allowed only two carriers to fly between major Australian cities. [1] The policy had kept aviation a regulated duopoly for 38 years. [1] Its abolition was supposed to open the market.","r":[1]},{"a":1,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"What followed was a decade of disruption, consolidation, and ultimately the same structural outcome: two airlines. [2] The challengers that entered the market in the early 1990s collapsed. The competitor that appeared most likely to stick, Ansett, folded in 2001 when a combination of mismanagement, deferred fleet renewal, and the shock of September 11 produced the largest corporate job loss in Australian history. [3] And from 2001 onwards, the market settled into the structure it has today: Qantas on one side, and a series of challengers who have been absorbed, bankrupted, or reduced to secondary status.","r":[2,3]},{"a":1,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The duopoly is not the result of law. There is no longer a Two Airlines Policy. It is the result of structural advantages so deeply embedded in the Australian market, including slot control, network depth, loyalty program lock-in, and sheer scale, that every challenger has eventually been ground down by them. [5,10,11]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia's domestic aviation history is a recurring story. A dominant duopoly exists. The government deregulates or relaxes entry conditions. New carriers appear. Prices fall. The incumbent responds aggressively. The new carrier runs out of capital, or accumulates losses, or gets absorbed. The duopoly reforms. [2,3,4]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Under the Two Airline Policy, Ansett and the government-owned Trans Australia Airlines (later Australian Airlines) were the only carriers permitted to fly between major cities. [1] The duopoly was explicit, legislated, and complete. [1] Notably, scheduled flights on the same routes would take off about five minutes apart, one airline following the other, in a market so regulated that even departure timing was managed. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"When deregulation was announced in 1987 and took effect in 1990, both incumbents prepared for competition. [4] The government simultaneously decided to merge Qantas and Australian Airlines, giving Qantas, which had previously been restricted to international flights, a 'fully developed domestic airline system,' [4] while Ansett was given international rights it had to build from scratch. [4] This decision proved consequential: Qantas entered the newly competitive domestic market with an already-mature operation. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Compass Airlines launched in December 1990, offering fares far below the incumbents. [2] It attracted strong demand and collapsed in December 1991, just thirteen months after launch. [2] A second attempt, Compass Mark II, collapsed in 1992. [2] The failures prompted the government to stabilise the market through a temporary one-nation aviation policy. [4]","r":[2,4]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The early failure of Compass established the pattern that would repeat for the next three decades: a new carrier could enter, attract passengers with low fares, and briefly disrupt the incumbents, but the capital requirements of aviation, the established network advantages of Qantas and Ansett, and the incumbents' willingness to match prices on contested routes made sustained profitability extremely difficult. [2,3]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Ansett Australia's collapse on 14 September 2001, grounded the same week as the September 11 attacks in the United States, was the most significant single event in Australian aviation history. [3] The airline had operated for 65 years. It employed tens of thousands of people. Its failure left Qantas with approximately 70 per cent of the domestic market and no credible full-service competitor. [2,3]","r":[3]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The collapse had been building for years. Ansett had been burdened by poor investment decisions under previous ownership, a deferred fleet renewal programme, and costs significantly above those of the emerging low-cost competitor Virgin Blue. [3,4] Air New Zealand, which had acquired Ansett, could not absorb the losses, estimated at A$1.3 million per day in the final months. [4] The New Zealand government bailed out Air New Zealand but not Ansett. [3]","r":[4,3]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"When Virgin Blue appeared in 2000 with fares substantially below Qantas, Qantas faced a competitive threat on its most profitable routes. [2,3] Rather than match Virgin's prices across its own network, which would have destroyed its margins on full-service routes, Qantas launched Jetstar as a separate low-cost brand in 2004, with Alan Joyce as chief executive. [2,3]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Jetstar strategy was precise: compete with Virgin Blue on price-sensitive leisure routes while maintaining Qantas's premium positioning on business and corporate routes. [10] The structural effect was to divide the market between Qantas Group brands, with Qantas serving corporate travellers and Jetstar serving leisure travellers, and leave Virgin competing against a two-brand adversary with shared infrastructure, fleet, and loyalty ecosystems. [10]","r":[10]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Sole LCC","t":"Jetstar is now, two decades later, the sole low-cost carrier in the Australian domestic market, following the exit of Tiger in 2020 and Bonza in 2024. Its profit has grown accordingly: EBIT up 53.7 per cent after Bonza's collapse. [10,12]","src":"ACCC, May 2025"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Jetstar has been able to capitalise on the continued absence of competitive pressure from another low-cost carrier.","x":"ACCC","src":"Domestic Airline Competition Report, May 2025 [10]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The record is eight challengers. Zero sustained independent competitors. The only airline that has survived is Virgin Australia, and Virgin has done so by abandoning the low-cost model that originally made it a genuine competitive threat, repositioning as a mid-market carrier, going through voluntary administration during COVID, and accepting Bain Capital as a private equity owner. [11] It is now a competitor to Qantas in the conventional sense, but it is not a disruptor. The ACCC's own reports consistently describe it as part of the 'duopoly' that structures the market. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"94.4%","t":"Qantas Group and Virgin Australia together held 94.4 per cent of all domestic passenger carriage as of March 2025. Bonza's collapse in April 2024 marked the second failed attempt at a third domestic player in a decade. [11]","src":"Switzer Daily / ACCC, March 2025"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Market power and brand loyalty explain part of why challengers fail. But there is a more fundamental structural barrier to competition in Australian aviation: the physical control of landing and take-off slots at Sydney Airport."},{"a":1,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Sydney Airport operates under a movement cap of 80 flights per hour. [5,9] There are 1,360 movements per day. [9] At peak hours, when business travellers want to fly, when slots are most valuable, there is no spare capacity. [5,9] A new carrier cannot simply start flying Sydney routes during peak hours because there are no slots available. [5,8]","r":[9]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Who allocates those slots? From 1997 until April 2025, the answer was Airport Coordination Australia, a joint venture owned by Qantas and Virgin. [7] The two airlines whose market dominance created the need for a slot management system were, themselves, the managers of that system. [5,7]","r":[7]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"62%","t":"Morning peak take-off slots at Sydney Airport (6am–11am weekdays, mid-2024): Qantas held 103 slots (62 per cent); Virgin held 57 (34 per cent); Rex held just 7 (4 per cent). [6]","src":"Australian Financial Review / Senate inquiry, 2024"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The government outsources the management of the slots at Sydney airport to a company that's majority-owned by Qantas and Virgin. It is just unbelievable.","x":"Rod Sims","src":"Former ACCC chair [5]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"q","t":"It's as plain as the nose on your face that Qantas is hoarding slots by cancelling sufficient flights to remain within the 80/20 rule.","x":"John Sharp","src":"Rex Airlines deputy chairman, June 2023 [5]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The 80/20 rule allows an airline to cancel up to 20 per cent of its flights in a season without forfeiting its slots. [5,14] The accusation was that Qantas was strategically timing and rotating cancellations across its slot portfolio to maintain slot holdings while operating below capacity. [5,15] The effect: slots that could be reallocated to competitors were retained by the incumbent. [5] The ACCC-commissioned analysis by former Qantas chief economist Tony Webber found cancellation rates across all airlines remained higher than pre-pandemic averages. [15]","r":[5,15]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The government eventually acted. In February 2024, Transport Minister Catherine King announced reforms to the slot system: increased transparency, independent audits, civil penalties for slot misuse. [14] The 80/20 rule survived unchanged. [14]","r":[14]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"More significantly, when the slot manager role came up for re-tender, King signalled that the Qantas-Virgin joint venture would face tough conditions if it won again. [7] It did not win. In February 2025, the government announced that Britain's Airport Coordination Limited, ACL, which manages slots at Heathrow, Gatwick, Dubai, and 75 other major airports globally, would take over from the incumbent from 1 April 2025. [7,8]","r":[7]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"ACL's CEO was candid in his assessment of what he was inheriting. [7,8] He noted that Qantas and Virgin 'were not using their allocated capacity anywhere near the levels at overseas airports such as Heathrow.' [7] Under ACL's management, airlines face stricter use-it-or-lose-it enforcement. [8]","r":[7,8]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The 28-year arrangement in which the duopoly managed its own access constraints is over. [7] Whether ACL's independent management changes the actual allocation of peak slots, and opens space for new entrants, will not be known for some time. [8]","r":[7,8]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The slot system is the most visible structural barrier. There are others. [5,10,11]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Qantas operates an extensive network of regional and interstate routes. A challenger on the Sydney–Melbourne route faces not just direct competition but the disadvantage that many travellers want to connect through Sydney or Melbourne to other destinations. [10] Qantas can offer seamless connections across its network. A single-route entrant cannot. [10] This network depth is a competitive moat built over decades that cannot be replicated quickly or cheaply.","r":[10]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"As this series will document in Article 5, Qantas Frequent Flyer has more than 15 million members, roughly 50 per cent of the Australian adult population. [10] A challenger airline cannot offer these members equivalent rewards. Points accumulated over years of Qantas flying are not transferable. Switching to a challenger means forfeiting accumulated status and reward seats. [10] The loyalty program is not just a consumer benefit. It is a structural retention mechanism that increases the cost of switching to a competitor.","r":[10]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Qantas holds approximately 80 per cent of the corporate travel market. [10] Corporate travel is the highest-margin segment: business travellers are price-inelastic, travel frequently, and fill the premium and business cabin seats that generate disproportionate profit. [10] Any challenger must either accept being excluded from this segment, competing only for leisure travellers who are more price-sensitive and less profitable, or build the corporate relationships, frequent flyer status recognition, and business lounge infrastructure that Qantas has developed over generations. [10]","r":[10]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Aviation is extraordinarily capital-intensive. Aircraft cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Maintenance facilities, trained crews, airport gates, and ground handling all require sustained investment. [3] A new entrant must fund losses during the period it is establishing routes and building load factors, often years, before reaching profitability. [3,11] Both Bonza and Rex ran out of that runway. Both faced aircraft delivery delays that compounded their cash positions. [11,13]","r":[3]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"f","x":"5 barriers","t":"The duopoly is protected by at least five structural barriers: peak slot control at Sydney Airport, network depth across connecting routes, loyalty program lock-in across 15 million Australians, dominance of the high-margin corporate travel segment, and capital requirements that demand sustained loss-making periods to overcome. Any new entrant must navigate all five simultaneously against incumbents who have advantages in all five.","src":"ACCC / Senate inquiry analysis"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Australia's aviation duopoly is not the result of law. The Two Airline Policy was abolished in 1990. [1] It is the result of structural advantages so deeply embedded in the market that the same two-carrier structure has re-emerged every time it has been challenged, across 35 years and eight separate attempts. [2,3,11]","r":[1]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Each time a challenger appeared, fares fell. [2,11] Each time the challenger failed, fares rose again. [11] The ACCC documents this cycle precisely in its quarterly reports. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":1,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"f","x":"+9.6%","t":"Airfares rose 9.6 per cent in March 2025, described as 'a pattern that may become familiar in a low-competition environment.' [11]","src":"Switzer Daily / ACCC, March 2025"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The slot management system, run by the airlines themselves for 28 years, was one mechanism through which the physical infrastructure of competition was controlled. [5,7] Its replacement with an independent manager from April 2025 is a genuine reform. [7,8] Whether it is sufficient is another question: the slot system is one of several barriers, not the only one. [5,8]"},{"a":1,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Article 3 of this series examines a moment when competition could have entered the market from the outside, and the government blocked it."},{"a":2,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On 10 July 2023 the government rejected Qatar Airways' bid for 21 extra weekly flights after Qantas lobbied against it. Qatar was given no reasons.","r":[1,2]},{"a":2,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Qantas said the flights would 'distort the market' while admitting it could not meet international demand for at least five years.","r":[2]},{"a":2,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The ACCI estimated the block would cost the economy at least **A$788 million** annually in lost tourism.","r":[3]},{"a":2,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Senate committee chair said the evidence pointed to interventions by Alan Joyce. Joyce never appeared, and the Senate voted 30 to 28 against resuming the inquiry.","r":[7,10]},{"a":2,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Qatar arrived anyway: a 25 per cent stake in Virgin Australia, approved in February 2025, with flights from June 2025.","r":[11]},{"a":2,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Qatar Airways' Senior Vice President, Fathi Atti, found out that his airline's application had been rejected by the Australian government the same way most Australians did: he read about it in the media. [1,12]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The decision had been made on 10 July 2023. [4] No notification was given to Qatar. No reasons were provided. [1] A letter, dated 14 July 2023, arrived ten days later, on 20 July 2023. [1,12] The letter did not explain the decision. [1]","r":[4,1]},{"a":2,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"q","t":"So you found out your application for additional flights was rejected by the Australian Government through the media?","x":"Senate committee to Fathi Atti, September 2023","src":"[12]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"q","t":"Yeah. The first time.","x":"Fathi Atti, Qatar Airways SVP","src":"[12]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"Qatar had applied to add 21 flights per week to its existing 28 weekly services, flights to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. [2,5] The additional flights were scheduled to start as early as February 2023. [14] Their approval was considered routine by the airline. [1,14] Qatar had maintained flights to Australia throughout the COVID pandemic, sometimes with as few as 20 passengers per flight, while Qantas was grounded. [2]","r":[14,2]},{"a":2,"at":"at-lede-5","k":"p","t":"None of that mattered. The application was rejected. No reasons were given. The man most likely to hold the answers, former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, left Australia and never appeared before the inquiry established to investigate the decision. [8,9,10]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Qantas did not hide its opposition to Qatar's application. When the story broke, the airline confirmed it had lobbied the government against approval. [2] Its stated reason: the extra flights would 'distort the market.' [2]","r":[2]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In the same period, Qantas made a separate and contradictory admission: it would not be able to meet passenger demand on international routes for at least five years. [2,3]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"These two statements were made in parallel. The extra flights would distort the market, a market Qantas simultaneously acknowledged it could not adequately serve. [2,3] The route between Australia and Europe was operating at approximately 70 per cent of its pre-COVID capacity at the time of the decision. [3] The ACCI estimated that blocking Qatar's bid would cost the Australian economy at least A$788 million a year in lost tourism. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"f","x":"At least A$788 million","t":"the ACCI's estimate of the annual cost to the Australian economy, in lost tourism, of blocking Qatar's additional flights","src":"ACCI, via Al Jazeera [3]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"q","t":"If Qatar was allowed to double its flight capacity and come in with brand new aircraft and great service, Qantas would not be able to respond right now and they argue that would be very bad for the industry. But the truth is it would only be bad for Qantas. The decision taken by the government was not pro-Australia or pro-tourism. It was pro-Qantas.","x":"Professor Rico Merkert, University of Sydney, Deputy Director of the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies","src":"[3]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The opening now gives the year of the letter Qatar received, dated 14 July 2023 and received on 20 July 2023, ten days after the 10 July 2023 decision, as its sources record [1,12]. Nothing in the account has changed."},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Transport Minister Catherine King's public justifications shifted over the weeks following the announcement. [4,13] The formal statement was that the extra flights were 'not in Australia's national interest,' [5] a formulation so broad as to be unfalsifiable. [13]","r":[5,13]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Then came the strip-search context. [4] In October 2020, more than a dozen female Australian passengers at Doha's Hamad International Airport were subjected to invasive examinations after a premature baby was found abandoned in an airport bathroom. [4] The incident had been widely reported and was the subject of ongoing litigation. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On 10 July 2023, the same day King made the decision to reject Qatar's flights, she signed a letter to the women affected by the Doha incident, writing: [4]","r":[4]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"As most Australians were, I was shocked by what happened to you at Hamad International Airport. The treatment that you received was disgraceful.","x":"Catherine King, Transport Minister, letter to affected women, 10 July 2023","src":"[4]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"King subsequently said the strip-search incident gave 'context' to her decision but was not the single reason for it. [4] Critics noted the timing: the letter was signed on the same day as the rejection, and the strip-search incident had occurred nearly three years earlier without preventing Qatar from operating 28 weekly flights. [4,13]","r":[4]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"King maintained 'public interest immunity' to withhold the relevant documents, her communications with Qantas and her department's advice, from parliament. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"q","t":"The government sought to prevent the committee from fully investigating the reasons why additional Qatar Airways flights were rejected by refusing to release documents and placing a gag on the infrastructure and foreign affairs departments.","x":"Senate inquiry majority report","src":"[8]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"She declined to appear before the committee. [13] She labelled the inquiry 'a political stunt.' [13]","r":[13]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On 10 July 2023, Anthony Albanese was travelling abroad. [2] Richard Marles was Acting Prime Minister. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"When Marles was asked whether he had been consulted before King made the decision, he confirmed he had not. [2] He acknowledged being Acting PM on the day, adding that the decision was 'within the purview' of the transport ministry. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The decision to reject a major international airline's application, a decision the ACCI estimated would cost the economy at least A$788 million a year in lost tourism, was made without consulting the Acting Prime Minister and without any stated reason being provided to the airline itself. [2,3]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Senate established its inquiry into the Qatar decision in September 2023, after a motion from Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie passed by a single vote: 32 to 31. [6] The government and the Greens nearly stopped it from proceeding. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"32–31","t":"the single-vote margin by which the Senate inquiry was established","src":"SBS News [6]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Over five weeks of hearings, the committee heard from Qatar Airways executives, aviation experts, competition economists, tourist industry representatives, airport operators, and Qantas's own chair and new CEO. [7] Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka told the inquiry that the government had changed its stance on Qatar's application only after Alan Joyce expressed his dissatisfaction. [6] Transport department officials confirmed that only Qantas and Virgin were consulted before the advice was sent to the Minister. [7]","r":[7,6]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Former ACCC chair Allan Fels told the inquiry the situation was of 'unprecedented importance' in its impact on Australian consumers. [12] He called for divestiture powers, the ability to force Qantas to sell Jetstar, as a structural remedy for the concentration in Australian aviation. [8]","r":[12,8]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The one person who appeared unable to attend was Alan Joyce. He had stepped down as Qantas CEO in September 2023 and left Australia. [9] He said he was unable to appear due to 'personal obligations while overseas,' [9] noting that the committee could not compel him to appear while he was outside Australian jurisdiction. [9]","r":[9]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"q","t":"I want him to front up.","x":"Senator Bridget McKenzie, committee chair","src":"[9]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"He never fronted up. [9,10]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In February 2024, the Senate voted 30 to 28 against resuming the inquiry to hear Joyce and to follow up on Qantas's unsatisfactory answers to questions on notice. [10] The inquiry was formally closed. [10] Its key question, what exactly was said between Qantas and the minister's office before the decision, remains unanswered. [8,10]","r":[10]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"f","x":"30–28","t":"the Senate vote that killed the inquiry before Alan Joyce could be heard","src":"ch-aviation [10]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In February 2025, eighteen months after the block, Qatar Airways acquired a 25 per cent stake in Virgin Australia. [11] The Foreign Investment Review Board approved the transaction on 27 February 2025. [11] On 28 March 2025, the ACCC granted final authorisation for a five-year integrated alliance between the two airlines. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Under the alliance, Virgin Australia commenced 28 weekly flights between Australia and Doha from June 2025, using Qatar Airways aircraft and crew under a wet-lease arrangement. [11] Melbourne services followed in December 2025. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"f","x":"A$3 billion","t":"estimated economic benefit of the Qatar-Virgin alliance over five years, the same figure Qatar cited at the 2023 Senate inquiry for the flights that were blocked","src":"Virgin Australia / ACCC [11,14]"},{"a":2,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The economic benefit cited for the alliance: an estimated A$3 billion over five years. [11] The same A$3 billion figure Qatar had cited at the 2023 Senate inquiry when describing what the blocked flights would have contributed. [14]","r":[11,14]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The competition arrived. It took a different route, equity stake and alliance rather than direct bilateral rights, and it arrived eighteen months late. [11,15] During those eighteen months, Australian consumers paid for flights on the Australia-Europe route without the competitive pressure Qatar's additional capacity would have provided. [3,11] Separately, the ACCI estimated that the block would cost the economy at least A$788 million a year in lost tourism. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":2,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This article gave the ACCI's estimate of the cost of the block as a range with a low end of A$540 million a year, in places as an \"up to\" ceiling, and in places described it as a cost to Australians or consumers, or as the price of lost competition. The source cited [3], Al Jazeera, carries no A$540 million figure, and reports that the ACCI \"has estimated the decision will cost the Australian economy at least 788 million Australian dollars ... annually in lost tourism\": a floor, not a ceiling. The ACCI's estimate, as Al Jazeera reports it, is one figure: at least A$788 million a year in lost tourism, a cost to the Australian economy. The range, its A$540 million low end, the \"up to\" wording and the descriptions of it as a cost to consumers or of lost competition are withdrawn. The subtitle, the key facts, the fact box, the closing quotation, the reference note and the graphic now give the figure as the ACCI's estimate, as reported by Al Jazeera. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":3,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Qantas cultivated politicians with free upgrades and Chairman's Lounge access, declared on registers of interests but never scrutinised like a political donation.","r":[4]},{"a":3,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The invitation-only Lounge has approximately 5,000 members, including approximately 90 per cent of federal parliamentarians.","r":[4,8]},{"a":3,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Albanese's register of interests declared upgrades on approximately 22 personal Qantas flights between 2009 and 2019.","r":[1,8]},{"a":3,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"In 2022 Albanese asked Joyce to grant his son Lounge membership. It was granted, and not declared on his register.","r":[2]},{"a":3,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"An observer quoted by InDaily: the definition of a lobbyist means the Qantas-government relationship 'isn't lobbying'. On this outlet's reading, the upgrades sit in that gap.","r":[11]},{"a":3,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In October 2024, journalist Joe Aston published a book called The Chairman's Lounge. [1] It documented the system by which Qantas had cultivated political relationships across three decades: a network of free upgrades, exclusive lounge access, and personal relationships between the airline's CEO and the politicians whose decisions shaped the environment in which it operated. [1,2]","r":[1]},{"a":3,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The book's most significant revelation was not about any single politician or any single decision. It was about a system. [1,4] Aston described Qantas as 'probably the country's most effective lobbyist,' not because of what it spent on formal lobbying, but because of what it gave away. [4] Unlike a cash donation or a registered lobbying firm, an upgrade creates a personal obligation that is declared on a register of interests but never scrutinised in the way a political donation is. [4,11]","r":[4]},{"a":3,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"'Politicians are the only people in Australia who pay for economy seats and never fly economy,' Aston wrote. [4] 'They don't go to the airport with a neck pillow with their fingers crossed. They literally receive a new ticket long before the day of travel, they receive a brand new ticket that doesn't say economy.' [4]","r":[4]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Qantas Chairman's Lounge is an invitation-only private facility at major Australian airports. [4,8] It offers its members separate check-in, dedicated lounges, priority boarding, and above all, consistent access to upgrades on Qantas flights. [4,8] Membership is by personal invitation of the Qantas CEO. [4] There is no public list of members. [8]","r":[4,8]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Lounge has approximately 5,000 members. [2,8] Former CEO Joyce described it as 'the most exclusive club in the country.' [8] The membership includes senior executives, media figures, and approximately 90 per cent of federal parliamentarians. [8] Members on both sides of politics. Ministers and shadow ministers. Committee chairs and backbenchers. [6,8]","r":[8]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"~5,000 members","t":"The Qantas Chairman's Lounge includes approximately 90 per cent of federal parliamentarians. Membership is free, by personal invitation of the CEO, and includes consistent access to upgrades on Qantas flights.","src":"Joe Aston, The Chairman's Lounge (2024); WSWS [8]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Open Politics data cited during the Aston scandal found at least 32 politicians from across the political spectrum had accepted free upgrades from Qantas in the current term of parliament alone. [6] Senior Labor figures including Andrew Leigh, Madeleine King and Andrew Giles were identified. [6] Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was a Chairman's Lounge member. [6] A handful of crossbench senators, notably David Pocock and some Greens senators, had never accepted membership or had resigned it. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The paragraph above said that David Pocock and some Greens senators 'had never accepted membership or had resigned it'. That goes further than the source. InDaily reported that David Pocock, the independent senator for the ACT, 'said on Tuesday he is not a member' of the Chairman's Lounge [6]. It named Max Chandler-Mather of the Greens and Labor senator Tony Sheldon as never having had membership, and Monique Ryan, Stephen Bates, Elizabeth Watson-Brown and Barbara Pocock as having quit in 2023 after it was revealed that Albanese's son had a membership [6]. David Pocock (Independent, ACT) and Barbara Pocock (Greens, SA) are different senators, and the summary in reference 6 had put them together; it has been corrected.","r":[6]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The focus of Aston's book, and of the subsequent national controversy, was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. [1,2]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Albanese's parliamentary register of interests declared upgrades on approximately 22 personal Qantas flights between 2009 and 2019, a period spanning his time as transport minister, shadow transport minister, and official opposition leader. [1,8] The flights included travel to Rome, London, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. [8] He had declared them all, as required by law. [1,3]","r":[8]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. A passage here, on how the upgrades were obtained, rested on an unnamed source alone, and no primary document carries it. Under this station's method an adverse claim resting on an anonymous source alone is cut. The passage has been removed. The upgrades themselves were declared on the parliamentary register of interests, as set out above. [1,8]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Aston reported that, in 2022, after winning the federal election, Albanese asked Joyce to grant his adult son Nathan membership of the Chairman's Lounge. [2,3] The request was granted. [2] Albanese did not declare his son's membership on his parliamentary register of interests. [2] When the story broke, Albanese said Nathan had become his 'plus one' to the lounge following his divorce. [3] Albanese's fiancee was also a member. [3]","r":[2,3]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Qantas was developing Anthony Albanese as an asset for a very long time... I think Qantas compromised Albanese.","x":"Joe Aston, journalist and author","src":"The Chairman's Lounge (2024) [2]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister went to ground for several days after the book's publication, saying it took time to check his records. [9] When he finally responded, his spokesperson issued a statement: 'The prime minister did not ever call Alan Joyce seeking an upgrade. All travel has been appropriately declared and is a matter of public record.' [7]","r":[9,7]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The statement addressed phone calls. When pressed further, Albanese's office confirmed he had never texted or emailed Joyce, and had never had in-person conversations regarding upgrades. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. A paragraph here quoted an anonymous Qantas whistleblower, as reported by The Nightly [5], making a claim about a named former Qantas executive. No primary document carries that claim, and under this station's method an adverse claim resting on an anonymous source alone is cut. The paragraph has been removed.","r":[5]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Joyce's testimony was never sought in any formal proceeding. [5] The inquiry that might have compelled it was voted down. [10]","r":[5,10]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The federal Lobbying Code of Conduct requires people who lobby Australian Government representatives on behalf of a third-party client to be on the Register of Lobbyists. [16] The Code does not apply to a company's own employees lobbying on its behalf, so Qantas's own executives are not required to register. [16]","r":[16]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A commentator quoted in InDaily summarised the legal architecture succinctly: 'The definition of a lobbyist is such that the Qantas-government relationship isn't lobbying. They just happen to lobby the government on policy.' [11]","r":[11]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The upgrade system operates within this gap. [11] Qantas does not pay politicians. It upgrades them. [4] The upgrades are declared on a register of interests, which makes them legal. [1,4] But as Aston documented, the act of declaration does not extinguish the relationship the upgrade creates. [4] A politician who has accepted upgrades from Qantas, whatever the formal rules say, is in a different relationship with the airline than a politician who has not. [4]","r":[11,4]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Unlike other major companies, it was able to hand out freebies worth tens of thousands of dollars in a way that would never be possible for other corporates such as banks.","x":"Joe Aston","src":"The Nightly, November 2024 [4]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Aston argued the upgrade system gives Qantas a lobbying power that no other industry in Australia possesses. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section described the registration rule as lobbying law; it is the federal Lobbying Code of Conduct, an administrative code, and the paragraph now says so and cites the Code itself [16]. The rule that in-house employees lobbying for their own company need not register is now sourced to the Code [16].","r":[16]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The upgrade relationship did not exist in isolation. Over the period of Alan Joyce's tenure as CEO, from 2008 to 2023, Qantas received a series of government decisions that directly served its commercial interests. [12,13,14]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"During COVID, Qantas received approximately A$2.7 billion in taxpayer support to keep the airline viable. [14] In the same period, Qantas outsourced its ground handling operations, a move the Federal Court found Qantas could not prove was free of an intent to prevent workers from taking protected industrial action; the High Court unanimously dismissed Qantas's final appeal in 2023. [13] 1,700 workers lost their jobs illegally. [13]","r":[14,13]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"When Qantas returned to profitability, posting a net profit of A$1.7 billion in FY22-23, the government did not seek repayment of the COVID support. [14] When Qantas was accused of selling approximately 8,000 tickets for flights it knew had been cancelled, the ACCC took action, but the process was civil, not criminal. [15]","r":[14,15]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"And in July 2023, when Qatar Airways applied for flights that would have competed directly with Qantas on the Australia-Europe route, at a time when Qantas had admitted it could not meet demand for five years, the government blocked the application. [10] The Senate inquiry found the decision was driven by Qantas's intervention. [10]","r":[10]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The upgrade relationship, declared, legal, and denied by the Prime Minister's office, is the connective tissue between an airline's preferences and the government decisions that honour them. [1,4,10]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"f","x":"The sequence","t":"A$2.7 billion in COVID taxpayer support; illegal sacking of 1,700 workers; record profits restored; Qatar's flights blocked on Qantas's lobbying; upgrade scandal revealed. Each element legal, declared, or unprovable. The system doesn't need to be corrupt to produce corrupt outcomes.","src":"[12][13][14][10][1]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 12 was labelled as Qantas's FY25 results but links to its FY24 results release; the label now matches the document. Reference 13 linked to the ACCC homepage; it now points to ABC News' report of the High Court ruling on the outsourcing of 1,700 ground staff."},{"a":3,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the High Court found the outsourcing was undertaken to prevent workers from taking protected industrial action. That finding was made by the Federal Court at first instance, which found Qantas had not disproved that its reasons included preventing protected industrial action; the High Court unanimously dismissed Qantas's final appeal in 2023 on a narrower legal question. The sentence now says so [13].","r":[13]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"It would be a mistake to read this as a story only about the Labor Party or only about Anthony Albanese. [6,8] The Chairman's Lounge predates Albanese as PM by decades. [8] It operated under Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison. [8] Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was a member. [6] Coalition MPs accepted upgrades alongside Labor ones. [6]","r":[8,6]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The system is bipartisan because it is designed to be. [4,11] Qantas operates in a regulated environment shaped by whichever party holds government. [11] It has an interest in maintaining relationships on both sides of the chamber. [4,11] The Chairman's Lounge is the mechanism through which it does so. [4]","r":[11,4]},{"a":3,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"q","t":"I am deeply concerned that any minister or shadow minister would receive extra perks and privileges from any company over which they have authority or influence. To be enjoying dozens of flight upgrades, accommodation and gifts is at best very poor judgment, or at worst misuse of office.","x":"Andrew Wilkie, Independent MP for Clark","src":"InDaily, 2024 [6]"},{"a":3,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Article 8 of this series examines what reforms would actually fix this, and why neither major party has any incentive to introduce them."},{"a":4,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Qantas sells points in bulk to banks and retailers, who pay for every point issued. Expired points are revenue kept without providing anything.","r":[5]},{"a":4,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In FY24 Qantas Loyalty made revenue of approximately A$2.6 billion and record underlying EBIT of **A$511 million**.","r":[1]},{"a":4,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In the year to June 2020, flying profits fell by more than 75 per cent. Loyalty earned A$341 million, down only 9 per cent.","r":[5,14,16]},{"a":4,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"More than 15 million members, approximately 50 per cent of Australian adults, face real switching costs to fly another airline.","r":[4]},{"a":4,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Qantas sets the value of points unilaterally: from August 2024 some Classic Flight Rewards needed up to 25 per cent more points.","r":[12]},{"a":4,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The most instructive single fact about Qantas as a business is not its domestic profit margin, 16.1 per cent in the first half of FY24-25. [11] It is not even the record underlying earnings of A$2.39 billion for the full year to June 2025. [6] It is what happened to Qantas Loyalty during the COVID pandemic. [14]","r":[11,6,14]},{"a":4,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"In the financial year to June 2020, Qantas's domestic and international flying operations saw profits fall by more than 75 per cent. [16] The planes were grounded. Revenue collapsed. During the same year, Qantas Loyalty recorded underlying earnings before interest and tax of A$341 million, down only 9 per cent. [5,16]","r":[16]},{"a":4,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The planes stopped flying. The points kept selling. [5,14]"},{"a":4,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"That resilience reveals the business model. Qantas Loyalty is not a loyalty program in the way most people understand the term, a benefit for frequent customers, funded by the airline as a retention tool. It is a financial services business that happens to be attached to an airline. [5] Its primary revenue source is not customers redeeming points for flights. It is banks and retailers paying Qantas for the right to issue points to their own customers. [5,13]","r":[5]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The mechanics are straightforward once explained. [5] Qantas sells Qantas Points in bulk to financial institutions and major retailers. [5] Banks issue credit cards that award Qantas Points on purchases. [5] Woolworths allows customers to convert Everyday Rewards points to Qantas Points. [13] BP, TripADeal, Qantas Hotels, and dozens of other partners participate in similar arrangements. [1,5]","r":[5,13]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The bank or retailer pays Qantas for every point it issues to its customers. [5] That payment arrives at Qantas whether or not the customer ever redeems the points. [5] When points are redeemed on a Qantas flight, Qantas provides a seat, usually one it could not have sold at full price. [5] When points expire unredeemed, which many do, Qantas keeps the revenue from selling them without ever providing the benefit. [5] In accounting terms, this is called 'breakage': it is structurally embedded in the economics of every loyalty program, and it creates a systematic incentive to make redemption harder. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$2.6 billion revenue","t":"In FY24, Qantas Loyalty generated revenue of approximately A$2.6 billion and underlying EBIT of A$511 million, a record. That profit margin of roughly 20 per cent exceeds even the domestic flying margin of 16.1 per cent.","src":"Qantas FY24 results [1,2]; ACCC May 2025 [11]"},{"a":4,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In FY24, Qantas Loyalty generated revenue of approximately A$2.6 billion and underlying EBIT of A$511 million, a record. [1,2] That profit margin of roughly 20 per cent exceeds even the domestic flying margin of 16.1 per cent. [11] The Loyalty division is the most profitable segment of the Qantas Group. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The value of this business was explicitly recognised as early as 2008, when JPMorgan estimated the Qantas Frequent Flyer program was worth approximately A$2 billion as a standalone entity, 'more than a quarter of the total market value of Qantas' at the time. [4] Qantas considered floating the Loyalty business as a separately listed company that year, which would have made its financial independence from the airline explicit. [4] The float was deferred in September 2008, with Qantas citing volatile market conditions. [4] Qantas again considered floating part of the loyalty business during a strategic review in 2013 and 2014, but in August 2014 chief executive Alan Joyce said a sale was off the table. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The introduction said the airline received A$2.7 billion in taxpayer support during the pandemic; the source cited for that figure does not carry it, so the sentence has been removed. The section named ANZ, National Australia Bank, CommBank and American Express as issuers of Qantas Points credit cards; the source does not name them, so the sentence now refers to banks generally. It said the 2008 float was deferred due to the global financial crisis; the source for that sentence did not mention it. The float was deferred in September 2008, with Qantas citing volatile market conditions [4]. The figures for the 2019-20 year (Loyalty underlying EBIT of A$341 million, down 9 per cent; Domestic down 78 per cent; International down 83 per cent) are now cited to Qantas's 2020 Annual Report [16].","r":[4,16]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said of the 2008 float that \"It was never revived\". The source cited [4] says Qantas again considered floating part of the loyalty business during a strategic review in 2013 and 2014, and that in August 2014 chief executive Alan Joyce said a sale was off the table. The sentence now says so.","r":[4]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Qantas Frequent Flyer has more than 15 million members, approximately 50 per cent of the Australian adult population. [4] About 20 per cent of New Zealand's population is also enrolled. [4] This scale is not incidental to the business model. It is the business model. [4,5]","r":[4]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"15 million members","t":"Approximately 50 per cent of the Australian adult population is enrolled in Qantas Frequent Flyer. About 20 per cent of New Zealand's population is also enrolled. This is not a niche product for frequent flyers. It is infrastructure.","src":"Wikipedia / Qantas disclosures [4]"},{"a":4,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A program with 15 million members representing half the adult population of Australia is not a niche product for frequent flyers. It is infrastructure. [4] The banks that issue Qantas Points co-branded cards can market those cards to essentially the entire Australian working-age population. [5] The retailers that offer Qantas Points accumulation can reach every household in the country. [13] Qantas sits at the centre of this ecosystem, collecting revenue every time a point is issued anywhere in it. [5]","r":[4,5,13]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The lock-in effect is consequential for aviation competition. [5] A person who has accumulated years of Qantas Points, achieved Platinum or Gold status, and structured their credit card and retail spending around point accumulation faces real switching costs if they want to fly a different airline. [4,5] Those costs are not just financial; they represent the forfeiture of status benefits, lounge access, and reward seat availability built up over years. [4]","r":[5,4]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"As this series documented in Article 2, Qantas holds approximately 80 per cent of the Australian corporate travel market. [11] Much of that dominance is structural, and loyalty lock-in is a key component. [5,11] A business that sends its employees on Qantas will accumulate status and points in those employees' accounts. Switching the corporate travel policy to Virgin or an international carrier means starting from zero. [5]","r":[11,5]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A private currency is only as valuable as the issuer is willing to make it. [4,12] Qantas, as the sole issuer and arbiter of Qantas Points, can and does change the value of those points unilaterally. [4,12]"},{"a":4,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In January 2024, Qantas announced that the cost of many Classic Flight Rewards would increase from August 2024, in some cases requiring up to 25 per cent more points to book the same seat. [12] This was framed as a minor adjustment and the second such change in the program's history. [12] Simultaneously, Qantas introduced the Classic Plus product: more seats available, but at much higher point costs than Classic seats. [3,12] The net effect for most members: more choice of seats, but at higher redemption costs. [12]","r":[12]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC's airline monitoring report noted consumer concern about loyalty program devaluation in its list of issues requiring attention. [15] The Ghost Flights scandal, in which Qantas sold approximately 8,000 tickets for flights already cancelled, added a further dimension: customers had accumulated points through a program while Qantas was simultaneously failing to deliver the service those points were meant to reward. [9]","r":[15,9]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In February 2026, Qantas announced further changes, described as the program's 'new era,' which allow members to earn status credits through everyday spending for the first time. [7] The change expands the program's non-aviation revenue base. [7] It also raised the number of credits required to retain status tier membership. [7] Qantas guided that Loyalty EBIT would grow 10 to 12 per cent in FY25-26. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Analysts who cover Qantas have for years made a version of the same argument. [5] The airline's equity is valued more as a loyalty business than as an airline; the flying operations provide distribution and brand credibility for the points program, while the program provides consistent cash flows that the volatile airline business cannot. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"If you're investing in Qantas, you're not investing in a pure-play airline. You're investing in a loyalty business that happens to offer flights.","x":"Stocks Down Under","src":"January 2025 [5]"},{"a":4,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This framing illuminates the domestic margin comparison from Article 1. Qantas Domestic earns a 16.1 per cent margin on a concentrated, low-competition market. [11] Qantas International earns 7.1 per cent on a competitive market. [11] Qantas Loyalty earns approximately 20 per cent, on a business where the primary cost is issuing points and the primary risk is that members actually redeem them for flights. [1,11]","r":[11]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The domestic flying business is profitable because competition is limited. [11] The loyalty business is profitable because 15 million Australians are enrolled in it and the terms under which they can redeem their points are determined unilaterally by Qantas. [4,5]","r":[11]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"COVID resilience","t":"During COVID, Qantas's domestic and international flying profits fell over 75%. Loyalty fell 9%. The planes were grounded. The points kept selling. Banks kept paying Qantas for every Qantas Points credit card purchase made by every enrolled Australian. This is not a loyalty program. It is a financial services business that uses flying as its marketing channel.","src":"[5][14]"},{"a":4,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The frequent flyer financial machine is not illegal. It is not even unusual; every major airline globally operates a version of the same model. [5] What makes the Australian version distinctive is scale and structural lock-in. [4,5]","r":[5]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Fifty per cent of Australians are enrolled in a private currency issued by a company that also controls 63 per cent of domestic flights, has blocked a competitor's entry to the market, and has cultivated personal relationships with 90 per cent of federal parliamentarians through a mechanism of preferential travel access. [4,6,11] The loyalty program is not separate from the airline rort. It is part of its architecture. [5,11]"},{"a":4,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A consumer who wants to accumulate points toward a free flight must fly Qantas to do it efficiently. [5] To fly Qantas on domestic routes is to fly in a market where competition has been systemically limited. [11] The points program's value proposition depends, in part, on Qantas's domestic pricing power, the same pricing power that produces a 16.1 per cent domestic margin while the competitive international business earns 7.1 per cent. [11]","r":[5,11]},{"a":4,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The loyalty program is the reward Qantas offers for participating in the market it controls."},{"a":4,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [10], which pointed to the High Court's homepage, now points to the Court's judgment summary in Qantas Airways Limited v Transport Workers Union of Australia [2023] HCA 27, and states only what that summary states. No sentence in this article cites it.","r":[10]},{"a":5,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Australia's major airports are private monopolies with no price regulation: the ACCC monitors them but cannot cap charges.","r":[2,9]},{"a":5,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In the year to June 2025 Sydney Airport made A$584 million in aeronautical operating profit, a **20.8 per cent** return, the highest the ACCC had seen in more than two decades.","r":[1]},{"a":5,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Sydney Airport was sold in June 2002 for A$5.6 billion. In 2022 a super fund consortium took it private for A$23.6 billion.","r":[16,4]},{"a":5,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"On this outlet's reading, workers pay twice: through higher fares, while their own super funds co-own the airports.","r":[4,12]},{"a":5,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The four major airports propose almost A$20 billion in infrastructure spending, and the ACCC warns consumers could face higher airfares.","r":[1,13]},{"a":5,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In 2022, Australia's largest infrastructure transaction to that point transferred Sydney Airport from public shareholders to a consortium of superannuation funds and infrastructure investors. [4] The enterprise value was A$23.6 billion. [4] The consortium included IFM Investors, Global Infrastructure Partners, Australian Retirement Trust, and UniSuper. [4] Combined, those four entities manage the retirement savings of millions of Australian workers. [4,12]","r":[4]},{"a":5,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The airport those workers now co-own is a monopoly. There is no second commercial airport in Sydney. Airlines that want to fly to or from Sydney must use it. [1,3] They have no alternative. The airport knows this. Its pricing reflects it. [1,2]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"In the financial year to June 2025, Sydney Airport earned A$584 million in aeronautical operating profit, generating a return on aeronautical assets of 20.8 per cent. [1] The ACCC noted this was the highest level it had observed in more than two decades of monitoring. [1] Sydney's aeronautical profits exceeded the combined profits of the other three monitored airports: Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":5,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"This is what a private infrastructure monopoly with inadequate regulation looks like. [1,2,3]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The privatisation of Australia's major airports was announced by the Keating government in 1994 and carried out by the Howard government in stages from 1997 to 2002. [16,18,19] The Federal Airports Corporation, which had operated most of Australia's major airports since 1988, sold 17 of its 22 airports in two phases. [6,18] The first phase, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, leased from 1 July 1997, raised gross proceeds of A$3.31 billion. [18] The second phase, 14 airports leased in June 1998, raised A$730 million. [6] Together the 17 airports brought in about A$4.04 billion, in the dollars of the day. [6,18] Sydney Airport was not part of that sale; it was sold separately in 2002. [16,17]","r":[18,6]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The airports were sold on 50-year leases with 49-year extension options, meaning private operators can hold them for up to 99 years: Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth from 1997, and Sydney under a lease that began in 1998 and can run to 2097. [17,18] A regulatory framework was established that relied primarily on monitoring rather than price control; the 'light-touch' regime that the ACCC has been criticising ever since. [2,9]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$5.6B → A$23.6B","t":"Sydney Airport was sold in June 2002 for A$5.6 billion, on a 50-year lease (from 1998) with an option for 49 more. Twenty years later, the consortium paid A$23.6 billion to take it private; more than four times the original sale price.","src":"Federal Government media release [16]; ANAO [17]; IFM Investors [4]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In June 2002, Sydney Airport was sold for A$5.6 billion, on a 50-year lease with a 49-year option. [16,17] Twenty years later, the consortium paid A$23.6 billion to take it private, more than four times the original sale price. [4,16] The increase reflects what unregulated monopoly infrastructure is worth when the regulator can observe but not constrain pricing. [3,8]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the A$2.6 billion the government received for the airports it sold, in 1998/99 values, included Sydney Airport. Sydney was sold separately, in June 2002 [16,17]. The first paragraph now says so."},{"a":5,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said privatisation ran from 1996 to 2002 under both the Keating and Howard governments; the Keating government announced the sales in 1994 [19], but the leases were sold under the Howard government from 1997 [18]. It also described Sydney Airport's lease as a 99-year lease and said the leases ran until 2099. The federal leases, Sydney's included, are 50-year leases with a 49-year option; Sydney's began on 1 July 1998 [17]. The Sydney sale facts are now cited to the government's 2002 media release and the Auditor-General's report on the sale [16,17].","r":[19,18,17]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the government received A$2.6 billion, in 1998/99 values, for the 17 airports it sold, a figure taken from a non-authoritative website [6]. The Auditor-General's reports show the 1997 lease of Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth raised gross proceeds of A$3.31 billion [18] and the 1998 lease of 14 more airports raised A$730 million [6], about A$4.04 billion in all. The first paragraph now gives those figures, reference [6] now points to the Auditor-General's Phase 2 report instead of that website, and a sentence on the government's stated rationale that rested only on the website has been removed.","r":[6,18]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC has monitored the four largest airports, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, since privatisation. [1,2] The pattern it documents, year after year, is consistent: high revenues, high profits, inadequate competition, inadequate regulatory constraint. [2,9]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"82%","t":"Sydney Airport has recorded EBITDA margins as high as 82 per cent. The global pre-pandemic industry average EBITDA margin for airports was 45 per cent.","src":"CAPA, Centre for Aviation [3]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"EBITDA margins at the four monitored Australian airports have ranged from 45 to 77 per cent, with an average of 62.1 per cent in FY20-21. [3] The global pre-pandemic industry average EBITDA margin for airports was 45 per cent. [3] Sydney Airport has recorded EBITDA margins as high as 82 per cent. [3,8]","r":[3]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"CAPA, Centre for Aviation, compared Sydney Airport's margins directly against regional peers and found they exceeded those at Hong Kong International, Singapore Changi, Tokyo Haneda, and the Malaysia airport network. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Monopolistic position enhanced, or better said, permitted, by a light-touch regulatory oversight.","x":"CAPA, Centre for Aviation","src":"Describing Sydney Airport's premium margins versus regional peers [3]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In FY23-24, the four airports combined earned A$1 billion in aeronautical operating profit, up 75 per cent year-on-year. [2] This was achieved despite passenger numbers remaining below pre-pandemic levels at three of the four airports. [2] The ACCC noted the dynamic plainly: record revenues, inadequate competition, monitoring but no pricing constraint. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"q","t":"It is not surprising that the airports are so profitable, given that they face little competitive pressure and no price regulation. Profits per passenger have also risen at each of the four airports and travellers are paying for this through higher ticket prices.","x":"Rod Sims, former ACCC chair","src":"[9]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Australia's four major airports are 'monitored' by the ACCC under the Airports Act 1996. [1,2] Monitoring means the ACCC collects data on prices, costs, profits, and quality of service, and publishes annual reports. [1,2] It does not mean the ACCC can cap prices, mandate charges, or require airports to accept particular terms from airlines. [2,7]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"When an airline and an airport dispute the terms of the charges the airport wants to impose, there is no independent arbitration mechanism the airline can invoke. [7] The ACCC has recommended for years that aeronautical pricing principles be made mandatory and enforceable. [7,10] As of 2026, they are not. [1,7]","r":[7]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Effectively unregulated monopoly infrastructure.","x":"Qantas","src":"Submission to the government's Aviation Green Paper [7]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Both Qantas and Virgin have publicly described the airport pricing regime as inadequate. Qantas, in its submission to the government's Aviation Green Paper, described the airports as 'effectively unregulated monopoly infrastructure.' [7] Virgin said airports impose 'inefficient costs on the travelling public.' [7] Former ACCC chair Allan Fels identified a 'very strong case' for airport price regulation. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The industry, airlines, the ACCC, and independent economists, agrees on the diagnosis. The treatment has not been applied. [1,7,10]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The ownership structure of Australia's airports contains a paradox that is rarely stated plainly. [4,5,12]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"IFM Investors is owned by the industry superannuation movement; it was established by and remains owned by Australian industry super funds. [4,12] Its Australian Infrastructure Fund's investors are 'predominantly Australian industry superannuation funds, which in turn manage retirement savings on behalf of millions of Australians,' as IFM itself states. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Those industry super funds are the retirement savings vehicles of Australian workers, the same workers who fly through Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth airports. [4,12] When those workers pay airport parking fees that generate margins documented at over 50 cents profit per dollar of revenue, [2] they are contributing to the returns on the very assets their own superannuation funds co-own. [12]","r":[2,12]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"When airports raise aeronautical charges and those charges flow through to higher airfares, workers pay more to fly. [1,13] Their super funds, as part-owners of those airports, benefit from the higher revenue. [12] The worker pays twice: once at the ticket counter, and once at retirement in the form of returns the super fund attributes to its infrastructure portfolio. [4,12]","r":[12]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"Pays twice","t":"IFM Investors, which owns stakes in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, and Sydney airports, is owned by the Australian industry superannuation movement. Workers' retirement savings fund the monopoly airport infrastructure those same workers pay to use.","src":"IFM Investors [4]; superannuation fund portfolio [12]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The fact box in this section left out Perth, where IFM's Australian Infrastructure Fund held a 3.2 per cent stake at the time of the Sydney approach, as IFM's statement of that approach records [12]. Perth is now listed. AustralianSuper also holds an interest in Perth Airport [4,5]; the two are not exclusive. The illustration for this article no longer credits a source the article does not cite.","r":[12]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC's most recent airport monitoring report, published in March 2026, contained a warning that connects the airports' record profits to the near-term cost of aviation for Australians. [1,13]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The four major airports collectively propose to spend almost A$20 billion on infrastructure projects over the next decade. [1,13] They invested A$1.5 billion on aeronautical facilities in FY24-25, a 43 per cent increase on the prior year. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Consumers could face higher airfares as airports seek to recover their costs by charging airlines more in the coming years.","x":"ACCC","src":"Airport Monitoring Report FY2024-25, March 2026 [1]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is the structural logic of privatised monopoly infrastructure with inadequate regulation: the airports invest, charge airlines to recover the investment, airlines pass the costs to passengers, passengers pay higher fares. [1,2,9] At no point in this chain does competition intervene to constrain pricing. [1,2] The ACCC monitors. The airports charge. The passengers pay. [1,13]"},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Meanwhile, the Australian Government is spending A$5.3 billion to build a new airport at Badgerys Creek in Western Sydney. [15] Western Sydney International Airport is scheduled to open in late 2026. [15] The government received about A$4.04 billion, in the dollars of the day, for the 17 airports it leased in 1997 and 1998, before Sydney was sold separately in 2002. [6,18] It is spending more than that on a single new airport. [15] In its ownership: 100 per cent federal government. [15]","r":[15]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The government leased 17 airports for about A$4 billion in 1997 and 1998. It is now building one new airport for A$5.3 billion. The airports it sold generate EBITDA margins of up to 82 per cent, earn returns on aeronautical assets above 20 per cent, and face no price regulation. The ACCC has been warning about this for two decades. The recommendations have not been implemented. [1][6][9][15][18]","r":[1,6,9,15,18]},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the government privatised its existing airports for A$2.6 billion in total. That figure covers the 17 airports sold from 1996, not Sydney, which was sold separately in 2002 [16,17]. The paragraph now says so."},{"a":5,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section and its pull quote said the 17 airports were sold for A$2.6 billion; the Auditor-General's reports put the proceeds at A$3.31 billion for Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in 1997 and A$730 million for 14 more airports in 1998, about A$4.04 billion in all [6,18]. The comparison with the new Western Sydney airport now uses that figure, and no longer says the new airport costs twice as much."},{"a":6,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"In July 2022 Qantas signed content partnerships with Nine, News Corp and the ABC, three of Australia's four major media groups, whose journalists cover aviation policy.","r":[1]},{"a":6,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Qantas ranked 15th among Australia's advertisers in 2025. Chairman's Lounge memberships often go to media figures; no public list exists.","r":[12,2]},{"a":6,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Outlets with no commercial tie to Qantas, such as Crikey, Al Jazeera and SBS, framed the Qatar block as harm to consumers.","r":[7,8,11]},{"a":6,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The ghost flights action was widely reported. ACCC data on a duopoly holding almost 99 per cent of flights gets episodic coverage.","r":[15,6,16]},{"a":6,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The series does not claim any outlet was corrupted. On its reading, partnerships and ad spend produce coverage gaps.","r":[1,12]},{"a":6,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In July 2022, Qantas announced a suite of new content partnerships with Australian media organisations. [1] ABC News bulletins would be shown in Qantas lounges and across the domestic jet fleet. [1] Passengers connecting to the free Qantas Wi-Fi network would be able to access the full content of The Australian, News Corp's national broadsheet, and the Australian Financial Review, published by Nine Entertainment. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":6,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"In that single announcement, Qantas formalised commercial content relationships with three of Australia's four major media conglomerates. [1] Nine owns the AFR, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Nine television network. [4] News Corp owns The Australian, Sky News, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, the Courier-Mail, and dozens of regional titles. [9] ABC is the national public broadcaster. [14]","r":[1,4,9,14]},{"a":6,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"These are the organisations that employ most of the journalists who cover Australian aviation policy. [1,4,9] They are also organisations with direct commercial relationships with the airline those journalists are covering. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A content partnership is not an advertising contract. [1] Qantas does not pay Nine or News Corp to write favourable stories. [1] The arrangement is: Qantas provides access to its captive audience of passengers and lounge visitors; the media company provides content that appears on Qantas screens and networks. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"But, on this series' reading, commercial relationships shape institutional culture in ways that are difficult to trace and impossible to prove. An editor who knows that their masthead's content is distributed on Qantas flights is not likely to commission a sustained investigative series on the airline's political influence. A journalist who wants continued access to airline executives for business reporting is not likely to push hardest on stories that those executives find uncomfortable. None of this requires a phone call between an airline executive and an editor. It requires nothing more than the normal operation of commercial media incentives."},{"a":6,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Qantas is also among Australia's largest advertisers: Nielsen ranked it 15th by advertising spend in 2025, and the only airline in its top 20. [12] Advertising revenue funds journalism. [5] The relationship between a media company's largest advertisers and the coverage those advertisers receive is not a new observation.","r":[12,5]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Qantas is consistently among Australia's largest advertisers and that its marketing reaches every major commercial media outlet, citing the Mediaweek homepage, which carried neither claim. Nielsen's ranking shows Qantas 15th by advertising spend in 2025, a new entrant to the top 20 that year [12]; the text now says that, and the claim about reach is removed. Reference 12 now points to that Nielsen ranking. The reading of how commercial relationships shape coverage is marked as this series' own.","r":[12]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said Nielsen ranked Qantas the highest-spending airline. The Nielsen page lists Qantas 15th among Australia's top 20 advertisers for 2025 and does not call it the highest-spending airline; Qantas is the only airline in that top 20, and the sentence now says so [12].","r":[12]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Chairman's Lounge memberships are often given to Australian politicians, celebrities, high-profile members of the media and company executives.","x":"Wikipedia","src":"Entry on Qantas [2]"},{"a":6,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"There is no public list of media figures who hold Chairman's Lounge membership. [2,10] The same principles documented in Article 4 for politicians apply here. [10]","r":[10]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A senior journalist or editor who holds Chairman's Lounge membership, with the personal access, priority upgrades, and direct CEO relationship that membership entails, is in a different relationship with Qantas than a journalist who does not. [10] The relationship does not require any explicit quid pro quo to affect coverage. [10] The Chairman's Lounge model works through the creation of obligation and personal relationship, not through explicit instruction. [10]","r":[10]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"For politicians, as Article 4 documented, this was verifiable through the parliamentary register of interests. [10] For journalists, there is no equivalent public register. [10] The memberships, if they exist, are not disclosed anywhere. [10]","r":[10]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Qatar block in July 2023 received significant media coverage. [7,8,11] But the framing varied markedly by outlet. [7,8]"},{"a":6,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Outlets with no commercial relationship with Qantas, including Crikey, Al Jazeera, and SBS, tended to frame the story as what it was: a government decision that protected a dominant airline at the expense of consumers, costing Australians hundreds of dollars per flight and billions per year in foregone competition. [7,8,11]"},{"a":6,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Outlets in the Nine, News Corp and commercial broadcast ecosystem covered the Qatar story primarily through a political lens: Albanese vs the Coalition, Labor's connection to unions, the partisan battle over the Senate inquiry. [4,9] These frames were accurate as far as they went. [7] But the structural story, that Australia had blocked competition in a market where two companies held almost 99 per cent of domestic flights and were earning domestic margins more than double their competitive international margins, received less sustained analytical attention. [6,16]","r":[7]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Al Jazeera's coverage is instructive by contrast. [8] With no commercial relationship with Qantas, no advertising exposure, and no content partnership, their reporting consistently led with the consumer dimension: A$6,000 Bali trip, 'I'd have to sell a kidney,' route at 70 per cent of pre-COVID capacity, A$788 million in annual cost to the economy. [8] The facts were the same. The framing was different. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the two companies controlled 94 per cent of flights. The ACCC figure the series relies on is almost 99 per cent of domestic flights; 94 per cent is a share of passengers in one month, a different measure. It now says almost 99 per cent."},{"a":6,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The most significant journalistic investigation of Qantas's political influence, Joe Aston's The Chairman's Lounge, was published in October 2024. [3] Its first excerpts appeared in Nine's Good Weekend magazine and the AFR. [3] Joe Aston is a former AFR columnist. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The irony is structural, not accusatory: the most damaging investigation of Qantas's influence over media and politicians was published by a media group that has a content partnership with Qantas, whose senior editors may hold Chairman's Lounge memberships, and whose business newspaper is distributed to Qantas passengers on Wi-Fi. [1,3] The investigation broke through anyway. [3] The structure did not prevent it. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"But it did arrive in October 2024, more than a year after the Qatar block, and only after Qantas had accumulated sufficient public anger over cancellations, ghost flights, and high fares to make the political risk of not covering it greater than the commercial risk of covering it. [3,7]"},{"a":6,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC publishes quarterly reports on Australia's domestic airline market. [6] They contain data that should be national news: a duopoly on almost 99 per cent of domestic flights, domestic margins double international, record profits, capacity below 2019 levels, load factors at record highs, slot hoarding allegations. [6,16] They receive business press coverage focused on the financial performance angle. [6] The structural question, why Australia has this market, who benefits, what it costs consumers, and why nothing changes, receives episodic rather than systematic coverage. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Contrast the coverage of Qantas's ghost flights penalty. [15] That story, A$120 million settlement with the ACCC over 8,000 cancelled flight tickets sold without notification, was widely reported. [15] It had the features that make for easy coverage: a specific harm, specific numbers, a regulator taking action. [15] The structural story has none of those features. It requires sustained investment in expertise, sources, and editorial patience. [6,15]","r":[15]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The quarterly ACCC reports document a systematic market failure affecting every Australian who flies. They receive business section coverage. The ghost flights settlement, affecting 8,000 passengers, received front-page coverage. The duopoly that affects millions receives episodic coverage when it produces a discrete event: a CEO resignation, a Senate inquiry, a book. The structure is the story that mostly doesn't get covered as the structure. [6][15]","r":[6,15]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section, and the key facts, described a 94 to 99 per cent duopoly. The ACCC figure is almost 99 per cent of domestic flights; the 94 per cent figure is a share of passengers, a different measure. Both now say almost 99 per cent."},{"a":6,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. Reference 6, the ACCC's May 2025 report, was described as showing a duopoly controlling 94 to 99 per cent of flights. That report gives the share of passengers: the two largest airline groups carried 98.3 per cent of passengers in March 2025. The almost 99 per cent of domestic flights figure comes from the ACCC's March 2026 report, as reported by Australian Aviation [16], and is now cited to it alongside reference 6.","r":[16]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The clearest pattern in coverage of the airline rort is this: outlets without commercial relationships with Qantas covered it more directly and more structurally. [7,8,11,13]"},{"a":6,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Crikey, subscription-funded with no advertising, covered the Senate inquiry with analytical depth, named the structural problems, and noted the Joyce-shaped hole in the proceedings. [7] Al Jazeera, with no Australian advertising relationship, consistently led with consumer harm. [8] The Conversation, university-funded with author disclosures and no advertising, covered the structural competition arguments analytically. [13]","r":[7,8,13]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"ABC News covered Qantas substantially and critically: the ghost flights, the Chairman's Lounge, the Qatar block all received sustained ABC coverage. [14] ABC also had a content partnership with Qantas for inflight news. [1,14] The editorial independence charter appears to have operated as intended in this case. [14] But the existence of the commercial relationship, even if it did not determine coverage, is worth noting as context. [14]","r":[14]},{"a":6,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What this series does not claim is that any outlet was explicitly corrupted by its commercial relationship with Qantas. What it argues is the architecture: on this series' reading, the same commercial structures that have suppressed coverage of other industries, gas, media ownership itself, were present in aviation. The structure does not require explicit corruption to produce consistent coverage gaps."},{"a":6,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"f","x":"Zero relationships","t":"The outlets that covered the airline rort most directly, Crikey, Al Jazeera, SBS, The Conversation, were those with no advertising revenue from Qantas, no content partnership with Qantas, and no Chairman's Lounge membership system.","src":"Coverage analysis across this series [7,8,11,13]"},{"a":6,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The outlets that covered the airline rort most directly, Crikey, Al Jazeera, SBS, The Conversation, were those with no advertising revenue from Qantas, no content partnership with Qantas, and no Chairman's Lounge membership system. The outlets with those relationships covered the story episodically, after discrete triggering events. The structural story of why Australia has this aviation market, and why it persists, was most clearly told by those with the least to lose from telling it."},{"a":6,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The paragraph on what the series does and does not claim cited a media trade homepage; it is this series' own reading and is now marked as such."},{"a":7,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Federal data shows the price per kilometre is halved when three competitors fly a route instead of one. Reforms to let a third carrier compete are documented but not implemented.","r":[1,7]},{"a":7,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Independent slot management at Sydney Airport began in April 2025, with stricter use-it-or-lose-it enforcement: a genuine but partial reform.","r":[2]},{"a":7,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The ACCC has long recommended mandatory, enforceable airport pricing principles. Allan Fels saw a 'very strong case' for price regulation.","r":[6]},{"a":7,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Fels told the Senate inquiry he was 'strongly in favour' of powers to make Qantas divest Jetstar.","r":[4]},{"a":7,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Banning industry perks for politicians is the reform major parties refuse: each time the crossbench moved on it, they voted it down.","r":[8]},{"a":7,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Article 1 of this series established the foundational fact: when a third carrier enters an Australian domestic route, the price per kilometre falls by more than half. [1] The government's own competition taskforce documented this. [1] It is not disputed. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":7,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The reforms that would lower fares are therefore reforms that create the conditions for a third carrier to exist and compete, or that constrain the pricing power of airports and dominant airlines in the absence of competition. [1,7] They are documented. They are costed. Most of them have been recommended by the ACCC or the Senate or both. [6,9] What they have not been is implemented. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":7,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article examines each major reform category, what it would do, what is already in motion, and what the political obstacle is. [1,6,7,9]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The most effective near-term reform for international routes is the one at the centre of the Qatar block story: granting international carriers fifth freedom rights, the ability to pick up and set down passengers between Australian cities on international routes. [5,9]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Qatar Airways wanted to fly Doha-Sydney-Melbourne-Doha. Under fifth freedom rights, it would also have been able to carry passengers from Sydney to Melbourne on that leg, not just international travellers beginning their journey in Doha. [9] This is how Dubai and Singapore have built aviation hubs: by allowing fifth freedom flying, they created markets where multiple carriers compete on each route, driving prices down systematically. [5]","r":[9,5]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The European Union's answer to this question, its Single Aviation Market established in 1993, granted these rights between all EU member states simultaneously. [5] The result was the emergence of Ryanair and easyJet as transformative competitive forces. [5] European domestic airfares, adjusted for distance, are consistently lower than Australian equivalents. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia's bilateral air service agreements are restrictive on fifth freedom rights compared to open skies models. [9] The Senate inquiry recommended the government conduct proper cost-benefit analysis before bilateral decisions, consult the ACCC, and publish its reasons. [9] These recommendations have not been implemented in any enforceable form. [9]","r":[9]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Qatar-Virgin alliance, authorised by the ACCC in March 2025, is a partial implementation of the competition that fifth freedom rights would have created directly. [3,12] Virgin CEO confirmed at the alliance authorisation that competition was already producing 'increased sale activity on airfares between Australia and Europe, the Middle East and Africa.' [3,12] The evidence is live: competition lowers prices. [1,12]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"f","x":"At least A$788M a year","t":"The ACCI's estimate of the cost to the Australian economy, in lost tourism, of blocking Qatar's additional flights. The Qatar-Virgin alliance, authorised March 2025, is already producing lower international fares. Fifth freedom rights would have produced the same outcome from July 2023. The difference is 20 months of foregone competition.","src":"ACCC / Al Jazeera [1,3,12]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The fact box in this section and the key facts gave a range as the estimated cost of 20 months of foregone Qatar competition, with a low end of A$540M a year. The range was presented as the ACCI's estimate of the cost of the block, as the series' article 3 gave it, and its low end is not in the source that article cites [3]. The ACCI's estimate, as Al Jazeera reports it, is one figure: at least A$788 million a year in lost tourism, a cost to the Australian economy, not a measure of the cost of lost competition. The fact box and the key facts now say so. See the correction of the same date on The Qatar block.","r":[3]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The replacement of the Qantas-Virgin joint venture slot manager at Sydney Airport with the independent Airport Coordination Limited in April 2025 is the most significant structural aviation reform of recent years. [2] It addresses one of the five structural barriers to entry identified in Article 2. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Under ACL's management, airlines face stricter use-it-or-lose-it enforcement, real-time slot usage tracking, and published slot data. [2] If an airline cannot use its peak-hour slots at the level of utilisation expected at comparable international airports, it risks losing them. [2] This creates genuine space for new entrants to access Sydney's most valuable flying windows. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"What remains insufficient: the 80/20 rule, which allows cancellation of 20 per cent of flights without forfeiting slots, was retained in the 2024 reforms. [17,18] Sydney Airport itself had urged a much stricter 95/5 rule, under which an airline must use a slot at least 95 per cent of the time to keep it. [19] The reform is genuine. The implementation is conservative. [2]","r":[19,2]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This outlet's recommendation: the government should tighten the 80/20 rule toward the 95/5 standard Sydney Airport has itself proposed [19], with independent ACCC review of whether slot reallocation is producing measurable new entry.","r":[19]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said aviation analysts argued for a stricter 85/15 or 90/10 slot rule; no source for those figures could be found, and the reference cited did not carry them. It now reports the documented proposal: Sydney Airport's call for a 95/5 rule. [19] The retention of the 80/20 rule in the 2024 reforms is now cited to the Parliamentary Library Bills Digest and Australian Aviation. [17,18]","r":[19]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The recommendation in this section called for moving the 80/20 rule to 85/15 within two years, citing references 2 and 6, which carry no such figure. It is now marked as this outlet's own recommendation, points to the 95/5 rule Sydney Airport proposed [19] instead of an unsourced 85/15 figure, and no longer carries a two-year deadline or the citations that did not support it.","r":[19]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC has recommended mandatory and enforceable aeronautical pricing principles for more than a decade. [6] Former ACCC chair Allan Fels identified a 'very strong case' for price regulation. [6] Airlines for Australia and New Zealand called the current monitoring regime 'not fit for purpose.' [6] The airports earned EBITDA margins of up to 82 per cent and returns on aeronautical assets above 20 per cent. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC's March 2026 airport monitoring report warned that A$20 billion in planned infrastructure investment would likely produce higher charges flowing through to passengers. [6] It recommended, again, that pricing principles be made mandatory and that dispute resolution mechanisms be introduced. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"What this means in practice: when an airport proposes to charge airlines A$X per landing, airlines should have access to an independent arbitration process rather than simply accepting the airport's terms or withdrawing from the airport entirely. [6] This is how the UK's Competition and Markets Authority regulates Heathrow. [5] It is not radical. It is standard. [6]","r":[6,5]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Western Sydney International Airport, opening late 2026 as a fully government-owned facility, represents an opportunity. [14] Its slot allocation, pricing structure, and access rules can be designed without the influence of the incumbents. [14] If designed correctly, with competitive access principles, slot allocation favouring new entrants, and pricing regulated from the start, WSI could be the entry point that changes the structural dynamic in Australian aviation. [14]","r":[14]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Senate inquiry's most structurally significant recommendation, largely overlooked, was the call for divestiture powers. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"I believe it would have a very big effect on behaviour, including by Qantas.","x":"Allan Fels, former ACCC chair","src":"On giving the ACCC power to require Qantas to divest Jetstar [4]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Former ACCC chair Allan Fels told the inquiry he was 'strongly in favour' of giving the ACCC power to require Qantas to divest Jetstar. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The logic: Jetstar is the mechanism through which Qantas occupies both the premium and budget segments of the domestic market simultaneously. [4,7] A standalone Jetstar, competing independently for passengers and no longer able to coordinate with Qantas on capacity decisions, would immediately restructure the domestic market. [4] The threat of divestiture, even if never exercised, would change the incentives of both airlines. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A specific ACCC investigation into Qantas's market conduct, as recommended by the Senate inquiry, would create the evidentiary basis for whatever structural intervention the market ultimately requires. [4] The monitoring direction that the Treasurer issued in 2023 runs only to December 2026. [7] It should be made permanent. [7]","r":[4,7]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This reform category is the one the major parties have consistently refused to consider. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Chairman's Lounge model, documented in Article 4, works because it is legal. [8] Upgrades are declared. No law is broken. [8] The system produces a structurally corrupted decision-making environment without requiring any individual act of corruption. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The fix is simple: prohibit politicians and ministers from accepting any benefits from regulated industries above standard commercial entitlements. [8] An economy-class seat from Qantas, booked and paid for normally, is a standard commercial entitlement. [8] A Chairman's Lounge membership, a personal relationship with the CEO, and a guaranteed upgrade whenever the minister chooses to fly is not. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"q","t":"It is probably time for free upgrades for MPs to be banned.","x":"Joe Aston","src":"[8]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"q","t":"I am deeply concerned that any minister or shadow minister would receive extra perks and privileges from any company over which they have authority or influence.","x":"Andrew Wilkie, Independent MP","src":"[8]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Every time crossbench senators moved on this, the major parties voted it down. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"More broadly: bilateral air service decisions should be subject to mandatory cost-benefit analysis, ACCC consultation, and publication of reasons, as the Senate recommended. [9] The Qatar block occurred because none of these requirements existed. [9] A future transport minister should not be able to block a competitor's application, on behalf of a dominant incumbent, without any of these requirements applying. [9]","r":[9]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"It is worth recording what has already changed, because reform is possible and some of it has happened. [2,3,7]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Independent slot management at Sydney Airport from April 2025: a genuine structural reform. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Qatar-Virgin alliance producing immediate fare competition on Australia-Europe routes from June 2025. [3,12]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"ACCC monitoring direction extended and quarterly reporting recommenced. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Aviation White Paper published, flagging further competition and consumer protection work. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Western Sydney International Airport under construction, government-owned, opening late 2026. [14]","r":[14]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Aviation Customer Rights Charter introduced: partial consumer protection. [10]","r":[10]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Each of these is genuine. [2,3,7,14] None is sufficient on its own. [1,7] The structural condition documented across this series, a duopoly on almost 99 per cent of domestic flights, 16.1 per cent domestic margins, record profits, fares above pre-COVID levels, has not changed. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section, and the key facts, said the two airline groups hold 94 to 99 per cent of the domestic market. The ACCC figure this article cites [7] is nearly 99 per cent of domestic flights. Both now say almost 99 per cent.","r":[7]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The case for reform is clear. The reforms are known. The evidence is documented. The ACCC has made the recommendations. The Senate has supported them. [1,4,6,9]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The obstacle is the same mechanism this series has documented across eight articles: an airline that has systematically cultivated relationships with the politicians who make regulatory decisions, through a legal system of access and preferential treatment that creates obligation without corruption. [8,15]"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Qantas has every incentive to maintain the current architecture. [15] Its domestic margins are 16.1 per cent in a concentrated market. [15] Its Loyalty division generates A$511 million in EBIT on a business that depends on domestic pricing power. [15] Every structural reform that introduces competition reduces those margins. [1,15]","r":[15]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The political economy of reform is therefore asymmetric. [15] The benefits are diffuse, distributed across 25 million Australians in the form of lower fares. [1] The costs are concentrated, absorbed by Qantas's shareholders and executives. [15] Concentrated interests are better organised to resist reform than diffuse interests are to demand it. [15]","r":[15,1]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"This series has been an attempt to change that. [1] The facts of the airline rort are not complicated. The market is concentrated. The profits are high. The competition was blocked. The Prime Minister whose government blocked it had declared upgrades on about 22 personal Qantas flights between 2009 and 2019. [16] The man who lobbied for the block left the country and was never questioned. The media that should have covered the structural story had commercial relationships with the airline. [1,7,8,15]","r":[1,16]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This article said, in this paragraph, in a pull quote and in its key facts, that the transport minister who blocked Qatar Airways' application in 2023 had received 22 or more Qantas upgrades. No source this series cites supports that. The figure of about 22 declared personal upgrades, between 2009 and 2019, belongs to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as the series' own article on Qantas and the politicians records. [16] All three passages now say so.","r":[16]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The fix is: more competitors, better regulated airports, constrained ministerial discretion, banned industry gifts to politicians. [1,6,8,9] Australia has the evidence. It has the recommendations. It has an independent regulator that has been making the case for two decades. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":7,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"What it needs is a government that will act on it."},{"a":7,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"f","x":"8 articles. 120 sources.","t":"One question: why do Australians pay among the most for domestic flights in the developed world? Because the people who could fix it have never needed to buy their own tickets.","src":"The Airline Rort series, The Rort"},{"a":7,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [11], which pointed to the ACCC's homepage, now points to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources page that describes the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism, the agency that administers it. No sentence in this article cites it.","r":[11]},{"a":8,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A May 2026 Act lets the ACCC exempt competitors from cartel law once the Treasurer declares 'exceptional circumstances', a term the Act does not define.","r":[1,8]},{"a":8,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The Act went from introduction to assent in thirteen days. No parliamentary committee reported on it.","r":[3,4]},{"a":8,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The ACCC need only find the conduct would assist a response or recovery, not that benefit outweighs detriment. Tribunal merits review is excluded.","r":[1,2]},{"a":8,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Individual authorisations cannot be disallowed, need not be published until seven business days after the declaration ends, and can reach back to 1 April 2026.","r":[1]},{"a":8,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The Treasurer made the first declaration, citing Middle East supply disruptions. It took effect on 23 June 2026.","r":[7,11]},{"a":8,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 23 June 2026 a determination of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission took effect and switched off part of the cartel law. Signed by Acting Chair Catriona Lowe on 24 June 2026 and registered the next day, it provides that 'Subject to subsection (2) and the limitations specified in Division 2, sections 45AF, 45AG, 45AJ, 45AK, 45 and 47 of the Act do not apply to the following conduct by a corporation', and then sets out five limbs covering preparing for a government or non-government meeting, participating in it, holding subsidiary discussions to it, formally agreeing a plan there and implementing the plan agreed. Those sections are the cartel offence and the civil prohibitions on making and giving effect to a cartel provision, the prohibition on anti-competitive contracts and arrangements, and the prohibition on exclusive dealing. Agreements on price are carved out, and the exemption is gatekept meeting by meeting, a set of conditions returned to below."},{"a":8,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The determination could take effect because eight days earlier the Treasurer had signed a declaration. The Competition and Consumer (Exceptional Circumstances) (No. 1) Declaration 2026 is dated 15 June 2026, was registered on 22 June 2026 and commenced the day after registration. The declaration could be made at all because of an Act that went from introduction to assent in thirteen days, that no parliamentary committee reported on, and about which the Parliamentary Library recorded that no stakeholder views were available."},{"a":8,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Speed is the smallest part of it. On the new track the ACCC never has to find that public benefit outweighs public detriment, only that the conduct would assist a response or recovery. Tribunal merits review is excluded. An individual authorisation is not a legislative instrument, so it cannot be disallowed by Parliament. It does not have to go on the public register until seven business days after the declaration that produced it has ended. And it can be given a start date before the Act itself commenced, back to 1 April 2026, a floor sitting 56 days before Schedules 1 and 2 came into force."},{"a":8,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"Australian law already allowed competitors to coordinate in a crisis. In March 2026 the ACCC granted interim authorisation to the fuel majors two days after they lodged, stated in its release that authorisation had not been sought or granted for them to share information about or reach agreement on price, and opened public consultation on 24 March 2026. That is the benchmark, and it is what the fast track built in May 2026 leaves out. The coordination was kept. The accountability around it was not."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"f","x":"13 days","t":"Bill s1493 originated in the Senate, portfolio Treasury. It was introduced and read a first time on 13 May 2026 and assented to on 26 May 2026 as Act No. 48 of 2026. Introduction to assent is 13 days."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The chamber of origin took two sitting days. Second reading debate ran on 13 and 14 May 2026, the second reading was agreed on 14 May, the Committee of the Whole entry for that day is recorded on the bill homepage as '1 Australian Greens agreed to', and the third reading was agreed the same day. The House of Representatives then did the entire job on 25 May 2026: introduction, second reading, debate, consideration in detail and third reading. The Bill finally passed both Houses that day."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"No committee had been given it. The Bills Digest of 22 May 2026 states: 'At the time of writing, the Bill has not been referred to or reported on by any parliamentary committee.' Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) moved a second reading amendment on 25 May 2026, seconded by Garth Hamilton MP, to send it to one. The motion named seven questions, and it named them precisely."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"q","t":"the bill be referred to the House Standing Committee on Economics for inquiry and report by 22 June 2026, with particular reference to whether: (1) the existing ACCC powers are genuinely inadequate; (2) the Treasurer's declaration power is too broad; (3) in addition to class exemptions, ACCC authorisations should also be disallowable; (4) transparency requirements are strong enough; (5) the retrospective start date is justified; (6) the powers are properly limited in time and scope; and (7) there should be stronger sunset and review mechanisms","x":"Kevin Hogan MP, second reading amendment, House of Representatives, 25 May 2026"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The transcript does not record the outcome. The question was put and the debate was 'interrupted in accordance with standing order 43'. The Bills Digest records that a referral amendment moved by Senator Matthew Canavan, whose references closely match Hogan's later motion, was rejected by the Senate."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Parliamentary Library's own analysis arrived after the fact. Bills Digest No. 64, 2025-26 is dated 22 May 2026, eight days after the Senate had finished with the Bill. Its key points page also states: 'Owing to the tight timeframe for consideration of the Bill, no industry or other stakeholder views were available at the time of writing.'"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The references, previously bare links, now name each document. The Bills Digest reference now links to the Parliamentary Library's web edition of Bills Digest No. 64, 2025-26 rather than its PDF, and the Senate debate reference now links to OpenAustralia's record of the 13 May 2026 Senate debate on the Bill. Nothing in the text changed."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. Reference [2] now links directly to the Revised Explanatory Memorandum, which carries the passages quoted here, in place of the Parliament's bill home page. Reference [1] no longer lists the exclusion of Tribunal merits review among the passages of the Act it supports, because the Act's text does not mention it; that point rests on the Revised Explanatory Memorandum at paragraph 1.85 [2]. Reference [11] now says the amendment declaration was registered on 18 August 2026 and in force from the next day. Nothing in the text has changed.","r":[2,1,11]},{"a":8,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The scheme turns on one section. Section 95AE(1) reads: 'The Minister may, by legislative instrument, make a declaration under this section if the Minister is satisfied that: (a) either: (i) exceptional circumstances that are causing significant harm to the Australian economy or Australian consumers exist'. The second limb is that a declaration is in the public interest. Two states of ministerial satisfaction, and the whole apparatus is live."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Not defined","t":"'Exceptional circumstances' is not defined anywhere in the Act. Section 92A, the definitions provision for the new Division 1A, defines only 'business day'. The declaration's own explanatory statement says the omission is deliberate."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"q","t":"The term \"exceptional circumstances\" is taken to have its natural and ordinary meaning. The term is not defined in the legislation so as not to limit the circumstances in which a declaration can be made.","x":"Explanatory statement, Competition and Consumer (Exceptional Circumstances) (No. 1) Declaration 2026"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"No formal emergency is required. Sections 92D(2) and 95AC(2) each accept either a declaration under s 95AE or a national emergency declaration within the meaning of the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020, and either will do. Schedule 1 Part 2 wires the older regime into the new one, amending s 10 of that Act to omit 'section 88 or 90' and insert 'section 92D or 95AC'. Nor is anyone consulted first. The explanatory statement gives the reason with the rule: 'Due to the often urgent need to resolve the exceptional circumstances that would be the subject of the declaration, the Act does not require the Minister to undertake consultation prior to making a declaration.' It says this helps reduce the time involved in granting authorisations and class exemptions."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"f","x":"6 months, then 3 at a time","t":"A declaration may run no longer than six months under s 95AE(3)(b). Under s 95AF(2) it may be extended 'more than once', each period 'must not exceed 3 months', and the Act sets no cap on the number of extensions. The new powers in Division 1A contain no sunset clause of their own."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The switch has been thrown once. The declaration carries the signature block 'Dr Jim Chalmers / Treasurer' and the making words record him 'being satisfied of the matters set out in paragraphs 95AE(1)(a) and (b)'. Section 5(2) identifies the circumstances as 'the disruptions to global supply chains arising from the conflicts in the Middle East commencing in February 2026' and disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Section 6 as made gives no calendar end date, only a period ending six months after commencement; the ACCC calculates that as 22 December 2026. An amendment declaration signed on 17 August 2026 by Dr Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, and registered the next day, extended it to the state and territory Competition Code and replaced paragraph 6(a) with a fixed start of 23 June 2026. It did not extend the period and did not widen the sectoral scope."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Once a declaration is in force, s 92D(1) provides that the ACCC 'may, in respect of an application for an authorisation under this Division: (a) make a determination in writing granting such authorisation as it considers appropriate'. Without a declaration in force the Commission has no power to determine an application or make a class exemption at all. With one, the only statutory bar it must clear is this."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"The Commission must not make a determination under subsection (1) granting an authorisation in relation to conduct unless the Commission is satisfied that, in all the circumstances, the conduct would assist, or would be likely to assist, in the response to or recovery from the exceptional circumstances or emergency to which the declaration relates.","x":"Competition and Consumer Act 2010, s 92D(3), inserted by Act No. 48 of 2026"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Section 92D(4) then requires the ACCC only to have regard to the likely public benefit from that assistance and to the public detriment, and it may have regard to any other public benefit. Nowhere is it required that benefit outweigh detriment. Sections 95AC(3) and (4) are word for word parallel for class exemptions. Section 92D(8) bars merger authorisations on this track."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Set that against the ordinary route. Under s 90(7) the ACCC must not authorise unless satisfied either that the conduct would not substantially lessen competition, paragraph (a), or that the benefit to the public would outweigh the detriment, paragraph (b). Section 90(8) shuts cartel conduct, secondary boycotts, arrangements with unions under ss 45E to 45EA and resale price maintenance out of paragraph (a) altogether. Before this Act those had to go to paragraph 90(7)(b) or to the emergency limb 90(7)(c). Schedule 1 repealed 90(7)(c), so on the ordinary route cartel conduct must now clear the outweighing test."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Tribunal is out of it too. The Revised Explanatory Memorandum states at 1.85 that the new decisions 'are not subject to merits review by the Tribunal' and that 'A person's right to seek judicial review of a decision is unaffected.' The justification at 1.89 is that these decisions carry a public interest element, 'a need to take rapid action to restore or maintain investor confidence in the market', and an aspect making them 'essentially government financial policy decisions, rather than decisions about the merits of particular applications'. That is the government's description of a decision that exempts applicants from the cartel prohibitions: financial policy, not merits."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"f","x":"7 business days after the declaration ends","t":"Section 92H(1) requires a register of determinations, variations and revocations, and s 92H(2) requires reasons. Section 92H(3) then suspends the obligation until seven business days beginning on 'the day on which the declaration ceases to be in force'. The clock does not start when the authorisation is granted."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Bills Digest confirms the trigger in terms, noting that the timeframe does not relate to the date a determination is made: 'It relates to the date on which the declaration underlying the authorisation ceases to be in force.' Helen Haines put the same point to the House on 25 May 2026: 'The ACCC keeps a register of authorisations, but publication of the register does not have to occur while the declaration is in place.' Applied to the declaration now in force, which the ACCC calculates as ending on 22 December 2026, nothing granted under it need be visible until after that."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"There is no other place to look. An individual authorisation under s 92D(1) is 'a determination in writing'. It is never declared a legislative instrument, so it does not appear on the Federal Register of Legislation, and no disallowance attaches to it. Class exemptions are different: s 95AC(10) declares a class exemption determination to be a legislative instrument and applies s 42 of the Legislation Act 2003, disallowance, despite anything in s 44 of that Act. There is no equivalent provision anywhere in Division 1A."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The Treasurer's declaration can be disallowed by parliament, but the individual ACCC authorisations made after that declaration cannot be disallowed. A Senate amendment allowed class exemptions to be disallowable, but individual authorisations will not be.","x":"Kevin Hogan MP, House of Representatives, 25 May 2026"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The one disallowance power over an ACCC instrument was not in the Bill as introduced. The Bills Digest records: 'Senator McKim moved an amendment to allow a class exemption to be disallowed by the Parliament. The amendment was agreed by the Senate and will be reflected in the Bill introduced into the House.' The bill homepage records the Committee of the Whole entry for 14 May 2026 as '1 Australian Greens agreed to'. Hogan's adjacent sentence describes what remains: 'It means that parliament can reject the broad declaration, but it cannot directly disallow the specific exemptions that may affect competition in particular markets.'"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Even the length of the blackout is stated two ways. The ACCC's process page for the new track says: 'We will publish the determination on the authorisations register, no later than 7 days after the relevant government declaration ends.' Section 92H(3) says seven business days. The same page states that there is no fee for streamlined authorisation applications and that assessment 'may include consultation with stakeholders', which is a may, not a must."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"f","x":"56 days","t":"Section 92E(a) sets an authorisation's start as the day specified in the determination, 'which may be before the commencement of this section, but must not be before 1 April 2026'. Schedules 1 and 2 commenced on 27 May 2026, the day after Royal Assent, so the floor sits 56 days before the Act commenced."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The same 1 April 2026 floor appears three times, at ss 92E(a), 95AC(7)(a) and 95AE(2)(a), covering individual authorisations, class exemptions and the Minister's own declaration. The wording is not uniform: the first two fix on the day specified in the determination, the third on the day specified in the declaration. Separately from the date floor, s 92B(6) provides that 'The Commission may grant an authorisation for conduct engaged in before the Commission decided the application.' The italic heading immediately above it reads 'Past conduct'."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Under the existing authorisation powers, the ACCC cannot retrospectively authorise conduct. Under the new streamlined powers, the ACCC may retrospectively authorise conduct, provided the conduct occurred while a relevant declaration was in force.","x":"Revised Explanatory Memorandum, paragraph 1.55, circulated by authority of the Treasurer, the Hon Jim Chalmers MP"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"So far the reach has been short. The declaration starts prospectively, on the day after its registration. The class exemption reaches back two days from registration and one from making: paragraph 42 of its explanatory statement records that 'The class exemption came into force on 23 June 2026 and will remain in force until the Treasurer's declaration expires.' No registered instrument specifies a start date earlier than 23 June 2026. The power to reach back to 1 April 2026 exists in three provisions of the Act and has not been used. It is loaded and unfired."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The legality argument for the reach-back has a defect on its face. Paragraph 1.20 of the Revised Explanatory Memorandum rests the case on 'subsections 92C(4) and 95AC(4)', concluding that 'As a determination should only have beneficial application' its commencement before registration is consistent with s 12(2) of the Legislation Act 2003. In the Act as passed, s 92C is headed 'Procedure for applications' and has no subsections at all. The have regard duty the argument describes sits at s 92D(4). The ACCC then repeated the same citation at paragraph 43 of the explanatory statement to its own class exemption. The comparators offered at 1.18 and 1.19 are paragraph 15(7)(a) of the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020 and the Coronavirus Economic Response Package Omnibus (Measures No. 2) Act 2020."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The same Act runs its liabilities the other way. Schedule 2 sets no penalty amounts itself; it brings suppliers, distributors and retailers in the petroleum marketing industry into the higher tier within which the Oil Code regulations may prescribe penalties, the Revised Explanatory Memorandum noting at 2.4 that the Oil Code 'currently has no civil penalty provisions for non-compliance and as a result, infringement notices cannot be issued nor civil penalties applied'. Item 7 confines the amendments to 'contraventions that happen, or are alleged to happen, on or after the day this Schedule commences'. Penalties forward only, exemptions back to 1 April, in one Act."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"f","x":"2 days","t":"Application AA1000717-1 was lodged on 18 March 2026 by B P AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, VIVA ENERGY AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, MOBIL OIL AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, AMPOL LIMITED and AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF PETROLEUM LTD. The register records the ACCC decision regarding interim authorisation on 20 March 2026."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The rest of the chronology is on the public register too. Public consultation began on 24 March 2026 and the closing date for submissions from interested parties was 14 April 2026. The application was withdrawn on 3 August 2026. No draft determination and no final determination is listed, and the register states no reason for the withdrawal. Applying for authorisation, and withdrawing an application, are lawful acts, and nothing on the register says why this one ended."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What matters is that the old route moved, and moved in public. The ACCC's media release of 20 March 2026 quotes Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb: 'We have urgently assessed and granted this interim authorisation, received late Wednesday, because we recognise the impact of the current situation on consumers, businesses, and farmers.' 18 March 2026 was a Wednesday. The release also states that 'Authorisation has not been sought, or been granted, for fuel suppliers to share information about or reach agreement on price', and that public consultation on a final authorisation would shortly begin."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The ordinary route's full process is published by the ACCC: a final determination on new applications within six months, extendable by a further six months only where a draft determination has been made and the applicant agrees; a draft determination stating whether the ACCC plans to grant or deny, any proposed conditions and its reasons; an invitation for written submissions; and protection that begins when the final determination comes into effect, 'usually 21 days after the date of the final determination, unless an application for review of the determination is made to the Australia Competition Tribunal in that time'. Slow, but every stage of it is legible from outside."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"q","t":"But the government says the existing process is burdensome and slow for what Australians might face, yet the ACCC was able to grant an authorisation quite expeditiously in March, and I've not heard nor seen evidence that the ACCC experienced any exceptional problem in doing so.","x":"Helen Haines MP (Indi, Independent), House of Representatives, 25 May 2026"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The same objection had been made at introduction. On 13 May 2026, describing the Bill as introduced and before the amendment agreed the following day, Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) told the Senate that 'during COVID the ACCC provided such interim authorisation orders in 28 different circumstances', citing an ACCC report of April 2021, and asked, at page 14 of the proof Hansard quoted in the Bills Digest, 'the authorisation process can clearly work within a week, within 24 hours, what is exactly the justification for this bill? It seems very flimsy.' Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) said the same day: 'A framework exists. It has been shown to work well during the COVID crisis and others...the question then is: Why do we need a new piece of legislation?'"},{"a":8,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Take the defence at its strongest. Retrospectivity here relieves liability rather than creating it: cartel conduct carries criminal exposure, and an authorisation removes jeopardy rather than imposing it. That is the reasoning at Revised EM 1.20, that a determination 'should only have beneficial application', and at 1.17, that backdating 'would allow an authorisation or exemption to apply to conduct that has already occurred (provided that it occurred during the period specified in the declaration)'. Retrospective relief is not the same animal as a retrospective offence."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Parliament also kept real levers. The Treasurer's declaration is a legislative instrument and disallowable. So is any variation of its duration, which Revised EM 1.16 states would be subject to disallowance, sunsetting and periodic review. So is a class exemption, under s 95AC(10), the provision a Senate amendment added on 14 May 2026 and which commenced with the Act on 27 May 2026. Merits review is gone but judicial review is not."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The class exemption in force is not an open licence to sit down together. Section 8(3) requires the ACCC to be notified at least 24 hours before a meeting, or within a shorter period it approves, by email to exemptions@accc.gov.au, with attendees, purpose and matters to be discussed. Section 9 requires that an ACCC-approved competition lawyer attend and that the lawyer has been instructed to immediately advise the meeting attendees if concerned, a condition on the corporation rather than on the lawyer. Section 12 requires prior ACCC written approval for any non-government meeting between competitors. Section 14 requires minutes and tabled documents to go to the ACCC within five business days. Section 7(2) carves out price agreements, including any understanding between competitors on the price of goods or services they compete to supply. A government meeting must be initiated or convened, and attended, by a government body, the note adding that it 'may be initiated by the Fuel Supply Taskforce Coordinator'."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The regulator says the old road stays open. Its media release of 27 May 2026 states that the ACCC 'can only grant exemptions for activities that would likely assist in the response to, or recovery from, the exceptional circumstances which are declared', and that its 'existing powers that allow it to grant exemptions from competition laws where there is likely to be a net public benefit remain unchanged'. Cass-Gottlieb is quoted saying: 'The ACCC will apply clear safeguards, so coordination goes no further than necessary and impacts on competition are minimised.' The words retrospective, retrospectivity, backdated and 1 April do not appear in that release, and it states no timeframes."},{"a":8,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"That is the point. The declaration is disallowable and published. The class exemption is disallowable, published, and gatekept meeting by meeting. The thing neither of those describes is the individual authorisation under s 92D: granted on a bare relevance test, with no requirement that benefit outweigh detriment, closed to Tribunal review, outside disallowance because it is a determination in writing rather than a legislative instrument, capable of covering conduct already engaged in, and absent from the public register until seven business days after the declaration that produced it has ended. Watch that instrument. Nobody outside the process can, until it is over."},{"a":9,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A computer program kept cancelling welfare payments automatically after a 2022 law change required case-by-case discretion. The Ombudsman found the conduct contrary to law.","r":[2]},{"a":9,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Between 8 April 2022 and 4 July 2024, 964 people had a combined 985 payment cancellations applied. 24 per cent had recorded vulnerability indicators.","r":[3]},{"a":9,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"As at 1 December 2025, 604 people had received a combined $872,963.80. The Ombudsman found DEWR's remediation approach not fair and reasonable.","r":[3]},{"a":9,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"DEWR intends to restart two other powers, sections 42AM and 42AG(1)(a), on 26 October 2026. Neither Ombudsman report investigated them.","r":[1,2]},{"a":9,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The restart depends on assurance work, yet consultation on the Digital Protections Framework closed only on 28 September 2026.","r":[1,11]},{"a":9,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 26 October 2026, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations intends to switch two welfare compliance powers back on. Neither power was the subject of either of the two Commonwealth Ombudsman investigations that have examined this system since 2024. Both investigations centre on a third, different power, one that stays paused with no return date earlier than the first quarter of 2027."},{"a":9,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The confirmed harm sits with that third power. Under section 42AF(2)(d) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, a computer program kept cancelling people's payments automatically after Parliament changed the Secretary's duty to cancel into a discretion in 2022. Between 8 April 2022 and 4 July 2024, 964 people had a combined 985 of those cancellations applied to them, and the Ombudsman found the conduct contrary to law."},{"a":9,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The two powers restarting in October, sections 42AM and 42AG(1)(a), were paused on their own separate dates, for their own separate reasons, and no Ombudsman report has tested either one. A figure said to run past 300,000 people is often attached to the same story. It is a finding of neither Ombudsman report: the second report mentions it once, in a footnote, without adopting it, and it has never been verified as a finding by anyone other than the organisation that produced it."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Targeted Compliance Framework decides, in large part by computer, whether a person keeps their welfare payment. Section 6A of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 lets the Secretary of DEWR arrange for computer programs to make decisions under the social security law, and any decision a computer makes that way is deemed in law to be a decision of the Secretary."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Section 6A","t":"\"Under s 6A of the SSA Act, DEWR's secretary may arrange for the use of computer programs to make decisions under the social security law. Decisions made using computer programs under s 6A are deemed to be decisions of DEWR's Secretary.\"","src":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework, August 2025, p.15"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In April 2022 an amendment changed the Secretary's power under section 42AF(2) to cancel a payment for a persistent mutual obligation failure from a duty into a discretion. From that point the department was required to consider a jobseeker's individual circumstances before cancelling, rather than cancel automatically. The Ombudsman's central finding is that this did not happen."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"q","t":"Our central finding is that DEWR and Services Australia failed to take adequate steps to ensure the TCF was implemented in accordance with the 2022 amendment. This resulted in unlawful decisions to cancel income support under s 42AF(2) from April 2022 until the DEWR Secretary paused these cancellations in July 2024.","x":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework, August 2025","src":"p.14"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Ombudsman's finding went beyond a description of process failure and reached a formal opinion."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"q","t":"under s 15(1)(a)(i) of the Act, the actions of DEWR and Services Australia outlined in this report were contrary to law.","x":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework, August 2025","src":"p.5"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The department had already been told there was a problem before its own investigation reached this point. On 6 December 2024 the Australian Council of Social Service raised concerns with the Ombudsman's office that income support payments may have been cancelled unlawfully or inappropriately, a complaint ACOSS's own account also places in December 2024."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Ombudsman's first report, Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework: when the law is changed but the system isn't, published in August 2025, made seven recommendations, and DEWR and Services Australia accepted all of them. The department's response was immediate: \"I thank the Ombudsman for his insights. The department has accepted all recommendations in the report.\""},{"a":9,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The portfolio's political head commented on what the finding meant, not on the numbers behind it. \"The report reinforces that when legislative changes are made, it is essential the processes and systems that agencies employ to deliver services reflect the legislation,\" Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Amanda Rishworth said in response to the first report."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The confirmed harm has a precise size and a precise date range, set out in the Ombudsman's second report, Fairness in the Targeted Compliance Framework: when decisions are made beyond your control, published in December 2025."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"964 people, 985 decisions","t":"\"Between 8 April 2022 and 4 July 2024, 964 individual people had a combined total of 985 payment cancellation decisions applied due to persistent mutual obligations failures.\" This is the confirmed, investigated figure for section 42AF(2)(d). It is not a figure attached to any provision restarting in October.","src":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Fairness in the TCF report, December 2025, Attachment C, p.57"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"46% vs 16%","t":"The share of First Nations people among those unlawfully cancelled between 1 April 2022 and 4 July 2024, against the 16 per cent average share of First Nations people who accessed Workforce Australia Services between 1 October 2022 and 30 June 2024.","src":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Fairness in the TCF report, December 2025, p.10"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Nearly a quarter of the affected cohort, 24 per cent, had one or more recorded vulnerability indicators attributed to them: psychiatric illness, chronic illness requiring frequent treatment, literacy or language barriers, or drug or alcohol dependency."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The second report judged the process, not only the outcome."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"q","t":"We found DEWR's remediation approach to compensate the 964 job seekers not to be fair and reasonable, that generally the decision-making processes that resulted in the section 42AF(2) cancellation decisions were not fair and reasonable, and that DEWR's oversight of providers in monitoring and responding to inconsistent or inappropriate decision-making by providers is poor and lacks transparency.","x":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Fairness in the TCF report, December 2025","src":"p.5"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"f","x":"$872,963.80 paid","t":"As at 1 December 2025, 651 people had been recommended for compensation under the Compensation for Detriment caused by Defective Administration scheme, totalling $936,124.80 combined; 604 of them, with Services Australia's help, had received a combined $872,963.80.","src":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Fairness in the TCF report, December 2025, Attachment C, p.57"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The path to that 651 ran through a layered review. DEWR first reviewed all 985 decisions and found 603 eligible without further contact. Of the remaining 361 people asked for more information, 54 responded, and 37 of those were recommended for compensation, worth $50,290.52 combined. A further 11 of the 361 were recommended after a secondary review of departmental IT data, without needing the person's response."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Compensation for this cohort is not automatic. \"Once this work is complete, the department will begin inviting people affected by potentially incorrect payment cancellation decisions to submit a claim for compensation. These invitations will be extended progressively over the coming months. This means that not everyone will receive an invitation to claim at the same time,\" DEWR said on 4 August 2026, describing the broader compensation round still being designed for other paused categories."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"No source read for this article publishes a count of how many of the 985 decisions, or how many people separately affected by section 42AM, were never invited to claim. The Ombudsman's second report records only that \"all people across this cohort who could be contacted, have been advised of the availability of additional compensation for detriment that exceeds loss of payment for the relevant period and the process to apply\". What happens to people who could not be contacted is not stated."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s1-b10","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The same second report separately measured how often decisions made by employment services providers held up on review. Over three months from 1 July to 30 September 2024, Services Australia found that 51 per cent of 3,820 capability assessments concluded the job seeker was not capable of meeting the requirements providers had set in their job plans. Of 18,170 purported persistent mutual obligation failures Services Australia investigated between 1 April 2022 and 4 July 2024, it overturned 27 per cent after discussing the decision with the jobseeker. These are two distinct metrics, capability reassessment and decision overturn, and should not be collapsed into a single \"more than half\" figure."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Two different provisions of the same Act are scheduled to start deciding people's payments again on 26 October 2026. DEWR describes what each one does in its own words."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"Section 42AM","t":"\"decisions to cancel people's social security participation payments due to not meeting a 'reconnection requirement' within 4 weeks\"","src":"DEWR, update on work to return the TCF to lawful administration, 4 August 2026"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"Section 42AG(1)(a)","t":"\"decisions to suspend a person's social security participation payment due to refusing or failing to accept an offer of suitable employment, including accepting but not commencing a job\"","src":"DEWR, update on work to return the TCF to lawful administration, 4 August 2026"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"This is the correction this case turns on. Neither Commonwealth Ombudsman report investigated section 42AM or section 42AG(1)(a) as its subject matter. Both reports centre on section 42AF(2)(d), the different, still-paused provision covered above."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"q","t":"This first report shines a light on whether DEWR and Services Australia (the agencies) cancelled job seekers' income support in a lawful manner by using automated processes.","x":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework, August 2025","src":"p.4"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"q","t":"While this investigation focused on the unlawful section 42AF(2) cancellation decisions, the Office is also aware of concerns regarding section 42AM cancellation decisions that may have impacted other job seekers.","x":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Fairness in the TCF report, December 2025","src":"p.5"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The restart itself is not unconditional. \"Resuming these decisions on 26 October 2026 is contingent on successful completion of assurance activity and system testing to ensure the necessary IT changes, improved guidance for decision-makers and additional safeguards to ensure decision-making under these provisions align with the law,\" DEWR's 4 August 2026 statement says."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That statement also needs a correction of attribution. It promises a further statement in October, and the promise belongs to the department's Secretary, not to the Minister. \"I will make a further statement confirming the resumption of these provisions in October,\" the statement reads, signed \"Simon Duggan PSM, Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.\" As at the Australian Greens' release of 5 August 2026, Minister Amanda Rishworth had made no statement of her own on the restart."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The same statement commits to a further disclosure covering everything else still paused. \"At this stage we expect these provisions to resume in the first quarter of 2027. I will provide an update on the progress of this work before the end of this year,\" it says. Secretary Duggan took up the role on 16 February 2026, after Natalie James, who had signed the pause and progress statements referenced above, was placed on leave in December 2025 and departed in January 2026."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Five separate decision types under the Targeted Compliance Framework were paused, on five separate dates, across two Secretaries' terms. Two of the five are due back on 26 October 2026. One has no scheduled return before the first quarter of 2027 at the earliest. The other two are grouped, without an individual date, in the department's own first-quarter-2027 estimate."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The fifth pause was of section 42AG in full, not of subsection (1)(a) alone. \"The department has taken the precautionary step to pause decision making under section 42AG of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 ... These decisions were paused on 5 July 2025,\" DEWR's 3 October 2025 statement says. It is subsection (1)(a) specifically that DEWR now intends to restart on 26 October 2026, alongside section 42AM."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The restart's conditions rest on an assurance process that has already gone wrong once. DEWR commissioned an independent IT assurance review of the Targeted Compliance Framework from Deloitte, running from December 2024 to June 2025 and published on 14 August 2025. On 3 October 2025 the department disclosed a problem with it."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Deloitte conducted this independent assurance review and has confirmed some footnotes and references were incorrect.","x":"DEWR, Secretary's progress statement, 3 October 2025"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Press reporting on the same episode described it in sharper terms."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"q","t":"a 'botched' Deloitte report containing AI-generated legal quotes and fake academic references.","x":"The Canberra Times, 5 February 2026"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This desk relies on DEWR's own admission and that press characterisation, since both were read directly. The reported cost of the review and the identity of the academic who found the errors are not printed here as settled fact; neither was independently verified to this desk's standard."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A second piece of assurance infrastructure is still not built. The Digital Protections Framework was required by an Act of Parliament passed in 2022, and more than three years later it still did not exist when the first Ombudsman report was published."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"q","t":"over three years since the requirement was made by Parliament, the DEWR Secretary has still not determined the DPF.","x":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework, August 2025","src":"p.14"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"It reached public consultation only in 2026. \"The draft frameworks are available on our Consultation Hub ... Submissions close 11:59 pm AEST 28 September 2026,\" DEWR's hub page states, last modified 31 August 2026. That closing date falls four weeks before the 26 October 2026 restart DEWR says is conditional on this same assurance work being complete."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A figure larger than any the Ombudsman confirmed circulates around this case, and its origin is not in dispute. Economic Justice Australia, a peak legal body for community legal centres, produced it itself."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"q","t":"Last year, our own analysis revealed that roughly 310,000 people had had their payments cancelled illegally.","x":"Kate Allingham, CEO, Economic Justice Australia, 13 August 2026"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Ombudsman's own report references a version of the same figure, but only once, in a footnote, and only as an unresolved concern about a different provision, section 42AM, never as an investigated finding."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"f","x":"Footnote, not a finding","t":"The Ombudsman's second report cites the figure by way of a footnote referencing a news report headlined \"More than 300,000 Australians had Centrelink payments cancelled illegally, new analysis shows\", without adopting it as the Office's own finding.","src":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Fairness in the TCF report, December 2025, p.5"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Ombudsman's own reports place this case in a wider history the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme already examined, and say so directly."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"q","t":"We were also conscious of the conclusions from the Robodebt Royal Commission about the use of automated processes and the serious impact these processes can have on highly vulnerable people.","x":"Commonwealth Ombudsman, Automation in the Targeted Compliance Framework, August 2025","src":"p.4, citing the Royal Commission's final report, p.488"},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Robodebt is context for this case, not a finding about it. No court has considered this system, and this article does not attribute the personal conduct of any minister or official as negligent, malicious or dishonest; the record here is of official statements and official actions taken in public office."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A separate, earlier strand of reporting concerns a different, earlier set of IT defects in the same computer system, running from 2018 to 2024, which is what first drew scrutiny to the Targeted Compliance Framework and is distinct from the 964/985 cohort above. The Saturday Paper reported in February 2025 that ten welfare recipients had died after having their payments wrongly cut off, and that Services Australia would not say whether the deaths were the result of suicide or destitution. That is that outlet's own reporting, tabled at Senate estimates; it is not a finding of cause of death by any official body, and the Ombudsman's first report cites the article only once, in a footnote, as an example of the media reporting that preceded its investigation."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The opening of this article said the figure of more than 300,000 people 'belongs to neither Ombudsman report'. That contradicted this section, which records that the Ombudsman's second report mentions a version of the figure once, in a footnote. The opening now says the figure is a finding of neither report, and that the second report mentions it once, in a footnote, without adopting it."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The restart drew an immediate political response. \"The Minister and the Department's failure to communicate these matters in a timely, effective or comprehensible fashion is characteristic of all the worst Robodebt-style governance,\" Senator Penny Allman-Payne, the Australian Greens' spokesperson on Social Services, said on 5 August 2026, the day after the Secretary's announcement."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The same release records that, as of that date, the Minister herself had not spoken on the restart. Her only quoted comment found in this research relates to the first Ombudsman report, from August 2025, not to the announcement restarting two provisions that report did not investigate as its subject matter."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"A week later, Economic Justice Australia, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, the Antipoverty Centre and the Australian Council of Social Service issued a joint statement, on 13 August 2026, opposing the restart of sections 42AM and 42AG(1)(a)."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"None of this is a court finding, and none of it is treated as one here. It is attributed comment from named advocates and a named political office-holder, set against a restart that two Ombudsman investigations did not examine as their subject matter."},{"a":9,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [11], which pointed to the department's Targeted Compliance Framework hub page, now points to the consultation page for the draft Digital Protections Framework itself, which states the 28 September 2026 close.","r":[11]},{"a":10,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"After the PwC scandal the government pledged to cut the Big Four. Federal consultancy contracts in 2024-25 still reached **A$968.6 million**, up roughly 48 per cent.","r":[1]},{"a":10,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Big Four federal consulting spend fell by roughly A$800 million since 2022. The work moved, not stopped.","r":[2]},{"a":10,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Nous Group's federal work rose from A$2.7 million in 2019 to about A$31 million in 2024-25.","r":[2]},{"a":10,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"From July to December 2025, 52 mid-tier and specialist firms each won more than A$10 million in federal consulting work.","r":[3]},{"a":10,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"A Defence taskforce found its costing capability 'over-reliant on contractors and consultants'. Sampled project costs rose an average 38 per cent before contracts were signed.","r":[4]},{"a":10,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"There was a crackdown. In 2023 the PwC tax-leak scandal handed the government a villain, and the government took it: a pledge to wean the Commonwealth off the Big Four, to rebuild the public service, to stop the great outsourcing of the state's own thinking."},{"a":10,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Then the numbers for 2024-25 landed. Total federal consultancy contracts reached A$968.6 million, up roughly 48 per cent on the year before. The reduction had, in aggregate, produced no saving at all."},{"a":10,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This is the switch. The Big Four were cut. The bill was not. A near-billion dollars a year still walks out the public door and into private hands. All that changed is the names on the envelope."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Start with the paradox, because everything else follows from it. The government spent two years positioning itself against consultants. It commissioned reviews, capped spend, talked about in-house capability. And the total went up, not down."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The figure comes from the Australian Greens, who ran the AusTender contract data and released it in August 2025. It is worth being precise about the word record. This is the highest recent total, higher than the final Morrison-government year of A$787.6 million and well above the prior year's A$653 million. It is not a verified all-time federal record: on a broader basis earlier years have topped A$1 billion. But as a measure of the crackdown's effect, the direction is the only thing that matters, and the direction is up."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$968.6m","t":"Total federal consultancy contracts in 2024-25, up about 48 per cent on the prior year's A$653m and above the final Morrison year of A$787.6m.","src":"Greens analysis of AusTender data, August 2025"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Greens frame this as theatre, a crackdown for the cameras. That framing is theirs, a political read from a party with its own case to make. But the underlying figure is not spin. It is the government's own contract data, and it says the promised reduction did not reduce the total."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Here is the part that is true, and the part the government prefers you stop reading at. The Big Four really were cut. PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY saw their combined federal consulting spend fall by roughly A$800 million since 2022. Their share of the pie shrank from 11.0 per cent to 8.1 per cent. On its own terms, the crackdown worked."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"about A$800m","t":"The fall in Big Four combined federal consulting spend since 2022, their share down from 11.0 per cent to 8.1 per cent.","src":"Canberra Times analysis of AusTender, October 2025"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"So follow the arithmetic. The Big Four lost roughly A$800 million. The total consultancy bill rose to A$968.6 million. Both of those things are true at once. The only way both are true is if the work did not stop. It moved."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Where the Big Four retreated, the mid-tier advanced. Across the sector, mid-tier firms more than quadrupled their federal revenue, to about A$1.7 billion. That aggregate is broad, hundreds of firms, not a handful, and it should not be read as three boutiques splitting the spoils. But inside it, the individual growth curves are steep enough to tell the story on their own."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"about A$1.7bn","t":"Federal revenue captured by mid-tier consultancies, more than quadrupled as the Big Four share fell.","src":"Canberra Times analysis of AusTender, October 2025"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Take Nous Group. In 2019 its federal consulting work was worth A$2.7 million. By 2024-25 it was about A$31 million, a rise of roughly eleven times. Take McGrathNicol: from A$1.9 million to A$11.3 million, roughly six times over. Callida added about A$6.9 million. These are the firms picking up the redirected work, one contract at a time."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"about 11x","t":"Nous Group federal consulting, from A$2.7m in 2019 to about A$31m in 2024-25. McGrathNicol rose about sixfold, from A$1.9m to A$11.3m.","src":"Canberra Times analysis of AusTender, October 2025"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Barbara Pocock, the Greens senator who has pursued the consultants harder than anyone in the Parliament, put it plainly when the mid-tier figures emerged."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"q","t":"The government is spending even more money, but just on other firms.","x":"Senator Barbara Pocock, Australian Greens","src":"Canberra Times, October 2025"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A single year could be a blip. This is not a blip. The most recent data, covering the first half of the 2025-26 financial year, from July to December 2025, shows the whack-a-mole continuing. In that six-month window alone, 52 mid-tier and specialist firms each won more than A$10 million in federal consulting work."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"52 firms","t":"Mid-tier and specialist firms that each won over A$10m in federal consulting work in the first half of 2025-26 (July to December 2025).","src":"Psithur / Awarded Tenders analysis of AusTender, FY26"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Squeeze one part of the market and the demand does not vanish. It reappears somewhere cheaper to name and harder to see. The crackdown did not turn off the tap. It widened the number of hands the water runs through."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The deeper cost is not the invoice. It is what the outsourcing does to the buyer. When a department rents its thinking for long enough, it stops being able to think. And the government has now said so, in its own minister's words."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In early July 2026, at the National Press Club, Defence Minister Pat Conroy revealed that a taskforce sample of about a dozen major Defence projects had seen costs rise by an average of 38 per cent before any contract with industry was signed. Across that sample, the inflation added up to roughly A$29 billion. Read that carefully: this is estimate inflation, taxpayer exposure baked in before a signature, not cash already spent. But it is exposure the public carries all the same."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"f","x":"38% / about A$29bn","t":"Average pre-contract cost inflation across a taskforce sample of about a dozen major Defence projects, about A$29bn of estimate inflation before any industry contract was signed.","src":"Canberra Times / AAP, July 2026"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The taskforce named the cause, and the cause is the whole thesis of this article. Defence's own costing capability, it found, had atrophied."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Fragmented, under-resourced, and over-reliant on contractors and consultants.","x":"Defence costing taskforce, cited by Minister Pat Conroy","src":"National Press Club, early July 2026"},{"a":10,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is the mechanism the watchers call Regulatory Capture, dressed in a procurement suit. The same firms that scope and cost the projects then bid to deliver them. That is The Revolving Door running inside a single contract. It is not, in this pass, a proven line from consultant dependency to any specific blowout, and we will not draw one we cannot source. But the shape is familiar: a state that has outsourced the function of costing to the industry that profits from the cost."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Here is who pays. You do. A near-billion dollars a year, A$968.6 million and climbing, still leaves the public purse for outside advice. And the public service that was meant to be rebuilt keeps outsourcing its core work while its own capability thins."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Here is who gains. The mid-tier and specialist firms now catching the redirected work. And a government that gets to bank a Big Four win, point to the A$800 million cut, and hope nobody adds up the total underneath it."},{"a":10,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"That is the rort in one line. The crackdown moved the label on the invoice. It did not move the money out the door. A reform that changes the recipient and not the sum is not a saving. It is extraction, re-badged."},{"a":11,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The new law makes exposure the default: a logged-in, age-confirmed adult receives wagering ads unless they opt out, including through a register the citizen must join.","r":[6,1]},{"a":11,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The government's own modelling put a full phased ban's net benefit at **$217.6 million** a year, against $107.1 million for the package chosen.","r":[8]},{"a":11,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Evidence before the Senate showed only 0.2 per cent of SBS's active subscribers had used its existing opt-out.","r":[5]},{"a":11,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Existing sponsorships on uniforms and venues are exempt until 31 December 2031, and racing is carved out.","r":[6]},{"a":11,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The register has no statutory start date. On 20 August 2026 the Senate voted 14 to 26 against producing the documents behind it.","r":[1,19]},{"a":11,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On the night of Wednesday 19 August 2026, after a guillotine that brought every remaining stage on at 9pm, the Senate passed the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and its two levy bills together, 37 votes to 13 [2]. The House had passed the main bill the day before, 103 to 14 [3]. More than three years earlier, on 28 June 2023, a House committee chaired by the late Peta Murphy had recommended, in recommendation 26, that the government 'implement a comprehensive ban on all forms of advertising for online gambling, to be introduced in four phases, over three years, commencing immediately' [4].","r":[2,3,4]},{"a":11,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Measure the distance between those two events by the mechanism, not the rhetoric. The committee's design put the burden on the industry: the advertising stops, in phases, within three years. The law that passed points the burden the other way. Exposure is the baseline. A logged-in, age-confirmed adult receives wagering advertising unless they act [6]. And for the citizen who wants to be left alone, the parliament has built a register: a list, kept by the media regulator, of the people who have asked not to be advertised at [1].","r":[6,1]},{"a":11,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Its statutory name is the Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register. Politicians and the press call it AdStop, a name that appears nowhere in the amendment that creates it, the explanatory memoranda or the levy bill [1]. It is modelled, per the ABC's reporting of the deal that produced it, on the Do Not Call register [10]. The bookmakers fund it through a levy. The Australian Communications and Media Authority runs it. You fill it in.","r":[1,10]},{"a":11,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"This law contains real restrictions, and this article states them plainly below. The rort is not that nothing happened. The rort is where the burden landed, what evidence was set aside to put it there, and what was traded on the way through. Watch the mechanism. It is the whole story."},{"a":11,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Part 7E of the new law was created by a single opposition amendment, sheet TK116, moved by Mrs McIntosh on 18 August with 44 other opposition amendments and agreed together, 96 votes to 9 [3]. Its operative sentence: 'The ACMA must keep, or arrange for a body corporate to keep on behalf of the ACMA, a register to be known as the Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register' [1]. An individual can choose to be on it, but not yet: no application may be made before the 'Opt-out Register proclaimed start day', a day to be fixed by proclamation, with no statutory deadline anywhere in the text [1]. Once it runs, a platform serving wagering ads must confirm at least every 14 days that the register does not hold the contact details of anyone it would deliver ads to, and must keep a computer system continuously connected to query it [1]. The drafters knew the neighbourhood they were building in: the operator ACMA engages must not provide a gambling service, sit in a corporate group with one, hold an ownership interest in one, or undertake gambling-related lobbying [1].","r":[3,1]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Who pays for the machine? Not the platforms that serve the ads. The levy falls on 'licensed interactive wagering service providers': on the face of the imposition clause, the bookmakers, not the platforms [9]. The levy bill's explanatory memorandum gives the reason plainly: 'It is appropriate that licensed interactive wagering service providers bear these regulatory costs, given that this industry sector has created the need for these reforms' [9]. Hold that sentence against the design it funds. The parliament's own funding document names the industry as the cause. The register it pays for asks the citizen to do the registering.","r":[9]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"$0","t":"Dollar figures in the explanatory memorandum for the levy that funds the register: none. The amount is left to a later ACMA legislative instrument because the regulator's costs are not yet fully known. The register's build cost appears nowhere in the parliamentary record.","src":"EM, Interactive Gambling (Cost Recovery Levy) Bill 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The register also postdates every evidence process this law went through. The government's 48-page Impact Analysis of April 2026 models a per-platform opt-out and contains no national register [8]. The Senate committee report tabled on 17 August never mentions one [5]. The Guardian reported that unnamed government sources admitted the concept, 'publicly raised for the first time only on Monday', was 'not fully formed', and that the register is expected to take up to 12 months to stand up [15]. The ABC reported that one unnamed wagering source said companies had not expected to pay for the administration of a second register, and that multiple unnamed wagering and tech industry sources 'immediately questioned how this approach would be feasible' [10]. Kai Cantwell, chief executive of Responsible Wagering Australia: 'This new global opt-out system, akin to BetStop, is proposed to be designed, developed and implemented in less than four months. Betstop, which is a simpler concept, took more than four years from inception to implementation.' [16] Senator Sarah Henderson told the Senate on 19 August: 'This register will take up to 12 months to design and implement.' [14]","r":[8,5,15,10,16,14]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Dr Charles Livingstone, asked on ABC radio whether the reforms would reduce harm, answered: 'No, I don't.' On the register: 'The idea that you'll have a one-stop shop to opt out of gambling advertising is ludicrous in the short term and impossible in the long term.' [17]","r":[17]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Nobody in this parliament can say they were not told what defaults do. The evidence sits in the committee's own report, tabled two days before the Senate voted."},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Behavioural research shows that default settings strongly influence behaviour because people tend to accept the status quo and interpret defaults as endorsed or recommended. A meta analysis of 58 studies found that people are significantly more likely to accept a pre-selected default than an option requiring active choice. As a result, consumers are more likely to be exposed to gambling advertising when exposure is automatic and requires active steps to avoid.","x":"Australian Gambling Research Centre, Submission 15, quoted in the Senate committee report, 17 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The committee also had a live experiment in evidence. SBS already offers a gambling-advertising opt-out on its streaming service. The St Vincent de Paul Society told the inquiry that only 0.2 per cent of active subscribers have used it [5]. Senator David Pocock's dissent rendered the same picture in absolute numbers: SBS evidence 'showed that just 120 000 to 130 000 of their 15 million accounts had opted-out of gambling advertising' [5]. The two figures sit on different bases, active subscribers against total accounts. On either base, the share of people who use an opt-out rounds towards nobody.","r":[5]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"0.2 per cent","t":"The share of SBS's active streaming subscribers who have used its existing gambling-advertising opt-out, per the St Vincent de Paul Society's evidence to the Senate inquiry. This was the uptake record in front of the parliament when it chose an opt-out architecture.","src":"Senate committee report, footnote 75, 17 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Network of Alcohol and other Drugs Agencies told the inquiry: 'The current opt-out approach leaves most Australians exposed by default, including people working to reduce or stop gambling and those seeking support for co-occurring AOD, mental health or financial harms.' [5] One caveat the record demands: all of this evidence was aimed at the bill's per-platform opt-out, because the national register did not exist while evidence was being taken. No witness was asked whether a central register changes the arithmetic of defaults, because no witness was told there would be one.","r":[5]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The industry testified to the power of defaults from the other side of the table. The Parliamentary Library's Bills Digest records Responsible Wagering Australia opposing any opt-in model, 'noting that a small proportion of users would actively opt-in to receiving advertising' [11]. Read that sentence as analysis and it is an admission: the industry opposes opt-in precisely because defaults decide exposure. The committee report records RWA arguing that an opt-in model is not necessary to achieve the policy objective and would be 'catastrophic' for affected industries [5]. The parliament accepted the industry's premise about defaults and legislated the default the industry argued for.","r":[11,5]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"q","t":"It is axiomatic in public health policy that the victims of an unhealthy product or service should not bear the responsibility for addressing the harms they suffer. Responsibility properly belongs with the industries causing and profiting from the harm.","x":"Public Health Association of Australia, Submission 64, quoted in the Senate committee report, 17 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"And the government's own modelling had already scored the alternative. The April Impact Analysis modelled three options, including the Murphy-style full phased ban. On the government's own numbers, the full ban's net benefit was $217.6 million a year against $107.1 million for the package chosen, roughly double [8]. The ban would also have been cheaper to police: ACMA administration was costed at about $5 million a year under a full ban against about $10 million under the package, 'due to the relative simplicity of enforcing compliance with a wagering advertising ban across all platforms' [8]. The document's stated reason for setting the ban aside: 'while option 3 has a higher net benefit than Option 2, it also imposes a significant financial burden on industry which would significantly impact Australia's grassroots sport and media industry' [8].","r":[8]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"f","x":"$217.6 million","t":"Annual net benefit of the full phased advertising ban in the government's own Impact Analysis, against $107.1 million for the package chosen: roughly double. The full ban was also costed as cheaper to enforce, about $5 million a year against about $10 million.","src":"Wagering Advertising Reform Impact Analysis, April 2026, Table 16"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Once you see the shape, it is everywhere in this law. At every layer, the instrument of protection is a list of people who took steps, or a flag raised over them by the company that profits from them."},{"a":11,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"BetStop, the national self-exclusion register for online wagering, is the template: over 39,000 active registrations as of 2 June 2026, on the explanatory memorandum's figures [7]. The Act strengthens it, then builds in its image. The Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register is self-exclusion from advertising. The triple lock is self-exclusion per platform: section 62P bans wagering ads on online content services, then lifts the ban for any platform taking reasonable steps to serve them only to signed-in, age-confirmed adults who have not opted out [6]. The definition doing the work sits in section 62H, which defines the 'restricted user' a platform must not reach: an individual who 'is under 18 years of age', 'has not confirmed their age', 'is not using a registered account', or 'has opted out from accessing or receiving wagering advertising content' [6]. Read the structure of that list. The adult who asked to be left alone is filed in the same category as a child. Everyone else, every logged-in adult who has done nothing, is open to receive. That is the default, and it is the design.","r":[7,6]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The fourth layer does not wait for you to act; it waits for the bookmaker to decide you are a problem. Providers must monitor customer activity 'to identify individuals that may reasonably be considered to be at risk of gambling-related harm', having regard to escalating expenditure, deposits per session, wagering at unusual hours and failed deposits [1]. A person so flagged becomes a designated customer, and the bans on inducement marketing attach: to them, to new account holders in their first 14 days, and to people who left BetStop within the previous 90 days [1]. For every other adult, the inducements keep flowing, and the marquee inducement bans themselves start only on a day the minister later specifies, which must be after commencement [1]. The metrics that will guide who gets flagged do not exist yet: per the ABC's reporting, they will be created 'in the coming months' through regulation [12].","r":[1,12]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"To me, that's like putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank.","x":"Andrew Wallace MP, on bookmakers deciding who is a problem gambler, ABC News, 19 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Pat Conaghan, the Nationals MP for Cowper, made the same point the day the House voted: 'That's ludicrous to think that the online wagering services will do the right thing, considering they haven't done the right thing for many, many years.' [13] Both men crossed the floor. The scheme they described passed anyway.","r":[13]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The register was the hinge of a bargain. The ABC reported that Anthony Albanese and Angus Taylor 'met several times' to land the agreement; the Coalition's ask for a full opt-in model was rejected, and 'the compromise position put forward by the Coalition was to create a single register' [10]. Liberal MP Simon Kennedy, who wanted opt-in: 'In a perfect world, I think with an opt-in [advertising requirement] you could get out of all this regulatory complexity, but this is a much-improved system to what the Prime Minister has [previously] proposed.' [10]","r":[10]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Coalition's account of what it secured is on the record in its own words. Senator Sarah Henderson told the Senate: 'The coalition has worked very hard to ensure these amendments are practical, they are proportionate and they respect personal choice and responsibility.' And she described the register: 'There will be AdStop, a global opt-out register which ensures that every Australian can go to the register, a one-stop shop to opt out of all gambling ads no matter where they are online.' [14]","r":[14]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"q","t":"We have worked constructively with the government to secure a wide range of sensible amendments to this bill to ensure that children are better protected and that there is much greater protection for vulnerable Australians, including those suffering from gambling harm.","x":"Senator Sarah Henderson, Shadow Minister for Communications, Senate second reading, 19 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"'Personal choice and responsibility' is not a slogan bolted onto this Act. It is the operating principle of its architecture: the responsibility to avoid the product's promotion is personal, and it is yours."},{"a":11,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The deal also settled what the industry keeps. Sponsorship displays on uniforms and venues under arrangements entered into before 2 July 2026 are exempt until the end of 31 December 2031, provided the deals are not varied to extend or enlarge them [6]. The clause 'was not in the exposure draft', departmental officer Ruvani Panagoda told the committee; 'there are a number of contracts on foot' [5]. The Public Health Association of Australia did the arithmetic in school years: 'a child currently in year 7 could spend the [entirety] of their high school years to year 12 watching gambling advertising on their sporting heroes' uniforms' [5].","r":[6,5]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"f","x":"31 December 2031","t":"The end of the grandfathering period for wagering sponsorships on sporting uniforms and venues under arrangements entered before the bill's introduction day of 2 July 2026. The clause was not in the exposure draft, the department told the committee.","src":"Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, Schedule 5; committee Hansard, 4 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Racing is carved out at the root: section 10A(3) provides that horse, harness and greyhound races are 'taken not to be a sporting event', which lifts the advertising restrictions off racing wholesale, and dedicated racing and wagering services are exempt from the online prohibition entirely [6]. And twice, once in each chamber, the Coalition moved to strip the bill's ban on foreign matched lotteries. Leon Rebello's House amendment lost 33 votes to 95 [3]. Senator Cadell's Senate version lost the next day: the schedule stood as printed 39 to 21, with 21 Coalition senators voting to keep foreign matched lotteries lawful [2]. The record shows the attempt made in both chambers, and defeated in both.","r":[6,3,2]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The House agreed to the bill as amended 102 votes to 14 and read it a third time 103 to 14 on 18 August, with the same 14 noes both times: the crossbench, plus two Coalition members who crossed the floor, Pat Conaghan of the Nationals and Andrew Wallace of the Liberal National Party of Queensland [3].","r":[3]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Senate took all three bills together on 19 August under a time-management order that brought every remaining stage on at 9pm [2]. Inside that window, every strengthening amendment was defeated: most on recorded divisions, Senator Thorpe's second reading amendment and Senator Lambie's sheet 3970 on the voices [2]. Senator Pocock's second reading amendment, which described the Murphy report as 'the unanimous report' of the House committee, listed recommendations 26, 16 and 3, and noted 'that this bill does not implement these recommendations', was negatived 11 votes to 24 [2]. The Greens' second reading amendment, which asserted in its text that 'the major parties have been given more than $10 million by gambling companies and lobby groups', was negatived 11 to 24; the figure is the Greens' claim, made inside a motion the Senate voted down, and it is recorded here as exactly that [2]. Pocock's Schedule 4A, a full prohibition on wagering advertising from 1 January 2030, the Murphy end-state bolted onto the government's own regime with a delayed start, was negatived 11 votes to 29 [2]. Senator Hanson-Young's national gambling regulator: negatived 12 to 32 [2]. Then the question that the bills be passed: agreed, 37 to 13 [2].","r":[2]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"f","x":"37-13","t":"The Senate's final vote on all three bills, after the 9pm guillotine, 19 August 2026. Three Coalition senators crossed the floor into the noes: Alex Antic, Andrew McLachlan and Paul Scarr.","src":"Journals of the Senate No. 63, 19 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Scarr's stated reason: 'This legislation is simply fatally flawed. It does not achieve the objectives of limiting advertising to children.' [17] In the House, Conaghan had given his: 'I do not live in a bubble; I know it wouldn't have been all 31 recommendations, but the major ones should have been put through. Peta Murphy would be incredibly disappointed, and exactly why I crossed the floor for the first time in my career.' [12] What Peta Murphy would have thought is his attribution to make, not ours. What her family thinks is on the record.","r":[17,12]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"q","t":"The package is far from everything that is needed, and it has taken too long to get here. That delay has had real human consequences.","x":"Rod Glover, Peta Murphy's widower, The Guardian, 19 August 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Glover's fuller verdict: 'The final package falls well short of the Murphy Report recommendations, which remain the benchmark for comprehensive reform.' [15] Senator Pocock's dissent to the committee report had already supplied a name for the mechanism: 'This is what regulatory capture looks like.' [5] That is his characterisation, and it is attributed here as his. The division lists above are simply the record.","r":[15,5]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This masthead's method requires the ledger to be honest, so here is what the Act restricts, stated plainly. On broadcast television, wagering ads are capped at three per channel in any rolling hour from 5am to 8.30pm, and banned in conjunction with live sport in that window, from 15 minutes before the scheduled start to five minutes after the end [6][1]. Ads during programs directed at children are banned across broadcast and streaming between 5am and 8.30pm [1]. Quoting betting odds is banned on broadcast [6]. New contracts with 'notable persons', athletes, celebrities and influencers, to promote wagering are banned [6]. Online, a default prohibition applies unless a platform implements the triple lock, with the opt-out register above it [6][1]. Online keno and foreign matched lotteries are prohibited [6]. BetStop is strengthened [6], commissions tied to customer activity are banned, and red-flag monitoring becomes a duty [1]. The standard maximum penalty is 1,000 civil penalty units per contravention, which the explanatory memorandum calls 'over 5 times the highest advertising penalty currently in the Interactive Gambling Act 2001', with corporate multipliers on top [7].","r":[6,1,7]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"These are real restrictions. Now read the edges, because the edges are load-bearing. The three-per-hour cap ends at 8.30pm and there is no cap at all overnight: the Parliamentary Library's Bills Digest, carrying ACMA research that found the highest number of ads airing between 9 and 10pm, concludes that 'the proposed cut off of 8:30pm for the frequency cap means that it will not impact the peak time for wagering advertising' [11]. For live sport at night, the bill as introduced deems break content not to be in conjunction with the coverage, and its explanatory memorandum concedes that wagering advertising 'will be permitted during any scheduled breaks or unscheduled breaks' of night games, except breaks after goals, tries or the end of an over [7]. Radio carries a ban only on school days, for two hours [6]. Print is not captured at all [7]. And online, for the logged-in, age-confirmed adult who has taken no step, the ads continue: that is not a loophole, it is the design [6].","r":[11,7,6]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The government's account of the same law, from Anika Wells, the minister who introduced the bill: 'This package of reforms minimises children's exposure to wagering advertising, takes action on predatory inducements and cracks down on illegal gambling operators.' [12] Anthony Albanese: 'It increases protections for people most at risk of gambling harm, while continuing to allow those who enjoy a bet to do so.' [12] Both statements are accurate as far as they run. Neither describes where the burden sits.","r":[12]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The money in this story is lawful and disclosed, and it is stated here as recorded. In the 2023-24 disclosures to the Australian Electoral Commission, per SBS's analysis, Sportsbet donated $88,000 to Labor, $60,000 to the Liberals and $15,000 to the Nationals; Responsible Wagering Australia gave Labor $66,000; The Lottery Corporation gave Labor $44,000 [18].","r":[18]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"f","x":"$32.2 billion","t":"Approximate losses by Australians on legal forms of gambling in 2023-24, 'the highest losses per capita in the world of around $1,521', on the figures in the bill's own explanatory memorandum.","src":"Explanatory memorandum, Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026"},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Around that sum sits the promotion economy the parliament declined to switch off. Total gambling advertising spend was $186 million in 2024, $82 million of it wagering, down from $310 million and $217 million in 2022; the Impact Analysis attributes the fall to voluntary industry restraint and warns it will rebound to the 2022 peaks without intervention [8]. Professional sporting competitions collectively receive around $52.5 million a year in direct sponsorships from wagering companies, on confidential data cited in the same analysis [8]. When the amendments landed, the industry's peak body headlined its objection 'Unnecessary complex Amendments play into hands of Offshore cartels' [16].","r":[8,16]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Now the watch items, because a rort that is watched is this station's whole premise. First, the proclamation. The advertising rules commence on 1 January 2027, but no one may apply to the register before its proclaimed start day, and no statutory deadline forces that proclamation [1]. The ABC has already reported that the register 'is not expected to be in place immediately from January 1' [10]; Henderson's own estimate to the Senate was up to 12 months [14]. So there will be a period in which the law's central answer to the citizen who wants out does not exist. Watch how long it lasts.","r":[1,10,14]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Second, the paper, and this is where the register's evidence base was settled. On 19 August, Senator Hanson-Young gave notice of an order for the production of departmental documents 'relating to the Government's proposed AdStop register', including 'all correspondence from the department showing any evidence that AdStop would work', returnable at 10am on 21 August [2]. When we first published, we said to watch for what came back. Nothing did, because the order was never made. On 20 August 2026 the Senate divided on the motion and negatived it, 14 ayes to 26 noes, Labor and Coalition senators voting together, one day after the same chamber passed the bills [19]. So there is no return, no departmental file, and no documentary record of what evidence sat behind the register's design. The Senate was asked whether it wished to see the evidence for the concession it had just legislated, and it answered.","r":[2,19]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Third, the review. A Coalition amendment inserted a statutory review of the advertising, inducement and register parts, to begin as soon as practicable three years after commencement; the bill as introduced contained no review clause at all [1]. Three years is also the period the Murphy committee allowed, in 2023, for the entire advertising phase-out it recommended [4]. Royal Assent had not been recorded when this article was published; it followed on 26 August 2026, the principal bill becoming Act No. 72 of 2026, and the Interactive Gambling (Cost Recovery Levy) Act 2026 is Act No. 73 of 2026 [20].","r":[1,4,20]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"So watch two things. Watch the proclamation, because until it comes the register is a promise with no date. And watch the uptake number once it opens, because the SBS precedent before the parliament was 0.2 per cent [5], and whatever figure Australia posts will measure exactly what this parliament chose: not whether the advertising stops, but who has to do the work to stop it. The Murphy committee's answer sat on the table for more than three years: the advertising stops for everyone, by default [4]. The parliament built a register of the people who asked to be left alone instead.","r":[5,4]},{"a":11,"at":"at-s6-b8","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section and the key facts said the three bills became Acts No. 72, 73 and 74 of 2026. The parliamentary record found by this desk confirms Act No. 72 for the principal bill, assented on 26 August 2026, and No. 73 for the Interactive Gambling (Cost Recovery Levy) Act 2026; this desk could not confirm an Act number for the National Self-exclusion Register levy bill, and that claim has been removed. Reference [20], which pointed to the Federal Register of Legislation homepage, now points to the bill homepage and the Register entry.","r":[20]},{"a":12,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Australia lets companies take its gas for little or nothing: 56 per cent of exported gas attracts zero royalty payments.","r":[6]},{"a":12,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"INPEX exported A$21 billion of Australian gas between 2015 and 2025 and paid no royalties, no PRRT and no corporate income tax on those exports.","r":[7]},{"a":12,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In 2024 Japanese companies on-sold as much as 812 petajoules of Australian gas, for an estimated profit exceeding A$1 billion.","r":[5,4]},{"a":12,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"East coast gas cost A$3 to A$4 per gigajoule before exports. The ACCC has since documented buyers paying A$8 to A$12.","r":[2]},{"a":12,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"A 20 per cent royalty on the A$149 billion of gas exported royalty-free over four years would have raised A$53 billion.","r":[13]},{"a":12,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In 2024, a Japanese company that exports more gas from Australia each year than all the households and businesses in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia combined received a fee for that gas of essentially zero."},{"a":12,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The company is called INPEX. It operates the Ichthys LNG project from Darwin. It has exported A$21 billion worth of Australian gas between 2015 and 2025. In that time, it paid no royalties on that gas, no Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (the special levy designed to ensure Australians benefit from their resources), and no corporate income tax on those exports. The Ichthys LNG project itself has never paid corporate income tax in Australia."},{"a":12,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Meanwhile, in Tokyo, the buyers of that Australian gas were reselling it. In 2024 alone, Japanese companies on-sold as much as 812 petajoules of Australian LNG to other countries, more than the total gas used across all of eastern Australia, for an estimated profit exceeding A$1 billion."},{"a":12,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"This is the story of the gas rort. Not the story of a market that went wrong. The story of a policy that was designed, maintained, and defended by governments of both major parties to transfer Australia’s gas wealth from Australian citizens to a small number of multinational corporations and their shareholders, most of whom do not live here."},{"a":12,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"This is Article 1 of eleven. By the end of this series, you will know how it happened, who profits, why every attempt to fix it has failed, and why Australia’s largest media organisations have barely covered it."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia is one of the three largest exporters of liquefied natural gas on earth, competing with the United States and Qatar for the top positions. In 2024 it exported approximately 81 million tonnes of LNG. In 2025, that figure was around 82.5 million tonnes. LNG exports earn Australia around A$66 billion a year at current prices. At the peak of the Ukraine war energy price spike in 2022, that figure reached A$92 billion."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"83%","t":"of all gas Australia extracted in the first half of 2025 went to LNG exports","src":"IEEFA Australian Gas and LNG Tracker, June 2025"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"To understand the scale: Australia produces so much gas that 83 per cent of everything it extracted in the first half of 2025 went to LNG exports. The eastern coast of Australia alone produces three times more gas than it consumes domestically. Existing gas projects have enough capacity to power Australia’s domestic needs for 64 years."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The gas industry has grown enormously since exports began from Queensland in 2015. In that time, production has tripled. The number of LNG projects has multiplied. The revenue has ballooned. And yet, by the government’s own accounting, not a single LNG project had paid any of the special resource tax designed to capture the wealth from all this extraction until Chevron made its first-ever Petroleum Resource Rent Tax payment in August 2025. After sixteen-plus years of Australian LNG exports."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Compare this to the gas industry’s workforce. With A$66 billion a year flowing through it, Australia’s oil and gas extraction sector employs 16,200 people. That is 0.11 per cent of Australia’s 14.4 million jobs. The health sector employs 2.2 million. Manufacturing employs 902,900. The gas industry is a revenue machine for its owners. It is not an employment machine for Australians."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"When a mining or gas company extracts a resource from the ground, the standard arrangement in most countries is that they pay the public something for it. A royalty. The resource belongs to the public. You pay to take it."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In Australia, that principle is applied inconsistently and, in the case of offshore LNG, largely abandoned."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"56%","t":"of all gas exported from Australia attracts zero royalty payments","src":"Australia Institute, Gas: The Facts"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Australia Institute analysis found that 56 per cent of all gas exported from Australia attracts zero royalty payments. In a single four-year period, multinational gas companies exported A$149 billion worth of Australian gas royalty-free."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"To be precise about what this means: the gas is extracted from Australian territory, or from Australian Commonwealth waters. It belongs to Australians. The companies that take it are allowed to take more than half of it without paying the owner anything for the resource itself."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Western Australian government has a domestic reservation policy that requires 15 per cent of LNG production to be set aside for WA consumers. WA also collects royalties from the North West Shelf project. But the WA Government is expected to receive only A$522 million in total gas royalties in 2024–25, from a state that hosts some of the world’s largest LNG operations."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The east coast, where three LNG export terminals operate in Queensland processing gas from coal seams, has no equivalent domestic reservation requirement. The consequences are visible in energy prices, which we will come to."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section called the companies that take the gas \"predominantly foreign-owned\". None of this article’s references carries that, so the words are cut."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The clearest single illustration of how the system works is INPEX, a Japanese gas company, and its Ichthys LNG project, operated out of Darwin."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Ichthys is one of Australia’s largest LNG developments. INPEX exports approximately 9 million tonnes of LNG per year from Darwin, more gas than is used in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia combined. Every cargo it ships goes to Asian markets. INPEX sells no gas to Australians, except in declared supply emergencies."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Australian Taxation Office transparency data shows that INPEX’s Australian entities recorded more than A$36 billion in total revenue over eleven financial years. Over that same period, they paid less than A$500 million in corporate income tax. In the 2023 financial year alone, when global energy prices surged, INPEX entities recorded over A$9 billion in Australian revenue. Their taxable income that year was A$23.5 million."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$36 billion","t":"in revenue over eleven years, with less than A$500 million in corporate income tax paid by INPEX’s Australian entities","src":"ATO transparency data via Michael West Media"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Ichthys LNG project has never paid corporate income tax in Australia. INPEX does not expect to pay the special gas resource tax, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, until at least 2030."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"INPEX is not a rogue operator defying Australian law. It is a company behaving exactly as Australian law permits, using the deductions, exemptions, and tax treatment that the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax framework makes available to it. The problem is the framework, not the company."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"q","t":"To put it bluntly, if we can reduce our income tax expense by 1% out of the ¥900 billion, profit will increase by around ¥10 billion.","x":"INPEX","src":"February 2025 shareholder presentation"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"INPEX is doing what is legal. The question is why Australian law makes it legal."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The first paragraph of this section called INPEX a company majority-owned by the Japanese government. None of this article’s references says so, and INPEX’s own shareholder page (inpex.com/english/ir/shareholder/stock.html, opened 8 October 2026, figures as of 30 June 2026) lists the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry as the largest holder of common shares at 23.81 per cent, and as the holder of the one special class share, with no majority holder. The paragraph now calls INPEX a Japanese gas company and no more."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Here is the fact that requires the most explanation, because it sounds impossible: Australians pay more for their gas than the Japanese buyers of Australian gas."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Before Australia’s LNG export industry took hold, gas on the east coast typically traded at A$3 to A$4 per gigajoule. It was affordable, stable, and priced on domestic supply and demand."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Since Queensland began exporting LNG in 2015, the domestic east coast market has been fundamentally transformed. LNG exports became the largest single use of Australian gas, consuming more than half of all east coast supply. The gap between what was produced and what was available for domestic use tightened. Prices rose."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Since 2017, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has repeatedly documented domestic gas buyers paying A$8 to A$12 per gigajoule. During the 2022 Ukraine energy price shock, east coast prices spiked as high as A$20 to A$30 per gigajoule. This happened even when gas was physically available in Australia. The ACCC found that in multiple years, domestic Australian buyers were paying export parity prices, meaning what an overseas buyer would pay, regardless of whether there was actually a shortage."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$7.8 billion","t":"annual residential gas bill across eastern Australia by FY2023–24, up 44% from FY2014–15","src":"IEEFA, October 2025"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The consequences are documented and measured. Domestic gas prices have tripled since LNG exports began. Manufacturers pay 50 per cent more for gas in 2025 than they did in 2019. The total annual residential gas bill across eastern Australia grew by 44 per cent, from A$5.4 billion to A$7.8 billion, between FY2014–15 and FY2023–24. Victorian households bear the largest share, with a gas bill of approximately A$5 billion per year."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Higher gas prices flow through to higher electricity prices, because gas-fired power stations set the marginal price in the electricity market on high-demand days. Australians pay for the gas rort on their energy bills, and then again on their power bills."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Japan has long been Australia’s largest or second-largest LNG export market. The relationship was built on a premise: Japan needs the gas for energy security, Australian gas keeps the lights on in Tokyo."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"That premise is now demonstrably outdated."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Japan’s domestic LNG consumption peaked in 2014 and has fallen 25 per cent since. Japan is transitioning from a buyer to a trader. A JOGMEC survey found that 40 per cent of LNG managed by Japanese companies is now on-sold to other countries, up sharply from 16 per cent in FY2018."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"f","x":"812 petajoules","t":"of Australian gas on-sold by Japanese companies in 2024, more than all gas used in eastern Australia","src":"IEEFA / JOGMEC"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"IEEFA analysis found that Japanese companies on-sold as much as 812 petajoules of Australian gas in 2024, more than the total annual gas use across eastern Australia, for profits estimated at more than A$1 billion. Japanese companies bought Australian gas, which Australians gave away at near-zero royalty rates, and sold it to third countries for a profit that exceeded what the Australian government collected from the entire Petroleum Resource Rent Tax."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is the Japan paradox stated plainly: the country that buys our gas makes more money from on-selling it than we collect from taxing the companies that extract it."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"q","t":"When overseas buyers can on-sell Australian gas at a profit while those same corporations pay almost no tax for our gas, you know something needs to be fixed.","x":"Australia Institute","src":"2025"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"IEEFA’s analysis further found that Japanese companies could reduce their LNG purchases from Australia by one third without impacting Japan’s energy security. The gas is not critical to Japan. It is profitable for Japan."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s current gas export and taxation framework did not emerge by accident. It was constructed over decades through deliberate policy choices."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"From the 1980s onwards, successive Australian governments encouraged the development of LNG export infrastructure. The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, legislated in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 [16], was designed as a profits-based mechanism to capture a share of super-profits from offshore oil extraction. It was later extended to LNG, but as we will document in Article 2 of this series, its design was fundamentally unsuited to the economics of LNG, creating deduction mechanisms that allowed companies to accumulate offsetting credits for decades before paying anything.","r":[16]},{"a":12,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The east coast export projects, three LNG terminals on Curtis Island near Gladstone built between 2015 and 2016, were approved without the domestic reservation requirement that Western Australia had adopted. The consequence was predictable: once the terminals were built and long-term export contracts were signed, there was no mechanism to ensure domestic supply kept pace with domestic demand at reasonable prices."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"When the Ukrainian war spiked global LNG prices in 2022, Australian producers had every commercial incentive to maximise exports and minimise domestic supply. Domestic prices tracked global markets. Australian families and manufacturers paid global prices for Australian gas, because the policy framework provided no effective protection against that outcome."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax was introduced in 1987, while other articles in this series said 1988. The tax was legislated in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987; the series now uses that wording throughout."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The sentence naming the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 now cites the Act on the Federal Register of Legislation. [16]","r":[16]},{"a":12,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The contrast with Western Australia is instructive. In 2006, when the North West Shelf LNG project was being expanded and new projects approved, the WA state government negotiated a condition: 15 per cent of LNG production had to be reserved for domestic consumption. This ‘domestic gas reservation policy’ has since been extended to cover all WA LNG projects."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Western Australia also collects royalties from LNG production."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The result: WA consumers pay roughly half what east coast consumers pay for gas. The policy difference, reservation plus royalties, partially explains the pricing gap."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The east coast has no equivalent national reservation policy. Labor’s Future Gas Strategy, released in 2024, declined to impose one. Both major parties have governed the east coast gas market without the tool that WA used to protect its own consumers."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The case for taxing resource extraction is straightforward in democratic theory: the resource belongs to the public. When a private company extracts it, they pay the public for the right to do so. The payment is commensurate with the value of what is taken."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"In Australia’s LNG industry, the complication is that some of the companies doing the extracting are foreign multinationals. Tax obligations, such as they are, flow through complex international corporate structures."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"INPEX is a Japanese company. Chevron, operator of the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects in WA, is an American company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Shell has major interests in the QGC project in Queensland."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"What this means in practice: when the Australian government allows gas to be extracted royalty-free, or when the PRRT fails to collect meaningful revenue, the revenue the public does not collect stays with the companies that extract the gas. It is a transfer from Australian citizens, who own the resource, to those companies."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"f","x":"A$70 billion","t":"invested by Japanese and Korean public finance institutions in Australian gas export projects since 2008","src":"Australian Conservation Foundation, July 2025"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Japanese and Korean public finance institutions have invested A$70 billion (A$20.5 billion from public lenders alone) in Australian gas export projects since 2008. This is not investment in Australian energy security. It is investment in Australia’s capacity to export Australian gas to Asian markets at terms favourable to Asian buyers."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s7-b7","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said most of the companies extracting Australian gas are foreign-owned, that profits flow offshore, that the revenue the public does not collect goes to foreign shareholders, and that INPEX is majority-owned by the Japanese government through JOGMEC. None of this article’s references carries those claims, so it now says only that some of the companies are foreign multinationals, that INPEX is a Japanese company, and that the uncollected revenue stays with the companies. The figure no longer draws the Japanese government as INPEX’s majority owner, and the heading, which asked who owns the companies, now reads \"Who takes the gas\". The sentence that, of the new offshore gas capacity that came online in Australia in the 2010s, only 13 per cent was owned by an Australian-based company is also cut: it could not be traced to any of this article’s references (those that could be opened on 8 October 2026 do not carry it; the Australia Institute ‘Gas: The Facts’ page could not be opened), and no other source for it was found. The ownership of INPEX is corrected at the end of the section \"The INPEX case study\"."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"It is easy to say the gas industry pays too little. It takes more effort to say what more money would have meant in practice."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Australia Institute analysis found that a 20 per cent royalty on the A$149 billion of gas exported royalty-free over four years would have generated A$53 billion for the public. That is more than the total cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in the same period."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute has also found that replacing the broken PRRT with a flat 25 per cent export tax, a rate still well below Norway’s 78 per cent, would raise more than A$17 billion per year. That is enough to quadruple Commonwealth spending on housing."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"f","x":"US$1.9 trillion","t":"Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, built from oil and gas revenues since 1996: US$340,000 per citizen","src":"Roger Montgomery / IGU analysis"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s8-b4","s":8,"k":"p","t":"We will examine the Norwegian comparison in detail in Article 3 of this series. For now, one number: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, built from oil and gas revenues since 1996, is worth US$1.9 trillion. That is US$340,000 for every Norwegian citizen."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s8-b5","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s equivalent fund, the Future Fund, holds A$226 billion. It is not resource-linked. It does not grow from gas revenues. The LNG boom that made Australia one of the world’s largest exporters produced no equivalent accumulation of public wealth."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s9-b0","s":9,"k":"p","t":"This is the opening article of The Rort’s Gas Rort series. It is the establishing chapter, the one that maps the basic architecture of a problem that extends, across eight articles, from the mechanics of gas extraction to the political donations that keep the system intact, from the history of reform attempts that failed to the media coverage that lets the failure go largely unreported."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s9-b1","s":9,"k":"p","t":"The facts in this article are not disputed by any credible institution. The Australia Institute’s figures come from ATO data. The ACCC has documented the domestic pricing problem in successive reports. INPEX’s tax record is drawn from ATO transparency publications. The Japanese resale figures come from IEEFA and JOGMEC survey data."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s9-b2","s":9,"k":"p","t":"What is contested, vigorously and expensively and with access to both Parliament House and prime-time television, is whether the situation needs to change. The gas industry argues it pays A$22 billion in taxes and royalties per year. The Australia Institute documents that this includes all taxes paid by all companies (company income tax, payroll tax, fringe benefits tax) and that the PRRT component, the resource-specific tax designed to ensure Australians benefit from their gas, is below A$2 billion and falling."},{"a":12,"at":"at-s9-b3","s":9,"k":"p","t":"**Australians collect more from beer excise than from the petroleum resource rent tax.**"},{"a":12,"at":"at-s9-b4","s":9,"k":"p","t":"We will come to beer in Article 2."},{"a":13,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Compounding deductions and a transfer pricing formula built for oil let LNG projects avoid the PRRT. Treasury's 2023 Budget Papers said not a single LNG project had paid any.","r":[5,11]},{"a":13,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In February 2026 Treasury confirmed beer excise was forecast at **A$2.7 billion** for 2025–26, against A$1.5 billion for the PRRT.","r":[2]},{"a":13,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In the seven years to 2022–23, government collected A$14.96 billion more from HECS and HELP repayments than from the PRRT.","r":[6]},{"a":13,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The industry backed the 2024 reform. Budget 2025 showed it would raise A$4 billion less than projected in 2023.","r":[10,9]},{"a":13,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Pocock's motion for an inquiry was lost 17 to 23 on 12 March 2026. A later select committee reported without agreed recommendations.","r":[19,20]},{"a":13,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In February 2026, ACT Senator David Pocock asked a straightforward question at a Senate Estimates hearing. He directed it to Shane Johnson, the Treasury First Assistant Secretary responsible for revenue policy."},{"a":13,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"q","t":"Would it be accurate to say that the tax on offshore gas exports, PRRT, is still giving us less revenue than the tax on beer?","x":"Senator David Pocock","src":"Senate Estimates, February 2026"},{"a":13,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Johnson confirmed it. Beer excise: A$2.7 billion in 2025–26. Petroleum Resource Rent Tax: A$1.5 billion."},{"a":13,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"q","t":"How do we live in a country, one of the biggest gas exporters in the world, and we’re getting more tax from beer than PRRT?","x":"Senator David Pocock","src":"Senate Estimates, February 2026"},{"a":13,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"He then asked Finance Minister Katy Gallagher to explain. ‘We’ve made changes to the PRRT that we got through the parliament,’ she said. ‘Other areas of tax reform for us, right now, the priority is delivering on our election commitments.’"},{"a":13,"at":"at-lede-5","k":"p","t":"Footage of the exchange was posted to Pocock’s Instagram. It was reported in February 2026 to have been viewed 8.7 million times."},{"a":13,"at":"at-lede-6","k":"p","t":"This article explains why that exchange is not a quirky statistical anomaly. It is the clearest expression of a tax system so poorly designed, and so carefully defended, that one of the world’s largest gas exporting nations collects less from its signature resource tax than it collects from taxing beer."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Before explaining how the PRRT became broken, it is worth establishing exactly what the numbers say. All of the following are confirmed from government sources."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$66 billion","t":"Approximate value of Australian LNG exports in the financial year just ended.","src":"Budget Papers 2025"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$1.5 billion","t":"PRRT forecast for 2025–26: less than beer excise, and heading downward.","src":"Treasury, Senate Estimates 2026"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Let those figures sit for a moment. Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas. In the financial year just ended, it exported roughly A$66 billion worth of LNG. The special tax designed to ensure Australians receive a fair share of that wealth is expected to collect A$1.5 billion. Less than the beer excise, and heading downward."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"But beer is not the only comparison. The gap between the PRRT and other taxes Australians pay is even more striking when you look at university debt repayments."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In 2023–24, HECS and HELP debt repayments, the compulsory repayments made by Australians who attended university and now earn above the threshold income, totalled more than four times what gas companies paid in PRRT. In the seven years to 2022–23, the government collected A$14.96 billion more from university debt repayments than it collected from the petroleum resource rent tax. That is a 168 per cent premium. Students pay 168 per cent more in HECS repayments than gas companies pay in PRRT."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Or put differently: the Australian government collects more from asking graduates to repay their education costs than it collects from asking multinational gas companies to pay for extracting a public resource."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"q","t":"In Norway, they tax the fossil fuel industry and give kids free university education. In Australia, we subsidise the fossil fuel industry and charge kids a fortune to go to uni.","x":"Richard Denniss","src":"Executive Director, The Australia Institute"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"And it is not only graduates who pay more. PRRT revenue in 2023, the year the gas industry made record profits of A$55 billion on Ukraine war windfall prices, was lower than PRRT revenue in 2001. The industry’s revenue had grown enormously. The tax collected from that revenue had shrunk."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax was legislated in 1987, in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987. [21] It was designed as a profits-based tax, a ‘resource rent’ mechanism intended to capture the ‘super-profits’ generated by extracting oil and gas from Australian Commonwealth waters. In principle, this is sound economics. You tax profit above a normal rate of return, the extra profit that comes from owning a resource the public gave you access to, without discouraging investment.","r":[21]},{"a":13,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"When it was designed, Australia’s offshore petroleum industry was primarily an oil industry. The economics of oil extraction are well-suited to a profits-based tax: capital costs are front-loaded, production follows relatively quickly, and profits arrive within years of initial investment."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Gas is different. Particularly LNG, liquefied natural gas, which must be chilled to −162 degrees Celsius for shipping. LNG projects require enormous upfront capital investment, often tens of billions of dollars. The infrastructure (pipelines, liquefaction plants, storage facilities, export terminals) must be built before a single cargo can be shipped. A decade or more can pass between the first dollar of exploration spending and the first dollar of export revenue."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax was introduced in 1988, while another article in this series said 1987. The tax was legislated in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987; this section now says so."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The sentence naming the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 now cites the Act on the Federal Register of Legislation. [21]","r":[21]},{"a":13,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The PRRT allows companies to deduct project costs against any potential tax liability. That part is normal; most profit-based taxes allow cost deductions. The problem with the PRRT is what happens to deductions that cannot be used in a given year."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"If a company’s deductible expenses exceed its assessable receipts in any year, the excess is ‘uplifted’: carried forward to future years with interest added. The uplift rates are generous. For general project expenditure, the long-term government bond rate plus five percentage points. For exploration expenditure, the long-term bond rate plus fifteen percentage points. These rates can effectively double the value of deductions every four years."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Here is what this means in practice. A company spends A$30 billion building an LNG facility. It cannot deduct all of that against revenue immediately because it is not yet earning revenue. So the deduction is carried forward and uplifted at 15 per cent above the bond rate, year after year, growing in value while the company is still building. By the time gas is flowing and revenue arriving, the accumulated deductions can be larger than the revenue itself."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The end result: years of high revenue with minimal taxable profit, because the compounding deductions wipe out the PRRT liability. This is legal. This is how the tax was designed. The design just assumed the projects were oil projects with short lead times, not LNG projects with decade-long construction phases."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"There is a second, distinct problem specific to integrated LNG projects. The PRRT applies to the ‘upstream’ extraction of gas, not to the liquefaction process, which is considered a downstream value-adding activity. This creates a problem: what is the gas worth at the point it is extracted, before it is turned into LNG?"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In a simple oil project, you just use the sale price. But in an integrated LNG project, where the same company extracts the gas, builds the liquefaction plant, and ships the LNG, there is no arm’s-length sale of the gas before liquefaction. The company is effectively selling to itself."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The tax system invented a ‘gas transfer price’ to solve this. But the formula used, known as the residual pricing method, involves 14 detailed steps and has been criticised as systematically understating the value of the gas at the taxing point. By some estimates, the formula means that only about half of the economic rent from integrated LNG projects ends up being taxed. The Callaghan Review, a government-commissioned review, found that if a simpler ‘netback’ pricing method were used, an additional A$89 billion could be raised between 2023 and 2050."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"Zero","t":"Treasury’s own Budget Papers in 2023 stated plainly: ‘To date, not a single LNG project has paid any PRRT.’","src":"Treasury Budget Papers, 2023"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In 2024, the Albanese government passed changes to the PRRT through parliament. The primary change was a 90 per cent deductions cap, limiting the proportion of taxable income that can be offset by deductions to 90 per cent in any given year. Previously there was no cap, and companies could carry deductions sufficient to eliminate their entire PRRT liability in profitable years."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Labor’s position was that the changes would make the offshore LNG industry ‘pay more tax, sooner’. The revenue forecast: A$2.4 billion in additional PRRT revenue over four years."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"There is a test for whether any tax change is meaningful: does the regulated industry oppose it?"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The gas industry did not oppose it. The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA, the peak industry body) released a media statement calling for the changes to be passed on the day they were announced. When the industry whose profits you are taxing publicly supports the reform, the reform is not asking much of them."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The subsequent evidence confirmed this. Budget 2025 revealed that the PRRT changes would raise **A$4 billion less** over the forward estimates than the government had projected in 2023."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"q","t":"We are now getting less for our gas and still not a single cent of PRRT from offshore LNG, we are the second biggest exporter in the world, it is a total scam on Australians.","x":"Senator David Pocock","src":"Response to Budget 2025"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The PRRT trajectory: the 2025 Budget forecast A$1.98 billion in 2025–26 (the outcome was A$1,416 million cash), falling to A$1.68 billion in 2026–27, and A$1.45 billion by 2028–29. Beer excise rises with inflation twice a year. PRRT falls year after year."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"There is an irony so stark it almost requires repeating twice. Australia not only fails to collect meaningful revenue from gas extraction: it actively subsidises the industry doing the extracting."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"f","x":"A$14.9 billion","t":"Total fossil fuel subsidies from all Australian governments in 2024–25.","src":"Australia Institute, Fossil Fuel Subsidies 2025"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute’s annual fossil fuel subsidies report found that Australian governments provided A$14.9 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in 2024–25. The federal share was A$12.6 billion, driven primarily by the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme, which refunds fuel excise to large diesel users including mining companies."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"To be clear on the arithmetic: in 2025–26 the Australia Institute counts A$16.3 billion in fossil fuel subsidies (A$14.9 billion in 2024–25), while the PRRT raised A$1,416 million in cash receipts, or A$1,661 million on an accrual basis. On that count alone, fossil fuel producers and major users receive far more in subsidies, as the Australia Institute counts them, than the PRRT raises. The classification is the Australia Institute’s own method, and whether the fuel tax credit, its largest item, counts as a subsidy is contested. The PRRT is also a tax on petroleum projects generally, not a measure of the total government take from gas, since company tax, royalties and excise also apply."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article said the government collected A$1.5 billion from the PRRT in 2025–26 while providing A$14.9 billion in fossil fuel subsidies ‘across the same financial year’. That paired two different years. A$14.9 billion is the Australia Institute’s figure for 2024–25; its figure for 2025–26 is A$16.3 billion. The A$1.5 billion was a forecast; the 2025–26 PRRT outcome was A$1,416 million in cash receipts, or A$1,661 million on an accrual basis. The passage above, the closing section, the company-tax comparison, the key facts and the image have been corrected. The industry-response section now uses the 2024–25 PRRT figure of about A$1.4 billion (ABC), the same year as the A$21.9 billion, in place of approximately A$1.5 billion. The beer comparison uses the forecasts given at Senate Estimates; where this article said the PRRT ‘collects A$1.5 billion’, it now says the PRRT was forecast to collect that amount in 2025–26, and the first key fact says the same. It also gave A$1.98 billion as the 2025–26 PRRT take without saying it was the 2025 Budget forecast; that line now says so and gives the outcome."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Subsidies in the forward estimates, the government’s own published projections, reached a record A$67 billion. That is 14 times the balance of Australia’s Disaster Ready Fund."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"There is a further dimension to the PRRT failure that is rarely discussed in mainstream media coverage of the gas industry."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"LNG infrastructure has a finite lifespan. Offshore platforms, pipelines, subsea equipment, and onshore facilities must eventually be decommissioned: dismantled, removed, and the environment restored. This is expensive, technically demanding, and legally required."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"f","x":"A$60–66 billion","t":"Estimated decommissioning liability for Australia’s offshore gas sector. Analysts estimate taxpayers could face 60 to 70 per cent of that cost.","src":"Industry estimates"},{"a":13,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The mechanism is the PRRT itself: decommissioning costs are classified as deductible expenditure against any PRRT liability, further reducing future resource tax revenue. Companies that paid minimal PRRT during the productive life of their projects will be able to reduce their already-minimal future PRRT liability using their closure costs."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The industry extracts. It pays almost no resource tax. It leaves. The cleanup is partly on Australians."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The evidence that the PRRT is broken is not contested by serious economists. The Callaghan Review, commissioned by the government itself, identified the structural problems. The 2017 PRRT Review found the system was poorly suited to LNG. Treasury’s own budget papers acknowledged no LNG project had paid any PRRT."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute has calculated that replacing the PRRT with a flat 25 per cent tax on gas export revenue, significantly lower than Norway’s 78 per cent, would raise more than A$17 billion per year. The Australian Council of Trade Unions has formally proposed this. The Greens support it. Independent economists have endorsed an inquiry."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Senator Pocock has introduced a motion in the Senate to establish a formal inquiry into why the PRRT collects less than beer excise."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. That motion, for a select committee with Senator Pocock to chair, was lost 17 to 23 on 12 March 2026 (Journals of the Senate No. 39, item 17) [19]. On 30 March the Senate established a different committee, the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, on the motion of Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May, 35 votes to 21, with Senator Pocock among the ayes and then a member of the committee (Journals of the Senate No. 44, item 14) [19]. The committee reported without agreeing a set of recommendations [20].","r":[19,20]},{"a":13,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"None of this is radical. A 25 per cent resource tax would still leave Australia collecting less from its gas industry than Norway, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia collect from theirs. It would still represent a more favourable rate than most comparable countries apply. It would simply be a tax that does what the current one does not: collect meaningful revenue from the extraction of a public resource."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The gas industry consistently argues that it pays its fair share. The Australian Energy Producers (the industry peak body, formerly APPEA) stated in July 2025 that the oil and gas industry paid a record A$21.9 billion in taxes and royalties in 2024–25. This figure is deployed repeatedly in media coverage and industry submissions."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"It requires one clarification to understand what it means. The A$21.9 billion includes all taxes paid by all companies: company income tax (paid on all profits across the business), payroll tax, fringe benefits tax, excise, and state royalties. The PRRT, the resource-specific tax designed to ensure Australians benefit from gas extraction, accounts for about A$1.4 billion of that A$21.9 billion (the ABC reported PRRT raised A$1.42 billion in 2024–25, apparently on a cash basis)."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"A gas company that earns revenues in other industries, employs many workers, and operates domestically would pay substantial company income tax, payroll tax, and superannuation regardless of whether the PRRT existed. Those payments are not a contribution from the gas industry to Australians for the right to extract public resources. They are ordinary business taxes."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The PRRT is the specific tax for the specific purpose. It was forecast to collect A$1.5 billion in 2025–26. Beer excise was forecast at A$2.7 billion."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s9-b0","s":9,"k":"p","t":"In February 2026, a Senate Estimates exchange became the most-watched parliamentary clip in recent Australian memory. 8.7 million views, as reported in February 2026, for a question about beer and gas tax. The virality is itself a signal: Australians understand, intuitively, that something is wrong."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s9-b1","s":9,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The ABC reported on 2 May 2026 “nearly 10 million” Instagram views of the same clip [18]. The 8.7 million above is the figure as reported in February 2026.","r":[18]},{"a":13,"at":"at-s9-b2","s":9,"k":"p","t":"The PRRT was designed to capture the wealth Australians generate by owning a resource and allowing it to be extracted. It collects less than beer excise. It collects a quarter of what HECS collects from university graduates. It collects less than it did in 2001, in a year when the industry made record profits. The government reformed it. The industry cheered. Budget 2025 showed it would raise A$4 billion less than promised."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s9-b3","s":9,"k":"p","t":"Meanwhile, the Australia Institute counts A$16.3 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in 2025–26 (A$14.9 billion in 2024–25), and university students repay their education debts at 168 per cent the rate gas companies contribute their resource tax."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s9-b4","s":9,"k":"p","t":"The beer comparison is not a gimmick. It is a distillation of a policy failure so thorough, and so consistently maintained across governments of both parties, that it now produces the mathematically absurd result it described."},{"a":13,"at":"at-s9-b5","s":9,"k":"p","t":"Article 3 of this series asks a simple question: what could Australia have built, if it had taxed gas the way Norway taxed oil? The answer is worth knowing."},{"a":14,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Norway taxes petroleum profits at 78 per cent and banks the revenue in a fund whose capital cannot be spent. Australia, on our reading, chose otherwise.","r":[6,9]},{"a":14,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In 2023 Norway's government received 64 per cent of its oil and gas revenue. Australia's received about A$16 billion, just 9.8 per cent.","r":[12]},{"a":14,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Norway's fund made a profit of A$350 billion in 2025, more than the entire value of Australia's A$226 billion Future Fund.","r":[4,15]},{"a":14,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Norway owns 67 per cent of Equinor and direct stakes in its fields. Australia has no equity in the fields its gas companies operate.","r":[7]},{"a":14,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The fund now finances about 20 per cent of Norway's national budget from returns alone.","r":[10]},{"a":14,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In 1969, Norway discovered one of the largest offshore oilfields on earth beneath the North Sea. A small country of five million people suddenly sat atop extraordinary natural wealth."},{"a":14,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The Norwegian government made a decision. It was not a complicated decision, but it required political discipline to maintain for half a century. The decision was this: the resource belongs to Norwegians. Not to the companies that extract it. Not to foreign shareholders. To Norwegians. And the tax system, the state ownership structure, and the fiscal rules that followed from that decision would all be designed to ensure that the wealth stayed with the people who owned it."},{"a":14,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"In 2025, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, built from oil and gas revenues since 1996, made a profit of A$350 billion. In a single year. That is more than the entire value of Australia’s Future Fund."},{"a":14,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"Australia is one of the world’s largest gas exporters. It has been for years. Its resources have generated hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue for the companies extracting them. And yet Australia has built no equivalent fund. The gas boom produced no lasting public wealth. The windfall profits are gone, paid out by companies that paid almost no resource tax for the privilege."},{"a":14,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"This article is the third in The Rort’s Gas Rort series. It is the one about what could have been, and what still could be, if Australia were willing to make the decision Norway made."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Government Pension Fund Global, officially known in Norwegian as the Statens pensjonsfond utland and commonly called the Oil Fund, was established by act of parliament in 1990. The first transfer of petroleum revenue into the fund was made in 1996. The idea was straightforward: every krone the Norwegian government received from the oil and gas industry would go into the fund. The government could spend only the returns, not the capital itself."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$2 trillion","t":"The value of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund at the end of 2025: the largest sovereign wealth fund on earth.","src":"Norges Bank Investment Management"},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"By the end of 2025, the fund’s value was NOK 21,268 billion. In Australian dollar terms, that is approximately A$2 trillion. It is the largest sovereign wealth fund on earth, larger than the next biggest by a substantial margin, ahead of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (approximately US$900 billion) and China’s China Investment Corporation (approximately US$1.3 trillion)."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The fund owns approximately 1.5 per cent of every publicly listed company on earth. It holds stakes in more than 7,000 companies across 60 countries. It is the world’s largest single owner of listed shares."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Per Norwegian citizen, the fund is worth US$340,000, or approximately NOK 3.8 million. For a family of four, that is more than A$1.4 million in accumulated public wealth."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In 2025, which the fund’s managers described as one of the best vintages in its history, it generated profits of approximately €565 million per day. The annual profit of A$350 billion was its highest since inception."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"To understand what that means: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund made more money in 2025 than the total value of Australia’s Future Fund. From investment returns alone. Without touching the capital."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"But the most important number is not 2025’s return. It is this: more than half of the fund’s total value now comes from investment returns on the money already in it, not from new resource revenues. The fund has become self-sustaining. The original petroleum revenues seeded it. Investment returns have now grown beyond the seed itself. Norway has permanently converted finite resource wealth into permanent financial assets."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Norwegian model did not emerge by accident or geology. Norway is not uniquely resource-rich compared to Australia. It is not uniquely lucky. What it did differently was make three deliberate decisions in the decades after the oil boom began. Australia made the opposite of each one."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Decision 1: Tax the industry at 78 per cent.** Norway’s tax rate on petroleum profits is 78 per cent. This comprises a standard corporate tax rate of 22 per cent and a special petroleum tax of 56 per cent, technically structured at 71.8 per cent to account for the deductibility of the corporate tax, maintaining the 78 per cent combined marginal rate."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The petroleum tax is designed to be investment-neutral. It applies to super-profits above a normal rate of return, and the Norwegian government reimburses companies for tax losses during unprofitable periods, removing the investment risk that would otherwise deter exploration. The structure means private companies still have incentive to invest, while the public captures the lion’s share of the extraordinary profits from extracting a publicly-owned resource."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"64% vs 9.8%","t":"Norway captured 64 per cent of its oil and gas revenue in 2023. Australia captured less than 10 per cent.","src":"Michael West Media"},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"At this rate, in 2025, total tax payments from Norwegian petroleum activities were approximately NOK 374 billion. Net government cash flow from the petroleum sector was approximately NOK 521 billion. In 2023, when energy prices were elevated due to the Ukraine war, the Norwegian government received approximately A$209 billion in revenue from its oil and gas sector: 64 per cent of total industry revenue."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Compare that to Australia in 2023: total oil and gas revenue of approximately A$164 billion, of which the public received approximately A$16 billion: just 9.8 per cent. Norway captured 64 per cent of its resource revenue. Australia captured less than 10 per cent."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"q","t":"We tax them quite heavily. It’s a 78% tax rate. And they told us that was impossible, but they come and invest, and we tax them and they stay.","x":"Jens Stoltenberg","src":"Prime Minister of Norway, Harvard University, 2014"},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Decision 2: Own the industry, not just regulate it.** In 1972, the Norwegian parliament passed a unanimous act establishing Den Norske Stats Oljeselskap: the State’s Oil Company. Today this is known as Equinor. The Norwegian government owns 67 per cent of it."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This state ownership gives Norway a second stream of resource revenue beyond taxation: dividends. In 2024, Equinor generated NOK 701 billion (US$62.5 billion) for the Norwegian government, with a 2025 projection of NOK 643 billion. These funds flow directly into the sovereign wealth fund."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Norwegian government also maintains a system called the State’s Direct Financial Interest (SDFI): direct equity stakes in individual oil and gas fields, pipelines, and onshore facilities. The state covers its share of production costs and receives a corresponding share of income from each production licence. This is not regulation. It is ownership."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b10","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Australia has no equivalent. The gas companies operating in Australia (Chevron, Woodside, INPEX, Shell, Santos) are private companies, of which Chevron, Shell and INPEX are foreign multinationals. The Australian government has no direct equity stake in the fields they operate. It relies entirely on the tax system to capture public value from public resources. As Articles 1 and 2 documented, that tax system currently collects less than the beer excise."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b11","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Decision 3: A fiscal rule that prevents spending the capital.** When Norway established the fund, it also established a fiscal rule: the government could draw on the fund’s returns for the annual budget, but not its capital. The rule has been adjusted over time (currently no more than 3 per cent of the fund’s value can be drawn annually) but the principle is inviolable: the seed money stays in the fund. Only the harvest is available for spending."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b12","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This rule has produced a remarkable outcome: the fund now finances approximately 20 per cent of Norway’s national budget from returns alone, while continuing to grow. In good economic years, excess petroleum revenue is saved. In downturns, the government can draw slightly more, providing a fiscal buffer that insulates Norway from commodity price volatility."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b13","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Norway was determined to avoid the instability, corruption and weak growth that plagued other resource-rich economies. The entire system was designed to prevent the ‘resource curse’, the paradox in which resource wealth produces political dysfunction and economic underperformance. The fiscal rule is central to that protection."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s1-b15","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the gas companies operating in Australia are \"entirely or predominantly foreign-owned\", and the opening said the windfall profits were distributed to \"foreign shareholders headquartered in Houston and Tokyo\". None of this article’s references carries who owns those companies. The section now says only that they are private companies, of which Chevron, Shell and INPEX are foreign multinationals (the position documented in Who Profits), and the opening says the profits were paid out by companies that paid almost no resource tax."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The following table sets out the documented difference between Norway and Australia’s approach to resource wealth. All figures are from primary sources cited in this article."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The point of the fund is not the fund itself. The point is what it makes possible."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Norway provides free tertiary education to its citizens. University tuition is zero. HECS debt does not exist. In Australia, as documented in Article 2 of this series, university graduates repay their education debts to the government at a rate 168 per cent higher than gas companies pay the petroleum resource rent tax. In Norway, gas revenues fund the education. In Australia, graduates fund the gap left by inadequate gas revenues."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The fund also finances approximately 20 per cent of Norway’s national budget from returns alone, providing a stable, non-inflationary source of public revenue. This is budget stability that does not depend on income taxes, GST, or the economic cycle. It comes from the compounding returns of accumulated resource wealth."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The natural resources in the ground, that’s something we own in common. It’s not private ownership.","x":"Jens Stoltenberg","src":"Former Prime Minister of Norway, Harvard University, 2014"},{"a":14,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This is the principle that underpins everything. Not hostility to private business. Not resource nationalism for its own sake. The straightforward recognition that petroleum in Norwegian waters belongs to Norwegians, and that the tax and ownership system should reflect that ownership by returning the majority of the wealth to its actual owners."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Australia discovered gas in commercial quantities decades ago. Queensland’s LNG exports have been running since 2015. Western Australia has been exporting LNG since the 1970s in small volumes, and at scale since the 1990s. The revenues have been enormous."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s Future Fund holds approximately A$226 billion. It was established in 2006 by the Howard government to fund future public service pension liabilities, not as a repository for resource revenues. It is not a sovereign wealth fund in the Norwegian sense. It is not resource-linked. It does not grow from gas or mineral revenues. It ranks approximately 16th globally among sovereign wealth funds, behind Norway, Qatar, the UAE, Singapore, China, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The LNG boom that made Australia one of the world’s largest exporters produced no equivalent fund. In the period from 2015 to 2025, Australian LNG exports earned the companies extracting the gas hundreds of billions of dollars. The PRRT, the resource tax designed to capture public value from those earnings, collected approximately A$1.5 billion in its most recently reported year. The gap between what the resource generated and what Australians received from it was not invested anywhere for future generations. It was distributed to shareholders."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"f","x":"A$350bn vs A$226bn","t":"Norway’s fund profit in a single year exceeded the total value of Australia’s Future Fund accumulated over its entire lifetime.","src":"CommBank Newsroom / Clime Investment Management"},{"a":14,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The most common argument against the Norway comparison is geological rather than political: Australia exports gas, not oil; LNG projects have different economics; the comparison is not fair."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This argument deserves a direct answer."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Norway has, over its petroleum history, exported both oil and gas. Its fund was built primarily from oil revenues in its early decades. But the structural features of the Norwegian model (the 78 per cent tax, the state ownership, the fiscal rule, the fund) are not specific to oil. Norway’s petroleum tax system applies to all petroleum products extracted from its continental shelf. The principles are applicable to any resource extraction."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd argued explicitly, when he proposed the Resources Super Profits Tax in 2010, that Australia could and should capture resource rents from its gas boom in the same way Norway had from oil. That proposal was killed by a A$22 million industry advertising campaign, as this series will document in Article 6."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"q","t":"There is nothing stopping Australia from imposing the kind of taxes on oil and gas that countries like Saudi Arabia, Norway, and Qatar utilise successfully.","x":"Richard Denniss","src":"Australia Institute"},{"a":14,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Norwegian model works because Norway decided its resources belonged to Norwegians. The Australian model fails because Australia has, consistently and across governments of both parties, decided that the revenues from extracting Australian resources belong primarily to the companies extracting them. Both decisions are political. Only one is in the public interest."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute has calculated that replacing Australia’s broken PRRT with a flat 25 per cent export tax on gas, still less than a third of Norway’s 78 per cent, would raise more than A$17 billion per year. That is enough to quadruple Commonwealth spending on housing."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"If Australia had captured resource rents from the LNG boom at even half of Norway’s rate, the compounding effect over decades would have built a sovereign wealth fund of genuinely national significance. The moment has not yet entirely passed: existing gas projects will continue producing for decades, and new fields are still being developed."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"But the window is narrowing. Global LNG demand is shifting as renewable energy grows. The most profitable years of the Australian LNG boom (2022 and 2023, when Ukraine war energy prices produced windfall revenues) have passed. As Article 1 of this series documented, the A$66 billion in current export earnings is already well below the A$92 billion peak."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Every year of inaction is a year of lost accumulation. Every cargo that ships from Darwin and Gladstone without adequate resource rent capture is a permanent transfer from Australians to the companies that extract the gas. The fund Norway is building grows compound year on year. The fund Australia is not building accrues nothing."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The last paragraph of this section said inaction transfers value \"to foreign shareholders\". No reference here carries who the shareholders are, so it now says the transfer is to the companies that extract the gas."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Norway’s sovereign wealth fund made A$350 billion in 2025. It earns approximately A$1 billion per day. It is worth US$340,000 for every Norwegian citizen. It finances 20 per cent of Norway’s national budget from returns alone. Norwegian university education is free. The capital is intact and growing, because by law only the returns can be spent."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"None of this is luck. None of it is geography. Norway has a population of five million people and a single North Sea basin. Australia has a population of 27 million and some of the world’s largest gas reserves. Norway built US$1.9 trillion. Australia built A$226 billion, and not from gas."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The difference is the political decision made in 1971, when the Norwegian parliament adopted its Ten Commandments of Oil Policy and declared that the petroleum beneath its waters belonged to the Norwegian people. And the discipline to maintain that decision for fifty years, across multiple governments and parties."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Australia made a different decision. It made it when the PRRT was designed in the 1980s with deductions that suited oil but not LNG. It made it when the Resources Super Profits Tax was abandoned in 2010. It made it when the 2024 PRRT reform was deliberately weak enough that the gas industry cheered its passage. It made it every year it provided A$14.9 billion in fossil fuel subsidies while the petroleum resource rent tax collected A$1.5 billion."},{"a":14,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Article 4 of this series asks who benefits from that decision. The answer is not Australians."},{"a":15,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Foreign multinationals including Chevron, Shell and INPEX extract Australian gas. Chevron made its first-ever PRRT payment only in August 2025, after more than sixteen years of exports.","r":[6,7,10]},{"a":15,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Woodside made a US$3.6 billion profit in 2024 and declared US$2.3 billion in dividends. Its A$4.1 billion in Australian payments does not separate out PRRT.","r":[1]},{"a":15,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"INPEX's Australian entities recorded more than A$36 billion in revenue over eleven years and paid less than A$500 million in income tax.","r":[10]},{"a":15,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Shell has acknowledged its Prelude project will never pay PRRT.","r":[8]},{"a":15,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Offshore decommissioning is put at A$66.8 billion in inflation-adjusted terms, and IEEFA found taxpayers could bear up to 58 per cent of such costs.","r":[17,18]},{"a":15,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Meg O’Neill spent almost five years as CEO of Woodside Energy, Australia’s largest oil and gas company. By its 2024 results, Woodside had returned US$9.7 billion to shareholders since its 2022 merger with BHP’s petroleum business. In 2024 alone, the company declared US$2.3 billion in dividends on a US$3.6 billion profit. Her own total annual compensation was approximately US$5.47 million."},{"a":15,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"In early 2026, she left Woodside for British energy giant BP, where her pay package was valued at approximately £12.2 million in her first year. BP is picking her up for more than double what Woodside paid her."},{"a":15,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Woodside, meanwhile, paid A$4.1 billion in all taxes, royalties, and levies to Australian governments in 2024. Chevron made its first Petroleum Resource Rent Tax payment in August 2025, after sixteen-plus years of LNG exports, and the PRRT component of that A$4.1 billion is not separately itemised. Australians remain unsure how much of that total is the resource-specific tax designed to ensure public benefit."},{"a":15,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"This is not a story about a corrupt company. Woodside is not doing anything illegal. It is doing what its shareholders are paying it to do: extract Australian gas at minimum cost to itself, and return the maximum possible cash to its owners."},{"a":15,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"The question this article asks is who those owners are, what they receive, and what Australians receive in exchange."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Five companies dominate Australia’s LNG export sector. Their ownership, revenues, profits, and tax records are a matter of public record, though assembling that record takes significant effort because Australia’s gas taxation and disclosure regime is considerably less transparent than comparable jurisdictions."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Woodside Energy is Australia’s largest oil and gas company, and the only major LNG producer that is Australian-based and ASX-listed. In 2024 it reported:"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"US$3.6bn","t":"Woodside net profit after tax in 2024","src":"Woodside Full-Year 2024 Results"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**EBITDA:** US$9.3 billion, a 70 per cent EBITDA margin. **Operating revenue:** US$13.2 billion. **Total dividends declared:** US$2.3 billion, fully franked, at the top of its 80 per cent payout target. **Total returned to shareholders** since merging with BHP’s petroleum business in 2022: US$9.7 billion."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Its 2024 Australian tax and royalty payments, across all tax types including company income tax, payroll tax, fringe benefits tax, and royalties, totalled A$4.1 billion. Woodside has paid PRRT since August 2025. The PRRT component is not separately disclosed in this figure."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Woodside’s half-year 2025 result continued the pattern: underlying NPAT of US$1.26 billion, with the CEO describing a ‘world-class business rewarding shareholders with strong dividends today’."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The opening of this article said Woodside’s shareholders received US$9.7 billion in dividends over Meg O’Neill’s five years as CEO. Woodside’s full-year 2024 results put US$9.7 billion as the total returned to shareholders since its 2022 merger with BHP’s petroleum business, as this section states, not a total for her time as CEO. The opening now says so. It also said she spent five years as CEO; she held the role from August 2021 until early 2026, so it now says almost five years."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The opening also said Woodside’s shareholders were \"more than half\" foreign institutional investors, and no reference carried it. Woodside’s 2024 annual report [19] gives its shareholders by registered address, not by who owns the shares in the end, and does not support the claim, so it is cut from the opening and from the figure beneath it.","r":[19]},{"a":15,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Meg O’Neill’s departure for BP in early 2026 is a matter of public record, and it illuminates something important about how the Australian gas industry values its senior executives relative to the rest of the world."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"At Woodside, O’Neill earned approximately US$5.47 million annually: a base salary of approximately A$2.2 million plus bonuses and equity. At BP, her package is valued at approximately £12.2 million in her first year alone, including a base salary of £1.6 million, pension benefits of £458,000, and additional awards compensating for share vesting she would have received had she remained at Woodside."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"£12.2m","t":"Meg O’Neill’s BP pay package in her first year: more than double her Woodside salary","src":"Energy Voice, 2026"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"BP is paying her to replace awards worth approximately £8.3 million that she forfeited by leaving Woodside. The market valuation of her skills, built substantially on managing Australian gas assets, flows to a British company and its global shareholders."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Chevron is an American multinational headquartered in San Ramon, California. Through its Australian subsidiaries it operates the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects in Western Australia: two of the largest LNG developments on earth."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In 2024, Chevron Australia paid A$5.1 billion in combined taxes, royalties, and levies, making it the fourth-largest company income taxpayer in Australia for the second consecutive year. Its income tax liability for 2024 was A$2.9 billion."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"And in August 2025, it made its first-ever Petroleum Resource Rent Tax payment. **The first. Ever.** After more than sixteen years of Australian LNG exports."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Chevron’s position is legally correct. The PRRT is designed to apply only after a project has recovered all its capital costs and achieved a defined economic return. Gorgon and Wheatstone were enormous capital investments, US$54 billion between the two of them by some estimates. The PRRT rules, as designed, meant that tax did not flow until those costs were recovered."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"But this also means that for the entire period from first LNG production, from the first cargo shipped, from the first billion in export revenue, through every year of the Ukraine war windfall and every year of record profits, Chevron paid no petroleum resource rent tax on those projects. The special tax designed to ensure Australians benefit from their gas produced nothing from Gorgon and Wheatstone until August 2025."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$20bn","t":"Chevron’s total Australian taxes paid since 2009, across all tax types. PRRT from its LNG projects across those 16 years: zero, until August 2025.","src":"Chevron Australia Tax Transparency Report 2024"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Santos is formally an Australian company, listed on the ASX, with operations spanning Australia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and North America. In 2024 it reported underlying net profit of US$1.2 billion on sales revenue of US$5.4 billion. It declared dividends of US 23.3 cents per share, equivalent to approximately 40 per cent of free cash flow."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Santos has paid some PRRT from its Western Australian operations since approximately 2019, distinguishing it from the major offshore LNG projects. But its Queensland operations (the GLNG project at Gladstone, which exports coal seam gas) have a different tax treatment, with Queensland state royalties applying to Queensland gas production."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher’s total compensation is approximately US$5.57 million annually. He directly owns approximately 0.076 per cent of the company, worth approximately A$70 million at current share prices, giving him what the company filing calls a ‘significant personal stake’ in its performance."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The heading of this section said Santos has global shareholders. No reference in this article says who holds Santos shares, so the heading now says only what the section documents: Santos is an Australian company listed on the ASX."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**Shell** operates the QGC LNG project (one of the three Gladstone export terminals) and the Prelude floating LNG facility off the coast of Western Australia."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"For the eight years to 2022, Shell’s QGC subsidiary avoided paying income tax on approximately A$25 billion of income. This is not illegal. It reflects carried-forward losses, capital allowances, and the deduction structures available under Australian tax law."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Shell has acknowledged, in communications with shareholders and analysts, that its Prelude floating LNG project will never pay PRRT. Not that it has not paid yet. **That it will not pay.** In a 2013 filing, Shell projected that Prelude would pay A$12 billion in taxes over its project life. That projection has not been maintained."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In 2024, Shell’s Australian operations paid approximately A$482 million in royalties, fees, and infrastructure contributions. Shell is a Dutch-British multinational."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**INPEX** is the single most striking example of how the Australian gas taxation system fails its citizens."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"INPEX is the majority owner and operator of the Ichthys LNG project in Darwin, one of the world’s largest LNG developments. It is a Japanese company. It exports approximately 9 million tonnes of LNG per year, more gas than is used by households and businesses in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia combined."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"ATO transparency data shows that INPEX’s Australian entities recorded more than A$36 billion in revenue over eleven financial years while paying less than A$500 million in combined income tax. In FY2023, a year of elevated global gas prices, they recorded A$9+ billion in Australian revenue. Their taxable income that year: A$23.5 million."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"f","x":"A$36bn revenue, <A$500m tax","t":"INPEX’s Australian entities over eleven years: zero royalties, zero PRRT, zero royalties projected until at least 2030","src":"Michael West Media, January 2026"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"q","t":"To put it bluntly, if we can reduce our income tax expense by 1% out of the ¥900 billion, profit will increase by around ¥10 billion.","x":"INPEX","src":"Shareholder presentation, February 2025"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Meanwhile, Japanese companies are reselling the Australian gas they buy from INPEX and other producers for profits exceeding A$1 billion a year. The resource leaves Australia as free gas. INPEX, a Japanese company, pays minimal tax. Japanese traders on-sell it for profit. On this outlet’s reading, that profit stays in Japan."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s5-b10","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said INPEX is majority-owned by JOGMEC, an arm of the Japanese government, and called it the Japanese government’s extraction company. Neither is supported: no reference in this article gives INPEX’s ownership, and INPEX’s own shareholder page (inpex.com/english/ir/shareholder/stock.html, opened 8 October 2026, figures as of 30 June 2026) lists the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry as the largest holder of common shares at 23.81 per cent, and as the holder of the one special class share, and shows no majority holder. It now says INPEX is a Japanese company and no more. The sentences saying Shell’s profits flow to global shareholders through its The Hague headquarters, and that Australians do not own Shell, are also cut, with the matching clause in the note on reference [7]: neither reference says who holds Shell’s shares.","r":[7]},{"a":15,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Some of the companies that extract Australia’s gas are foreign multinationals."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Woodside and Santos are ASX-listed. Chevron Australia is part of the US company Chevron Corporation, Shell is a Dutch-British multinational, and INPEX is a Japanese company."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"When dividends are declared, they flow to wherever the shareholders are. The references in this article do not document who holds the shares of each company."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"f","x":"A$20.5bn","t":"Japanese and Korean public finance institutions invested in Australian gas export projects from 2008 to 2024: foreign state investment in extracting Australian resources","src":"ACF / InfluenceMap, July 2025"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The gas industry employs 16,200 people in Australia, 0.11 per cent of the workforce. It does not provide mass employment. It does not generate substantial domestic economic multiplier effects. It extracts, liquefies, and ships. The extraction fee Australians collect for providing this resource from their own territory, through the PRRT, is less than the beer excise."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"To summarise what the gas rort means for ordinary Australians: the resource is Australian. Chevron, Shell and INPEX, three of the five dominant companies, are foreign multinationals. The taxes collected are negligible relative to the wealth extracted. The executives who manage the extraction are paid tens of millions of dollars. And when Australia’s gas export CEO leaves for a British company, BP pays her more than double her Australian salary for the expertise she built on Australian assets."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This article said the gas companies are \"mostly foreign-owned\" and that the profits flow to foreign shareholders, in the caption, the opening quotation, this section and the closing summary; none of its references carries that. It now says what they document: Chevron, Shell and INPEX, three of the five dominant companies, are foreign multinationals. The paragraph above on who owns each company, the closing summary line that called INPEX majority-owned by the Japanese government, and the clause that said Woodside’s dividends go mostly to foreign shareholders, are cut or reworded for the same reason. The subtitle, which said the gas is mostly extracted by foreign multinationals and that their profits flow offshore, now says only that three of the five dominant companies are foreign multinationals. The opening line of this section and the sentence on retained earnings, which assumed the same foreign owners, are replaced, and the note on reference [10] that repeated the JOGMEC claim is cut. The heading of this section, which said the money goes \"offshore and out\", now reads \"Who the extractors are and what Australia keeps\", because the section does not document where the money goes.","r":[10]},{"a":15,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"There is one more thing worth knowing about who profits from Australian gas: what gets left behind when the profits stop."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Every LNG platform, pipeline, processing facility, and export terminal must eventually be decommissioned: dismantled, removed, and the environment restored. This is a requirement under Australian law and international maritime obligations."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"f","x":"A$66.8bn","t":"Inflation-adjusted decommissioning liability to 2070 for Australia’s offshore oil and gas sector. IEEFA found taxpayers could bear up to 58 per cent of such costs","src":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources, November 2025; IEEFA"},{"a":15,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Companies that paid minimal resource tax during the productive decades of their projects will be able to use their closure costs to reduce the PRRT they would otherwise owe during wind-down. And when projects face insolvency or abandonment, as already happened with the Laminaria and Corallina oil fields, taxpayers inherit the liability."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The industry extracts. It pays almost no resource tax. The executives collect packages built on Australian assets. And then the industry leaves, and if the cleanup bill is too large, that stays with Australians too."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section, the brief and the key facts said analysts estimate taxpayers could face 60 to 70 per cent of a decommissioning bill of up to A$66 billion, citing an Australia Institute page that carries neither figure. They now give the government-commissioned estimate of A$66.8 billion in inflation-adjusted terms [18] and IEEFA’s finding that taxpayers could bear up to 58 per cent of such costs [17]. The closing summary no longer says taxpayers are in line for the majority of it. The illustration at the head of the article is aligned the same way. Its decommissioning panel earlier showed A$60-66 billion and 60-70 per cent and now reads A$66.8 billion and up to 58 per cent; its closing line no longer puts a A$60 billion bill wholly on taxpayers; and the figures it showed that this article does not state (INPEX exports of A$21 billion, and PRRT collected of A$1.98 billion falling to A$1 billion by 2028-29) are replaced with INPEX’s A$36 billion of revenue and under A$500 million of income tax, and the A$4.1 billion and A$5.1 billion paid by Woodside and Chevron in 2024, all stated above. Its description now says what it shows.","r":[18,17]},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The question this series asked from Article 1 is: where does the money go? This article answers it with names and numbers drawn from public filings, ATO transparency data, and company reports."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"**Woodside:** US$3.6 billion profit, US$2.3 billion in dividends. CEO departed for double the pay at BP."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"**Santos:** US$1.2 billion profit, US 23.3 cents per share in dividends."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"p","t":"**Chevron:** A$2.9 billion income tax liability in 2024, first PRRT payment after 16 years."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b4","s":8,"k":"p","t":"**Shell:** A$25 billion in income from QGC over eight years, minimal income tax paid, Prelude acknowledged to never pay PRRT."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b5","s":8,"k":"p","t":"**INPEX:** A$36 billion in revenue over eleven years, less than A$500 million in income tax, zero royalties, zero PRRT."},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b6","s":8,"k":"p","t":"And behind all of it: a decommissioning liability of A$66.8 billion in inflation-adjusted terms, with IEEFA finding that taxpayers could bear up to 58 per cent of such costs. [17] [18]","r":[17,18]},{"a":15,"at":"at-s8-b7","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Article 5 of this series asks how the political system came to protect this arrangement. The answer involves money, and it involves the same companies documented above."},{"a":16,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The gas industry keeps access to both major parties through donations and a revolving door from ministers' offices into industry jobs.","r":[1,6]},{"a":16,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Fossil fuel and mining interests donated at least A$3.98 million to Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals in 2024–25, by Climate Integrity's count.","r":[1]},{"a":16,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Woodside held platinum memberships with both Labor and the Liberals, at approximately A$110,000 per party per year. They are not classed as donations.","r":[16,12]},{"a":16,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Martin Ferguson approved BG Group's A$20 billion Curtis Island LNG project as minister in 2010, then chaired an APPEA advisory board from the month he left politics in 2013.","r":[7,17]},{"a":16,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"There is a question that runs through this entire series, the same question that runs through every major policy failure in Australian history: if the problem is this obvious, why does nothing change?\nThe gas taxation system is broken. Treasury says so in its own budget papers. The Senate says so in committee reports. Independent economists say so. The Australia Institute has documented it exhaustively. Senator Pocock demonstrated it at Senate Estimates to 8.7 million viewers, as reported in February 2026. And yet the PRRT collects less than beer excise and falls further every year. The Australia Institute counts A$16.3 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in 2025–26, while the PRRT raised A$1,416 million in cash receipts that year, or A$1,661 million on an accrual basis. No adequate reform has been implemented.\nThis article explains the mechanism that keeps this state of affairs in place. It is not mysterious. It is documented in Australian Electoral Commission disclosures, company filings, parliamentary records, and academic research. Two interlocking systems: the money that flows from the gas industry into politics, and the people who flow between politics and the gas industry.\nTogether they form a structure so thorough, so bipartisan, and so durable that it has survived every reform proposal for more than a decade."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In the 2024–25 financial year, the year of the federal election, fossil fuel and mining companies and their lobby groups, by Climate Integrity’s count, donated at least **A$3.98 million** to the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal Party, and the Nationals. This is the disclosed figure. As we will document below, it is almost certainly an undercount."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Labor received more than **A$1.06 million** from the fossil fuel industry ahead of winning re-election. This figure includes direct donations from gas producers including Chevron, INPEX, Santos, Woodside, and Tamboran, as well as the industry’s peak lobby group, Australian Energy Producers."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The donations are modest compared to what is at stake. Chevron’s Australian income tax liability in 2024 was A$2.9 billion. Santos had underlying profit of US$1.2 billion. Woodside’s profit was US$3.6 billion. Against those numbers, a few hundred thousand in political donations is a tiny investment in access. The question the gas industry would ask, and has asked explicitly, is what the return on that investment is worth."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"q","t":"Money buys influence, and the fossil fuel industry spent generously ahead of an election with major consequences for the climate. These donations buy access to ministers and shadow ministers, often those who have direct decision-making power over controversial fossil fuel project approvals.","x":"Claire Snyder","src":"Climate Integrity, February 2026"},{"a":16,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Beyond the disclosed donations, there is a second and less-scrutinised mechanism through which the gas industry buys political access: the ‘platinum corporate membership’. It is not classified as a donation."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Peer-reviewed academic research published in the Australian Journal of Politics and History in 2024 found that Woodside Energy has declared platinum corporate memberships with both the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party simultaneously. These memberships cost approximately **A$110,000 per party per year**."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"What does A$110,000 buy? The entitlements of a platinum membership to the Liberal Party’s Australian Business Network or Labor’s Federal Labor Business Forum typically include: seats at the Budget Night Dinner with the Treasurer; seats at multiple parliamentary briefings and boardroom policy forums; access to private dinners with the Prime Minister; and tickets to events with senior party leaders."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Because these are classified as fees for services (access to events) rather than donations, they face different and less stringent disclosure requirements. A gas company executive can sit at a private dinner with the Prime Minister and the Resources Minister for the cost of a party membership fee, and that arrangement is not required to be disclosed in the same way as a direct political donation."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$220,000/year","t":"Woodside paid approximately A$220,000 per year to maintain simultaneous platinum access to both governments, regardless of which one was in office. This is not ideological support. It is risk management.","src":"Australian Journal of Politics & History, 2024"},{"a":16,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In years where the Liberal Party did not disclose donations from Chevron, APPEA, and Woodside, or where the WA branch of the ALP did not disclose donations from Woodside and Chevron, the only reason those donations became public knowledge was that the companies themselves declared them. The parties did not."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"If the donation system is the industry’s financial connection to political power, the revolving door is its human one. In Australia’s gas sector, that door has spun so consistently and so blatantly that researchers have compiled databases of **more than 180 individuals** who moved between the fossil fuel and mining industries and senior government positions over a single decade."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Martin Ferguson case is the starkest on the record. Reporting at the time described it as a clear breach of the Ministerial Code, and nothing was done about it."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Ferguson was Minister for Resources and Energy in 2010. In 2010, as minister, he approved BG Group’s A$20 billion Curtis Island LNG/CSG export project in Queensland. That project became one of the three Gladstone terminals whose exports have since tripled east coast gas prices."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Ferguson left federal politics in September 2013. Michael West Media reported in 2018 that he became chair of an advisory board of APPEA in **the same month**. APPEA is the peak national lobby group for the oil and gas industry. The reporting cited in this article describes the Ministerial Code of Conduct as requiring an 18-month cooling-off period before former ministers take up lobbying roles. This article has not sourced the Code’s text, including when its period begins, or the date Ferguson left ministerial office. Whether an advisory board chair counts as a lobbying role under the Code is the question behind that finding; Crikey reported in 2014 that Ferguson acknowledged sailing ‘close to the wind’."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article previously said Ferguson left parliament in August 2013 and took the APPEA post in October 2013, ‘six months later’, and repeated the six-month figure in the standfirst, the key facts, the illustration and the closing section. It also gave his ministerial term as 2007 to 2013, said the LNG industry was ‘built’ in that period, said his successor did the same, and said both men breached the Code. We have corrected all of it. Michael West Media’s 2018 report, the source we now rely on, puts his departure from federal politics in September 2013, the APPEA advisory board chair in the same month, and his British Gas directorship only weeks after. We could not source the ministerial dates and have removed them. We found no source for a Code breach by Ian Macfarlane, so the article no longer says so. The 18-month comparison no longer states a gap in months. The A$3.98 million total is Climate Integrity’s figure for fossil fuel and mining companies, including coal and iron ore, not for the gas industry alone; the standfirst, caption, key facts and illustration called it gas money and have been corrected. The lede paired A$14.9 billion in subsidies (the Australia Institute’s 2024–25 figure) with a PRRT figure of A$1.5 billion (a 2025–26 forecast); it now compares the 2025–26 subsidy figure with the 2025–26 PRRT outcome. The illustration also said Macfarlane joined the Queensland Resources Council immediately; the 2018 report says four months after he left politics. We have also removed a ministerial title for him that we could not source."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Michael West Media reported that he became a non-executive director of British Gas, as it named the company, only weeks after leaving federal politics. Reference [7] names the company as BG Group, the company behind the LNG project he approved as minister. Reporting cited here adds that he took a role as head of natural resources for Kerry Stokes’s Seven Group Holdings.","r":[7]},{"a":16,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Ministerial Code was not enforced. No action was taken. Ferguson remains a member of the Australian Labor Party."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"His secretary, John Pierce, became chair of the Australian Energy Market Commission. His senior policy advisor, Michael Bradley, became Director of External Affairs for APPEA. The revolving door did not just take the minister. It took his staff."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Ian Macfarlane was a minister in both the Howard and Abbott governments. He left parliament in 2016 and was appointed CEO of the Queensland Resources Council, the state-level resources industry lobby, within four months."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Macfarlane described himself, Labor’s Martin Ferguson, and Labor’s Gary Gray as ‘three peas in a pod’. Gary Gray was Labor’s Resources Minister in 2013. Before his ministerial stint, he had worked as a senior executive at Woodside Energy. He went from the gas industry to government, then back."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Former Labor Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, responsible for implementing the carbon price, became a consultant to AGL and Santos after leaving parliament."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Macfarlane’s chief of staff, Stephen Galilee, became CEO of the NSW Minerals Council. Another chief of staff, Malcolm Roberts, became CEO of APPEA itself."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The pattern is not partisan. It is structural. Both parties produce ministers who regulate the gas industry. Both parties produce ministers who then work for the gas industry. The industry maintains access regardless of which party governs."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Ferguson successfully fought against any efforts to impose a gas reservation scheme for the nation, the same scheme that WA imposed and that has since sheltered WA consumers from the east coast pricing disaster. He then became the chair of the industry body that lobbied against reservation.","x":"Independent Australia","src":"2018"},{"a":16,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The figures documented above represent only the disclosed donations, the amounts that exceeded Australia’s reporting threshold and were publicly declared. There is a significant additional layer of undisclosed industry influence."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In 2023–24, the disclosure threshold was **A$16,300**. Any donation below that amount did not need to be declared. Research by Guardian Australia estimated that almost half of all political party funding remains ‘dark money’ of unknown origin."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"There are also the structural disclosure gaps: platinum party memberships classified as ‘service fees’; donations declared by companies but not by the receiving parties; payments to associated entities and fundraising arms that face different rules."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In the 2019–20 and 2020–21 financial years, academic research found that fossil fuel companies declared donations that the receiving parties did not disclose. In one documented case, the WA branch of the ALP failed to declare A$52,000 from Woodside and A$32,000 from Chevron in its party returns. The companies declared these amounts. The party did not."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"f","x":"A$3.98 million","t":"The confirmed 2024–25 donations figure is a floor, not a ceiling. The actual financial relationship between the gas industry and Australian politics is larger, less transparent, and more entrenched than the disclosed figures suggest.","src":"Climate Integrity, AEC disclosures, academic research"},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"In 2017, Origin Energy’s chairman addressed his company’s Annual General Meeting and said that political donations were ‘money well spent’ because they enabled the company to help ‘shape thinking’ on the energy policy debate. He was right."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The gas industry has invested heavily in political access over decades. What has it received in return?"},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**No domestic gas reservation policy** on the east coast, the policy that WA adopted and that would have protected east coast consumers from price tripling."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**A PRRT framework** so poorly designed for LNG that it collected zero resource tax from LNG projects for sixteen years and now collects less than beer excise."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**A$14.9 billion** in fossil fuel subsidies in 2024–25."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**A Future Gas Strategy** released in 2024 that entrenched gas extraction in Australia’s energy mix until at least 2050, with both parties’ support."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**A$1.5 billion** in support for the Middle Arm gas infrastructure hub in Darwin."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The defeat of the Resources Super Profits Tax** in 2010, which this series documents in Article 6."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s6-b8","s":6,"k":"q","t":"Gas companies donate a few hundred thousand and they get A$10 billion taxpayer dollars of subsidies in return to turbo charge their climate-wrecking projects. Our current system is one of legalised bribery.","x":"Senator Larissa Waters","src":"Australia Institute Climate Integrity Summit, March 2024"},{"a":16,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The pattern of gas industry donations to major parties is documented and consistent. What is equally significant, and rarely noted, is who does not receive gas industry donations."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"In 2023–24, the Australian Greens reported no fossil fuel industry donations. Independent Senator David Pocock reported no fossil fuel donations. The Climate 200-backed independents (Allegra Spender, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall, Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniel) all reported **zero fossil fuel industry cash**."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"This is not coincidence. The crossbench parliamentarians who have most consistently called for gas tax reform (Pocock on the PRRT and beer excise comparison, the Greens on a 25 per cent export tax, the teal independents on broader resource rent reform) receive none of the money that flows to the major parties from the industry they are seeking to reform."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The gas industry does not donate to the people who want to fix the gas rort. It donates to the people who can prevent the fix."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The gas rort is not maintained by incompetence or inattention. It is maintained by a system of financial and human connections between the gas industry and both major parties that has operated consistently, across governments of both sides, for more than twenty years."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The donations are documented in AEC records. The revolving door is documented in ministerial biographies, company announcements, and academic research. The platinum memberships are disclosed in party financial reports and peer-reviewed analysis. The gap between what the industry pays in political access fees and what it receives in subsidies, tax concessions, and favourable policy is enormous, and visible."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Neither the Minerals Council’s A$300-million campaign against the carbon price nor Martin Ferguson’s APPEA advisory board chairmanship in the month he left federal politics nor Woodside’s simultaneous platinum memberships with both the government and the opposition required anyone to act corruptly. The system is legal. The system is disclosed, partially. The system is operating exactly as it was designed to operate."},{"a":16,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Article 6 of this series examines what happens when someone tries to break the system. In 2010, a Prime Minister did. The industry spent A$22 million and removed him in 53 days."},{"a":17,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"In 2010 miners spent approximately A$22 million on advertising against Kevin Rudd's 40 per cent Resources Super Profits Tax. He was removed within 53 days.","r":[1,7]},{"a":17,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Epstein files released in January 2026 show Peter Mandelson told miners to accept 'no ideological reason' not to contribute more.","r":[2]},{"a":17,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"They carry Xstrata's A$586 million suspension, the media turning point, which this outlet reads as a tactic.","r":[2,5]},{"a":17,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Gillard negotiated the replacement with only BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata. It raised less than A$200 million in its final year and was repealed in 2014.","r":[10]},{"a":17,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The Parliamentary Budget Office found the original tax would have added A$33 billion to the fiscal balance from 2012 to 2020.","r":[9]},{"a":17,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 2 May 2010, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan announced the Resources Super Profits Tax. It was a 40 per cent tax on the ‘super-profits’ generated by extracting Australia’s non-renewable resources: profits above a normal rate of return on investment. It was based on the Henry Tax Review, a comprehensive root-and-branch examination of the Australian tax system commissioned by the government. It was designed to ensure that Australians received a fair share of the extraordinary wealth generated by the mining boom."},{"a":17,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"On 24 June 2010, 53 days later, Kevin Rudd was removed as Prime Minister."},{"a":17,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"In that 53-day period, the Australian mining industry spent approximately A$22 million on advertising. Andrew Forrest of Fortescue Metals, Gina Rinehart, and Clive Palmer appeared on national television and at public rallies warning of economic catastrophe. Mining companies announced investment suspensions amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Xstrata, a Swiss mining giant then controlled by Ivan Glasenberg, announced it was suspending A$586 million in Queensland projects."},{"a":17,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"What Australians did not know at the time (and what Xstrata’s executives, their strategic advisers, and their PR networks took great care to conceal) was what the strategists actually thought privately about the tax they were fighting."},{"a":17,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"In January 2026, they found out."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The US Department of Justice released over three million pages of previously sealed documents relating to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in January 2026. Among the documents were emails between Epstein and Peter Mandelson, a senior figure in British Labour politics who served in Tony Blair’s governments, then in Gordon Brown’s as Business Secretary and First Secretary of State."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Mandelson had been advising the Australian mining industry on how to defeat the Resources Super Profits Tax. He forwarded his strategy communications to Epstein."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The emails reveal what the industry’s own strategists said when they thought no one was watching."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"**The Mandelson strategy memo.** An email from Mandelson to a redacted recipient (forwarded to Epstein) dated June 2010, discussed the strategic approach to defeating the RSPT. Its central arguments:"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The industry needed to ‘build the broadest possible coalition’: pulling in community members, contractors, suppliers, and anyone economically connected to mining, so that mining executives could ‘step back from the headlines’ while the pressure maintained."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The campaign strategy should take care not to let the issue become one of ‘who governs Australia: the voters and their elected representatives or the mining companies.’ Mandelson’s advice: keep the corporate hand hidden."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"As reported, the emails show Mandelson advising on strategy against a 40 per cent resource tax on Australian mining profits, not running the campaign. In that advice, forwarded to a convicted sex offender, he wrote: “I would suggest that you start to accept that there is no ideological reason why the industry should not be making a greater contribution to society, especially given the constrained economic times”, and argued the campaign should rest on “fairness” and “reciprocity” (what the government would offer the industry in return for a higher tax bill). [2]","r":[2]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The campaign was not an honest policy debate. It was a coordinated exercise in protecting corporate profits from a democratically elected government, on this outlet’s reading, with advice that privately accepted the industry had no ideological ground to refuse a greater contribution."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The subtitle and this section called Mandelson the man \"coordinating\" the campaign and said he \"acknowledged\" or \"conceded\" there was no principled case against the tax. The reporting on the Epstein files does not call him the coordinator: it shows him advising on strategy and sharing campaign emails with Epstein. [16] His words, as reported, were advice to the industry to \"start to accept that there is no ideological reason why the industry should not be making a greater contribution to society\", while fighting on \"fairness\" and \"reciprocity\". [2] The subtitle, pullquote and paragraphs now quote him exactly and describe his role as reported; reference 2's summary was corrected to match, and the summaries of references 5 and 6 no longer describe the emails as \"strategy coordination\" or the suspension as planned \"to generate headlines\". The first paragraph also had Mandelson's career in the wrong order: he served in Tony Blair's governments first, then in Gordon Brown's as Business Secretary and First Secretary of State.","r":[16,2]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The most powerful moment in the public campaign was the Xstrata investment announcement. In the first week of June 2010 (the trade press reported it on 4 June), Xstrata CEO Mick Davis announced the company was suspending A$586 million in expenditure on two Queensland mining projects: the Ernest Henry mine and the Wandoan coal project. [17] [18] The announcement generated extensive media coverage. Political and business commentators declared it the ‘most definitive evidence of the RSPT’s impact’. Media coverage turned. The narrative crystallised: the mining tax was killing investment and jobs.","r":[17,18]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Epstein files show Mandelson was kept informed. A June 8, 2010 email from Mandelson, shared with Epstein, enclosed an email from Davis dated the previous day discussing the campaign and Xstrata's suspension of spending at the two Queensland sites, and Mandelson advised building \"the broadest possible coalition\" against the tax. [16] [2] [5] On this outlet's reading, the emails show the suspension being handled as part of the campaign rather than as a spontaneous corporate response. As reported, they do not show who decided the suspension or when.","r":[16,2,5]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$586M","t":"Xstrata’s investment suspension in Queensland, presented as a response to the RSPT and discussed in campaign emails Mandelson shared with Epstein","src":"ANZSOG Case Program, 2013"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ANZSOG case study of the RSPT campaign, published in 2013, documented the strategy explicitly: the goal was to ‘encourage community members, contractors, suppliers and all those who could be affected by the RSPT to speak up in public, allowing Xstrata executives to step back from the headlines.’ The investment suspension was the centrepiece of that strategy."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said, as fact, that the Xstrata suspension \"was coordinated campaign strategy, not spontaneous corporate response\", and the fact box and key facts called it \"coordinated\". The reporting on the Epstein files shows a June 8, 2010 email from Mandelson enclosing Davis's email about the campaign and the suspension. [16] The section now says what the emails show and gives the coordination claim as this outlet's reading. It also dated the announcement \"on or around 8 June 2010\"; Xstrata announced the A$586 million suspension in the first week of June and the trade press reported it on 4 June 2010, before the 7 June Davis email and 8 June Mandelson email. [17] [18] The Wandoan project's name is now spelt correctly.","r":[16,17,18]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The following is a factual account of what happened between May 2 and September 5, 2010 and its aftermath. Sources cited throughout."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Resources Super Profits Tax was never implemented. Its watered-down replacement, the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, was expected to raise A$22.5 billion over four years. It raised less than A$200 million in its final year. It was repealed in September 2014."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$33 billion","t":"The conservative, government-commissioned estimate of what Australians lost when the RSPT was killed: just the eight-year fiscal improvement from 2012 to 2020","src":"Parliamentary Budget Office, 2021"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In 2021, the Parliamentary Budget Office conducted an analysis commissioned by the Australian Greens of what Rudd’s original RSPT would have raised. Its finding: A$33 billion increase in the fiscal balance, and A$34.6 billion improvement in the underlying cash balance, over the eight years from July 2012 to 2020."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"If those revenues had been channelled into a sovereign wealth fund, as Article 3 of this series documented that Norway did with equivalent resource revenues, the compounding effect over subsequent years would have been larger still. Australia’s Future Fund was worth A$226 billion in 2025. Norway’s oil fund, built from thirty years of resource taxation starting in 1996, was worth US$1.9 trillion."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The 53-day campaign cost Australians a future that no one can fully price."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 9 pointed to the Australian Greens homepage. It now points to the Parliamentary Budget Office costing itself, \"Lost revenue from the original mining tax\" (released 30 March 2021), which gives the A$33.0 billion fiscal balance and A$34.6 billion underlying cash balance figures. [9]","r":[9]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"When Julia Gillard replaced Rudd on June 24, 2010, she immediately made dealing with the mining industry her first priority. Within days, negotiations began."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"There is one fact about those negotiations that is rarely appreciated in full: Gillard consulted only with the three largest mining companies: BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Xstrata. Smaller companies were excluded. The government negotiated the terms of a national tax policy with the three companies whose campaigns had most recently helped remove its predecessor."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The result was the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, a tax so much weaker than the RSPT that it became a source of ongoing embarrassment for the government that passed it. It applied to fewer minerals (iron ore and coal only, not the full suite), at a lower effective rate, with royalty offsets that allowed state government royalties to reduce the tax liability. It collected almost nothing."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Rudd’s RSPT: 40% tax on super-profits. Expected to raise A$22.5bn over 4 years. Replaced after industry campaign. Gillard’s MRRT: negotiated with BHP, Rio Tinto, and Xstrata. Raised less than A$200M in final year. Repealed 2014. In total: zero lasting resource rent reform from Australia’s mining boom.","x":"The Rort summary","src":"Wikipedia; New Matilda, 2013"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The industry had not just defeated the tax. It had negotiated the replacement. The three companies whose money had funded much of the campaign, [14] one of which had announced the investment suspension that generated the turning-point headlines, one of whose chief executives was sharing campaign emails with a British adviser who wrote that there was “no ideological reason” for the industry not to contribute more: those three companies sat across the table from the new Prime Minister and determined what the replacement would look like.","r":[14]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the three companies' \"strategists had privately advised that there was no principled case against the original proposal\". The reporting does not support that wording; it now says what the emails show. [2] [16] It also said the three companies' \"executives had coordinated the campaign\"; it now says their money funded much of it [14], and that one of them, Xstrata, announced the suspension.","r":[2,16,14]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The most significant long-term consequence of the 2010 campaign was not the defeat of the RSPT. It was what the campaign demonstrated about the limits of Australian democracy when it comes to resource taxation."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"q","t":"[The campaign] was such a success that it’s now become routine for industry groups to threaten a “mining tax style campaign” every time they don’t get their way with government.","x":"Joo-Cheong Tham and Yee-Fui Ng","src":"The Conversation, 19 August 2022"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The template established in 2010 is now applied systematically:"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A$22 million in advertising over six weeks was enough to destabilise a government."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Manufactured investment suspensions, presented as independent corporate decisions, generated the media turning point."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Hiding the corporate hand (routing the campaign through community members and contractors) made it appear to be a grassroots uprising rather than an industry operation."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The government’s negotiating partner was simultaneously the government’s most powerful public opponent."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This template has since been deployed against every serious resource rent reform attempt. When the Albanese government proposed PRRT changes in 2024, the gas industry publicly supported the changes, a different version of the same technique: instead of fighting reforms, endorse reforms weak enough not to matter. As documented in Article 2, those reforms will raise A$4 billion less than promised. The industry endorsed them."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The quotation above began \"The campaign was such a success\", left out the authors’ quotation marks around \"mining tax style campaign\", and was attributed to a University of Melbourne publication of 2022 and referenced to a Centre for Public Integrity page that does not carry it. It is from Joo-Cheong Tham and Yee-Fui Ng, writing in The Conversation on 19 August 2022, who put it in their own words after describing the A$22 million advertising campaign. The quotation now matches their text, and reference 13 cites that article. The notes on references 2 and 13 also called both authors University of Melbourne academics; Tham is at the University of Melbourne and Ng is at Monash University, and both notes now say so. [13]","r":[13]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Mandelson’s advice, that the industry should accept there was “no ideological reason” why it should not make “a greater contribution to society”, is not just a revelation about the 2010 campaign. On this outlet’s reading, it fits the economics. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"f","x":"-8%","t":"Marginal excess burden of the PRRT: meaning increasing the tax by one dollar generates eight cents in additional economic benefit","src":"ANU Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Chris Murphy, 2025"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Resource rent taxes are among the most economically efficient taxes available. A 2025 working paper by ANU Tax and Transfer Policy Institute academic Chris Murphy found that the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax has a negative marginal excess burden of eight per cent. That means increasing the PRRT by one dollar generates eight cents in additional economic benefit. By contrast, increasing the top personal income tax rate by one dollar causes 76 cents in economic damage."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Taxing resource rents does not deter investment in the way that taxing wages or corporate profits does. The resource is in the ground. It belongs to the public. Whether you tax the profit from extracting it at 30 per cent or 78 per cent, as Norway does, the extraction happens, because the profit remains. This is why Norway’s 78 per cent petroleum tax has attracted investment for decades despite commentators saying it was ‘impossible.’"},{"a":17,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The economic case for the RSPT was sound. Mandelson’s private advice did not dispute it. The campaign against it succeeded not because it was wrong, but because its opponents had the money and the media access to make Australians fear it was."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section called Mandelson's words an \"admission\" and a \"statement of economic fact\" that \"confirmed\" the case for the tax. His words were advice to the industry to accept there was \"no ideological reason\" not to contribute more. [2] The section now quotes that and gives the economic reading as this outlet's.","r":[2]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Epstein files were released in January 2026. The Mandelson mining tax emails surfaced among them. In the UK, the fallout was significant."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Mandelson was serving as UK Ambassador to the United States, appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, when the documents became public. Starmer fired him. Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party. He was stripped of his Lord title."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"On February 23, 2026 (three weeks before this article was published) Peter Mandelson was arrested by British police on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was released on bail. The criminal investigation is ongoing."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Australian dimension of Mandelson’s activities (his private advice on the campaign against the RSPT, his written view that there was “no ideological reason” the industry should not contribute more, the forwarding of mining industry strategy documents to a convicted sex offender) has received considerably less attention in Australia than in the UK. It is documented. It is public. It belongs in the record of how Australia’s mining and gas rort was maintained."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Epstein files placed in the historical record what the 2010 campaign participants said privately. Mandelson advised the industry to “start to accept that there is no ideological reason why the industry should not be making a greater contribution to society”. [2] The emails show the investment suspension being discussed as part of the campaign, which this outlet reads as strategy rather than spontaneous response. [16] The campaign was designed to hide the corporate hand. Some of it was forwarded to a convicted sex offender. The tax that could have raised A$33 billion for Australians was killed anyway.","r":[2,16]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said \"The investment suspensions were coordinated strategy\" as fact. It now says what the emails show and gives the strategy reading as this outlet's. [16] It also described Mandelson's \"coordination of the campaign\", said he \"admitted no principled case against the tax existed\", and said the campaign was \"coordinated partly through the email account of a convicted sex offender\". The reporting shows him advising on the campaign and forwarding emails to Epstein; his words are now quoted as reported. [2] [16]","r":[16,2]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The Resources Super Profits Tax was sound economics. It was fair policy. It was strategically killed by a A$22 million campaign run by the world’s largest mining companies, with private strategy advice from a British political figure who wrote that there was “no ideological reason” the industry should not contribute more, and who forwarded campaign emails to a convicted sex offender. [2] [16]","r":[2,16]},{"a":17,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister who proposed it was removed in 53 days. His replacement negotiated its terms with the three largest mining companies. The replacement tax raised almost nothing. It was repealed. The resource boom continued. The profits flowed offshore. The public got nothing."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"p","t":"That investment established the precedent that Australian governments cannot successfully implement resource rent reform without facing an existential political campaign."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s8-b4","s":8,"k":"p","t":"That precedent governs the PRRT today. It governs every conversation about gas tax reform. It is why Senator Pocock can ask a Treasury official about beer and gas and get 8.7 million views (as reported in February 2026), and yet the PRRT continues to collect less than the beer excise."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s8-b5","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Article 7 of this series asks why nothing has changed in the fourteen years since Rudd’s removal. The answer draws on everything this series has documented: the donations, the revolving door, and the template established in 2010 and deployed ever since."},{"a":17,"at":"at-s8-b7","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the campaign was \"coordinated partly by a British political operative who privately admitted there was no principled argument against it\". The reporting shows Mandelson advising on the campaign, not coordinating it, and his words were advice that there was \"no ideological reason\" for the industry not to contribute more. [2] [16] The sentence now says that. The heading of the previous section, which called Mandelson \"the strategist\", now names him.","r":[2,16]},{"a":18,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On this outlet's reading, the industry resists reform two ways: campaigns of the 2010 kind, and backing weak reforms like the 2024 PRRT cap Pocock called the weakest option.","r":[1]},{"a":18,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The 2024 PRRT deductions cap, which the industry supported, was forecast in 2025 to raise A$4 billion less than the government had projected.","r":[1]},{"a":18,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Within 24 hours of reports in March 2026 that Treasury was modelling a windfall levy, Shell, Chevron and Santos warned against it at the same conference.","r":[6]},{"a":18,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The 12 May 2026 Budget included no windfall tax or export levy. The PRRT forecast rose only with oil prices.","r":[16,17]},{"a":18,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"This article was written in the last week of March 2026. In that week, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet requested Treasury modelling on a potential windfall tax on gas and coal company profits, for possible announcement in the May 2026 Budget. Shell Australia’s chair warned against ‘short-term fixes’ and ‘populist rhetoric’ at the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook conference. Chevron’s director of operations called a windfall tax a ‘knee-jerk, sugar hit policy’. Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher said the ‘narrative that LNG exports take money out of Australia’ was wrong. The ACTU, the Greens, independents, One Nation, and crossbench senators all called for a 25 per cent gas export levy. The Australia Institute calculated that Australia would be A$63 billion richer had such a levy been in place since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The week encapsulated the entire pattern this series has documented across seven articles. The evidence is overwhelming. The public support is broad. The economic case is unanswerable. The industry response is immediate, coordinated, and identical to 2010. This article explains why the system has perpetuated itself for so long, and what, if anything, is different this time."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The most recent confirmed PRRT forecasts tell the basic story."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In 2025, Budget documents revealed that the government’s 2024 PRRT deductions cap, the reform the industry publicly supported, would raise A$4 billion less over the forward estimates than the government had projected in 2023. This was not a minor revision. The government had said the reform would raise an additional A$2.4 billion over four years. Instead, PRRT revenue across the same period went down."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"q","t":"We are now getting less for our gas and still not a single cent of PRRT from offshore LNG. We are the second-biggest exporter in the world, it is a total scam on Australians. These companies have been taking the piss.","x":"Senator David Pocock","src":"Accounting Times, June 2025"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Treasurer Chalmers defended the revenue revision as a result of oil price volatility. His defence was technically accurate but strategically inadequate: a well-designed resource rent tax would capture more revenue when prices rise, not less. The design flaw in the PRRT is precisely that it does not behave this way."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This series has now documented the history of resource rent reform failure in Australia across two decades. That history reveals something important about how the system perpetuates itself: the industry has learned to deploy two strategies, not just one."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The first is **overt opposition**: the 2010 campaign against the RSPT, the campaign against carbon pricing. The second is **co-option**: supporting reforms weak enough not to matter, as with the 2024 PRRT deductions cap."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section referred to a table that the article does not contain. It now refers to the history the series has documented."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The immediate trigger for the March 2026 windfall tax discussion is the Iran war. Conflict in the Middle East has driven global oil and gas prices upward. Approximately 20 per cent of global gas supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, substantially closed during the conflict. Australian LNG exporters (Woodside, Santos, Chevron, Shell, INPEX) are the automatic beneficiaries of surging prices on gas they committed to sell before the conflict began."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"While working Australians are dealing with surging costs due to the war in Iran, giant gas corporations are set to make a killing off skyrocketing oil and gas prices.","x":"ACTU President Michele O’Neil","src":"ACTU statement, March 2026"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$63 billion","t":"Additional revenue Australia would have captured if a 25 per cent export levy had been in place since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.","src":"Australia Institute, March 2026"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Within 24 hours of reports that the PM’s department had asked Treasury to model such a levy, the industry response arrived. Shell warned against ‘short-term measures or populist rhetoric.’ Chevron called it a ‘knee-jerk, sugar hit.’ Santos said the narrative that LNG exports take money out of Australia was ‘wrong.’ These statements were made at the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook conference, the industry’s annual gathering, on the same day. They are coordinated. They invoke the same language used in 2010: investment at risk, energy security threatened, populist interference in stable policy settings."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"As analyst Rex Patrick noted, the industry had cried wolf in the UK in 2022 with identical arguments. The UK Chancellor introduced a 25 per cent Energy Profits Levy anyway, later raised it to 35 per cent, and raised £2.6 billion in the first year. Investment continued. The industry’s warnings proved false."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"f","x":"£2.6 billion","t":"Revenue raised by the UK Energy Profits Levy in its first year, after the industry warned the tax would collapse investment and destroy jobs.","src":"Michael West Media, March 2026"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This series has now documented, across seven articles, all the major components of the system that perpetuates the gas rort."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**1. A tax designed to fail.** The PRRT was legislated for oil in 1987. [26] Applied to LNG, its compounding deduction uplift rates, its gas transfer pricing formula, and its ‘taxing point’ rules combine to produce an effective rate near zero for most projects, for most of their productive lives. The design is not an accident. It is the product of decades of industry consultation where the companies subject to the tax had substantial input into how it worked.","r":[26]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**2. A political system that is purchased.** The gas industry donated A$3.98 million to Australia’s major parties in 2024–25 alone. Woodside held platinum corporate memberships, giving access to private dinners with the Prime Minister and Treasurer, simultaneously with both the government and opposition. The donation strategy is not ideological. It is designed to ensure that regardless of which party governs, the industry has access to the decision-makers."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**3. A revolving door that embeds industry preferences.** The minister who oversaw the approval of Queensland’s LNG export industry chaired an advisory board of the peak gas lobby in the same month he left federal politics, according to a 2018 report; the reporting this series cites describes that as a breach of the Ministerial Code’s cooling-off period. [25] His staff became directors of APPEA and the Minerals Council. This is not corruption in any prosecutable sense. It is a structural arrangement that ensures industry preferences are embedded in the institutional knowledge of the regulators.","r":[25]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**4. A campaign template that has never been defeated.** The 2010 mining tax campaign, academics Joo-Cheong Tham (University of Melbourne) and Yee-Fui Ng (Monash University) wrote in 2022, was ‘such a success that it’s now become routine for industry groups to threaten a “mining tax style campaign” every time they don’t get their way with government.’ [13] Every resource rent reform attempt since 2010 has faced a version of the same campaign. The template works: warn of investment flight, manufacture grassroots opposition, declare the reform anti-Australian.","r":[13]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**5. A reform process captured by the reformed.** The 2024 PRRT deductions cap was supported by the gas industry because the industry had negotiated it. When the regulated industry publicly supports the regulation being imposed on it, the regulation is not asking much. As Senator Pocock noted, the government examined its options and chose the weakest one. The result: a reform that raised A$4 billion less than promised and left the PRRT on a downward trajectory."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The PRRT is complicated enough that only a handful of people understand it, and most of them are employed by the industry or its regulators. The Ministerial Code is not enforced. The donations are legal. The platinum memberships are disclosed, partially. And every time reform gets close, the same campaign deploys the same language and the same warnings, which Australian policymakers have learned, from 2010, to take seriously. Even when the warnings are false."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The point above said the minister joined the peak gas lobby “within six months of leaving parliament, in breach of the Ministerial Code”. The record this series relies on, corrected in its article on the political connections on 29 September, is that Martin Ferguson left federal politics in September 2013 and became chair of an advisory board of APPEA the same month, according to a 2018 report. [25] Whether that breached the Code is the reporting’s description, not a finding this series has made: it has not sourced the Code’s text. The point now says so. The first point also said the PRRT was designed for oil in 1988; it was legislated in the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987, and the point now says 1987. [26]","r":[25,26]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The first point now cites the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax Assessment Act 1987 on the Federal Register of Legislation. [26]","r":[26]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s3-b10","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The fourth point said University of Melbourne academics had described the 2010 campaign’s template as ‘now routine’, and reference 13 pointed to an Australia Institute explainer that does not carry the quotation. The words are Joo-Cheong Tham’s and Yee-Fui Ng’s, in The Conversation of 19 August 2022, and the point, the timeline entry and reference 13 now quote and cite that article. The point also called both authors University of Melbourne academics; Tham is at the University of Melbourne and Ng is at Monash University, and the point and reference 13 now say so. [13]","r":[13]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"It would be easy to conclude that nothing will change. The pattern is long and the structural barriers are high. But several features of the current moment did not exist in 2010 or 2022."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**First, the Epstein files.** The emails released in January 2026 show a British political figure, Peter Mandelson, advising the mining industry on its 2010 campaign against the tax and telling it to accept that there was “no ideological reason” why it should not make a greater contribution to society, and show him sharing campaign emails with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender. [27] [28] On this outlet’s reading, that put a private view of the 2010 campaign on the public record for the first time.","r":[27,28]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**Second, the Senate Estimates moment.** Senator Pocock’s beer-and-PRRT comparison was watched 8.7 million times, as reported in February 2026. The public understanding of the issue is qualitatively different from 2010 or 2022. Australians who have never engaged with resource taxation policy now know that the PRRT raises less than beer excise."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"f","x":"8.7 million","t":"Views, as reported in February 2026, of Senator Pocock’s beer-and-PRRT comparison at Senate Estimates.","src":"David Pocock, March 2026"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**Third, the breadth of support for reform.** The 25 per cent export levy is now backed by the ACTU, the Greens, independents, and even One Nation, a political coalition that cuts across every conventional ideological line. Even the opposition, in the 2025 election, conceded publicly that Australia had ‘a gas export problem, not a gas shortage problem.’"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**Fourth, the windfall context.** The Iran war has produced exactly the circumstances that make the moral case for a windfall levy unanswerable: gas companies are making extraordinary profits from a geopolitical tragedy while Australian families pay surging fuel prices."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**Fifth, the May 2026 Budget.** Treasury had been asked to model the levy. The model existed. Update, 9 September 2026: the government did not use it. See the update below for the Budget outcome in full."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The first point described Peter Mandelson as the coordinator of the 2010 campaign and his words as a private admission that there was no principled case against the tax, and said the campaign’s dishonesty was documented in primary sources. The reporting on the Epstein files, corrected in Article 6 on 7 October, shows him advising the industry on strategy and sharing campaign emails with Epstein; it does not call him the campaign’s coordinator, and his words were advice to “start to accept that there is no ideological reason why the industry should not be making a greater contribution to society”. [27] [28] The point and the timeline entry now say that. The claim that the campaign’s dishonesty is documented in primary sources is removed: this series has not read the Department of Justice release itself and cites the reporting on it.","r":[27,28]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This article is unusual because it is being published while the story is still unresolved. As of the last week of March 2026, the government has not committed to a windfall tax. The industry has deployed its campaign. The May Budget was five weeks away."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 9 September 2026. The 2026-27 Budget was delivered on 12 May 2026. It contained no windfall tax or export levy on gas or coal company profits. The only new gas measure was a Domestic Gas Reservation Mechanism, reserving 20 per cent of LNG exports for the domestic market from 1 July 2027, funded within a wider A$35.5 million, four-year measure to support the domestic wholesale gas market. The PRRT revenue forecast was revised up, by A$400.0 million for 2026-27 and A$1.6 billion over the five years to 2029-30, but Budget Paper No. 1 attributes the revision to higher oil prices linked to the Middle East conflict, not to new tax policy; the ABC reported the same A$400 million figure and noted gas companies had ‘avoided a 25 per cent export tax, despite a sustained social media campaign and a recent Senate inquiry probing the issue.’ Pocock’s proposed inquiry became the Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, established on 30 March 2026; it was chaired by Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May, with Pocock sitting as a member rather than chair. The committee tabled its final report on 7 May 2026 without reaching a majority position on gas tax reform: neither Labor nor Coalition members backed the 25 per cent export levy, which appears only in the Chair’s additional comments. The Budget of 12 May 2026 contained no windfall or export levy and no new PRRT policy; the PRRT forecast moved only with oil prices."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The update above said that the 25 per cent export levy “appears only in the Chair’s additional comments”. That was wrong. Senator David Pocock’s own additional comments to the committee’s report also recommend it: at paragraph 1.65 he recommends “a 25 per cent tax on the value of gas exports in the upcoming budget”, and the Greens’ comments, at paragraph 1.65, recommend “a flat tax of at least 25 per cent on gas export revenue” [22]. Neither was a committee position. The update also said that Pocock’s proposed inquiry became the Senate Select Committee. His own motion for a select committee, with him to chair, was lost 17 to 23 on 12 March 2026 (Journals of the Senate No. 39, item 17). On 30 March the Senate established the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources on the motion of Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May, 35 votes to 21, with Pocock among the ayes (No. 44, item 14) [23]. The record of 9 September also said that the committee’s report text could not be opened. It has since been read on the Parliament’s website, and chapter 1 says the committee “has not been able to reach agreement on a set of recommendations” [22].","r":[22,23]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The 8.7 million views given for Senator Pocock’s beer-and-PRRT clip is the figure as reported in February 2026. The ABC reported on 2 May 2026 “nearly 10 million” Instagram views of the same clip [24].","r":[24]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above gave 1 July 2027 as the start of the Domestic Gas Reservation Mechanism, the date in Budget Paper No. 2 of 12 May 2026. The ministers’ joint media release of 10 September 2026 says the “licence application process will commence from 1 January 2027, with the Domestic Supply Obligation to commence from 1 January 2028”. The start dates are therefore 1 January 2027 for licence applications and 1 January 2028 for the Domestic Supply Obligation. The 1 July 2027 date is left in place as what the Budget announced [21].","r":[21]},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What this series has established, across seven articles, is the full context for that Budget decision. It is not a technical question about petroleum tax design. It is a political question: is Australia capable of doing what it has failed to do since 2010, and implementing a resource rent tax that actually captures the public’s fair share of the public’s resources?"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"f","x":"A$17 billion","t":"Estimated annual revenue from a 25 per cent gas export levy at current export values.","src":"Australian Greens / ACTU, March 2026"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"f","x":"A$27 billion","t":"Estimated annual revenue from Rod Sims’s proposed Norway-style 40 per cent cashflow levy at current prices.","src":"InDaily / Superpower Institute, March 2026"},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The tools exist. Pocock’s own motion for a committee, with him to chair, was lost 17 to 23 on 12 March; on 30 March 2026 the Senate instead established the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources on the motion of Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May, who chaired it (corrected 7 October 2026, see the correction above); it reported on 7 May 2026 without a majority position on reform (see the update above). The ANU’s Chris Murphy has confirmed that resource rent taxes have a negative marginal excess burden, meaning they generate economic benefits, not costs."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The only question is political will. And the only way political will materialises is if the public pressure for change exceeds the industry pressure to prevent it."},{"a":18,"at":"at-s5-b10","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Article 8 of this series examines how Australia’s major media organisations have covered, and not covered, the gas rort."},{"a":19,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Treasury confirmed at Senate Estimates in February 2026 that beer excise raises more than the PRRT on offshore gas. Mainstream outlets ran it mainly as a political dispute.","r":[1]},{"a":19,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The clip reached 8.7 million views on a senator's Instagram, as reported in February 2026, without a front-page investigation from any major newsroom.","r":[12]},{"a":19,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Kerry Stokes's SGH owns about 30 per cent of Beach Energy. Media Watch documented that Seven West Media did not disclose that conflict when covering Beach's Waitsia export exemption.","r":[4,2]},{"a":19,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"News Corp has no gas assets, but its outlets have a documented editorial posture of casting doubt on climate science and defending fossil fuel interests.","r":[5]},{"a":19,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The Senate Estimates exchange between Senator Pocock and Treasury’s Shane Johnson was not a secret. It happened in a public committee room. Treasury officials confirmed on the record, in February 2026, that Australia collects more from beer excise than from the petroleum resource rent tax on offshore gas exports. The figures came from the government’s own Budget papers.\n\nAnd yet the clip had reached 8.7 million Australians, as reported in February 2026, primarily via Instagram. Not via the front page of The Australian, not via a Nine Network news investigation, not via a Channel 7 report. The mainstream media ran the story as a political conflict: ‘Albanese hits out at Pocock.’ AAP wire copy was distributed to dozens of regional mastheads. Within days the news cycle had moved on.\n\nThis article examines why one of the most significant economic policy failures in modern Australian history has been persistently under-covered by the organisations with the largest reach, and what that tells us about the structural relationship between Australian media ownership and the gas industry."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ownership of Australia’s major media organisations is among the most concentrated in the developed world. Three corporations (News Corp, Nine Entertainment, and Seven Group Holdings) collect approximately 80 per cent of all Australian free-to-air and subscription television revenues. News Corp owns approximately 59–65 per cent of metropolitan and national print media by readership."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The following table sets out the ownership structure of Australia’s major media organisations, their financial interests in the gas sector, and the coverage patterns this series has observed."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The table reveals the basic problem. The three dominant commercial media organisations in Australia have either direct gas financial interests (Seven/SGH), a business model dependent on major corporate advertiser relationships (Nine/AFR), or a documented editorial posture supporting fossil fuel interests (News Corp). The organisations with the most rigorous coverage of the gas rort are those with no commercial interests in it: independent publications, subscription-funded outlets, and, to the extent its budget and independence permit, the ABC."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The most specific and documented conflict in Australian media’s coverage of gas taxation involves Kerry Stokes, Seven West Media, and Beach Energy."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Kerry Stokes controls Seven Group Holdings (SGH) through private companies exempt from public reporting requirements. SGH owns approximately 30 per cent of Beach Energy, an ASX-listed domestic gas producer with interests in the Cooper Basin, Otway Basin, and Perth Basin. Ryan Stokes, Kerry’s son and SGH CEO, has served as interim chairman of Beach Energy’s board. SGH also directly owns the Longtom gas field off the Gippsland coast and holds a 15.5 per cent interest in the Crux field, which is being developed to feed gas to Shell’s Prelude floating LNG vessel."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"SGH’s media holdings, through its 20 per cent stake in the merged Seven West Media / Southern Cross Media group, include Channel 7, The West Australian, and The Nightly. These are the dominant commercial media organisations in Western Australia, where most of Australia’s LNG exports originate."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The conflict has produced documented coverage failures. In 2020, the WA government imposed a blanket ban on onshore gas exports, with a single exemption. That exemption went to Beach Energy’s Waitsia field. Kerry Stokes, via SGH’s stake in Beach Energy, was a direct financial beneficiary of that exemption. ABC’s Media Watch documented that Seven West Media’s coverage of the Waitsia exemption did not disclose the Stokes conflict of interest. The WA Premier refused to say whether he had discussed the exemption with Stokes before the announcement."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"f","x":"30%","t":"Kerry Stokes’ stake in Beach Energy via SGH. His son chairs Beach Energy’s board, while his media organisation covers gas policy without disclosing the conflict.","src":"Michael West Media / ABC Media Watch"},{"a":19,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Former West Australian journalists have confirmed the dynamic without attribution. In a detailed Crikey investigation, one former journalist described how stories were sometimes pulled when the editor noticed they touched on Stokes’ business interests. Another described the unspoken editorial awareness: you always knew the intersection between his interests in mining and energy. You were not warned off, but you were always careful in that space."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This is not editorial corruption in any simple sense. It is what happens when a media owner has significant financial interests in the sector his outlets are supposed to scrutinise. Caution is not the same as a ban. But it is a consistent, documented pattern."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"News Corp does not have direct financial interests in gas production. Rupert Murdoch’s company is a media business, not a resource company. The relationship between News Corp and the gas industry is editorial rather than financial."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That editorial posture is documented across multiple years of research. During the 2019–20 bushfire season, when fires of unprecedented scale and intensity swept across the country, News Corp’s mastheads and Sky News continued publishing content casting doubt on climate science and defending fossil fuel interests. Academic analysis documented more than 100 pieces of climate misinformation published across the News Corp network in that period."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Sky News Australia, wholly owned by News Corp, was identified by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in 2022 as a “content hub” for the influencers, sceptics and outlets spreading climate scepticism and delay online [15]. YouTube did suspend Sky News Australia’s channel for a week in 2021, but for breaching its COVID-19 medical misinformation policies, not over climate content [18].","r":[15,18]},{"a":19,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"When Rudd’s RSPT was proposed in 2010, the event this series documented in Article 6, News Corp coverage was among the most hostile. The campaign against the tax, in which, as Article 6 sets out, the Epstein files show a British political figure advising the industry, had a natural home in the Murdoch press."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The connection between News Corp’s editorial posture and any specific financial interest is not a simple one. It is better understood as ideological alignment: a consistent belief, running through the Murdoch press across multiple countries and decades, that government regulation of markets and taxation of corporate profits is generally harmful. This posture aligns with, and serves, fossil fuel industry interests. Not because News Corp has gas assets, but because its editorial worldview is structurally sympathetic to the industry’s political arguments."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found Sky News Australia to be the most prolific publisher of climate misinformation on YouTube in Australia, and that YouTube restricted its content in 2021 for that reason. ISD's 2022 report describes Sky News Australia as a “content hub” for climate scepticism and delay, not as the most prolific YouTube publisher; and YouTube's one-week suspension in 2021 was for breaching its COVID-19 misinformation policies. The paragraph now says so, citing the ISD report at [15], which previously pointed to a homepage, and ABC News at [18].","r":[15,18]},{"a":19,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The paragraph above on News Corp and the 2010 tax campaign said the Epstein files revealed that the campaign was coordinated at the highest levels of international political networking. The reporting on the files, set out in Article 6, shows a British political figure, Peter Mandelson, advising the industry on strategy and sharing campaign emails with Jeffrey Epstein; it does not say the campaign was coordinated at that level. The paragraph now says what the files show."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Nine Entertainment’s major mastheads, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and particularly the Australian Financial Review, have published investigative coverage of the gas rort. The AFR has reported PRRT issues, Senate committee findings, and industry donations."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"But the dominant framing of gas taxation in the AFR is through the lens of market impact: how will a windfall tax affect Woodside’s share price? What does PRRT reform mean for ASX energy stocks? What does the gas industry’s total tax contribution look like from an investor perspective?"},{"a":19,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This framing is not dishonest. The AFR serves a readership of investors, executives, and financial professionals who have legitimate reasons to monitor the market impact of tax policy. But it is a framing that consistently places the question of gas taxation in the category of ‘industry issue’ rather than ‘public interest issue.’"},{"a":19,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The distinction matters. An investor framing asks: how does this affect my portfolio? A public interest framing asks: why is a sovereign nation collecting less from its offshore gas industry than it collects from taxing beer? Those are different questions, and Australian media asks the first far more often than the second."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The most revealing data point in this story is the 8.7 million views. That is roughly one in three Australian adults, watching a clip about beer and gas tax posted to a senator’s Instagram account. It is one of the most-viewed pieces of Australian political content in recent memory. And it got there without a front-page investigation, without a Walkley Award story, without a six-month editorial project from any mainstream newsroom."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The 8.7 million above is the view count as reported in February 2026. The ABC reported on 2 May 2026 “nearly 10 million” Instagram views of the same clip [16].","r":[16]},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This gap between social media viral reach and mainstream editorial follow-through is not accidental. It reflects the structural incentives of Australian media organisations when covering resource taxation:"},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A front-page investigation of the PRRT would require allocating reporter time and editorial resource to a story about tax policy. It would potentially produce coverage critical of an industry whose executives and representatives appear regularly in business sections and whose advertising dollars matter."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"It would risk being characterised as anti-business or ideologically motivated, the same label applied to every resource rent reform proposal since 2010."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"For organisations whose major owners have direct gas interests (Seven/SGH), it would require the editorial independence to investigate a conflict their owners have an interest in avoiding."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"For organisations whose major owners have ideological alignment with the industry (News Corp), it would require departing from an editorial posture maintained consistently for decades."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The result: Australians found out about the PRRT/beer comparison from a politician’s Instagram account. Not from the media organisations whose job it is to tell them."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Article 5 of this series documented the revolving door between the Resources Ministry and the gas industry. One entry in that documentation is directly relevant to media: Martin Ferguson, the Labor Resources Minister who approved Queensland’s LNG export industry, became head of natural resources for Seven Group Holdings in October 2013. He had left federal politics in September 2013 and became chair of an advisory board of APPEA, the gas lobby, the same month, according to a 2018 report. [17]","r":[17]},{"a":19,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Seven Group Holdings is Kerry Stokes’s company, the same one that owns the 30 per cent Beach Energy stake, the Longtom gas field, and (via Seven West Media) the dominant WA media organisation. The former Resources Minister’s primary post-government employment was with the company that controls the WA media’s coverage of gas."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This is not a conspiracy. Ferguson was not hired as a media executive. His role was in the energy division of SGH. But it illustrates the interlock between the political, media, and industry systems that this series has documented. The same network, the same people and the same companies, spans the resource approvals process, the tax policy debate, the lobbying organisations, and the media organisations."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This paragraph said Martin Ferguson took the Seven Group role “simultaneously with his APPEA chairmanship, within six months of leaving parliament”. The record this series relies on is that he left federal politics in September 2013 and became chair of an APPEA advisory board the same month, according to a 2018 report. [17] The paragraph now says so; the October 2013 date for the Seven Group role is unchanged.","r":[17]},{"a":19,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The organisations that have covered the gas rort most rigorously are those with no commercial interests in it."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Michael West Media’s INPEX investigation (A$36 billion in revenue, under A$500 million in tax, zero royalties, zero PRRT) is primary source journalism that no major masthead replicated. Crikey’s documentation of the Stokes conflict of interest in Waitsia coverage, and its ongoing revolving door reporting, exists because Crikey has no advertiser relationships with the gas industry. The Australia Institute’s PRRT research (the beer/PRRT comparison, the Norway analysis, the 25% export levy modelling) has driven the public debate more than most mainstream editorials."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Guardian Australia has consistently covered gas donations and policy capture. The Klaxon documented the absurdity of fossil fuel companies paying more in political donations than income tax. The Newcastle Herald’s editorial asking why the PM isn’t aggrieved by the gas rip-off posed the question most major papers avoided."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"f","x":"8.7 million","t":"As reported in February 2026, Australians had watched a two-minute clip of a Treasury official confirming that beer pays more tax than offshore gas, posted to a senator’s Instagram and never published by any major newsroom.","src":"Canberra Times / The Point"},{"a":19,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"And a senator’s Instagram account reached 8.7 million Australians, as reported in February 2026, with a two-minute clip showing a Treasury official confirming that beer pays more tax than offshore gas."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The story got out. It got out despite the media structure, not because of it."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"q","t":"A cancer on democracy.","x":"Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd","src":"Describing News Corp’s role in Australian public life. The Senate inquiry into media diversity found News Corp was the clearest example of a troubling media monopoly and recommended a judicial inquiry into media ownership. Nothing has changed."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"What this series has collectively documented is not a single scandal. It is a system."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The resource belongs to Australians. Three of the five dominant LNG companies, Chevron, Shell and INPEX, are foreign multinationals. The tax designed to capture the public’s share of the profit collects less than beer excise, and is falling. The PM who tried to fix it was removed in 53 days by a campaign that Article 6 of this series sets out, including the emails in which a British political figure, Peter Mandelson, advised the industry to accept there was “no ideological reason” why it should not contribute more. The industry donates to both major parties and holds platinum access memberships with both simultaneously. The revolving door places former ministers and their staff in industry roles. The media organisations with the largest reach have financial interests in gas, ideological alignment with the industry, or both."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"And when an independent senator asked a Treasury official whether Australia collects more from beer than from the most important resource tax in the country, 8.7 million Australians had watched the answer on their phones, as reported in February 2026. The mainstream press ran it as a political dispute."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The gas rort is not hidden. Every element of it is in the public record. It persists because the structural interests in maintaining it are larger and better-organised than the structural interests in fixing it."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Article 9 of this series examines the decommissioning bill coming for Australian taxpayers, the cleanup cost for an industry that paid almost no resource tax during its most profitable decades."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the companies extracting Australian gas are mostly foreign-owned. None of the series’ references carries that. It now says that Chevron, Shell and INPEX, three of the five dominant LNG companies, are foreign multinationals."},{"a":19,"at":"at-s7-b7","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The first paragraph of this section described the campaign that removed the Prime Minister as one that a British political figure had later conceded had no principled justification. The reporting on the Epstein files, set out in Article 6, shows Peter Mandelson advising the industry on strategy; his words were advice to accept there was “no ideological reason” why it should not contribute more, not a concession about the campaign. The sentence now says that and points to Article 6, where the sources are cited."},{"a":20,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Decommissioning costs are tax-deductible, so taxpayers share the cleanup: income tax deductibility puts 30 per cent on the public, and PRRT refunds can take it to 58 per cent.","r":[3,8]},{"a":20,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The government's roadmap puts the offshore bill at approximately A$60 billion over the next 30 to 50 years.","r":[1]},{"a":20,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Woodside paid a new single-director company about A$24 million to take the Northern Endeavour and its liabilities. It was liquidated in February 2020.","r":[12,13,14]},{"a":20,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"An industry levy now covers the cost: Chevron, with no involvement, has paid more than A$276 million.","r":[6]},{"a":20,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"With little PRRT paid, cleanup is deducted at the 30 per cent tax rate; big PRRT payers get a 40 per cent refund.","r":[3,8]},{"a":20,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The Australian Government’s Offshore Decommissioning Roadmap, published in October 2025, opens with a figure: oil and gas titleholders will spend approximately A$60 billion to decommission Australia’s offshore infrastructure over the next 30 to 50 years. A separate government-commissioned engineering estimate published in November 2025 puts the figure at A$43.6 billion in today’s dollars, or A$66.8 billion in inflation-adjusted terms to 2070."},{"a":20,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Sixty billion dollars is a large number. But the more important number is the percentage of that bill that will be paid by Australian taxpayers rather than the companies that extracted the gas."},{"a":20,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"That figure is up to 58 per cent."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s offshore gas industry has spent decades building an enormous physical footprint on the Australian continental shelf. The decommissioning task covers:"},{"a":20,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"**More than 700 wells** to be plugged and abandoned permanently. **7,600 kilometres of pipelines** to be removed. **520 subsea structures.** **57 platforms** with a combined weight of 755,000 tonnes, equivalent to the steel in 14 Sydney Harbour Bridges. **11 floating facilities** including FPSOs and floating LNG vessels."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"This infrastructure accumulated since ExxonMobil drilled Australia’s first offshore well in 1965. Removing it requires specialist vessels, engineering expertise, and environmental management on a scale Australia has almost no domestic experience with. The Government’s 2024 Offshore Decommissioning Directorate was established specifically to begin building that capability."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"755,000 tonnes","t":"Combined weight of 57 offshore platforms, equivalent to 14 Sydney Harbour Bridges","src":"IEEFA"},{"a":20,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"This is not a problem for the distant future. The Government’s roadmap notes that half the work is expected to start this decade."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Under Australian law and the PRRT framework, decommissioning costs are classified as deductible expenditure: they can be offset against a company’s tax liability. For projects that have paid substantial PRRT, decommissioning costs generate a refund, with the company receiving back 40 per cent of the cleanup cost from the government. For projects that have paid corporate income tax but little PRRT, decommissioning costs reduce income tax at 30 per cent."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The combined effect: research by IEEFA found that the government could end up bearing up to 58 per cent of the total decommissioning cost through these mechanisms. For ExxonMobil’s Bass Strait fields, which have paid substantial PRRT since production began decades ago, the 58 per cent figure may apply. For the large offshore LNG projects (Gorgon, Wheatstone, Pluto, Ichthys, Prelude), which have paid minimal or zero PRRT, the government exposure is lower on the PRRT side, but income tax deductibility still applies at 30 per cent."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This is the decommissioning rort’s central mechanism: the same tax structure that allowed companies to avoid PRRT during the productive, profitable decades of gas extraction also allows those companies to share their cleanup costs with the public. The two are not separate problems. They are the same design flaw expressed at different points in the project lifecycle."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The hero illustration for this article showed “60-70%” as the share of decommissioning costs that could land on taxpayers. That range was attributed to an Australia Institute page that carries no decommissioning figure. The illustration now shows IEEFA’s “up to 58%”, as in this section [3], and the reference list no longer attributes the range to that page.","r":[3]},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The most instructive recent case of what happens when decommissioning goes wrong is the Northern Endeavour floating production vessel, moored 550 kilometres northwest of Darwin."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In 2016, Woodside paid a newly formed company called Northern Oil and Gas Australia (NOGA), which had a single director, about A$24 million to take over the Northern Endeavour and the Laminaria-Corallina oil fields, complete with a decommissioning liability of up to A$230 million. [13] [14] [15] NOPSEMA ordered production on the vessel to stop in July 2019. [12] NOGA entered voluntary administration in September 2019 and was placed into liquidation in February 2020. The unmaintained vessel remained stranded at sea, posing escalating environmental risk. The Commonwealth was forced to take over management of the vessel.","r":[13,14,15,12]},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Government subsequently levied the entire offshore petroleum industry to recover its costs. Chevron Australia, a company with no interest in or involvement with the Northern Endeavour, has now paid more than A$276 million towards the cleanup cost of a vessel it never owned. In 2024 alone, Chevron paid A$95 million under this industry levy."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Woodside paid about A$24 million to a newly formed company to take the Northern Endeavour vessel, with a decommissioning liability of up to A$230 million, and that company was then placed into liquidation. The vessel sat unmaintained at sea. The Commonwealth intervened. The entire industry was levied to pay. Chevron alone has paid A$276 million for a vessel it had no connection to.","x":"Summary of events","src":"IEEFA / Australia Institute / Department of Industry NOGA review / Boiling Cold / Chevron Tax Transparency Report 2024"},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In 2021, the Government introduced ‘trailing liabilities’, making previous owners of offshore titles liable if new owners cannot afford to decommission. This was designed to close the Woodside/NOGA loophole. But the Northern Endeavour case had already demonstrated the risk: a profitable company can legally transfer a massive decommissioning liability to an entity without the financial capacity to meet it."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The summary above said Woodside sold the Northern Endeavour for A$1, while this section says Woodside paid NOGA A$1 to take it. The sources this article cites for the transfer describe Woodside paying NOGA, so the summary now says the same."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section, the summary quote, the key facts and the brief said Woodside paid NOGA A$1, that NOGA was a one-person company, and that it went insolvent in 2019. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources review of NOGA's administration and reporting by Boiling Cold and Michael West Media show Woodside paid NOGA about A$24 million to take over the vessel and the Laminaria-Corallina fields, that NOGA had a single director, that NOPSEMA ordered production stopped in July 2019, and that NOGA entered voluntary administration in September 2019 and was placed into liquidation in February 2020. The text now says so and cites those sources [12] [13] [14]. This section, the summary quote, the chart and the key facts also put the transferred decommissioning liability at \"an estimated A$260 million\". Michael West Media puts the liability Woodside would have carried at up to $230 million [14], and Boiling Cold puts the bill left with the Commonwealth at as much as $230 million [15]; the text now says up to A$230 million. The summaries of reference 4 (IEEFA), which still said Woodside paid NOGA A$1 and gave A$260 million, and reference 7, which pointed to a Market Forces campaign page, were replaced with what those sources state; reference 7 is now the Australia Institute's 2026 fossil fuel subsidies report.","r":[12,13,14,15]},{"a":20,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The 7 October correction above attributed the liability of up to $230 million that Woodside handed to NOGA to Boiling Cold. Boiling Cold carries the $230 million only as the possible bill left with the Federal Government; the liability Woodside handed over is reported by Michael West Media [14]. The note now says so.","r":[14]},{"a":20,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The decommissioning problem is not purely theoretical. Several offshore gas fields are already in various states of abandonment, and regulators are issuing enforcement notices for failing infrastructure."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Seven Group Holdings (SGH), the Kerry Stokes company that owns 30 per cent of Beach Energy and which, as Article 8 of this series documented, also has significant media interests, owns the Longtom gas field off the Gippsland coast. NOPSEMA, the offshore environment regulator, found a decade of subpar performance at the field and ordered SGH to fix a well that has been leaking gas at a small rate since at least 2023. SGH failed to meet three prior commitments it had made to the regulator."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Production from Longtom ceased in 2015 following an electrical fault. The gas has been stranded ever since. SGH has a decommissioning provision that assumes its pipeline remains on the seabed, an assumption regulators have not yet formally approved."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A decade","t":"Period of subpar performance NOPSEMA found at SGH’s Longtom gas field before ordering remediation","src":"Boiling Cold / NOPSEMA"},{"a":20,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Longtom is a small field. But it illustrates the pattern that IEEFA and other analysts have documented at scale: decommissioning is routinely delayed, infrastructure is left in place well beyond its operational life, and when regulators finally act they find the standards for responsible closure were not being met."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"There is one additional mechanism through which gas companies are seeking to avoid or defer their decommissioning obligations: repurposing infrastructure for carbon capture and storage (CCS)."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Santos withdrew decommissioning plans for its Bayu-Undan field in the Timor Sea, a field approaching the end of its producing life, and proposed instead to use the infrastructure for CCS. The proposal was made without Santos releasing any cost estimates or technical studies demonstrating its feasibility. If CCS projects are approved as alternatives to decommissioning, they defer the cleanup liability indefinitely, and potentially allow companies to claim public subsidies for CCS activities using infrastructure that was already due for removal."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Government’s Offshore Decommissioning Roadmap addresses this risk, noting the need to ‘ensure that decommissioning remains the responsibility of the offshore industry’. Whether CCS repurposing proposals are assessed rigorously enough to prevent this from becoming a systematic avoidance mechanism remains to be seen."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The decommissioning rort follows directly from the extraction rort this series has documented across nine articles."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The gas industry extracted hundreds of billions of dollars of public resources over decades while paying minimal resource tax. The PRRT, designed to capture Australia’s share of the super-profits from that extraction, collected less than beer excise. The companies that paid the least PRRT during their productive decades are now approaching the period where their infrastructure requires decommissioning."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Because they paid minimal PRRT, they have minimal PRRT liability against which to offset decommissioning costs. Instead, they use income tax deductibility, a 30 per cent offset that is not resource-tax specific but is available to any corporate taxpayer. The Australian public pays 30 per cent of the cleanup bill for an industry from which it never received more than a token share of the extraction profits."},{"a":20,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"If the PRRT had been designed properly, if it had collected at anything approaching Norway’s 78 per cent or even the 25 per cent the ACTU now proposes, the companies would have paid substantial resource tax during the productive decades. The PRRT refund mechanism would then work as designed: the government returns 40 per cent of decommissioning costs, partially offsetting prior resource rent payments, in an arrangement that was always intended to be part of the overall tax economics. Instead, because almost no PRRT was ever paid, the decommissioning period is purely a cost."},{"a":21,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Queensland's three LNG exporters alone decide whether uncontracted gas is exported or sold at home. The domestic market has no legal claim on it.","r":[3,10]},{"a":21,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"East coast gas that cost A$3 to A$4 per gigajoule before LNG exports now routinely costs A$8 to A$12.","r":[6]},{"a":21,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Shell's takeovers of Arrow Energy in 2010 and BG Group in 2015 left it controlling roughly 43 per cent of east coast coal seam gas reserves.","r":[1]},{"a":21,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Western Australia has reserved about 15 per cent of LNG production locally since 2006. The east coast has none.","r":[11]},{"a":21,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The ACCC has run its Gas Inquiry since 2017, but its enforcement powers there are limited beyond monitoring and transparency.","r":[10]},{"a":21,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Australia is the second-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas on earth. It exports roughly 80 per cent of everything it produces. And as Queensland and Western Australia built the infrastructure to ship Australian gas to Japan, South Korea, and China, the domestic price of gas on Australia’s east coast tripled."},{"a":21,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Not in real terms over a long period. In actual dollar terms per gigajoule, within a few years of LNG exports beginning. Gas that cost A$3 to A$4 per gigajoule before the LNG export era now routinely costs A$8 to A$12 per gigajoule on the east coast. In the extreme peak of the Ukraine war in 2022, east coast gas prices rose 300 per cent in a single year."},{"a":21,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been conducting a formal inquiry into the east coast gas market since 2017. It publishes regular reports. It holds hearings. It issues findings. And year after year, its own reports describe a market so concentrated, so dominated by a handful of export-focused companies, that IEEFA’s Bruce Robertson wrote publicly in 2018 that the regulator had essentially ‘allowed what was once our gas market to become a cartel.’"},{"a":21,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The east coast gas market was not always this concentrated. It got that way through a series of mergers and acquisitions that the ACCC approved, or failed to block, over more than a decade."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The critical acquisitions were Shell’s takeover of Arrow Energy in 2010, giving Shell access to vast coal seam gas reserves in Queensland, and Shell’s acquisition of BG Group in 2015. After those two transactions, Shell alone controlled roughly 43 per cent of east coast coal seam gas reserves. The three Queensland LNG export projects, APLNG (Origin/ConocoPhillips), GLNG (Santos), and QGC/QCLNG (Shell), and their joint venture partners together had effective control over close to 90 per cent of east coast reserves."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"q","t":"The ACCC has allowed what was once our gas market to become a cartel, controlled by just four players. We have high gas prices in Australia because the ACCC has given up on its principal remit: ensuring market competition.","x":"Bruce Robertson","src":"IEEFA"},{"a":21,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s own inquiry reports describe the structural features Robertson identifies, without using the word ‘cartel’: concentrated ownership, limited competition, LNG exporters as ‘swing producers’ with discretion over whether uncontracted gas goes to export or domestic market, prices set by international benchmarks rather than domestic cost of production."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The opening of this article said IEEFA’s lead analyst wrote in 2022 that the ACCC had allowed the gas market to become a cartel. The words quoted are Bruce Robertson’s, in an IEEFA opinion piece from 2018, the source this article cites for them. The opening now names him and gives the year as 2018."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The key structural feature of the east coast gas market that produces the domestic pricing crisis is what the ACCC calls ‘swing gas.’"},{"a":21,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Queensland’s three LNG export projects have long-term contracts to supply specific volumes of LNG to Asian buyers. But those projects also produce gas that is not committed to any contract, known as ‘uncontracted gas.’ The LNG exporters have a choice: export it to the spot market, where Asian prices are high, or sell it into the domestic market, where it would ease prices for Australian households and manufacturers."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s June 2025 report stated the position clearly: ‘The LNG exporters are the only producers with discretion to either export their uncontracted gas, or supply it into the domestic market.’ And it found that the risk of domestic shortfall in 2026 depended entirely on whether ‘Queensland LNG producers export all their uncontracted gas.’"},{"a":21,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"When it is more profitable to export, which it usually is, the gas leaves Australia. When the domestic market is tight, the ACCC issues warnings. The exporters may or may not respond. The domestic market has no legal claim on the gas."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Meanwhile, the LNG exporters collectively shifted from being net contributors of gas into the domestic market to net withdrawers in 2023. The ACCC expected this withdrawal to increase in subsequent years."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"f","x":"3 companies","t":"ACCC June 2025: risk of east coast domestic gas shortfall in 2026 depends entirely on whether Queensland LNG producers export all their uncontracted gas. Three companies control this decision. No reservation policy applies.","src":"ACCC Gas Inquiry, June 2025"},{"a":21,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Western Australia has a domestic gas reservation policy. Enacted in 2006, it requires LNG export projects to reserve approximately 15 per cent of their production for the domestic WA market. The result: WA domestic gas prices have historically been significantly lower than east coast prices. WA manufacturing has not experienced the same price-driven closures."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"As Article 1 of this series documented, the WA reservation policy was imposed despite fierce opposition from the industry and from federal Resources Ministers of both parties. Ian Macfarlane condemned the policy at international oil and gas conferences. Martin Ferguson, Labor’s Resources Minister, opposed it. WA Premier Barnett implemented it anyway. It worked."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The east coast has no equivalent. When Queensland’s LNG export terminals were approved and built from 2015, no domestic reservation was imposed. The east coast was effectively opened to export without protecting the domestic market."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"High east coast gas prices are not an abstraction. They have produced a documented wave of manufacturing closures and industrial contractions."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Incitec Pivot, a major producer of explosives and fertilisers, closed its Gibson Island fertiliser plant in Brisbane in 2022, citing the high cost of domestic gas. The plant had operated for more than 50 years. Incitec had previously flagged that domestic gas prices made Australian production uncompetitive against imports."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"John Coyne, director of national security programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, wrote in ASPI’s The Strategist that Australia’s gas crunch is ‘a sovereignty issue, not a market quirk’, arguing that the east coast is a fractured system dominated by legacy export contracts and limited transport capacity, with gas in the north and demand in the south but no reliable way to connect them. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":21,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This transmission mechanism means that the concentration in the gas export market flows directly into household power bills, small business energy costs, and the economic viability of energy-intensive Australian industries."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the Australian Strategic Policy Institute described the situation as ‘a sovereignty issue, not a market quirk’, arguing that manufacturers were vulnerable to manipulation by a handful of export-focused companies with no domestic supply obligation. The phrase is the headline of an opinion piece by John Coyne, director of national security programs at ASPI, in ASPI’s The Strategist on 4 August 2025, and The Strategist says opinions in it are the author’s, not ASPI’s. The piece argues about legacy export contracts and limited transport capacity, not manipulation, and the page cited before did not mention Incitec Pivot. The text now says so and cites the original [7].","r":[7]},{"a":21,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC has conducted its Gas Inquiry since 2017. In that time it has produced dozens of reports, identified the structural problems in the market with increasing clarity, and issued repeated warnings about domestic supply risks."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"But the ACCC’s powers in the gas market are primarily transparency and monitoring powers. It can report on prices, identify shortfalls, and recommend policy responses. On this outlet's reading of its gas inquiry reports, its enforcement powers are limited beyond monitoring and transparency. [10] It also enforces the mandatory Gas Market Code, including the conditions of exemptions that ministers grant from it. [12] It cannot set domestic gas prices. It cannot reverse the mergers and acquisitions that created the current concentrated market structure.","r":[10,12]},{"a":21,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The government does have intervening powers. The Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM), enacted in 2017, allows it to restrict gas exports if a domestic shortfall is declared. But the ADGSM has rarely been triggered and is designed as a last resort, not a market-structuring tool."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The result: the ACCC documents the problem with increasing precision, reports the problem with increasing urgency, and the structural conditions that create the problem remain in place."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The east coast gas market has a continuous ACCC inquiry, years of documented findings, and structural shortfalls projected from 2028. The same companies whose dominance of reserves was documented in the inquiry’s earliest reports are still the only entities with discretion over whether domestic customers receive adequate supply. The regulator monitors. The industry decides. Australians pay."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the ACCC \"cannot compel LNG exporters to supply domestic customers\". That went further than the sources cited. It now says what they support: on this outlet's reading of the ACCC's reports, the ACCC's powers are limited beyond monitoring and transparency, and under the Gas Market Code supply commitments are volunteered by producers in exchange for exemptions and then enforced by the ACCC. [10] [12]","r":[10,12]},{"a":21,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The 7 October correction above said that under the Gas Market Code supply commitments are volunteered by producers in exchange for exemptions. The ACCC page cited does not say that. It says the code is mandatory, that the Minister grants conditional exemptions from it, and that the ACCC investigates alleged breaches and monitors and enforces compliance with those conditions. The text now says so [12].","r":[12]},{"a":21,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The domestic pricing crisis is directly connected to everything else this series has documented. It is not a separate problem from the PRRT failure, the donation system, or the revolving door. It is the same problem, showing up in the daily energy costs of Australian households and businesses."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The gas was extracted from Australian territory. The resource belongs to Australians. The companies extracting it paid almost no resource tax. They exported 80 per cent of the gas to Asian buyers. They became the swing producers for the domestic market and routinely chose the more profitable export option. The domestic market tightened. Prices tripled. Manufacturers closed. Households paid higher electricity bills."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"f","x":"A$1 billion+","t":"Japan resells Australian gas for more than A$1 billion per year in profit. INPEX, a Japanese company, exports more gas each year than is used in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia combined, and has paid almost no Australian tax.","src":"Michael West Media / Australia Institute"},{"a":21,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"And through all of it, the ACCC runs its inquiry. And the PRRT collects less than beer excise."},{"a":21,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The fact box in this section said INPEX is majority owned by the Japanese government. No reference note in this article carries that claim, and INPEX’s own shareholder page (inpex.com/english/ir/shareholder/stock.html, opened 8 October 2026, figures as of 30 June 2026) lists the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry as the largest holder of common shares at 23.81 per cent, and as the holder of the one special class share, with no majority holder. The fact box now calls INPEX a Japanese company and no more."},{"a":22,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Australia's climate target counts only domestic emissions. Its coal and LNG exports, which produce more than twice its domestic emissions, are left out of the count.","r":[9]},{"a":22,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In May 2025, weeks after re-election, the government conditionally approved extending Woodside's North West Shelf LNG facility to 2070.","r":[6,1]},{"a":22,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Woodside's own estimate is **4.3 billion tonnes** of additional CO2 over the extension's lifetime. Vanuatu's climate minister called the decision 'a slap on the face of Pacific Island Nations.'","r":[5]},{"a":22,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Australia Institute counts A$16.3 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in 2025-26, up from A$14.9 billion in 2024-25.","r":[11]},{"a":22,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Australia withdrew its bid to host COP31 in November 2025. The Climate Action Tracker still rates it 'Insufficient'.","r":[3,1]},{"a":22,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In November 2025, Australia withdrew its bid to host the COP31 United Nations climate conference. The withdrawal came in the final days of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, years after Australia and Pacific nations had begun campaigning for the right to host the 2026 summit. Energy Minister Chris Bowen will still preside over the formal negotiations at COP31, which will instead be held in Antalya, Turkey."},{"a":22,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Australia’s bid had been undermined throughout by an obvious contradiction. It is one of the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels, the third-largest globally behind Russia and Saudi Arabia. Its exported carbon emissions are more than twice its domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Neither its coal exports nor its LNG exports are included in its climate commitments. And in May 2025, shortly after winning re-election on a climate platform, the Albanese government approved a 40-year extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf LNG processing facility, allowing it to operate until 2070, decades beyond the point at which Australia is supposed to have reached net zero."},{"a":22,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The Pacific nations that were supposed to co-host COP31 with Australia noticed the contradiction. Climate scientist after climate scientist pointed it out. The Climate Action Tracker keeps Australia’s overall rating at ‘Insufficient’ despite its domestic renewable energy progress. And the world’s other major democracies, to the extent they paid attention, watched Australia insist it could host a climate conference while approving gas infrastructure designed to operate until 2070."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf (NWS) LNG processing facility in Western Australia has been operating since 1984. It is one of the world’s largest LNG facilities. In May 2025, weeks after Labor won a decisive re-election, the government conditionally approved an extension of the facility’s operating licence until 2070."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"4.3 billion tonnes","t":"Woodside’s own estimate of additional CO2 emissions over the NWS extension’s lifetime, equivalent to the combined lifetime emissions of 14 Pacific Island nations.","src":"World Energy News / Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Climate Action Tracker stated directly that the NWS extension was ‘incompatible with the Paris Agreement’s goals and with the government’s emission reduction commitments.’"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"q","t":"This is more than politics. It is important to have the moral courage to stand up for those who are most affected by climate changes.","x":"Maina Talia","src":"Tuvalu’s Minister for Climate Change, responding to Australia’s NWS extension to 2070"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, Ralph Regenvanu, described the decision as ‘a slap on the face of Pacific Island Nations.’"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The government’s position was that gas had a role to play in Australia’s energy future as part of the transition to renewables. This is the standard framing of Australia’s ‘Future Gas Strategy’, released in 2024 with bipartisan support and, as Article 5 of this series documented, with the active lobbying involvement of the gas industry."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s 2030 climate target, a 43 per cent reduction below 2005 levels, covers Australia’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions. It does not cover the emissions produced when Australian coal and LNG are burned by the countries that import them."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This is standard in international climate accounting. Countries are responsible for emissions within their borders under the UNFCCC framework. The importing country counts the emissions when the fuel is burned."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"1 billion+ tonnes","t":"Australia’s annual exported carbon emissions, more than twice its domestic emissions of roughly 500 million tonnes. These exported emissions almost doubled between 2010 and 2022.","src":"Australia Institute"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"This is cakes of coal, volumes of LNG they’re exporting and they use creative accounting to either not count them, or to offset them in Australia’s contribution to emissions that cause climate change.","x":"Professor David Karoly","src":"University of Melbourne"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Australia can hit its 43 per cent domestic target while simultaneously expanding coal and LNG exports. The two are arithmetically compatible because they are measured in different columns. But the atmosphere does not know which column a tonne of CO2 came from. The climate impact is the same."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The arithmetic of Australia’s climate-and-gas position is striking when placed in a single frame."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s 2030 domestic emissions target: 43 per cent below 2005 levels. Australia’s fossil fuel subsidies: A$14.9 billion in 2024-25 and A$16.3 billion in 2025-26, rising (Australia Institute). Australia’s PRRT in 2025-26: A$1,416 million in cash receipts (A$1,661 million on an accrual basis). Australia’s approved new gas and coal projects in 2023-2025: NWS extension to 2070, seven new coal mine approvals. Australia’s exported carbon emissions: more than twice domestic emissions, rising. Australia’s Climate Action Tracker rating: ‘Insufficient.’ Australia’s 2035 NDC: not yet submitted as of this publication."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article gave Australia’s fossil fuel subsidies as A$14.9 billion undated or as an annual level (‘per year’, ‘annual’) in the subtitle, this section’s heading and pull quote, the Pacific section and the key facts. A$14.9 billion is the Australia Institute’s figure for 2024-25, not a current or standing annual level: its own series runs A$11.1 billion in 2022-23, A$14.5 billion in 2023-24, A$14.9 billion in 2024-25 and A$16.3 billion in 2025-26, up 9.4 per cent [11]. The classification is the Australia Institute’s own method, and whether the fuel tax credit counts as a subsidy is contested. The figure is now dated, the current one is used, and the key fact, image and a reference note have been amended. The image also labelled A$14.9 billion as the 2023-24 figure; it now shows A$16.3 billion for 2025-26. A reference note also gave A$14.5 billion for 2024-25; that is the 2023-24 figure, and it has been fixed. The article also gave Australia’s PRRT as A$1.5 billion from offshore gas, ‘falling’, without a year or basis; A$1.5 billion was the December forecast, and the 2025-26 outcome was A$1,416 million in cash receipts (A$1,661 million on an accrual basis), so the text and key fact now give the outcome with its basis and no longer say ‘falling’.","r":[11]},{"a":22,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Energy Minister Bowen signed ‘an explicit declaration at COP30 to transition away from fossil fuels’ while his government approved infrastructure designed to extend gas processing until 2070. The contradiction was not subtle."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"For Pacific Island nations, the climate-and-gas contradiction is not a policy paradox. It is existential."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and others face direct existential threat from sea level rise driven by global warming. They are among the lowest emitters on earth. They have contributed almost nothing to the atmospheric carbon that threatens them. They are the countries most exposed to what Australia’s gas exports produce."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Vanuatu has been a leading voice for a global Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pacific nations have consistently pushed the world to move faster on climate at every COP. When Australia, which markets itself as the Pacific’s great partner and defender, approved the NWS extension to 2070, Vanuatu’s minister called it ‘a slap on the face.’"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"For these nations, the fact that Australia provided A$14.9 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in 2024-25, and A$16.3 billion in 2025-26, on the Australia Institute’s count, while asking Pacific Island governments to trust it with COP31 is not just hypocrisy. It is the condition under which their countries may cease to exist."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s domestic electricity grid has been rapidly decarbonising. By 2025, over 40 per cent of the main grid was powered by solar, wind, and hydropower. That is a genuine achievement, substantially enabled by the Albanese government’s renewables policies."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"But this domestic success story is ‘dramatically undercut by Australia’s unwavering support for its fossil fuel exports.’ A country can have 100 per cent renewable electricity and still be one of the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels. The domestic grid’s emissions and the exported emissions are counted separately."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"f","x":"USD 2.9 billion","t":"Japan’s investment in Woodside’s Scarborough gas field between 2023 and 2024, in direct contradiction of Japan’s G7 commitment to end new direct public support for overseas fossil fuel projects.","src":"Energy Tracker Asia"},{"a":22,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Climate Change Authority’s 2024 Sector Pathways Review recommended that Australia pursue bilateral decarbonisation agreements with Japan and South Korea, explicitly reorienting the relationship from gas supply to renewable energy transition. Australia’s gas industry, and the diplomatic infrastructure supporting it, has resisted this reorientation."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Article 1 of this series asked: who benefits from Australia’s gas? The answer was: the companies that extract it, three of the five dominant ones foreign multinationals."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Article 11 asks the corollary question: who bears the cost? The answer is: present and future Australians, through the foregone wealth of untaxed resource extraction. And Pacific Island communities, whose nations are being submerged by the emissions the extraction produces."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The gas rort has a financial dimension and a climatic one. This series has focused mainly on the financial side because it is more tractable: the numbers are clearer, the mechanisms documented, the reform path defined. But the climatic dimension is the larger one."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"If Australia had taxed gas exports at 25 per cent, still well below Norway’s 78 per cent, it would have raised an estimated A$17 billion per year in additional revenue. If it had taxed at Norway’s rate, it would have built a sovereign wealth fund. And if it had not approved new gas projects until 2070, its exported carbon emissions would not be on track to double again."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The three things (the taxation failure, the export dependence, and the climate contradiction) are not separate problems. They are three expressions of the same political arrangement: an arrangement in which the gas industry’s preferences have consistently prevailed over the public interest, the public finances, and the climate."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said Article 1 answered that the gas benefits \"primarily foreign shareholders, headquartered in Houston and Tokyo\". No reference in this series carries who owns the companies. It now says the gas benefits the companies that extract it, three of the five dominant ones foreign multinationals, as Who Profits documents."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"This is the final article of The Rort’s Gas Rort series. Across eleven articles, this series has documented: the scale of what was given away, the design of the tax that failed to capture it, the model that Norway used to build wealth from the same resources, the companies that profit, the political connections that protect the arrangement, the 2010 campaign that killed the only serious reform attempt, the pattern of failure since, the media that did not tell this story, the cleanup bill that is coming, the domestic market the exports left behind, and the climate cost that no national account will record."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The gas is Australian. The tax is broken. Three of the five dominant companies are foreign multinationals. The politicians are connected. The media is compromised. The cleanup will be partly public. The east coast market is distorted. And the atmosphere that absorbs what the extraction produces does not distinguish between a tonne counted in Australia’s NDC and a tonne attributed elsewhere."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. This article said the May 2026 Budget may include a windfall levy. The Budget, delivered on 12 May 2026, did not include one: the ABC reported on 10 May that the Prime Minister ‘killed off the move’ (the reporter’s characterisation, not a government statement). The Senate inquiry has reported without a majority position on reform. The PRRT trajectory is downward. The decommissioning is beginning. The gas will keep flowing to 2070 from the North West Shelf."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"We’ll be covering it."},{"a":22,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The summary above said \"The companies are foreign\". No reference in this series carries who owns the companies, so it now says that three of the five dominant companies (Chevron, Shell and INPEX) are foreign multinationals, as Who Profits documents."},{"a":23,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The offshore regulator let Santos switch off its Reindeer gas field without having to confirm the money to remove it exists. The Federal Court upheld that on 7 August 2026.","r":[13]},{"a":23,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The government's roadmap estimates removing offshore oil and gas infrastructure will cost A$60 billion over the next 30 to 50 years.","r":[2]},{"a":23,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"IEEFA modelling finds tax deductions and refundable PRRT credits could push the government's share of some projects' cleanup costs to as much as 58 per cent.","r":[4]},{"a":23,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Taxpayers already wore the Northern Endeavour cleanup, reported as heading toward around A$1 billion. In July 2026 the Cliff Head field's owners entered administration, leaving about A$200 million.","r":[7,11]},{"a":23,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The regulator accepted a plan to shut down an offshore gas field without confirming the company can pay to take the field away. That is not a summary. That is, in essence, what a Federal Court judge has now ruled the law allows."},{"a":23,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"On 7 April 2026, in the New South Wales registry of the Federal Court, Justice Abraham heard argument on a question that sounds too basic to need a courtroom: before Australia's offshore petroleum regulator lets an operator begin switching a field off, does it ever check that the money to remove that field exists? The judge reserved her decision. On Friday 7 August 2026 she handed it down: the challenge was dismissed, with costs. The published reasons, Wilderness Society Ltd v NOPSEMA [2026] FCA 1082, put the answer precisely. The financial assurance the regulator must check is the assurance for the activity a plan asks it to approve. Santos' plan asked to shut the Reindeer field in and preserve it; decommissioning, the plan says, comes under a later plan in 2028 or 2029. So at the gate that switched the field off, decommissioning money was not something the regulator had to be satisfied about at all."},{"a":23,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This is the model of power at its cleanest. Operators book decades of gas profit while the multi-billion-dollar cost of dismantling the infrastructure is left under-secured. When they fail, or when they deduct the cost, the cleanup boomerangs back onto you. Here is how the loop closes."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The case was The Wilderness Society v NOPSEMA, and it turned on a single provision. Section 571(2) of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 requires a titleholder to maintain financial assurance sufficient to meet its decommissioning obligations. The Wilderness Society argued that NOPSEMA, the offshore petroleum regulator, approved Santos' plan without ever assessing whether that assurance actually exists. The regulator's position, broadly, was that the money is checked elsewhere in the scheme. Only Santos was a party to the case; the argument, though, reaches the entire industry."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Strip away the statutory language and the stakes were plain. A court was asked whether the body that polices Australia's offshore rigs is even required to confirm that the cleanup money is real before a field is switched off. On 7 August 2026 it answered: no. The assurance in \"financial assurance\" is not something the regulator is obliged to test at that gate."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Dismissed 7 August 2026","t":"On 7 August 2026 the Federal Court dismissed The Wilderness Society v NOPSEMA (NSD1342/2025, Justice Abraham, heard 7 April 2026) and ordered the applicant to pay both respondents' costs. The reasons, [2026] FCA 1082, hold that section 571(2) and regulation 16 \"focus on the petroleum activity the subject of the environment plan\", and that \"decommissioning costs did not fall within the financial assurance provisions for the purposes of deciding whether to accept the Reindeer EP\".","src":"Wilderness Society Ltd v NOPSEMA [2026] FCA 1082 at [100], [104] and [106]"},{"a":23,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"When we first published this piece we flagged the case as a live watch item, and wrote that if NOPSEMA prevailed, the courts would have blessed the arrangement rather than broken it. That is what has happened. Our 14 August update was written before the judgment text was public and quoted none of its reasoning. We have now read the reasons, 106 paragraphs published as Wilderness Society Ltd v NOPSEMA [2026] FCA 1082, and they are more pointed than the press releases on either side. The judgment recites NOPSEMA's own email to the applicant of 7 July 2025: its financial assurance assessment \"does not, therefore, extend to the evaluation of financial assurance provisions intended to address decommissioning liabilities\". The judge ruled that email formed no part of the decision under review; as a description of what the regulator checks, it stands. She held that the assurance NOPSEMA must check is \"referrable to the activity or activities sought to be approved in the environment plan\", that Parliament \"could have provided financial assurance is required over the life of the title for future decommissioning, which it has not done\", and that requiring the clean-up money to be shown at every earlier gate would be \"long range, speculative, and duplicative work\". The accepted plan itself puts the decommissioning plan in 2028 or 2029 and the removal, if the field is not repurposed for carbon storage, in about 2030 or 2031. The 28-day window to appeal under the Federal Court Rules closed on 4 September 2026. As of 9 September no appeal had been announced by the Wilderness Society or its lawyers, whose website now lists the matter among its past cases; on the day of the judgment they said only that they would \"carefully consider the Court's reasons\". Unless an extension of time is sought and granted, the ruling stands. The mechanism was worth documenting precisely because a judge had to be asked whether the check happens at all. She has now answered: not at that gate, and the Act does not require it."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Australia has roughly 60 to 100 ageing offshore oil and gas facilities, most of them in Bass Strait and off Western Australia, holding an estimated 5.7 million tonnes of steel, concrete and other material that has to come out. The Commonwealth's own decommissioning roadmap puts the cost of removing it at an estimated A$60 billion over the next 30 to 50 years."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"5.7 million tonnes","t":"The Department of Industry's Offshore Resources Decommissioning Roadmap estimates 5.7 million tonnes of infrastructure across roughly 60 to 100 facilities must be removed, at an estimated industry-wide cost exceeding A$60 billion over 30 to 50 years.","src":"Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Decommissioning Roadmap"},{"a":23,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Treat the A$60 billion as an estimate, not a booked figure, because that is what it is. A separate study by Advisian, commissioned through NERA by operators including Santos and Woodside, put the number lower, at about A$52 billion. The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility argues even A$60 billion is likely an underestimate, noting that internationally, remediation costs have exceeded provisions by an average of 76 per cent. Whichever figure you take, the point holds: the liability is enormous, the true state of the ageing hardware is uncertain, and the money to cover it has not been fully quarantined anywhere you or a regulator can point to."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"About A$52 billion (competing estimate)","t":"An industry-commissioned Advisian study estimated the cost to plug wells and remove equipment in Commonwealth and State waters at about A$52 billion (US$40.5 billion), a lower figure than the government roadmap's A$60 billion.","src":"Boiling Cold / IEEFA, Advisian study"},{"a":23,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Decommissioning is a polluter-pays obligation. Australia's tax settings turn part of it into a public subsidy. This is the switch: cleanup expenditure is not just a cost the operator wears, it is a cost the operator can claim back."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Under the income tax law, remediation and clean-up spending can be immediately deductible as environmental protection activity. Under the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, end-of-life closing-down expenditure generates a closing-down tax credit. For projects that have paid substantial PRRT over their producing life, that credit is refundable. Analysts at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis have modelled that these settings could take the government's effective share of some projects' decommissioning costs to as much as 58 per cent."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"Up to 58% government share","t":"IEEFA modelling finds that through refundable PRRT closing-down credits and income-tax deductions, the government's effective share of some offshore projects' decommissioning costs could reach around 58 per cent. This is a modelled estimate, not a payout recorded to date.","src":"IEEFA / ACCR analysis"},{"a":23,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Read that back slowly. The operator extracts the gas, books the profit, and then, at the end, the public purse can absorb more than half the bill to clean up what is left. The company privatises the profit across the good decades and socialises the remediation in the final one. It is legal. It is quantified. It is the whole game in one line."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"If this were only a projection, it could be argued with. It is not. Australia has already run the experiment once, and the taxpayer lost."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Northern Endeavour was a floating production vessel serving the Laminaria and Corallina oil fields in the Timor Sea. Its operator, Northern Oil and Gas Australia, entered administration in late 2019 and was wound up in liquidation in 2020, leaving no solvent party to decommission the vessel or the fields. The liability did not vanish. It landed on the Commonwealth, which took the assets on and began the cleanup itself."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"To claw some of that money back, the government imposed a temporary levy on the rest of the offshore industry: A$0.48 per barrel of oil equivalent produced, applying to each financial year from 1 July 2021 to 1 July 2029, collected by the Australian Taxation Office. The decommissioning bill for this single abandoned vessel has been reported as heading toward around A$1 billion."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$0.48 per barrel, 2021 to 2029","t":"After NOGA's collapse, the Commonwealth assumed the Northern Endeavour and Laminaria-Corallina liability and imposed a cost-recovery levy of A$0.48 per barrel of oil equivalent, applying each year from 1 July 2021 to 1 July 2029, collected by the ATO.","src":"ATO, Laminaria and Corallina decommissioning cost-recovery levy"},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"Toward A$1 billion","t":"The reported cleanup bill for the Northern Endeavour vessel and its associated fields has been heading toward roughly A$1 billion, borne first by the Commonwealth and partly recovered through the industry levy.","src":"Baird Maritime, Offshore Accounts"},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A levy on everyone else is not the industry paying its way. It is the public fronting the cash, then recovering a slice, years later, from whichever operators are still standing. When one company walks away, the survivors and the taxpayer split the tab. That is the backstop, made concrete."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"And the experiment is already running a second time. In July 2026, in the space of a week, the corporate owners behind the Cliff Head oil field off Western Australia went under: Pilot Energy and the field's operator entity entered administration in mid-July, and Triangle Energy (Global), the other parent, followed within days. Reporting on the collapses puts the clean-up bill for the field at about A$200 million, a liability the companies' accounts had not recognised. Seventeen days after the last of those appointments, the Federal Court handed down its ruling that the financial assurance provision does not oblige the regulator to check a titleholder's money is real before accepting an environment plan."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"f","x":"About A$200 million, both owners in administration","t":"In July 2026 Pilot Energy and Triangle Energy (Global), the companies behind the Cliff Head oil field off Western Australia, entered administration within days of each other, leaving a reported clean-up bill of about A$200 million that their accounts had not recognised.","src":"Boiling Cold, July 2026"},{"a":23,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Put the pieces side by side and the design is unmistakable. The infrastructure is ageing and the estimated bill to remove it runs to tens of billions. The money to cover it is under-secured, so under-secured that a court had to be asked whether the regulator ever checks it exists. The tax system stands ready to refund up to well over half of what is spent. And when an operator simply fails, as NOGA did, the whole liability boomerangs onto the Commonwealth, which then taxes the rest of the sector to limp the cost back."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Every arrow points the same way. Profit flows out to the operators across the producing decades. Risk flows back to you at the end. There is no stage in that loop where the company is made to hold, in advance and in full, the money to undo what it built."},{"a":23,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"That is why the judgment matters beyond Santos. The court has found NOPSEMA is not required to confirm the assurance is real, so the loop now stays open by law. The valve this case might have fitted was not fitted, and unless an appeal or the parliament intervenes, the only fix left is the one Canberra has been circling since the Northern Endeavour: making operators put the money up front. The rigs stand in Commonwealth waters, the gas money keeps leaving, and the question of who pays to take them down has been answered once already, in the Timor Sea, at the public's expense. At Cliff Head, it is being asked again right now."},{"a":24,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A Senate committee heard evidence that the PRRT lets some of the largest gas companies pay nothing on billions in revenue, then recorded it could not agree on any recommendations.","r":[1]},{"a":24,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"On evidence before the inquiry, Chevron paid A$0 PRRT on A$26.9 billion in revenue in 2023-24. Total PRRT that year was A$1.48 billion.","r":[1]},{"a":24,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"MYEFO 2025-26 cut projected PRRT revenue by A$1.5 billion over four years, partly because decommissioning credits are rising.","r":[1]},{"a":24,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The government ruled out a 25 per cent export levy the Australia Institute said would raise about A$17 billion a year. The report put no recommendation to it.","r":[3,6,8]},{"a":24,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 7 May 2026, a Senate select committee handed down a report on how Australia taxes its gas. Buried in it is a single sentence that does the work of a decision without ever being one. The committee, it says, 'has not been able to reach agreement on a set of recommendations.'"},{"a":24,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Read that again. A parliamentary committee took evidence on a tax that, on the figures placed before it, lets some of the largest companies operating in this country pay nothing on billions in revenue. Then it wrote down that it could not agree to recommend a single change."},{"a":24,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This is not a scandal of a leaked memo or a secret deal. It is the opposite. The leak sits in the public record: itemised, tabled, and then left exactly where it was found."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources was established on 30 March 2026 and chaired by Greens senator Steph Hodgins-May. It was a snap committee with a short life, built largely around one specific proposal: a new tax on gas exports. Five weeks later, on 7 May 2026, it tabled its final report and closed its work."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Here is the mechanism to watch, because it is the whole story. The committee did not, as a body, declare the tax broken. It heard strong evidence to that effect, and its members' views genuinely diverged. Coalition and Nationals senators rejected any new gas tax outright. Labor declined to endorse reform. That divergence is precisely why there was no consensus, and why the operative outcome of an entire inquiry is a recorded inability to recommend anything."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"An inquiry that cannot agree does not stop the clock or force a choice. It simply hands the question back, unchanged, with the evidence attached."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Tabled 7 May 2026 · no agreed recommendations","t":"The Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, established 30 March 2026 and chaired by Greens senator Steph Hodgins-May, tabled its final report on 7 May 2026 and stated it 'has not been able to reach agreement on a set of recommendations.'","src":"Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, final report, 7 May 2026 (APO)"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The instrument in question is the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, the PRRT, meant to be Australia's charge on the super-profits of extracting a public resource. This is the switch: the PRRT taxes profit only after generous deductions are carried forward and uplifted year on year, so a project can produce and export for a decade or more before it owes the Commonwealth anything at all."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The figures below were placed before the committee as evidence, drawn from Australian Taxation Office transparency data. They are what submitters and witnesses put on the record, not an independent finding of the committee. Read as a set, they describe a pattern rather than a handful of outliers."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Chevron A$0 PRRT on A$26.9 billion; Santos A$213 million on A$8.3 billion","t":"On evidence before the inquiry, in 2023-24 Chevron paid A$0 in PRRT on A$26.9 billion in revenue, while Santos paid A$213 million on A$8.3 billion.","src":"ATO transparency data cited in the committee report, 7 May 2026"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"INPEX A$0 PRRT and A$0 royalties; ConocoPhillips A$0 PRRT on A$17 billion","t":"The report records that INPEX paid A$0 PRRT, A$0 royalties and A$484 million company tax on A$81.3 billion of income, and that ConocoPhillips paid A$0 PRRT on A$17 billion of sales.","src":"Committee report, 7 May 2026 (ATO transparency data)"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$1.48 billion total PRRT in 2023-24","t":"Total PRRT revenue was just A$1.48 billion in 2023-24, a year of high LNG export prices.","src":"Committee report, 7 May 2026"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Shell has paid no PRRT in more than 10 years, and zero tax has been paid on more than half of all the gas exported from this country.","x":"Steph Hodgins-May, committee chair","src":"Senate Hansard, 12 May 2026"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The direction of travel matters as much as the level. The 2025-26 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook downgraded projected PRRT revenue by A$1.5 billion over four years, and the report records this was in part due to an increase in credits for decommissioning expenditure."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That is the second switch. As offshore fields age, the companies that own them claim credits for the cost of decommissioning against the PRRT they would otherwise pay. The industry's own estimated bill for pulling that infrastructure out of Australian waters, overseen by the offshore regulator NOPSEMA, runs to roughly A$60 billion over coming decades. So the offsets grow precisely as the resource take shrinks. The public share does not just start low. It is engineered to fall further."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$1.5 billion downgrade over four years","t":"MYEFO 2025-26 cut projected PRRT revenue by A$1.5 billion over four years, in part due to an increase in credits for decommissioning expenditure.","src":"MYEFO 2025-26, as recorded in the committee report, 7 May 2026"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"About A$60 billion clean-up bill","t":"Titleholders are estimated to spend on the order of A$60 billion decommissioning offshore infrastructure over the next 30 to 50 years, the cost the growing PRRT credits are set against.","src":"Australia's Offshore Resources Decommissioning Roadmap, industry.gov.au"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"It is not the case that no alternative existed. The Australia Institute told the inquiry that a flat 25 per cent levy on LNG exports would raise about A$17 billion a year, and the inquiry heard from figures including former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, who urged the government to adopt such a levy."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Before the May 2026 budget, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had asked Treasury to model levy options, including a 25 per cent gas export levy alongside PRRT and company-tax changes. The government then ruled the export levy out. In the budget itself, the projected PRRT take was revised up by only about A$100 million for 2026-27, against roughly A$63.9 billion in gas exports."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"To keep this honest: a 25 per cent levy on gross export value is an illustrative alternative, not foregone revenue in any official sense, and it is a different instrument from a rent tax. The Point, drawing on Australia Institute analysis, put the order of magnitude of such a levy at about A$16 billion. The point is not the exact counterfactual. It is the distance between what is collected and what a fair return might look like: The Conversation puts Australia's effective take on gas at around 15 per cent, against roughly 48 per cent in Norway."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"While that gap sat in front of the committee, Chevron, which began paying PRRT for the first time only in August 2025 and expects to pay around A$800 million by the end of 2027, campaigned publicly that a tax rise 'risks prosperity.'"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$100 million uplift vs A$63.9 billion exports","t":"The 2026 budget booked only about a A$100 million upward PRRT revision for 2026-27 against roughly A$63.9 billion in gas exports; an illustrative 25 per cent gross-export levy was put at about A$16 billion.","src":"The Point / Australia Institute, 12 May 2026"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"f","x":"About A$800 million by end-2027","t":"Chevron began paying PRRT for the first time in August 2025 and expects to pay around A$800 million by the end of 2027.","src":"Chevron Australia, 2026"},{"a":24,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"It would be too easy, and not quite true, to call this pure regulatory capture. The committee's failure to agree was framed in part around energy security and global supply concerns. The report references the current conflict in Iran, and members who opposed a new levy leaned on the risk of destabilising supply. That context is real, and the extraction thesis does not need to overstate it."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"But strip the caveats back and the machinery is plain. A public resource generates tens of billions in export value. A tax lets some of the majors, Chevron, INPEX and ConocoPhillips, lawfully pay nothing while decommissioning credits expand. A parliamentary process that could have narrowed the gap inquires, documents the leak in its own pages, and then records that it cannot agree to plug it. Regulatory Capture and The Revolving Door are the usual suspects. This time the accomplice is procedure itself."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The story stays live. On 22 June 2026 the chair tabled a follow-up report documenting how LNG interests, in her account, deployed 'energy crisis narratives' to oppose the tax during the inquiry, a characterisation the industry contests. The original report itself put no recommendation to the government: the committee recorded that it could not agree on any, and invited the government only to reconsider the fuel-security question once the conflict in Iran is resolved. [8] Anthony Albanese's government has not been forced to say yes or no, because an inquiry that could not agree never put the question.","r":[8]},{"a":24,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"That is the return you are owed on gas taken from your territory: documented, tabled, and quietly declined. The credits keep growing. The take keeps falling. Nothing is stolen in the dark. It is filed in the light, with no recommendation attached."},{"a":24,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section and the brief said a government response to the original report was still outstanding. This outlet could not find a record of that status, and the committee's report made no recommendations: it recorded that members could not agree on any and invited the government only to reconsider the fuel-security question after the conflict in Iran. The text now says that instead. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":25,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The PRRT lets unused deductions roll forward and grow, so a price boom showed up in Woodside's accounts first as an accounting gain, not a tax payment.","r":[1,7]},{"a":25,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Woodside's revenue rose 28 per cent to US$4,185m in the June 2026 quarter, at a realised price up 35 per cent.","r":[1]},{"a":25,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Its reviewed half-year accounts show a statutory PRRT benefit of **US$305m**, driven by a US$596m Pluto deferred tax asset booked because higher prices make old deductions usable.","r":[7]},{"a":25,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"None of this is improper. Woodside is Australia's largest PRRT payer, with A$796m in 2023-24.","r":[4]},{"a":25,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"The reviewed accounts disclose no separate underlying PRRT expense, so how much resource tax the boom produced cannot be read.","r":[7]},{"a":25,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Woodside's Second Quarter Report 2026, covering the three months to 30 June and released in late July, describes a boom in plain numbers. Revenue of US$4,185m, up 28 per cent on the March quarter's US$3,261m, and up 28 per cent again on the same quarter last year. A realised price of US$85 a barrel of oil equivalent, up 35 per cent, on the higher LNG pricing environment. Woodside reports in US dollars, and by any measure these are the figures of a very good quarter."},{"a":25,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The same report carries the company's guidance for its half-year accounts. On the line where Australia's Petroleum Resource Rent Tax is recorded, the statutory figure is guided not as an expense but as a benefit of US$210-410m. The boom half opens, in the accounts, with the resource tax line running in the company's favour."},{"a":25,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This series has spent thirteen articles documenting near-zero PRRT collections across the offshore gas industry, through inquiries, transparency data and budget papers. This article is different in kind. It needs no leak and no modelling exercise. The mechanism this series exists to describe is operating in a price boom, in real time, and it is visible in the company's own reporting."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Start with what the quarter actually was. Woodside sold its production into the higher LNG pricing environment the report describes. Revenue rose to US$4,185m. The realised price of US$85 per barrel of oil equivalent was up 35 per cent. The comparison holds in both directions: 28 per cent above the immediately preceding quarter, and 28 per cent above the same quarter a year earlier. This is not a company scraping through a soft patch. This is a boom quarter arriving in full view."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"US$4,185m","t":"Woodside's second quarter 2026 revenue, up 28 per cent on Q1 2026 (US$3,261m) and up 28 per cent on Q2 2025, at a realised price of US$85 per barrel of oil equivalent, itself up 35 per cent.","src":"Woodside Second Quarter Report 2026 [1]"},{"a":25,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Now read the tax guidance in the same document. For the half year to 30 June, Woodside guides the statutory PRRT line as a benefit of US$210-410m. In the season when the tax on petroleum super-profits should be at its most visible, the statutory line is guided to run the other way. If this series had invented that outcome as a hypothetical, it would have seemed too neat. It is in the report."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Here is the mechanism to watch, because it is the whole story. To keep this honest: the same guidance table shows an underlying PRRT expense of US$190-390m. Woodside does expect to record a resource tax expense on its operations this half. The statutory benefit is produced by a one-off accounting item sitting on top of that expense, and the report says precisely what the item is."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"'includes a statutory PRRT adjustment of approximately $600 million pre-income tax... relating to the recognition of an additional Pluto PRRT deferred tax asset (DTA) benefit driven by the higher pricing environment'","x":"Woodside Second Quarter Report 2026","src":"Woodside ASX release, 29 July 2026 [1]"},{"a":25,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A deferred tax asset is not a cheque from the Commonwealth. It is a recognition, under accounting standards, that deductions carried forward from earlier years are now expected to be used. The Pluto project has accumulated years of uplifted carry-forward deductions under the PRRT's design, which lets undeducted spending roll forward and compound ahead of any liability. The DTA exists because higher prices mean Pluto is finally expected to owe PRRT against that stockpile. The moment the deductions became likely to offset a real bill, they acquired value, and the accounting rules required Woodside to book that value, approximately US$600m of it pre-income tax, as a gain now."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"None of this is improper. It is lawful accounting under the PRRT's own architecture, and it should be read that way. But sit with what the sequence means. The deduction stock attached to one project is so large that the first fiscal consequence of a price boom, in the statutory accounts, is not a tax payment. It is an accounting gain, booked because the tax might finally, eventually, fall due."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"f","x":"US$210-410m benefit","t":"Woodside's guided statutory PRRT outcome for the half year to 30 June 2026. The same table guides an underlying PRRT expense of US$190-390m; the gap is the one-off Pluto deferred tax asset adjustment of approximately US$600m pre-income tax.","src":"Woodside Second Quarter Report 2026 half-year guidance [1]"},{"a":25,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Fairness requires the full picture, and the full picture sharpens the point rather than blunting it. Woodside is not a PRRT avoider. On the Australian Taxation Office's Corporate Tax Transparency data for 2023-24, as Woodside reports that data, it is the largest PRRT payer in the country: A$796m of PRRT, alongside A$2.26bn of corporate income tax across its Australian corporate entities [4]. Whatever criticism this series has levelled at the PRRT's yield, Woodside carries more of it than anyone else.","r":[4]},{"a":25,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$796m","t":"PRRT paid by Woodside in 2023-24, alongside A$2.26bn in corporate income tax, making it Australia's largest PRRT payer.","src":"ATO Corporate Tax Transparency 2023-24, as reported by Woodside [4]"},{"a":25,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That is what makes the guidance line so instructive. As this series has documented, total PRRT across the entire industry was A$1.48bn in 2023-24, evidence before the Senate inquiry showed Chevron paid A$0 PRRT on A$26.9bn of revenue in the same year, and MYEFO 2025-26 cut projected PRRT collections by A$1.5bn over four years, partly on decommissioning credits. Against that backdrop, Woodside is the system's best case. And the best case, in a boom half, opens its accounts with the statutory resource tax line as a benefit. If the design produces this result at the top of the payer table, the rest of the table needs no further explanation."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Woodside paid A$1.72bn of income tax in 2023-24. This desk could not find that figure in the record; Woodside's own release on the ATO's 2023-24 data states A$2.26bn of corporate income tax, alongside the A$796m of PRRT, and the section, the fact box and the key facts now say so, citing that release at [4] in place of a data.gov.au homepage.","r":[4]},{"a":25,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The same Second Quarter Report records that Scarborough is 98 per cent complete, that first gas has been achieved, and that the first cargo remains on track for the fourth quarter of 2026. In the ordinary telling this is an engineering milestone, and it is a substantial one."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In the fiscal telling it is something else. Under the PRRT's design, the capital sunk into a new project becomes deductions that carry forward, uplifted, until the project's income is large enough to absorb them. The report that books a roughly US$600m gain from Pluto's old deduction mountain is the same report that announces the foundation of the next one. The cycle this series has spent thirteen articles describing does not end with Pluto's deductions finally meeting a liability. It begins again, in the same accounts, one project over."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Woodside is not booming alone. Origin Energy's FY26 results, released on 13 August 2026, reported a statutory profit of A$1,574m and adjusted free cash flow of A$2,074m, up 72 per cent, with lower tax paid cited among the drivers in Origin's own results release, which also records A$911m in fully franked dividends received from APLNG across FY26 [6].","r":[6]},{"a":25,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"f","x":"about A$65bn","t":"Forecast Australian LNG export earnings rising to about A$65bn in 2026-27.","src":"Resources and Energy Quarterly, June 2026 [5]"},{"a":25,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Resources and Energy Quarterly for June 2026 forecasts LNG export earnings rising to about A$65bn in 2026-27 [5]. The export income is real, the shareholder distributions are real, and the cash flows are real. The question this series keeps testing is what share of a boom of that size reaches the tax designed specifically to capture it. The most direct answer available this winter sits in Woodside's guidance table.","r":[5]},{"a":25,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section attributed Origin's A$911m APLNG dividend figure to its results call; it is stated in Origin's results release of 13 August 2026, now cited at [6], and markers for [5] and [6] have been added.","r":[6,5]},{"a":25,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"When we first published, every figure above was guidance, and we said this series would read the reviewed accounts when they landed. They landed on 25 August 2026 and they confirm the guidance almost exactly. The statutory line in Woodside's Half-Year Report reads 'Petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) benefit/(expense)' of US$305m for the half to 30 June 2026, against an expense of US$71m in the same half of 2025. It is checkable twice inside the company's own arithmetic: the income statement runs 2,035 plus 305 less 667 to a profit after tax of 1,673, and Note A.5 runs 2,035 plus 305 to 2,340, of which 30 per cent is the 702 the note states. The Pluto adjustment is confirmed at US$596m before income tax and US$417m after it, recognised, in the report's own words, for 'increased expected utilisation of available PRRT deductions driven by the higher pricing environment' [7]. But the guided underlying expense of US$190-390m has no counterpart in the reviewed accounts at all. The half-year report discloses no separate underlying PRRT expense, and the cash flow statement merges the two into a single line, 'Income tax and PRRT paid'. The moment the guidance became a filing, the amount of resource tax this boom actually produced stopped being readable. Santos reported on 19 August 2026, exactly as expected, and its results materials disclose no PRRT figure either [8].","r":[7,8]},{"a":25,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What should a reader take from a quarter like this one? Not that Woodside did anything wrong. It did not. It sold gas at US$85 a barrel of oil equivalent, reported the proceeds, applied the accounting standards to the tax law as written, and told the market exactly what the result would be. Every figure in this article comes from that disclosure or from public records. The company has been, in the fullest sense, transparent."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The structural point is what the transparency reveals. The PRRT was built to capture super-profits, and this half is the closest thing to a laboratory test the design has faced in years: prices up 35 per cent, revenue up 28 per cent, the higher LNG pricing environment in the company's own words. The instrument did not malfunction. Its deduction and uplift architecture absorbed the boom precisely as designed, so completely that the statutory line turned into a gain, while the next project's deduction mountain was poured in the same filing. A tax that meets a boom and books a benefit is not being evaded. It is being obeyed. Whether it is the design Australia intends to keep is a question for the parliament that wrote it, and the reviewed accounts have now stated as much of the evidence as they disclose."},{"a":25,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. References that pointed to website homepages now point to the documents themselves: [1] is Woodside's Second Quarter Report as released to the ASX, in place of an aggregator mirror; [5] is the Resources and Energy Quarterly for June 2026; [6] is Origin's FY26 results release; [7] is Woodside's Half-Year Report. References [2] and [3], aggregator reproductions of the same quarterly report, are no longer relied on, and their markers now point to [1].","r":[1,5,6,7,2,3]},{"a":26,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Northern Territory Government buys Tamboran's Beetaloo gas and backstops the loan that built its compression plant. The contract behind both is not public.","r":[7,6]},{"a":26,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Under a take-or-pay deal announced in April 2024, the Territory takes 40 TJ a day for an initial nine years. The price has never been published.","r":[6]},{"a":26,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"On 29 September 2025 the Territory guaranteed up to $75 million of Tamboran's $90 million share of the $180 million plant debt.","r":[7]},{"a":26,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"First gas was commissioned on 1 September 2026 and is being sold to the Territory at a discount of unstated size.","r":[1,16]},{"a":26,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Whether this appraisal gas attracts the 10 per cent royalty remains unresolved.","r":[8,7]},{"a":26,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"APA's release names the day. Commissioning of first gas from Tamboran and Daly Waters Energy's Shenandoah South Pilot Project took place on Tuesday 1 September 2026, with the gas to flow through APA's newly constructed Sturt Plateau Pipeline, linking with APA's Amadeus Gas Pipeline. APA's chief executive and managing director Adam Watson attended, and congratulated Tamboran, Daly Waters Energy and the NT Government."},{"a":26,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The buyer of that gas is the Northern Territory Government. In April 2024, Tamboran announced a binding, long term take-or-pay gas sales agreement to supply the Territory with 40 TJ a day for an initial term of nine years. The price is not published. It escalates at 100 per cent of the Consumer Price Index, and the Territory holds an option to extend six and a half years, through to mid-2041."},{"a":26,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"In September 2025 the same government did something else. Under agreements dated 29 September 2025, it guaranteed up to $75 million of Tamboran's $90 million share of the $180 million debt that financed the Sturt Plateau compression facility. If the project defaults and neither the project nor the other guarantors can repay, the Territory repays the lenders."},{"a":26,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"So the public carries the volume commitment, the price mechanism and the default risk on the same project, and cannot read the contract that sets any of them."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The commissioning is documented by the pipeline owner rather than the seller alone. APA's release gives the date as Tuesday 1 September 2026, says the gas will flow through APA's newly constructed Sturt Plateau Pipeline and link with APA's Amadeus Gas Pipeline, and records Adam Watson, APA's chief executive and managing director, attending and congratulating Tamboran, Daly Waters Energy and the NT Government."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"1 September 2026","t":"The day APA records commissioning of first gas from the Shenandoah South Pilot Project. APA's own term is commissioning of first gas. That is a narrower claim than steady flow on the day, and this piece keeps to the narrower one."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The pipe itself is short. APA's project page describes \"a proposed 37 km underground natural gas pipeline\" connecting Tamboran Resources' gas development in the southern Beetaloo Basin to the existing Amadeus Gas Pipeline, lists 100 per cent APA ownership, and gives a 2026 proposed opening. The page still reads as a proposal, which places it before the day the gas was commissioned."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"What is flowing is appraisal gas. Tamboran's site tour deck, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, lists among its achievements \"Secured Native Title and Government Approval under the Beneficial Use of Gas legislation to sell appraisal gas from the Pilot Area\", and gives final investment decision as announced in September 2025. NT Budget Paper No. 2 records the same thing independently, describing petroleum \"being sold under an exploration permit (appraisal gas) in the Beetaloo Sub-basin\", and noting that final investment decision was reached by Beetaloo Energy Australia, formerly Empire Energy Group Limited, and Tamboran Resources Corporation."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That distinction, appraisal gas sold under an exploration permit, returns later in this piece. It is the hinge on which the public's royalty share may or may not turn, and no document opened for this article resolves it."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"APA's construction release is dated 5 November 2025. It said \"The estimated ~$66.5 million project will support regional employment and local supply chains, delivering approximately 150 jobs during peak construction\", and described welding the 37 kilometre line over the coming months. The same release confirms a 40 TJ/d pipeline, an NT pipeline licence, and a registered Indigenous Land Use Agreement facilitated by the Northern Land Council, both dated September 2025."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"That figure belongs on the company's side of the ledger, not the public's. It is APA's own estimate at construction start rather than a final cost, and APA presents it as its project cost, funded by shareholders. It is not a grant, and it is not counted anywhere in this article as public money."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The plant is a different matter. Tamboran's release of 1 September 2026 gives the Sturt Plateau Compression Facility a capacity of 50 TJ/d, about 48.5 MMcf/d, a contracted volume of 40 TJ/d, about 38.8 MMcf/d, a \"GSA for up to 14 years with the Northern Territory Government\", and a P50 budget of A$141 million, or US$99 million. The facility is held by the SPCF Trust, 50 per cent Tamboran and 50 per cent Daly Waters Infrastructure, LP, which the release describes as under common ownership with Tamboran's upstream joint venture partner, Daly Waters Energy, LP."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Tamboran's site tour deck describes the facility as a simple dehydration and compression plant, states that \"Tamboran and DWE each own 50% interest\", that \"Capital spend is tracking below P50 cost forecast\", and carries a stat panel figure of \"US$99 million Gross P50 capex\". It also gives an \"Indicative tariff of ~US$2.5 million per month to upstream operations\", an indicative figure running from the facility to upstream operations. Daly Waters Infrastructure, LP is described in Tamboran's release as under common ownership with the upstream joint venture partner, Daly Waters Energy, LP."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On provenance, because it matters when a company's own slide pack is doing this much of the work. The deck is filed with the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 in accession 0001628280-26-059462, with every file in that accession timestamped 31 August 2026. Its cover gives a 2026 Beetaloo Basin site tour at the Shenandoah South wellpad, August 31 to September 1, 2026. It states: \"This presentation was approved and authorized for release by Todd Abbott, the Chief Executive Officer of Tamboran Resources Corporation.\""},{"a":26,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"q","t":"In April 2024, Tamboran announced a binding, long-term take-or-pay Gas Sales Agreement (GSA) to supply the Northern Territory Government (NTG) with 40 TJ per day (~19 TJ per day net to Tamboran) for an initial term of nine years from the proposed Shenandoah South Pilot Project.","x":"Tamboran Resources Corporation, Exhibit 99.1 quarterly report lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, 31 July 2024"},{"a":26,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"131.4 PJ","t":"The gross volume across the initial nine year term, about 62.4 PJ of it net to Tamboran, with supply starting in H1 2026. The figures are Tamboran's own, in the same July 2024 filing."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The mechanism is on the record in that filing. Gas is delivered \"at the APA-owned Amadeus Gas Pipeline (AGP) on a take-or-pay basis at a market-competitive gas price\", and that price escalates \"at 100% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI)\". The filing adds that \"The NTG has an option to extend the GSA for a further six-and-a-half years through to mid-2041\", and that \"The NTG's extension option is at a slightly discounted price\". The supply commitment was conditional on the APA transport agreement, the processing agreement and final investment decision. Final investment decision was announced in September 2025, and first gas was commissioned on 1 September 2026."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Three different term figures are published, and all three are Tamboran's. The site tour deck describes a \"fixed-price (CPI-escalated) take-or-pay contract with NTG for total term of ~15 years. Initial 9-year term with buyer's option to extend to mid-2041\". Tamboran's commissioning release of 1 September 2026 says \"GSA for up to 14 years\". The July 2024 filing gives nine years plus a further six and a half to mid-2041, which is about 15 and a half. The roughly 15 year construction is the one the company's own arithmetic supports. The 14 year figure is an outlier, and it does not reconcile the nine years with the extension option."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The discount arrives with the first molecule. The commissioning release states: \"During commissioning, the BJV will sell gas to the NTG at a discounted rate under the long-term GSA, consistent with industry practice.\" BJV is the joint venture, in the release's abbreviation, and the release does not expand it. Discounting is not new to this contract in any case. The 2024 filing already recorded that the Territory's extension option is at a slightly discounted price. What no document gives, at any point in the term, is a number."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 9 September 2026. The discount is now being paid. Tamboran's release of 8 September 2026 says that \"over the weekend\" it and Daly Waters Energy \"delivered our first molecules of gas from the Beetaloo Basin into the Northern Territory gas network\", that \"during this commissioning period, Tamboran and DWE will receive a discounted price for the gas, reflecting the interruptible nature of supply during the commissioning period\", and that volumes \"are expected to ramp up to the full 40 terajoules per day (TJ/d) contracted to the Northern Territory Government under a long-term take-or-pay agreement by early 2027\". So the first gas the Territory has taken under this contract was bought at a discount whose size is not stated, from a base price that has never been stated. We found nothing published by the Territory Government or the seller since that discloses the price, the take-or-pay level or the make-up rights. The sealed part of the deal is still sealed."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Territory's exposure is disclosed in its own books, under contingent liabilities, at page 88 of NT Budget Paper No. 2 for 2026-27. Under the heading Strategic gas agreements, the paper says the agreements \"commit the Territory to pricing, volumes and timing of gas supply to meet forecast future requirements\", and that the risks \"are outweighed by the broader benefits of gas security and ability to mitigate risk by selling excess gas to the east coast gas market\". Then it sets out the second commitment."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"On 29 September 2025, the Territory entered into several agreements to facilitate new gas supply for the Territory from the Shenandoah South pilot project in the Beetaloo. The agreements include a guarantee from the Territory Government for up to $75 million of Tamboran's $90 million (50%) share of the $180 million debt financing for the Sturt Plateau compression facility. The Territory guarantees repayment of the loan to lenders if the project experiences default and the project and other guarantors are unable to repay.","x":"Northern Territory Budget Paper No. 2, 2026-27, contingent liabilities, page 88"},{"a":26,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"f","x":"$75 million of $180 million","t":"The guarantee covers up to $75 million of Tamboran's $90 million, 50 per cent, share of the $180 million debt financing for the compression facility. It is payable to lenders if the project defaults and the project and other guarantors are unable to repay."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The seller records the same arrangement from its side. Tamboran's site tour deck lists among its 12 month achievements \"Secured infrastructure debt from consortium, partially backstopped by the NT Government\", and in the compression facility panel states that the infrastructure is \"funded via debt facility with Tamboran's share backstopped by the Northern Territory Government\". Both the Territory and the seller describe it in their own documents. Neither describes the contract it sits behind."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The ABC's Jack Hislop reported on 8 May 2026 that the liability was detailed in the NT budget that week for the first time, under the headline \"NT taxpayers on the hook for $75m if Beetaloo Basin fracking project defaults\", alongside forecast net debt of $12.55 billion. A Tamboran spokesperson told the ABC the company is \"highly confident this guarantee will not be called upon given the construction of the facility is within our forecast cost and budget\". That reason is testable against the company's own filing, which says capital spend is tracking below the P50 cost forecast."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In the same report, Charles Darwin University Emeritus Professor Rolf Gerritsen called the guarantee \"unusual\" and \"a publicity exercise rather than a serious budgetary commitment\". Those are his words and his assessment, not this paper's conclusion. The honest limit sits underneath both views. The gas sales agreement is not public, so the level of the take-or-pay obligation is not on the record, and nothing published establishes what the Territory pays for, or how much of it, in any given year."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Against the volume commitment and the guarantee, the public's return on the resource itself is a royalty, and its shape is set out in the same budget paper."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"q","t":"For petroleum royalties, the Territory imposes an ad valorem royalty of 10% on the value of production at the wellhead, which is generally consistent with other Australian jurisdictions. The wellhead value is important for royalty purposes as it is the point at which ownership of the resource transfers from the Territory to the producer.","x":"Northern Territory Budget Paper No. 2, 2026-27, page 67"},{"a":26,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Territory's petroleum royalties fact sheet, which carries no publication date, says the Territory \"applies a royalty of 10% of the estimated sales value of the raw product (oil or gas)\" and that \"Royalties are charged on the gross value of the gas at the wellhead.\" It ranks three ways of arriving at that value: actual sales, described as the preferred method, then comparative sales, then the net-back or work-back method, used only \"When actual and comparative sales are not available\"."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Where the netback method applies, the fact sheet says post-wellhead costs generally include field gathering, processing, storage, pipeline tariffs and transportation. Where that fallback applies, a compression tariff and a pipeline tariff would sit among the post-wellhead costs. No document opened says which valuation method applies to this gas. The budget paper describes wellhead value as calculated \"by recognising certain post wellhead costs\", and does not use the word deducted. The fact sheet also notes that royalties on ALRA land go to the relevant Land Council. No royalty holiday appears anywhere in the budget paper."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The second rule is narrower and more consequential. Royalties are only paid for petroleum product that is sold. The fact sheet says petroleum products \"extracted from a well during the exploration phase, not suitable for sale, or disposed of (including flaring onsite) are not subject to royalties\". The gas now flowing is appraisal gas sold under an exploration permit. Whether appraisal gas sold from an exploration permit attracts the 10 per cent is not resolved by any document opened for this article. It should be asked and answered on the record, and it is put here as a question, not a finding."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"f","x":"$388 million, then $445 million","t":"Mining and petroleum royalties together, expected to total $388 million in 2025-26 and $445 million in 2026-27, averaging $421 million over the forward estimates. There is no separate Beetaloo royalty line anywhere in the paper."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Beetaloo enters the revenue forecasts only as a possibility. At page 82 the budget paper says: \"There is however, potential upside over the forward estimates with petroleum being sold under an exploration permit (appraisal gas) in the Beetaloo Sub-basin.\" The one hard Beetaloo number on the spending side is small: \"$1.4 million per annum in 2026-27 and 2027-28 to support development of the Beetaloo Sub-Basin\", listed in the fiscal outlook chapter between a $2 million land release item and a $1 million agriculture item."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Commonwealth committed money to the basin years before the contract. In a release of 18 March 2021 issued jointly with Senator Dr Sam McMahon, the then Minister for Resources, Keith Pitt, said: \"The Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program is part of the Beetaloo Strategic Basin Plan and the Government's $224 million commitment to the Beetaloo.\" The same release said the $50 million program was expected to deliver about 10 wells and bring forward at least $150 million of private investment, funding exploration before 30 December 2022."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The department's own plan page tells it differently in one respect. It says the $50 million program was to support $200 million of exploration activity before 30 June 2022, not $150 million before December. Two official versions of what the same program was meant to buy sit side by side. No document opened for this article reconciles them."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"f","x":"$173.6 million of $224 million","t":"The largest single item inside the Commonwealth's own Beetaloo figure is a Roads of Strategic Importance corridor, the NT Gas Industry Roads Upgrades. The drilling program is $50 million of the same headline."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Senate Environment and Communications References Committee interim report, at paragraph 3.31, records as detailed by DISER and Geoscience Australia that the Australian Government \"has budgeted a further $175.8 million in related subsidies for the NT\", being $173.6 million of road upgrades to support development of gas reserves in and around the Beetaloo, and $2.2 million for land use agreements to accelerate exploration. With the $50 million drilling program that is $225.8 million budgeted, not paid, and $173.6 million of it is road. The department describes the same $2.2 million as a Barkly Business Hub."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The smaller line items on the department's plan page cannot be stacked on top. The $36.2 million is a national Geological and Bioregional Assessment Program, with about $16.9 million allocated to Beetaloo projects to June 2021, and the $19.2 million is CSIRO GISERA across Australia, of which Beetaloo related projects received $1.6 million as at 30 June 2020. Added whole, the components come to about $284.3 million, well above the $224 million headline, which proves they are not additive. On the drilling program's rules, the Senate report records up to $50 million in total, a minimum of $750,000 and a maximum of $7.5 million per well, with applicants able to submit up to three applications. That ceiling is per well, not per applicant."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"q","t":"I have considered your request in the context of other priorities for audit coverage across the public sector. I have decided that the matter you referred should not replace other areas of audit focus recently identified in the Australian National Audit Office's Annual Audit Work Program (AAWP) 2021-22.","x":"Auditor-General Grant Hehir, responding to correspondence from Mr Adam Bandt MP dated 25 August 2021, recorded by the ANAO as responded Friday 10 September 2021"},{"a":26,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"There is therefore no ANAO audit of the drilling program to cite. The page is a request for audit record, the letter defers to the Senate committee inquiry, and the page names no requester other than Adam Bandt MP. A challenge was brought in the Federal Court. The Melbourne Law School climate litigation database entry for The Environment Centre NT Inc v Minister for Resources and Water, filed in the Federal Court on 28 July 2021, records a challenge to the program instrument, the approval of about $21 million to Imperial and the decision to enter the contracts. The database states that the court found \"there was no requirement for the Minister to make enquiries into climate change in relation to the decision\". It also states that, for reasons unrelated to climate, \"the court found that the Commonwealth's decision to enter into the Imperial Contracts was legally unreasonable\". The matter is concluded, and this is the database's account, not the judgment's own words."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The shortfall the contract answers is real, and two official accounts of its cause are on the public record. The ABC reported on 8 May 2026 that Power and Water Corporation, owned by the NT government, \"has been buying emergency gas from LNG exporters to keep the lights on\", after Italian-owned Eni's Blacktip gas field began drying up in 2021. The ABC's report of 1 September 2026 puts it differently, saying first gas marked the end of taking emergency gas piped from Japanese gas giant Inpex and from east coast supplies, following damage to the NT's Blacktip field after Cyclone Fina. Both accounts are the ABC's."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Territory's stated purpose is in its own budget: gas security, with the ability to sell excess gas to the east coast market named as the risk mitigation. The pipeline that carries the gas was built on APA's shareholder capital and is 100 per cent APA owned. Neither of those points is in dispute here, and neither depends on the contract staying sealed."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"f","x":"$17 billion and 13,000 jobs","t":"The CLP government's forecast as reported by the ABC on 1 September 2026: more than $17 billion in economic value over the next two decades, and support for more than 13,000 jobs by 2040."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The rival figure is not a rival. Economist Saul Eslake is reported in the same article describing annual royalty estimates that varied from $36 million to \"in excess of $220 million a year\". That is a range of royalties per year, against a claim of total economic value over two decades, so the two cannot be set against each other without changing the units. Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro's quoted words are that this was \"a pivotal moment in the Territory's history\"."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"On price, the seller is candid about what it will not say. Tamboran's deck states: \"Pricing is confidential; however, the ACCC releases gas offer and bid ranges throughout the year\", and cites that \"In March 2026, the ACCC announced average contracted East Coast price of ~US$9.20 per mcf between July and December 2025 for supply in 2027\". That is a price agreed in the second half of 2025 for 2027 east coast supply. It is not a spot price, and it is not the price the Territory pays."},{"a":26,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"What remains sealed is the part that decides whether the deal is good. The price per unit is not published. The level of the take-or-pay obligation is not published. Nor are the make-up gas rights, the volume flex, or the force majeure relief. A guarantee of $75 million appears in the budget, under contingent liabilities. The contract behind it is disclosed nowhere, and the same government stands on both ends of it."},{"a":27,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"THE RORT argues rate rises are a demand-side tool, and leaning on them against supply-side inflation puts the cost on borrowers without fixing the supply constraint.","r":[7]},{"a":27,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Inflation peaked at **7.8 per cent** in the December quarter 2022. The Reserve Bank raised rates 13 times to 4.35 per cent, the biggest tightening since 1990.","r":[3,17]},{"a":27,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Neither side got the full 425 basis points: variable mortgage rates rose about 70 basis points less than the cash rate, deposit rates about 75 per cent of it.","r":[6]},{"a":27,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"In 2026 the Governor said the rises “will not do anything” about the oil shock; the government’s own Budget calls fiscal policy better suited to supply shocks.","r":[23,29]},{"a":27,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In macroeconomics, there are two fundamentally different kinds of inflation. The distinction matters because the two kinds have different causes and require different policy responses. Using the wrong tool for the wrong kind of inflation does not fix the problem. It redistributes the pain."},{"a":27,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Demand-side inflation occurs when there is too much money chasing too few goods: when the economy is overheating, wages are rising fast, and consumer spending is driving prices up. This is the inflation that interest rate rises are designed to address. By raising borrowing costs, the central bank makes credit more expensive, reduces household spending, cools the labour market, and brings demand back into line with supply."},{"a":27,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Supply-side inflation occurs when the cost of producing or transporting goods rises: when a pandemic disrupts supply chains, when a war causes energy prices to spike, when building materials become scarce. Supply-side inflation cannot be solved by reducing demand. When supply is restricted and you reduce demand to match it, you do not fix the supply constraint. You impoverish buyers."},{"a":27,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"Australia’s inflation episode of 2022 to 2023 was predominantly supply-side. The causes were: COVID supply chain disruption affecting global goods prices from 2020 to 2022; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 causing global energy and food price spikes; and Australia’s reopening from COVID restrictions producing a demand surge into constrained supply."},{"a":27,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank responded by raising rates 13 times."},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On 3 May 2022, the Reserve Bank of Australia raised the cash rate for the first time since November 2010. The rate had been 0.10 per cent, a record low set during the COVID pandemic to support the economy."},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"By November 2023, the RBA had raised the cash rate thirteen times, taking it to 4.35 per cent. That was the biggest tightening since the cash rate target began in 1990. RateCity calculated that for an average owner-occupier who started with a A$500,000 debt at a 2.86 per cent variable rate, the 13 rises, passed on in full, lifted monthly repayments by about A$1,210, or 52 per cent. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article called the 2022-23 cycle ‘the fastest tightening cycle in Australian history’, in the paragraph above, in this section’s heading, in a key fact and in its first reference. That was wrong. On the Reserve Bank’s own cash rate table, which begins in January 1990, the 1994 cycle rose 2.75 percentage points in 119 days (17 August to 14 December 1994), about 0.69 points every 30 days, against 4.25 points over 553 days in 2022-23, about 0.23 points every 30 days (THE RORT’s calculation from the RBA table); on the longer interbank cash rate series, rises before 1990 were larger and faster again [16]. What the record supports: the 2022-23 cycle was the biggest tightening since the cash rate target began in 1990, and the fastest since 1994. Its 13 rises and 4.25 points were the most rises and the largest cumulative rise of any single cycle since 1990, though they were not consecutive decisions: the Board held at five meetings inside the cycle [17]. The heading, key fact and reference have been amended.","r":[16,17]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The thirteen rises described here were the 2022-23 cycle, not the end of the story. The Reserve Bank cut the cash rate three times in 2025, to 3.60 per cent (effective 19 February, 21 May and 13 August), then raised it three times in 2026 (effective 4 February, 18 March and 6 May) back to 4.35 per cent [17]. On 29 September 2026 its Monetary Policy Board raised it a fourth time, by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, unanimously, effective 30 September [17][18]. That is above the 2023 peak and the highest since late 2011; the four 2026 rises total 100 basis points [17].","r":[17,18]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"f","x":"7.8%","t":"December quarter 2022 inflation peak. Primary causes: Ukraine war energy prices, COVID supply chains, reopening demand surge. The RBA raised rates 13 times in response. Rate rises are a demand-side tool.","src":"ABS (7.8 per cent) / RBA cash rate history"},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The RBA’s pass-through data shows that neither side got the full 425 basis point rise. Between May 2022 and September 2023 the average outstanding variable mortgage rate increased by around 70 basis points less than the cash rate, while the average rate on total deposits (excluding offset accounts) increased by 325 basis points, around 75 per cent of the rise [6]. Fixed-rate borrowers were a separate part of the picture: the share of mortgages at fixed rates roughly doubled during the pandemic, peaking at almost 40 per cent in early 2022, and most fixed terms are two years or less. For those borrowers the increase arrived when their fixed term ended.","r":[6]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The April 2026 edition of the paragraph above said the 425 basis point rise ‘translated to approximately 320 basis points in increased mortgage payments for outstanding borrowers’, and that fixed-rate borrowers whose terms expired, mostly during 2023, moved from about 2 to 2.5 per cent onto about 6.5 per cent. The RBA figure it cited was a rise in average outstanding mortgage rates, not payments, and the fixed-rate figures could not be re-sourced, so the paragraph has been rewritten on the RBA’s pass-through measures [6].","r":[6]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The second paragraph of this section said variable mortgage rates \"surged 69 per cent from May 2022\" and that repayments on a A$500,000 loan were about A$1,210 a month higher \"by April 2024 compared to April 2022\". THE RORT could not find a source for the 69 per cent figure, and it has been removed. The A$1,210 figure is RateCity's calculation for an average owner-occupier who started with a A$500,000 debt at 2.86 per cent, with all 13 rises passed on in full; the paragraph and key facts now say so, and reference [2] now points to that RateCity page. A key fact still giving the 69 per cent figure has also been removed and replaced with the Reserve Bank’s deposit pass-through figure [6].","r":[2,6]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [14] was titled as documentation of the causes of inflation but points to the Reserve Bank's April 2024 Bulletin on cash rate pass-through to mortgage rates; it is now titled and described as that Bulletin. Reference [15] pointed to the Reserve Bank's homepage; the summary point that cited it now cites only [4], and the reference says it is not relied on. Reference [3] pointed to the ABS’s general CPI page and credited the ABS with identifying supply-side factors as the primary drivers; it now names the ABS’s December quarter 2022 release, which gives the 7.8 per cent peak and its largest contributors; the article no longer credits the ABS with a reading of the causes, and the fact box above now credits the ABS only with the 7.8 per cent.","r":[14,15,4,3]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The summary point that cited reference [4] for the difference between supply-side and demand-side inflation now says plainly that it is THE RORT’s own argument and cites the Governor’s November 2022 address on supply shocks [7]. Reference [4], the AMP page of 3 February 2026, does not draw that distinction; it is described above as what it says (administered prices rising around 6 per cent a year against 2.9 per cent in the market sector), and no claim in this article relies on it for the concept.","r":[4,7]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The argument that the 2022–23 Australian inflation was predominantly supply-side is not a fringe position. It is well-documented in the RBA’s own publications and in the academic literature."},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute and the Centre for Future Work conducted research finding that the inflation that led to the Reserve Bank raising interest rates was caused overwhelmingly by companies abusing market power to raise prices [5]. This is the corporate margin expansion argument: during a period of supply disruption and generalised price uncertainty, companies with market power raised prices by more than their cost increases warranted.","r":[5]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The Reserve Bank’s own analysis belongs beside this claim. In May 2023 it found ‘little evidence’ of a broad-based increase in non-mining profit margins as an independent cause of inflation, while also finding that ‘some highly profitable firms’ among the 200 largest had gradually widened their margins, a trend the RBA dated from 2016 (firm data to the September quarter 2022) [19]. In February 2024 Governor Bullock told Senate Estimates there ‘probably are firms’ using lack of competition, strong demand and ‘the cover of higher inflation’, but, looking at the non-mining sector in aggregate, ‘not evidence of a wholesale increase in margins across the board’ [20]. An August 2026 RBA staff article (a staff view, not the Board’s) finds that import prices and business owner returns accounted for a larger share of growth in the household consumption deflator, a consumer price measure, immediately after the pandemic, and that from 2023 to early 2026 the contribution of import prices and business owner returns ‘moderated significantly’, and business owner returns in some quarters ‘dragged on aggregate consumer price growth a little’ (a window that ends before the 2026 war) [21]. A May 2026 RBA Bulletin judged that margins had ‘only a modest impact’ overall, while the unwinding of earlier margin squeezes in retail and home building ‘accentuat[ed] the pick-up’ in inflation in late 2025 [35]. The Australia Institute’s estimate, that rising corporate profits made up more than half of the inflation above the target range between December 2019 and June 2023, is its own analysis [22]. The chart at the top of this article, which listed corporate margin expansion (greedflation) as a supply cause, now marks corporate margins as contested, and its 26 per cent income figure is now labelled as the Australia Institute’s estimate for a typical couple with a A$660,000 mortgage.","r":[19,20,21,35,22]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s supermarkets inquiry confirmed a version of this finding: grocery prices rose 24 per cent over five years; EBIT margins expanded; the regulator found that at least some of the grocery price increases resulted in additional profits. ACCC legal action against Coles and Woolworths for misleading discount pricing covered exactly the period of the inflation peak."},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The ACCC’s final report, released on 21 March 2025, did not allege price gouging or recommend divestiture [13].","r":[13]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Ukraine war explanation is straightforward: Russia’s invasion in February 2022 caused immediate global spikes in energy and food prices. Australia imports refined fuel and many food inputs. The global energy price spike fed directly into Australian petrol prices, transport costs, and through them into the cost of almost everything. The RBA raising the cash rate did not produce more Ukrainian wheat or more Russian gas."},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. In 2026 the Governor made the same point about a new war. Asked in May about the most vulnerable, she said: ‘The shock with oil prices, there’s nothing we can do about that. And as I said earlier, the interest rate rises will not do anything about that.’ The shock, she said, makes Australians poorer ‘and there is no way out of that’ [23]. She also said the oil shock ‘is not the sole reason’: ‘we had an inflation problem before this’ [23]. What the rises are for, in her words, is ‘to help to contain the domestic inflationary pressures after the inflation due to oil and related commodity prices eases’ [23].","r":[23]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The second paragraph of this section, on the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work research, now cites the Institute post already listed as reference [5], which quotes its chief economist that the inflation \"was caused overwhelmingly by companies abusing market power to raise prices\". That is the Institute's claim; the Reserve Bank's contrary findings are set out below.","r":[5]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The supply-side critique of the rate rises does not argue the RBA should have done nothing. There was a genuine demand element to Australian inflation. Australia’s rapid reopening from COVID restrictions in late 2021 produced a significant surge in consumer spending into a supply-constrained environment. This demand element was addressable by rate rises."},{"a":27,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The RBA’s position, articulated by Governor Philip Lowe throughout 2022 and 2023, was that even supply-side inflation can become entrenched if inflation expectations become unanchored [7]. Workers who believe prices will keep rising ask for higher wages. Companies that believe wages will keep rising raise prices. The rate rises were partly intended to demonstrate the RBA’s commitment to its target, not just to directly reduce demand.","r":[7]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"These arguments have merit. The critique is not that the RBA was wrong to act, but that interest rates did most of the stabilising work while the government used its other tools only in part (the 2022 gas cap and the 2022-23 and 2023-24 surpluses, set out below). The 2023 independent RBA Review said fiscal and monetary policy, though set independently, should not be isolated, and recommended that the Bank and Treasury identify how the two can together best support good economic outcomes, acknowledging that fiscal policy may have a larger role in some circumstances, for example when the cash rate is at its effective lower bound [8].","r":[8]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph said the RBA used interest rates ‘as the sole instrument of stabilisation, while fiscal policy remained largely passive’. That left out what the government did do: a $12 a gigajoule cap on new east coast wholesale gas contracts from late December 2022 [31] and underlying cash surpluses of $22.1 billion in 2022-23 and $15.8 billion in 2023-24 [32]. The sentence has been amended.","r":[31,32]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The paragraph above said the 2023 Independent RBA Review \"noted the limitations of monetary policy working alone\". The Review's final report, now cited as reference [8] in place of the Review's homepage, says fiscal and monetary policy should not be isolated and that fiscal policy may have a larger role in some circumstances, giving the effective lower bound for the cash rate as its example; it does not put it as this paragraph did, and the sentence now reports what the report says. Reference [7] pointed to the Reserve Bank's speeches index; it now names Governor Lowe's 22 November 2022 address, \"Price Stability, the Supply Side and Prosperity\", and the paragraph above it now cites it. The reference no longer says that critics called rate rises the wrong tool, which it did not source.","r":[8,7]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"When a central bank raises rates to address predominantly supply-side inflation, the mechanism does not work as textbook economics implies. The Australia Institute described it precisely: rate rises were not so much dampening demand from growing incomes as keeping households’ heads below water [10].","r":[10]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Real wages fell approximately 5 per cent from 2021 by the RBA’s own measurement [12]. On OECD figures, real household income per capita fell 5.1 per cent in 2023, what the OECD called a record fall, and a further 1.8 per cent in 2024, the largest decline of any OECD country that year, driven mainly by higher interest and tax payments [11].","r":[12,11]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. Real wages were forecast to have fallen again. The Reserve Bank’s August 2026 forecast table puts the fall over the year to June 2026 at 0.7 per cent for the real Wage Price Index and 1.2 per cent for real average hourly earnings (forecasts finalised on 5 August; the RBA table does not shade these June 2026 cells as historical data), and it forecasts real wage growth turning positive only from mid-2027 [24].","r":[24]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute calculated that for a typical couple with a A$660,000 mortgage, the combination of falling real wages and rising interest rates reduced their after-tax, after-mortgage income by 26 per cent in real terms over twelve months [10]. That is not fighting inflation from a position of strength. That is a policy that took households which were already struggling under supply-shock price rises and made their financial position dramatically worse.","r":[10]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The supply-shock did not require borrowers to bear the entire burden of stabilisation. Fiscal tools were available. Windfall taxes on companies expanding their margins during the inflation period would have both raised revenue and dampened the corporate margin expansion that contributed to price rises. Price transparency and consumer protection measures could have moderated the supermarket margin expansion. The government chose not to deploy these tools. Articles 3 and 6 of this series examine why."},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The government did use other tools in 2022-24: a $12 a gigajoule cap on new east coast wholesale gas contracts from late December 2022 [31], and underlying cash surpluses of $22.1 billion in 2022-23 and $15.8 billion in 2023-24 [32]. The budget has been in deficit since 2024-25 ($10.0 billion that year, $22.3 billion in 2025-26) [34].","r":[31,32,34]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The 2026 round puts the same question more sharply. The Reserve Bank’s reasons for its 29 September rise put the widening Middle East war and global energy prices first, with higher fuel prices partly passed through to other prices, ‘in addition to’ domestic capacity pressure [18]. On the Bank’s own split, fuel contributed 0.8 percentage points of March’s 4.6 per cent headline inflation [25]; inflation was already above the target band before the war began at the end of February [26][27][28]. The RBA puts the war’s indirect effect on June-quarter trimmed mean inflation, excluding the direct effect of fuel, at ‘a bit more than 0.1 percentage points’ [33]. The government’s own 2026-27 Budget says fiscal policy is ‘better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks, such as the global oil shock’ [29]; the IMF’s July 2026 update adds that fiscal policy ‘should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls’ [30]. Which levers were and were not pulled in 2026 is set out in ‘Is it the only way?’.","r":[18,25,26,27,28,33,29,30]},{"a":27,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The second paragraph of this section said household disposable income fell 6.1 per cent in the year to September 2023, the largest decline of any OECD country, and quoted economist Chris Richardson on the largest fall since 1959; its reference [11] pointed to the Australian Financial Review homepage. THE RORT could not find the article or a primary source for those figures. The paragraph now gives the OECD's own figures, a 5.1 per cent fall in real household income per capita in 2023 and a further 1.8 per cent in 2024, the largest decline in the OECD that year, and reference [11] now names that OECD release. The Richardson remark has been removed, as has the reference's claim that incomes would not recover until 2027. The key fact has been amended. The real wages sentence now cites the Reserve Bank Bulletin that carries it [12], and the Australia Institute passages in this section now cite its post on the \"double whammy\" of real wage falls and rate rises [10]; both references were already in this article. The image at the head of this article now gives the OECD figure, minus 5.1 per cent in 2023, in place of the withdrawn 6.1 per cent.","r":[11,12,10]},{"a":28,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The ACCC found Coles and Woolworths could lift margins beyond wholesale price rises as inflation hit 7.8 per cent, the highest since 1990: what this article calls the worst in a generation.","r":[4,25]},{"a":28,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Grocery prices rose **24 per cent** in five years. Woolworths and Coles hold 67 per cent of supermarket grocery sales, in a market the ACCC calls oligopolistic.","r":[14,12,1]},{"a":28,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The ACCC did not conclude that price gouging occurred and did not recommend divestiture. Both companies’ shares rose on the day the report came out.","r":[16,8]},{"a":28,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Excessive pricing by Coles and Woolworths has been prohibited since 1 July 2026. THE RORT has not checked whether the ACCC has used the power.","r":[21]},{"a":28,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"When the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its final report on the supermarkets inquiry on 21 March 2025, the two companies whose conduct it had investigated for more than a year both saw their share prices rise. Investors were relieved. The ACCC had found problems but had not recommended the structural remedies that would have directly constrained profits."},{"a":28,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The ACCC’s media release announcing its final report is dated 21 March 2025, not 20 March as the paragraph above said [16]; the earlier date matched the 20 March 2025 date of the US News report this article cited [2].","r":[16,2]},{"a":28,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s findings were, nevertheless, damning. Grocery prices had risen 24 per cent over five years. Woolworths and Coles together controlled 67 per cent of supermarket grocery sales. Their EBIT margins were among the highest of supermarket businesses in relevant comparator countries. The sector was not working well, leading to poorer outcomes for consumers and suppliers. At least some of the grocery price increases had resulted in additional profits."},{"a":28,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"The ACCC did not conclude that price gouging had occurred. It was, legally, unable to: the complexity of thousands of products and varying margin profiles made a definitive conclusion impossible within the statutory framework. But the regulator’s description of what had happened was clear: an oligopolistic market, limited competition, margin expansion during a cost-of-living crisis, and a sector not working well for consumers."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s grocery market is one of the most concentrated in the developed world. Woolworths holds 38 per cent of supermarket grocery sales. Coles holds 29 per cent. Together they account for two-thirds of the market. ALDI, after more than 20 years of operation in Australia, holds approximately 9 per cent."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"67%","t":"of supermarket grocery sales controlled by Woolworths and Coles, in a sector the ACCC describes as ‘oligopolistic’ with ‘limited incentive to compete vigorously on price.’ EBIT margins among the highest globally.","src":"ACCC Supermarkets Inquiry final report, March 2025"},{"a":28,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC described the structural consequence of this concentration precisely: an oligopolistic market structure in which Coles and Woolworths have limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price. The two companies provide broadly similar supermarket offerings and appear to price at similar levels, reinforcing each other’s pricing rather than undercutting it."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"ALDI provides a partial competitive constraint, but does not compete head-to-head with Coles and Woolworths across their full product range. Consumers who want the full range of branded products, fresh produce, and specialty items must choose between Coles and Woolworths. For those consumers, the 67 per cent duopoly is effectively 100 per cent."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC found that substantial pro-competitive departures from the status quo are unlikely in the foreseeable future. Entry barriers are high: it took ALDI more than 20 years to achieve 9 per cent. The ACCC said it was unlikely that a new major supermarket chain would enter the market."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s analysis of what happened to supermarket margins during the 2022–23 inflation peak is the core finding of the inquiry. Between late 2022 and early 2023, the period when annual inflation peaked at 7.8 per cent in the December quarter 2022, the highest since 1990 [25] and, on this article’s reading, the worst inflation in a generation, and the RBA was raising rates most aggressively, grocery prices were rising at more than twice the rate of wages.","r":[25]},{"a":28,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC found that Coles and Woolworths had the apparent ability to increase retail margins for packaged grocery products by more than is necessary to accommodate a wholesale price increase. This is the margin expansion finding: when their input costs rose, the supermarkets raised retail prices by more than their costs required. The additional price increase became profit."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute described this dynamic as corporations abusing market power to raise prices in ways that drove the inflation the RBA was then raising rates to address. The logic: supply-side inflation provides cover for margin expansion; oligopolistic companies use the inflationary environment to raise prices beyond cost increases; the RBA raises rates to suppress the resulting inflation; borrowers bear the cost."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The Reserve Bank has since published its own study of margins. Its May 2026 Bulletin found that margin squeezes in retail and home building pushed inflation down in early 2025 and that their unwinding accentuated ‘the pick-up in aggregate inflation in the latter part of 2025’, the pick-up that preceded the 2026 rate rises; overall it judged margins had ‘only a modest impact’, and cautioned that ‘simple narratives in which margins are said to have \"driven\" inflation can be misleading’ [17]. An August 2026 RBA staff article (a staff view, not the Board’s) whose data end in early 2026, before the war, finds that the contribution of import prices and business owner returns ‘moderated significantly’ from 2023 to early 2026, and that business owner returns in some quarters ‘dragged on aggregate consumer price growth a little’ [18]. The same article finds that immediately after the pandemic, import prices and business owner returns ‘accounted for a larger share’ of consumption price growth, with price pressures later shifting towards labour costs and dwelling rents [18]. The Bank’s May 2023 analysis found ‘little evidence’ of a broad-based increase in non-mining profit margins as an independent cause of inflation, but also that among the 200 largest firms ‘some highly profitable firms’ had gradually increased their margins, a trend the Bank traced back to 2016 [24]. On 11 August 2026 Governor Bullock said some firms had passed cost pressures through to prices and that with excess demand her concern is that passing costs on will be easier [19], and on 29 September the Bank said liaison indicates that firms ‘are experiencing cost pressures and are either increasing the prices of their goods and services or looking to do so’ [20].","r":[17,18,24,19,20]},{"a":28,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The 7.8 per cent peak is now sourced to the Australian Bureau of Statistics: annual CPI inflation reached 7.8 per cent in the December quarter 2022, the highest since 1990, and fell to 7.0 per cent the next quarter [25]. The paragraph opening this section now says so; “the worst inflation in a generation”, in the headline summary and above, is this article’s description of that 1990-to-2022 high.","r":[25]},{"a":28,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The most concrete evidence of supermarket conduct during the inflation peak came not from the inquiry but from the ACCC’s separate legal action, announced in September 2024."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC alleged that Woolworths and Coles had misled consumers through promotional pricing practices. Specifically: products were placed on ‘was/now’ promotional tickets that implied a discount from a previous higher price, but in many cases, the ‘was’ price had been artificially elevated shortly before the promotion, or the ‘special’ price was actually higher than the product had recently sold for."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The period covered by the legal action: Woolworths: 266 products over 20 months; Coles: 245 products over 15 months. These 15 to 20 months were precisely the period when Australian inflation peaked at 7.8 per cent [25] and the Reserve Bank raised rates most aggressively.","r":[25]},{"a":28,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Today’s announcement reinforces our research that has shown the inflation that led to the Reserve Bank raising interest rates was caused overwhelmingly by companies abusing market power to raise prices.","x":"Australia Institute","src":"September 2024"},{"a":28,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s 2023 analysis found little evidence of a broad-based rise in non-mining margins, though some of the largest firms had widened theirs [24]; its May 2026 study, of 2025, judged margins had only a modest impact [17]. Both are set out in the 29 September 2026 update above.","r":[24,17]},{"a":28,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The 7.8 per cent inflation peak in the paragraph on the period covered by the legal action is now cited to the Australian Bureau of Statistics [25].","r":[25]},{"a":28,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s final report did not find price gouging. It could not: the legal standard for price gouging requires evidence of prices above a level that could be sustained in a competitive market, applied across a complex product portfolio. The ACCC found it was unable to conclusively say whether Woolworths and Coles were actively price gouging."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"What it did find: margins expanded during the inflation period. The sector was not working well for consumers or suppliers. Woolworths and Coles are among the most profitable supermarket businesses among their global peers. ALDI provides only a partial competitive constraint. Entry of a new major competitor is unlikely. Suppliers lack bargaining power and fear retribution for raising concerns."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Twenty recommendations were made. The most significant: mandatory price transparency, stronger protections for suppliers, planning and zoning reform to make it easier to establish new supermarkets. No divestiture. No structural remedy."},{"a":28,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. Since this article was written, excessive grocery pricing by ‘very large retailers’ (more than $30 billion in revenue: currently Coles and Woolworths) has been prohibited from 1 July 2026 under the Food and Grocery Code regulations. The ACCC enforces it; the test is whether prices are ‘significantly excessive’ against the cost of supply plus a reasonable margin, and the maximum penalty is the greater of $10 million, three times the benefit or 10 per cent of turnover [21]. In THE RORT’s reading it is a price-side tool held by Parliament and the regulator, not the RBA. THE RORT has not checked whether the ACCC has used it. Two earlier measures belong here too: the Food and Grocery Code became mandatory on 1 April 2025 for the largest supermarkets and wholesalers, mainly governing their dealings with suppliers [22], and since 1 January 2026 acquisitions above the thresholds must be notified to the ACCC and wait for its approval, a reform the Treasurer tied to grocery prices [23]. The ACCC did not recommend divestiture [16]. An earlier line here, in the key facts and in the chart said the ACCC recommended no price controls; THE RORT could not re-check that against a source this round and has withdrawn it, keeping only what the ACCC is on record for: no divestiture [16].","r":[21,22,23,16]},{"a":29,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The cash rate carried the load against inflation: 13 rises from May 2022 to November 2023 took it from 0.10 per cent to 4.35 per cent, the biggest tightening since 1990.","r":[1,16]},{"a":29,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Other tools were limited: a six-month fuel excise halving costing about A$3 billion, and gas and coal price caps from late December 2022. No windfall tax was introduced.","r":[7,18]},{"a":29,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The UK, by contrast, introduced an Energy Profits Levy in May 2022, a 25 per cent surcharge later raised to 35 per cent.","r":[5,49]},{"a":29,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The pattern recurred in 2026: four rises to 4.60 per cent, yet the government’s Budget says fiscal policy is better suited than monetary policy to supply shocks.","r":[16,27]},{"a":29,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 3 May 2022, the Reserve Bank of Australia began what would become the biggest tightening since the cash rate target began in 1990. By November 2023, it had raised rates 13 times, taking the cash rate from 0.10 per cent to 4.35 per cent. The Board also held at five meetings along the way, in April, July, August, September and October 2023 [16]; the cash rate was the main lever being pulled, beside the gas and coal price caps recorded in the correction below.","r":[16]},{"a":29,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article called the 2022-23 cycle the fastest in the Reserve Bank’s history (here) and in Australian history (subtitle and first reference), and it described every meeting as a rise and every rise as 25 basis points; the Board held five times in 2023 [16], and four of the 13 rises were 50 basis points. The first claim was wrong: on the RBA’s own cash rate table, which begins in 1990, the 1994 cycle was faster. The 2022-23 cycle was the biggest tightening since the cash rate target began in 1990, and the fastest since 1994 [16][17]. The subtitle and reference have been amended.","r":[16,17]},{"a":29,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This was partly the nature of the institutions involved. The RBA has one tool: the cash rate. By law the Board sets monetary policy in the way that, in its opinion, best contributes to price stability and full employment [48]; the Governor calls the cash rate ‘our only instrument we’ve got’ [29]. The independent RBA Review of 2023 recommended changes to the Bank’s governance [2].","r":[48,29,2]},{"a":29,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article said the RBA was legally mandated to raise rates whenever inflation is above target, and that it was required to raise rates by its mandate. That overstated the law: the Reserve Bank Act sets two monetary policy objectives, price stability and full employment, under an overarching objective of the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia [48], and does not require a rise whenever inflation is above target; the article’s own record of five holds in 2023 shows the Board did not raise at every meeting [16]. The current wording, s 9B, was inserted by the Reserve Bank Reforms Act 2024, in force from 1 March 2025, after the 2022-23 cycle [48]. THE RORT did not re-read the Act in force during 2022-23 for this correction; the five holds in 2023 rest on the Bank's own table [16]. The subtitle, the paragraph above and one later passage have been amended.","r":[48,16]},{"a":29,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"But the RBA is not the only institution that can act on inflation. Governments can raise taxes on companies earning windfall profits from the supply shock that is driving prices up. They can introduce price transparency requirements that limit margin expansion. They can provide targeted relief to households hit hardest by essential goods price rises."},{"a":29,"at":"at-lede-5","k":"p","t":"None of these things happened at meaningful scale in Australia during the 2022-23 inflation episode."},{"a":29,"at":"at-lede-6","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article should have recorded that the government did use a non-rate price tool in the 2022-23 episode: a cap of $12 a gigajoule on new east coast wholesale gas contracts from late December 2022, with New South Wales and Queensland effectively capping the price of coal for electricity generation at $125 a tonne, with Commonwealth funding [18]. Treasury forecast that the caps would reduce inflation by about half a percentage point in 2023-24 and that, without them, the average family would pay $230 more on its electricity bill; that is a forecast, and THE RORT found no after-the-fact evaluation [18]. The Gas Market Review (December 2025) records that stakeholders indicated the mechanism ‘has not been sufficient to put downward pressure on prices in the context of tight supply conditions’ [20]. The emergency gas cap expired in December 2023; the mandatory Gas Market Code, which commenced on 11 July 2023, keeps a $12 ‘reasonable price’ that stays in force until new arrangements are in place, and a gas reservation scheme starts on 1 July 2027 [19][20][21]. The subtitle’s ‘The RBA did it alone’, the image and its caption, the pullquote below, a key fact, the opening paragraph and two later passages have been amended.","r":[18,20,19,21]},{"a":29,"at":"at-lede-7","k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The correction above said a gas reservation scheme starts on 1 July 2027. The department’s reform page, last updated 29 September 2026, still says ‘This scheme will commence from 1 July 2027.’ But the ministers’ joint media release of 10 September 2026 says the ‘licence application process will commence from 1 January 2027, with the Domestic Supply Obligation to commence from 1 January 2028’, and the same department page says ‘Obligations are expected to start on 1 January 2028.’ Licence applications therefore start on 1 January 2027 and the Domestic Supply Obligation on 1 January 2028, not on 1 July 2027. The 7 May 2026 announcement gave 1 July 2027 [21].","r":[21]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In FY22-23, the Australian government returned to budget surplus for the first time in 15 years. The surplus was approximately A$22 billion [4]. In FY23-24, the surplus continued at A$15.8 billion [22].","r":[4,22]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The 2023-24 underlying cash surplus was $15.8 billion (0.6 per cent of GDP), not approximately A$9 billion as this paragraph said; the 2022-23 surplus was $22.1 billion [22]. The paragraph above has been amended.","r":[22]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The budget has since returned to deficit: $10.0 billion in 2024-25 and $22.3 billion (0.8 per cent of GDP) in 2025-26, with a deficit of $31.5 billion (1.0 per cent of GDP) forecast for 2026-27 [23]. The subtitle’s ‘Budget in surplus’ describes 2022-23 and 2023-24 only.","r":[23]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"This was partly a windfall: elevated commodity export revenues from iron ore, coal and LNG (all benefiting from the same Ukraine war price spikes that were driving inflation) produced extraordinary government revenues. The 2022-23 Final Budget Outcome put company tax receipts $12.7 billion above Budget estimates, driven mainly by resources companies on sustained high commodity prices [4]. The government was not choosing to run surpluses out of fiscal virtue. The commodity boom was depositing money into treasury. The Treasurer’s own account differs: he said the 2023-24 surplus was ‘entirely due to lower payments, not higher taxes’ [22].","r":[4,22]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The macroeconomic effect: the government was running fiscal drag, taking more out of the economy in taxes than it was putting back in spending, simultaneously with the RBA running monetary tightening. Both instruments were suppressing demand at the same time. The question is not whether the RBA was right to raise rates. The question is why, beyond a six-month fuel excise cut and, from late December 2022, gas and coal price caps, the government deployed no further supply-side tools that could have moderated the inflation and eased the load on 425 basis points of monetary tightening."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"AMP’s analysis paraphrased Governor Lowe (2023) as saying government was contributing to the strength in inflation, and that high levels of public spending as a share of the economy were constraining the recovery in private spending [3][10].","r":[3,10]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The passage above was set as a quotation from Governor Lowe, but, as its source line said, it is AMP’s paraphrase. THE RORT has not verified his exact words, and a paraphrase should not have been set as a quotation."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. Reference [4] pointed to the Budget homepage; it now names the Treasurer’s release on the 2022-23 Final Budget Outcome, which gives the $22.1 billion surplus as the first in 15 years. The first paragraph of this section now cites it, and [22] for 2023-24. The paragraph on the commodity windfall now adds what that release says: more than half of the $27.7 billion boost to receipts came from higher-than-expected company tax, largely because commodity prices stayed higher for longer than assumed. Reference [12] also pointed to the Budget homepage; the surplus it gave is carried by [4], and that both instruments were restraining demand at once is this article’s own reading, so [12] now says it is not relied on.","r":[4,22,12]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The paragraph on the commodity windfall said, citing the Treasurer’s release on the 2022-23 outcome, that more than half of a $27.7 billion boost to receipts came from higher-than-expected company tax. Neither that release nor the Final Budget Outcome it links carries the $27.7 billion figure, and the 7 October note above repeats it. The Final Budget Outcome 2022-23 says company tax receipts were $12.7 billion above Budget estimates, driven mainly by resources companies and sustained elevated commodity prices, and the paragraph and reference [4] now say so. Reference [15], which is not cited in the text, now names the government’s own release of 21 March 2025, which says the ACCC report does not support a divestiture power.","r":[4,15]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The UK faced the same supply-shock inflation in 2022. It also raised interest rates. But it deployed fiscal tools alongside monetary policy."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In May 2022, the same month the RBA began raising rates, the UK government introduced the Energy Profits Levy: a 25 per cent surcharge on the extraordinary profits of the oil and gas sector [5]. This was subsequently increased to 35 per cent, from January 2023, and extended [49]. On HMRC figures the levy raised about GBP 9.1 billion in its first three financial years, 2022-23 to 2024-25 [49]. The UK also maintained a bank surcharge above the corporation tax rate throughout the rate cycle, cut from 8 to 3 per cent from April 2023 when the main rate rose to 25 per cent [5].","r":[5,49]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The EU deployed a solidarity contribution levy on fossil fuel sector profits in 2022-23. The regulation required member states to use the revenue for purposes that include financial support for energy customers, in particular vulnerable households, to soften high energy prices [6]. France implemented temporary energy price caps for households, limiting rises in regulated electricity tariffs to 4 per cent in 2022 and gas and electricity tariffs to 15 per cent in 2023 [50]. Spain, with Portugal, capped the price of gas used to generate electricity from mid-2022 [51].","r":[6,50,51]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The United States used the Inflation Reduction Act to address some supply-side inflation through clean energy investment and pharmaceutical price negotiation, though it did not introduce a dedicated windfall tax."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$3B vs A$11.1B","t":"One 2022 supply-side fiscal intervention: a temporary fuel excise cut costing about A$3 billion over 6 months. Fossil fuel subsidies in 2022-23: A$11.1 billion, rising to A$16.3 billion by 2025-26 (Australia Institute, on its own classification; whether the fuel tax credit counts as a subsidy is contested). No windfall tax on the energy sector. No levy on bank profits; a Major Bank Levy on liabilities has applied since 2017.","src":"ACCC fuel monitoring / Australia Institute fossil fuel subsidies series (corrected 29 September 2026)"},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The fact box above said fossil fuel subsidies of A$14.9 billion were ‘maintained’ through the inflation episode, and that there was ‘No bank levy’. Both were wrong and have been amended, as has the same figure later in this article. A$14.9 billion is the Australia Institute’s figure for 2024-25; its own series puts subsidies at A$11.1 billion in 2022-23, A$14.5 billion in 2023-24, A$14.9 billion in 2024-25 and A$16.3 billion in 2025-26, on its own classification [24]. And since 1 July 2017 a Major Bank Levy has applied to certain liabilities of banks with more than $100 billion in liabilities, at 0.06 per cent a year when the Parliamentary Budget Office costed an increase in May 2024; five banks were captured (CBA, Westpac, ANZ, NAB and Macquarie), and ANZ alone booked $230 million for the March 2026 half. It is a levy on liabilities, not on profits; THE RORT has found no levy on bank profits [25]. The PBO assumed 75 per cent of any increase in the levy would be passed on to customers through fees, mortgage rates or lower savings rates [25].","r":[24,25]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s equivalent: a six-month halving of fuel excise, from March to September 2022. Cost: approximately A$3 billion. Targeted: petrol prices only. Duration: six months. When the excise was restored, prices rose."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The paragraph on the EU said its levy’s revenue “was recycled to support household energy bills across member states”. The regulation, now cited as reference [6] in place of the EUR-Lex homepage, requires member states to use the proceeds for purposes that include support for energy customers, in particular vulnerable households, and also measures to cut energy use, support energy-intensive industry and build energy autonomy; THE RORT has not checked how each member state spent it. The sentence now says what the regulation requires. The same paragraph said Spain \"capped household energy prices\"; what Spain and Portugal capped, from mid-2022, was the price of gas used to generate electricity [51], and the sentence now says so; the French tariff caps now cite the Cour des comptes [50]. The paragraph on the UK said its Energy Profits Levy applied to profits \"above a threshold\" and \"raised approximately GBP 10 billion\". The government’s factsheet states no threshold, and on HMRC figures the levy raised about GBP 9.1 billion in its first three financial years [49]; the paragraph, the pullquote and the key fact now say so, and reference [5] now also names the Treasury note on the bank surcharge.","r":[6,51,50,49,5]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"While the RBA was raising rates to suppress inflation, the banking and fossil fuel sectors were taking in more. On APRA’s data, industry net interest income rose about 16 per cent, from $81.3 billion to $94.4 billion, in the first year of the 2022-23 rises, and margins widened that year before competition compressed them from mid-2023 (THE RORT’s calculation from APRA data) [45]. Neither borrowers nor savers got the full 425 basis points: total deposit rates rose about 325 basis points, outstanding variable mortgage rates rose about 70 basis points less than the cash rate, and the majors’ lending spread over funding costs fell 60 basis points [46]. Article 5 of this series examines the banks in full.","r":[45,46]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph said the four major banks reported a combined record profit of approximately A$32.5 billion in FY23, up 12.4 per cent, and listed the banks among the companies whose price increases were contributing to inflation. THE RORT has no primary source for that figure or that description; both have been replaced with APRA’s net interest income data and the Reserve Bank’s account of pass-through in the 2022-23 cycle [45][46]. The key fact has been amended.","r":[45,46]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The fossil fuel companies whose LNG exports were sold at Ukraine war-elevated prices reported record revenues. In the Senate on 1 April 2026, Senator David Pocock set MYEFO’s $2.7 billion beer excise estimate against $1.5 billion of PRRT for 2025-26, the gas resource rent tax documented in The Rort’s Gas Series; the Final Budget Outcome records $1,416 million of PRRT cash receipts that year. PRRT is a profit-based tax, and company tax and royalties also apply [47].","r":[47]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The paragraph above said Santos had not paid corporate tax on A$30 billion in sales in ten years, and that the PRRT collected less than beer excise. THE RORT has no source for the Santos figure, which was also stated in Australian dollars, and the PRRT comparison gave no basis or year. The Santos sentence has been removed and the PRRT sentence replaced with the Senate figures and the PRRT basis [47].","r":[47]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Fossil fuel subsidies rose from A$11.1 billion in 2022-23 to A$14.5 billion in 2023-24, on the Australia Institute’s figures (on its own classification; whether the fuel tax credit counts as a subsidy is contested). On that classification, Australian governments, federal and state, were subsidising fossil fuel producers and major users while the price spike was driving inflation; no windfall tax was introduced, existing company tax still applied, and Treasury officials later told a Senate committee that after the Ukraine price spike oil and gas producers ran down accumulated tax losses, ‘and that’s what’s led to that increase in tax paid’ [38].","r":[38]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The paragraph above said the government was raising ‘nothing from its windfall’. That overstated the position: company tax still applied, and Treasury officials told the committee that the run-down of accumulated losses led to an increase in tax paid [38]. No windfall tax was introduced. The paragraph has been amended.","r":[38]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute made the windfall tax argument explicitly. Its Richard Denniss wrote that high world prices were driving “bumper profits for the fossil fuel industry”, called cutting the wages of ordinary workers and lifting mortgage interest rates “the laziest and least equitable ways to lower inflation imaginable”, and proposed a windfall profits tax on the gas and coal industry, with the revenue used to push down the cost of education or child care [8]. The government chose not to introduce one.","r":[8]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The last paragraph above said the Australia Institute argued a targeted levy would have raised revenue without raising rates, addressed the specific cause, and reduced the burden on the Reserve Bank; its reference [8] pointed to the Institute’s homepage. Reference [8] now names Richard Denniss’s piece for the Institute, and the paragraph now reports what that piece says: a windfall profits tax on the gas and coal industry, with the revenue spent on cutting the cost of education or child care, against wage cuts and rate rises as the “laziest and least equitable” ways to lower inflation.","r":[8]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Why did the government not do more, such as a windfall tax? The parties’ stated reasons on gas in 2026 are set out below; THE RORT has no stated reason for 2022-23 on the record. Separately, the AEC register records payments from the banks and the gas industry to both major parties, in similar amounts; the register shows the money, not why any party acted as it did."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph offered donations as ‘the political economy answer’ to why the government did not act, and said the supermarkets’ political relationships were documented in the ACCC inquiry. Donations are not evidence of motive, and THE RORT has no source for the ACCC line; both have been amended. The opening paragraph above has since been reworded again so that it no longer sets 2024-25 payments against the reasons for 2022-23 inaction."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The Australian Electoral Commission’s register records such payments for recent years. On their own donor returns for 2024-25, CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ and the Australian Banking Association disclosed payments of $340,501 to Labor and $394,557 to the Coalition, and Woodside, Santos, INPEX, Chevron, Tamboran and their industry body Australian Energy Producers disclosed $430,940 to Labor and $532,429 to the Coalition. These are payments disclosed as donations by the donors, often for fundraising events; the money went to both major sides in similar amounts, and none of it shows why any party acted as it did [26]. The parties’ stated reasons on gas in 2026: the Prime Minister said the middle of a global fuel crisis was ‘the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships’, and the Treasurer said there were ‘good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation’ (both as reported by the ABC); Coalition senators on the 2026 gas tax committee recommended ‘no arbitrary taxation such as a windfall levy on gas exports’ [39][40][41].","r":[26,39,40,41]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In THE RORT’s view, allowing the RBA to carry most of the burden of stabilisation is politically easier than introducing windfall taxes. Rate rises are the RBA’s decision, not the government’s. They are technical, institutional, and at arm’s length. Windfall taxes are government decisions, politically contested, and directly opposed by the industries they target."},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The cash rate was cut three times in 2025, to 3.60 per cent, and has risen four times in 2026, by 100 basis points in all, most recently on 29 September (effective 30 September) to 4.60 per cent, above the 2023 peak and the highest since late 2011 [16]. The pattern has recurred in 2026, with one difference: the government’s own Budget now says fiscal policy is ‘better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks, such as the global oil shock’ [27], while the IMF cautions that fiscal responses ‘should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls’ [28]. The Governor has called the cash rate ‘our only instrument we’ve got’ (3 February) and ‘all we have’ (5 May), said on 5 May that ‘we had an inflation problem before this’, and said fiscal policy ‘has many more things that it can do’ while declining to tell the government what to do [29][30]. She also said that governments spending heavily against capacity limits ‘do need to think about’ ways to constrain demand [30]. The government halved fuel excise from 1 April, and with a further 5.7 cents funded by the states the cut was more than half; it fell to a 16-cent discount from 1 July and ended at midnight on 2 August [31][32]. From 1 July 2026 excessive grocery pricing by the largest supermarkets is also prohibited [44]. The Reserve Bank’s 29 September statement does not mention fiscal policy, government spending or the Budget (an absence in one document, not proof of the Bank’s wider views), and its March and May Minutes do not use the word ‘fiscal’ [33][34][35].","r":[16,27,28,29,30,31,32,44,33,34,35]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The cost fell first on borrowers: Roy Morgan estimated, for July 2026, on its own model, that 32.5 per cent of owner-occupier mortgage holders (1,786,000 people) were ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress [42], though the Reserve Bank’s March 2026 Financial Stability Review found arrears back around pre-pandemic levels [37]. Renters bore it less directly: the Reserve Bank finds rate changes have ‘very little direct effect’ on their cash flows, but it found renters’ financial stress in 2024 was around twice that of owner-occupiers (see the correction below) [37]. It was borne by workers whose real wages fell while some of the largest firms widened their margins, though Reserve Bank research found little evidence of broad margin rises outside mining [43].","r":[42,37,43]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The statement that landlords passed their higher mortgage costs on to renters overstated the evidence, and has been removed from the paragraph above. Reserve Bank research using tax data from 2006-07 to 2018-19 finds investors on average raise rents by about one cent for each extra dollar of mortgage interest (at most three cents in rising-rate periods), ‘limited evidence’ of pass-through, with rents driven mainly by demand relative to the housing stock; the Bank added in October 2024 that pass-through may be higher when vacancies are very low, ‘as is currently the case’ [36]. Renters are under strain regardless: the Bank’s March 2026 Financial Stability Review found the share of renters experiencing financial stress was around twice that of owner-occupiers in 2024 [37]. The paragraph above also gave ‘1.5 million Australian households at mortgage stress’ with no source; it now cites Roy Morgan’s July 2026 estimate, which counts people and is that firm’s own model [42].","r":[36,37,42]},{"a":29,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [2] pointed to the RBA Review’s homepage; it now names the Review’s final report, An RBA Fit for the Future. References [9] (the Senate Economics Committee’s homepage) and [14] (the Grattan Institute’s homepage) carried no passage of this article and now say they are not relied on. The pullquote above now carries references for its UK, EU, French and Spanish figures, and its UK levy figure is corrected to about GBP 9.1 billion [49]. The image at the head of this article has been updated to match.","r":[2,9,14,49]},{"a":30,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Reserve Bank estimates a 100 basis point rise lowers total household disposable income by around 0.2 per cent, hitting those aged 30 to 54 hardest.","r":[16]},{"a":30,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Canstar projects the four 2026 rises add about A$364 a month to repayments on a A$600,000 owner-occupier loan.","r":[17]},{"a":30,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Roy Morgan’s survey model put 32.5 per cent of owner-occupier mortgage holders ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress in July 2026, the highest in 18 years. The Bank’s own measures found severe stress small.","r":[20,21]},{"a":30,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Real wages are falling again: the real Wage Price Index fell 0.7 per cent over the year to June 2026, and youth unemployment rose to 10.8 per cent.","r":[32,33]},{"a":30,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The distributional anatomy of the 2022–23 rate cycle is straightforward once you understand who holds variable-rate debt in Australia. Rate rises help those who hold savings and hurt those who hold debt. In Australia, debt is concentrated among younger households who borrowed to buy homes when prices were high. Savings are concentrated among older households and financial institutions. The 13 rate rises were therefore a systematic transfer of wealth from the first group to the second."},{"a":30,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The scale of that transfer is documented."},{"a":30,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The Reserve Bank’s own estimates, published in January 2025, refine this picture, and limit the charge above: by the Bank’s estimate a rise lowers the household sector’s total disposable income, so the household sector as a whole loses; the rises are not only a transfer between households. Whether banks gain is a separate question, taken up in ‘Who rate rises helped’. For the September quarter 2024, before the 2026 rises, it estimated that a 100 basis point rise lowers total household disposable income by around 0.2 per cent, with the largest average losses for households aged 30 to 54 [16]. By income, higher-income households lose cash flow in aggregate (many have mortgages) while lower-income households gain (more of them rent or own outright); among borrowers, lower-income households lose a bigger share of income [16]. The median outright owner’s gain is only around a third of the median mortgagor’s loss, and many older households ‘typically benefit’ [16].","r":[16]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"RateCity calculated that for an average owner-occupier who started the cycle with a A$500,000 debt at a 2.86 per cent variable rate, the 13 rate rises, passed on in full, added about A$1,210 to monthly repayments, a 52 per cent increase on May 2022. [1] The RBA found that between May 2022 and September 2023 the average outstanding variable mortgage rate increased by around 70 basis points less than the full 425 basis point cash rate increase [50].","r":[1,50]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"32.5% of mortgage holders","t":"‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress in July 2026 (1,786,000 people, not households), the highest in 18 years. Monthly repayments up about A$1,210 on a A$500K loan after the 13 rises, on RateCity’s calculation. The RBA’s March 2026 measures found arrears near pre-pandemic levels and severe stress small.","src":"Roy Morgan (survey model) / RateCity"},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"An earlier version of this article said that by October 2023 more than 1.5 million Australian households were at risk of mortgage stress, up more than 700,000 from before the rate rises. That figure has been withdrawn (see the correction below)."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. After three cuts in 2025 to 3.60 per cent, the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate four times in 2026, to 4.60 per cent from 30 September [34]. In 2026 repayments climbed again. Canstar projects that the four 2026 rises together add about A$364 a month to repayments on a A$600,000 owner-occupier loan (A$303 on A$500,000), assuming banks pass the September rise on from the following month; by 4.46 pm on 29 September none of the big four had announced a change to its rates [17][18]. The ABS found mortgage interest charges rose 8.2 per cent in the June quarter 2026 as banks passed on the February, March and May rises (the rest of the May rise shows in the September quarter), and employee households recorded the largest rise in living costs that quarter (1.5 per cent) [19]. Roy Morgan’s survey model put 32.5 per cent of owner-occupier mortgage holders (1,786,000 people, not households) ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress in July 2026, the highest in 18 years [20]. Its own model estimates a September rise adds 0.2 points (about 12,000 people) [20]. The Reserve Bank’s own measures read differently: in March 2026, before the May and September rises, it found arrears back to around pre-pandemic levels and the share of mortgagors in severe stress small, with most borrowers holding large buffers, though lower-income households hold the thinnest [21]; a little over 1 per cent of variable-rate owner-occupier borrowers were in cash-flow shortfall at the end of 2025 [22].","r":[34,17,18,19,20,21,22]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. As at about 5.00 am AEST on 30 September none of the big four had announced, on the pages THE RORT read, a decision on the September rise: CBA’s home loan page still showed 5 May 2026 and its savings page, dated 29 September, said it was ‘currently reviewing’ its savings rates; Westpac’s and ANZ’s pages, each dated 29 September, said they were reviewing their rates; NAB’s home loan page still showed 3 February 2026 [39]. Two lenders THE RORT has verified have announced dates for variable home loans: Macquarie, from 15 October on its variable home loan reference rates [35], and Teachers Mutual Bank Limited, from 8 October on its variable home loans, across its five retail brands [38]. Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s own example, for an A$400,000 home loan over 25 years at 6.00 per cent, is an increase of about A$62 a month (A$2,577 to A$2,639), with repayments changing on or after 1 November 2026 [38]. That is between A$15 and A$16 a month for each A$100,000 borrowed; Canstar’s projection above works out at about A$15 (A$364 over four rises on A$600,000, about A$91 a rise; THE RORT’s arithmetic).","r":[39,35,38]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026, evening. Between 5.40 pm and 5.43 pm AEST on 30 September the four major banks’ own pages and releases showed that all four had announced a rise of 0.25 per cent a year in variable home loan rates, effective 9 October 2026: CBA [42]; Westpac, for new and existing customers [43]; NAB, on its standard variable home loan rates [44]; and ANZ, on its home, residential investment and line of credit home loans [45]. That is one day after Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s 8 October [38] and six days before Macquarie’s 15 October [35]. Only ANZ gives a dollar figure: about A$79 a month more on an A$500,000 owner-occupier loan with principal and interest repayments [45], which is between A$15 and A$16 a month for each A$100,000 (A$15.80; THE RORT’s arithmetic), in the same range as the Teachers Mutual Bank Limited example and Canstar’s projection above. CBA, Westpac and NAB give no repayment figure [42][43][44]. Each points borrowers in difficulty to support: CBA’s Financial Assistance Solutions Team, Westpac Assist and NAB Care [42][43][44], and ANZ its home loan repayment support [45].","r":[42,43,44,45,38,35]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The subtitle, image caption, image, fact box, pullquote and key facts of this article previously said that more than 1.5 million Australian households were at mortgage stress by October 2023, and the second paragraph of this section repeated it. THE RORT could not verify that figure, and the source cited for it in references [2] and [5], as THE RORT reads it, refers to mortgage holders, not households. The same paragraph also said the RBA found that 1 in 50 mortgage holders could face severe financial stress; that line rested on the same page, has no source THE RORT could verify, and has been removed. Roy Morgan’s survey model counts people. The figure has been replaced with Roy Morgan’s own July 2026 estimate, 32.5 per cent of owner-occupier mortgage holders (1,786,000 people) ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress [20]. In the pullquote it has been replaced with the A$1,210 repayment figure. That is a survey model’s estimate; the Reserve Bank’s own measures, above, read differently.","r":[2,5,20]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Many of the households experiencing these pressures had never seen a rate rise before the cycle began. The RBA’s last rate rise before May 2022 was in November 2010. A borrower who took out a mortgage in 2015 had spent seven years in a falling or flat rate environment. The 13 rises hit that borrower in an eighteen-month period."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026, reworded 8 October 2026. The first paragraph of this section said the RBA found the average outstanding mortgage rate increased by approximately 320 basis points, somewhat less than the 425 basis point cash rate rise, reflecting the partial insulation of fixed-rate borrowers. That figure had no reference in the article, and it was removed on 7 October. The figure was not wrong: the RBA’s April 2024 Bulletin (Ung) says the average outstanding mortgage rate rose by around 320 basis points between May 2022 and December 2023, around 105 basis points less than the cash rate rise over that period, and attributes the slower pass-through to a high share of fixed-rate loans and to lender competition [3]. It is a different measure and end date from the one the paragraph now gives, the average outstanding variable rate, which the RBA’s November 2023 Statement puts at around 70 basis points less than the cash rate between May 2022 and September 2023 [50]. The two are not in conflict. The 7 October wording of this note said the 320 figure did not match the RBA’s own measure and that the source does not give fixed-rate borrowers as the reason; both statements were wrong and are withdrawn. The paragraph itself is unchanged.","r":[3,50]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The first paragraph of this section, the subtitle, the fact box, the chart and the key facts said repayments on a A$500,000 loan were about A$1,210 a month higher \"by April 2024 compared to April 2022\", and the paragraph said variable mortgage rates \"surged 69 per cent\". The A$1,210 figure is RateCity's calculation for an average owner-occupier who started with a A$500,000 debt at 2.86 per cent, with all 13 rises passed on in full (a 52 per cent rise in repayments on May 2022), not a measured April 2024 figure; the text now says so and reference [1] now points to that RateCity page. THE RORT could not find a source for the 69 per cent figure, and it has been removed, including from the key facts, where it now gives the Reserve Bank’s pass-through measure instead [50].","r":[1,50]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s0-b10","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The 7 October note above on the 320 basis point figure gave wrong reasons for the removal. It has been reworded: the figure is the RBA’s measure of the average outstanding mortgage rate to December 2023 [3], not a mismatch with the variable-rate measure the paragraph uses [50], and the source does give a high share of fixed-rate loans as one reason for the slower pass-through. The removal of the unreferenced figure stands.","r":[3,50]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"During the COVID pandemic, with the cash rate at 0.10 per cent, many Australians locked in low fixed rates. The share of outstanding housing credit on fixed rates rose from approximately 20 per cent in early 2020 to a peak of nearly 40 per cent in early 2022. These fixed rates were typically around 2 to 2.5 per cent. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Most of these loans had terms of two or three years. About half had expired by the end of 2023. When they did, borrowers did not transition gradually to higher rates. They repriced on a single day. A borrower who had been paying 2 per cent woke up paying 6.5 per cent. The effective rate increase was 4.5 percentage points, applied instantly. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The September and December quarters of 2023 each saw approximately 15 per cent of the fixed-rate loan stock expire. For those households, the rate cycle did not arrive gradually over 19 months. It arrived in full on the day their fixed rate ended. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The 2026 rises met almost no such cushion. The share of outstanding housing loans on fixed rates fell to a historical low of less than 5 per cent in 2025 [23], and the Reserve Bank says rises ‘can take up to three months’ to reach minimum variable-rate repayments [24]. Over two decades the fixed share averaged about 20 per cent [25], peaking at almost 40 per cent in early 2022 [26]. Against that, more loans now carry somewhere to hold a buffer: over five years the share of housing loan facilities with an offset account rose from about 40 per cent to 55 per cent, and with redraw from about 70 per cent to 80 per cent [23].","r":[23,24,25,26]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. A borrower fixing in late September met higher fixed rates than in mid-August at Macquarie, the one lender THE RORT checked. Its owner-occupier principal and interest fixed rates for loans up to 70 per cent of the property’s value were 0.30 to 0.50 points higher on 30 September than on 13 August (the one-year rate 6.19 to 6.49 per cent, the three-year 6.09 to 6.59), for new loans [36]. Media reports date the first rise to 8 September, and the second was reported on 24 September [37]. This is one lender’s pricing of new fixed loans; it does not change the Reserve Bank’s finding above that fixed rates were a historically low share of outstanding housing loans.","r":[36,37]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 4 October 2026. The paragraph above says Macquarie’s owner-occupier fixed rates were 0.30 to 0.50 points higher on 30 September than on 13 August without saying that this followed cuts. On 5 June Macquarie cut its one- to five-year fixed rates by 0.25, 0.40, 0.50, 0.35 and 0.45 points, from 6.44, 6.54, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.74 per cent, Canstar reported, to 6.19, 6.14, 6.09, 6.29 and 6.29 per cent, the same levels its own page showed on 13 August [46]. Its rates on 30 September, unchanged on 3 October, of 6.49, 6.59, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.64 per cent are 0.05 points above the pre-June levels at one and two years, level at three and four years, and 0.10 below at five (THE RORT’s arithmetic) [46][36]. Most of the September rises reversed the June cuts. A borrower fixing at Macquarie at the rates its page showed on 30 September met rates within 0.10 points of those before 5 June (THE RORT’s arithmetic). The figures and dates in the paragraph above stand; this adds the context they lacked.","r":[46,36]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 4 October 2026. A second lender on the same question: NAB. Between 14 September and 2 October NAB raised its owner-occupier principal-and-interest fixed rates by 0.35 to 0.47 percentage points, and investor fixed rates by 0.30 to 0.45, in two steps. Owner-occupier interest-only fixed rates rose 0.15 to 0.25. The RBA’s cash rate rose 0.25 [47]. Those rises followed NAB’s 22 July cuts: 0.05 points in its one-year owner-occupier rate and 0.20 in its two-year, to 6.34 per cent, and 0.15 points across its investor fixed rates; at 6.81 per cent its two-year owner-occupier rate is 0.27 above its level before the cut, 6.54 per cent [48]. The rates are for new loans [47]. A NAB borrower part-way through a fixed term is not affected: NAB’s general terms say “Any rise in interest rates won’t be passed onto you while your rate is fixed” [49]. When the term ends, the loan rolls onto a variable rate unless the borrower re-fixes, and a re-fixing borrower pays NAB’s “applicable advertised fixed indicator rate that’s published on the day the fixed rate period begins”, adjusted by any margins in the offer letter; none of the NAB pages THE RORT read says whether that rate equals its rates for new loans [49]. A new article in this series, Above the 0.25, tests NAB’s fixed rises against swap rates and bond yields.","r":[47,48,49]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The first three paragraphs of this section now cite the Reserve Bank's April 2024 Bulletin [3], which finds that most pandemic fixed-rate borrowers fixed at around 2 to 2½ per cent, that a little more than half of those loans expired in 2023, that expiring loans repriced to an average of around 6½ per cent at December 2023 rates, and that expiries in each of the September and December quarters of 2023 were around 15 per cent of the fixed-rate stock. Reference [3] now gives the Bulletin's title and these findings. The subtitle said “hundreds of thousands of borrowers” rolled from 2 to 6.5 per cent “in a single day”; the Bulletin gives shares of loans, not a count, so it now says borrowers on about 2 per cent rolled onto about 6.5 per cent on the day their fixed term ended, most of them in 2023.","r":[3]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Renters did not have mortgages, so they were not directly affected by rate rises. They were affected indirectly, mainly through inflation and housing supply."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The Reserve Bank agrees the direct effect is small, ‘very little direct effect’ on renters’ cash flows, but its March 2026 Financial Stability Review found the share of renters with at least one incident of financial stress was around twice that of owner-occupiers in 2024 [16][21]. Governor Bullock said on 3 February 2026 that ‘renters are often struggling as well, inflation is what’s caused them lots of trouble’ [27]. Rents rose 3.6 per cent over the year to July 2026, close to headline inflation of 3.5 per cent [28].","r":[16,21,27,28]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The ABS published August CPI on 30 September. Rents rose 3.6 per cent over the 12 months to August 2026, the same rate as to July, while headline CPI rose 4.0 per cent, up from 3.5 per cent in July [40][41]. Against the August headline figure, rents are 0.4 percentage points below it (THE RORT’s subtraction); the comparison above, close to headline, is July’s.","r":[40,41]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The first channel: landlords. Most investment properties in Australia are financed by variable-rate mortgages. When the RBA raised rates, investors’ debt servicing costs rose. How much of that reached tenants is doubtful: Reserve Bank research finds little pass-through on average, though possibly more when vacancies are very low (see the correction below). With rental vacancy rates near historic lows, itself a consequence of insufficient housing construction over prior years, renters had little negotiating power. They could not easily leave."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The paragraph above said investors ‘passed those costs to tenants through rent increases’; that sentence, the subtitle’s ‘landlords passing on their own mortgage cost increases’ and ‘renters (landlord pass-through)’ in the pullquote at the end of this article overstated the evidence. Reserve Bank research using tax data from 2006-07 to 2018-19 finds investors on average raise rents by about one cent for each extra dollar of mortgage interest (at most three cents in rising-rate periods) and ‘limited evidence’ of pass-through overall, with rents driven mainly by demand relative to the housing stock; the same October 2024 Bulletin notes that pass-through may be higher when vacancies are very low, ‘as is currently the case’ [29]. The paragraph above, the subtitle and the pullquote have been amended; the section heading, formerly ‘Renters: the double hit’, and the line ‘They were affected twice indirectly’ have been amended too. The pullquote’s closing line previously said ‘The people who caused the supply-shock inflation (global energy companies, pharmaceutical supply chain disruption, geopolitical actors) were unaffected by Australian rate rises’; that went beyond what THE RORT can source, and it has been reworded.","r":[29]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The second channel: housing construction. Higher interest rates reduce the viability of new residential construction: the cost of financing a development rises with the cash rate. In April 2023 the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation forecast that new supply of both detached and higher-density homes would weaken in the short term on the back of higher interest rates, with construction cost inflation the highest in 40 years, and expected household formation to outrun new supply by about 106,300 dwellings over the five years to 2027 [13].","r":[13]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The paragraph above said the rate cycle worsened the housing shortage, that fewer homes were built, that the shortage deepened and that rents rose further, citing nothing; the reference behind it, [13], pointed to the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation’s homepage. Reference [13] now names that body’s State of the Nation’s Housing 2023, which forecast weaker new supply on the back of higher interest rates; the paragraph now reports that forecast and no longer states, without a source, what happened afterwards. The paragraph also said Australia’s housing shortage was already acute before 2022; THE RORT found no source for that in the housing body’s reports, and the sentence has been removed. Reference [10], which pointed to the Senate Economics Committee’s homepage and which no passage cited, now says it is not relied on.","r":[13,10]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The rate cycle reduced household borrowing capacity substantially. The RBA’s own analysis found that the 225 basis point increase in the cash rate by mid-2022 alone had reduced maximum loan size by approximately 20 per cent. The full 425bp cycle reduced borrowing capacity by approximately 35 to 40 per cent."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A person on average earnings who could borrow A$600,000 before the cycle began could borrow approximately A$380,000 to A$400,000 at the peak. In Sydney, where median dwelling values exceed A$1 million, this meant the market was effectively closed. First home buyers who had spent years saving a deposit found that their purchasing power had been slashed, not by any change in their own circumstances, but by a central bank responding to a supply shock they had not caused."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. Early, unpublished research by James Graham (University of Sydney) and Avish Sharma (Northwestern University), reported by ABC News on 25 September 2026, estimates that a typical 0.25 point rise causes an immediate 5 per cent fall in home purchases and lowers home ownership by up to about 0.3 points four years later, close to 30,000 households, with younger and lower-income buyers hit hardest; each later rise has a smaller effect than the first [30]. The Reserve Bank’s 29 September statement records that ‘new housing loans have declined noticeably’ [31].","r":[30,31]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The rate cycle did not occur in isolation. It occurred simultaneously with real wage falls that began in 2021. The RBA documented that real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) fell approximately 5 per cent from 2021 and remain around their 2023 trough."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. Real wages are falling again: the real Wage Price Index fell 0.7 per cent over the year to June 2026, with real wage growth forecast positive only from mid-2027 [32]. Unemployment was 4.6 per cent in August 2026, already at the level the Reserve Bank’s August forecast had for mid-2027; over the year 80,000 more people were unemployed while employment grew by 238,100 [32][33]. Young people carry it first: youth unemployment rose to 10.8 per cent, up 1.1 points over the year against 0.4 points nationally [33]. The Bank forecasts unemployment of 4.8 per cent by the end of 2028 [32].","r":[32,33]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute’s arithmetic is stark: a couple with a A$660,000 mortgage who received the average 3.7 per cent wage increase saw their after-tax, after-mortgage, inflation-adjusted income fall 26 per cent in real terms over twelve months. Not because they lost their jobs or took pay cuts. Because inflation cut their purchasing power, higher taxes from bracket creep cut their take-home pay growth, and rising rates cut their disposable income."},{"a":30,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On OECD figures, real household income per capita fell 5.1 per cent in 2023, what the OECD called a record fall, and a further 1.8 per cent in 2024, the largest decline of any OECD country that year, driven mainly by higher interest and tax payments [8].","r":[8]},{"a":30,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The pullquote said variable-rate borrowers paid A$1,210 more a month on a A$500,000 loan \"by April 2024\". That is RateCity's calculation of the 13 rises passed on in full [1], and the pullquote now says so. The fourth paragraph of this section said real household disposable incomes fell 6.1 per cent in the year to September 2023, the largest decline of any OECD country, \"according to the AFR\", and quoted economist Chris Richardson on the largest fall since 1959 and a recovery not before 2027; its reference [8] pointed to the AFR homepage. THE RORT could not find the article or a primary source for those figures. The paragraph now gives the OECD's own figures, a 5.1 per cent fall in real household income per capita in 2023 and a further 1.8 per cent in 2024, the largest decline in the OECD that year, and reference [8] now names that OECD release. The Richardson remarks have been removed, and the key fact and the subtitle, which repeated the 6.1 per cent figure, have been amended. The image at the head of this article has been updated to match: it no longer shows the 69 per cent, 6.1 per cent, 35 per cent or 2027 figures.","r":[1,8]},{"a":31,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Banks earn on the gap between loan and deposit rates. In the three 2026 rises to May, advertised variable mortgage rates rose the full 0.75 points; advertised transaction accounts paid 0.00 per cent throughout.","r":[20,23]},{"a":31,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In the first year of the 2022-23 rises, industry net interest income rose about 16 per cent (THE RORT’s calculation from APRA data), before competition compressed margins from mid-2023.","r":[17]},{"a":31,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In 2026 the average rate paid on household deposits and the rate charged on owner-occupier variable loans both rose 0.7 points.","r":[21,22]},{"a":31,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"APRA reports bank profit of A$42.5 billion in the year to June 2026, up 7.5 per cent. THE RORT’s Senate Journals search found no bank-profits levy.","r":[17,31]},{"a":31,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The mechanism of the bank windfall from the 2022-23 rate cycle is not complicated. A bank earns money on the difference between what it pays for deposits and what it charges for loans. This difference is the net interest margin. In the three 2026 rises to May, banks raised their advertised variable mortgage rates in the same month [20]. The rate they pay on standard transaction accounts barely moves: advertised transaction accounts paid 0.00 per cent in every month from November 2025 to August 2026, through the first three rises [23]. What households were paid on all their deposits rose about as much as what owner-occupiers were charged on outstanding variable loans [21][22]. In 2022-23 the gap widened at first, and industry net interest income rose about 16 per cent in the first year of the rises [17].","r":[20,23,21,22,17]},{"a":31,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The words ‘fully’ (in the paragraph above, now removed), ‘quickly and completely’ and ‘slowly and incompletely’ (in the subtitle, now amended) overstated the 2022-23 record. The Reserve Bank measured that the average outstanding variable mortgage rate rose by around 70 basis points less than the cash rate between May 2022 and September 2023 (new variable rates about 40 basis points less), while the average rate on total deposits excluding offset accounts rose 325 basis points, around 75 per cent of the rise in the cash rate: neither borrowers nor savers received the full 425 basis points [16]. The gap did widen at first. On THE RORT’s calculation from APRA data, the banking system’s net interest income relative to loans rose from 2.12 per cent in June 2022 to 2.35 per cent in June 2023, and industry net interest income rose about 16 per cent in the first year of the rises, before competition compressed margins from mid-2023 (2.17 per cent in June 2026) [17]. Over the whole cycle, the major banks’ spread between lending rates and funding costs fell 60 basis points to around 190 basis points [16]. The subtitle’s closing sentences ‘The gap between the two is profit’ and ‘The RBA’s rate cycle was a transfer from borrowers to banks’ were also removed; above, ‘typically within days’, ‘much more slowly, and much less completely’ and ‘The gap widens. Profit increases.’ were removed or replaced. The subtitle, the paragraph above, the pull quote and the image have been amended. The same overstatements were removed from the body: ‘(fast for borrowers, slow for depositors)’ in the section on the structural reason, and ‘The beneficiary is primarily the banking sector’ and ‘transferred purchasing power from borrowers ... to banks, who widened their margins’ in the closing section, which now give the measured record. In the section on the Senate hearings, the sentence that the answers ‘confirmed the asymmetry’ was replaced, because THE RORT has not re-checked the record of those hearings for this update and the measured 2022-23 record is above.","r":[16,17]},{"a":31,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"In a December 2023 analysis of the 2022-23 cycle, UNSW associate professor Humphery-Jenner described the dynamic plainly: banks are notorious for passing on RBA rate hikes to borrowers but not to depositors [1]. That is a description of that cycle, not a measurement of 2026; the 2026 rate comparison is in the first update below.","r":[1]},{"a":31,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"APRA measures the gap for the whole banking system as net interest income over gross loans. It stood at 2.12 per cent in June 2022, 2.35 per cent in June 2023, 2.25 per cent in June 2024, 2.20 per cent in June 2025 and 2.17 per cent in June 2026 (THE RORT’s calculation from APRA data) [17]. It measures the system, not any one bank, and it is not profit.","r":[17]},{"a":31,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"Profit is a separate measure. APRA reports bank (ADI) profit after tax of A$42.5 billion in the year to June 2026, up 7.5 per cent; in the March and June 2026 quarters, the two that contained the rises, profit was A$20.33 billion against A$20.06 billion a year earlier, up 1.4 per cent (THE RORT’s sum of APRA’s quarterly figures) [17].","r":[17]},{"a":31,"at":"at-lede-5","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article said the four major banks reported a combined record profit of approximately A$32.5 billion in FY23, up 12.4 per cent; gave each bank’s FY23 profit; called Commonwealth Bank’s FY23 profit a record; gave the four banks’ net interest income as A$74.9 billion, up 13.8 per cent, with a 9 basis point margin gain; and said 1.5 million mortgage holders were at risk of stress in the same year, adding that the two numbers were ‘linked through the same rate rises’. THE RORT has no primary source for those figures, that description or that link, and they have been removed from the subtitle, caption, opening section, fact box, key facts, pull quote and image. They are replaced with APRA’s net interest income and profit figures [17]. The sentence that profit increased in 2022-23 now says net interest income rose. The section heading and the closing section were reworded to match.","r":[17]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Net interest income is the aggregate difference between what banks earn on loans and pay on deposits and funding. Across the banking system it rose about 16 per cent, from $81.3 billion to $94.4 billion, in the first year of the 2022-23 rises, and the margin widened before competition compressed it from mid-2023 (THE RORT’s calculation from APRA data) [17]. Over the whole cycle the Reserve Bank measured the major banks’ spread between lending rates and funding costs falling 60 basis points to around 190 basis points [16].","r":[17,16]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"16%","t":"rise in banking-system net interest income in the first year of the 2022-23 rises, from $81.3 billion to $94.4 billion (THE RORT’s calculation from APRA data). Net interest income over gross loans went from 2.12% (June 2022) to 2.35% (June 2023), then fell to 2.17% (June 2026).","src":"APRA Quarterly ADI Performance Statistics"},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"UNSW’s December 2023 analysis reported that Westpac’s NIM rose 2 basis points to 1.95 per cent [15]. As that analysis noted: while two basis points might not sound like much, when the bank handles billions of dollars, it is significant. This is UNSW’s figure; THE RORT has not checked it against Westpac’s filing.","r":[15]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In results for the first half of FY25 (CBA’s half to December 2024, the others’ to March 2025, mostly before the first 2025 cut, effective 19 February 2025), the four major banks’ combined profit was about A$15.5 billion (THE RORT’s calculation from KPMG’s figure for the following half, $15.2 billion, down 2.1 per cent on it) [28]. The temporary NIM windfall from the tightening cycle has partially faded. But bank earnings remained strong.","r":[28]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The cutting phase reversed. After three cuts in 2025 to 3.60 per cent, the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate four times in 2026, to 4.60 per cent from 30 September [18][19]. In the three rises to May, every advertised bank variable housing rate in the RBA’s indicator table rose the full 0.75 points in the months of the rises [20]. What owner-occupiers were actually charged on outstanding variable loans rose 0.7 points (5.5 to 6.2 per cent, December 2025 to July 2026), and what households were paid on all their deposits also rose about 0.7 points (2.8 to 3.5 per cent), so the gap between the two did not measurably widen (against all deposits, not only households’, the gap went from 2.5 to 2.6 points) at the one-decimal precision the RBA publishes [21][22]. This compares one loan rate with deposit rates and is not a bank margin; rounding could hide a change of up to about 0.1 to 0.2 points. On advertised rates, savers in transaction accounts (0.00 per cent throughout), cash management accounts (up 0.30 points) and one-month term deposits (up 0.20) got little or none of the rise; how many savers hold each product is not published [23]. Advertised bonus saver and online saver accounts rose 0.80 points, the bonus saver rate only if a deposit is made and nothing withdrawn each month [23]. APRA reports bank profit after tax of $42.5 billion in the year to June 2026, up 7.5 per cent; on THE RORT’s sum of APRA’s March and June quarter figures, profit in the two quarters that contained the rises was $20.33 billion against $20.06 billion a year earlier (up 1.4 per cent); net interest income for the year to June 2026 rose 5.1 per cent to $103.0 billion while loans grew about 6.6 per cent; and the March quarter bad-debt charge was the highest since at least 2021 [17]. The ABS says financial corporations’ gross operating surplus rose 2.4 per cent in the June quarter 2026, “driven by growth in balances and margins”, as effective loan rates rose more than deposit rates, and 10.2 per cent over the year; the ABS singles out dwelling and business loans, and the figure is for the whole financial corporations sector, not banks alone [24]. On the fourth rise, Macquarie announced on 29 September that its variable home loan reference rates rise 0.25 points from 15 October, and its savings rates by 0.25, 0.05 and 1.85 points across its three balance tiers; by 4.46 pm AEST none of the big four had announced its response [25][26].","r":[18,19,20,21,22,23,17,24,25,26]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. More of the record on the fourth rise, on advertised rates only: balances held in each product are not published, and THE RORT draws no conclusion about any bank’s margin from it. Macquarie’s own release of 29 September also raises its Transaction Account rate from 2.75 to 3.00 per cent, 25 basis points, on every balance tier from 15 October [39]. In September, before the decision, Macquarie’s Digital Term Deposit rates for $1 million or under rose by 5, 15, 15 and 20 basis points on 3, 6, 9 and 12 months between its term deposits page of 1 September and its page of 21 September (verified for the Digital Term Deposit only; the day or days of the rise are not on the record) [40], and its fixed home loan rates for new owner-occupier loans (principal and interest, up to 70 per cent of the property’s value) rose in two steps, a net 0.30 to 0.50 points since 13 August [41]; media reports date the first step to 8 September, and the second was reported on 24 September [42]. Teachers Mutual Bank Limited announced on 29 September that it will raise its variable savings rates by 0.25 per cent a year from Thursday 1 October 2026 and its variable home loan rates by the same from 8 October 2026, across its five retail brands, and states no rate levels [43]. As at about 5.00 am AEST on 30 September none of the big four had announced a decision on the pages THE RORT read: CBA’s savings page, and Westpac’s and ANZ’s home loan pages, each dated 29 September, said they were reviewing their rates, CBA’s home loan page still showed 5 May 2026, and NAB’s still showed 3 February 2026 [44].","r":[39,40,41,42,43,44]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 4 October 2026. The paragraph above gives Macquarie’s net fixed-rate rises since 13 August (0.30 to 0.50 points) without saying that they followed cuts. On 5 June Macquarie cut its one- to five-year fixed rates by 0.25, 0.40, 0.50, 0.35 and 0.45 points, from 6.44, 6.54, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.74 per cent, Canstar reported, to 6.19, 6.14, 6.09, 6.29 and 6.29 per cent, the same levels its own page showed on 13 August [49]. Its rates on 30 September, unchanged on 3 October, of 6.49, 6.59, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.64 per cent are 0.05 points above the pre-June levels at one and two years, level at three and four years, and 0.10 below at five (THE RORT’s arithmetic) [49][41]. Most of the September rises reversed the June cuts. The figures and dates in the paragraph above stand; this adds the context they lacked.","r":[49,41]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The banks’ own accounts are more mixed than the headline. CBA’s cash profit for the year to June 2026 rose 7 per cent to $10,982 million and it lifted its dividend 4 per cent; its margin, 2.05 per cent, was 3 basis points lower than the year before, though up 2 basis points on the first half of the financial year, and it calls the underlying margin ‘broadly stable’, with higher earnings on its deposit replicating portfolio and capital hedges largely offset by lower lending margins [27]. KPMG’s analysis of the majors’ half-year results, mostly before the 2026 rises, put combined profit at $15.2 billion, down 2.1 per cent, as operating costs rose 9.3 per cent while net interest income rose 4.9 per cent to $40.5 billion [28]. The Reserve Bank says the spread between lending rates and funding costs has increased since early 2025 ‘but remains well below its pre-pandemic levels’ [29].","r":[27,28,29]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026, evening. The big four have answered the fourth rise, on advertised rates only; THE RORT draws no conclusion about any bank’s margin from it. Between 5.40 pm and 5.43 pm AEST on 30 September, CBA [45], Westpac [46], NAB [47] and ANZ [48] had each announced, on their own pages and releases, a rise of 0.25 per cent a year in variable home loan rates, effective 9 October 2026: six days before Macquarie’s 15 October [39] and one day after Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s 8 October [43]. On savings, the only change any of the four had stated was Westpac’s: its Westpac Life total variable rate with bonus interest rises 0.25 per cent a year to 5.25 per cent, effective 9 October [46]. CBA’s savings page, dated 29 September, still said it was “currently reviewing” its savings rates, and its release says nothing about savings or term deposits [45]; NAB says it “regularly reviews its savings and deposit rates” [47]; ANZ says it “continues to review other interest rates” [48]. None of the four had stated a term deposit change. ANZ gives the only dollar figure, about $79 a month more on a $500,000 owner-occupier loan with principal and interest repayments [48]. The update of about 5.00 am above records the position at that time.","r":[45,46,47,48,39,43]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 4 October 2026. NAB’s own record on its margin, which this article had not examined. NAB’s group net interest margin rose from 1.70% (half to March 2025) to 1.81% (half to March 2026) and was 1.79% in the June 2026 quarter. NAB’s own investor slides say the ‘benefit of rising rates’ shows up in its replicating portfolios and forecast a tailwind of about 5 basis points for the second half of FY26, while its lending margin was squeezed by competition. Cash earnings excluding a one-off software charge were up 0.1% on a year earlier in the March 2026 half. In the June 2026 quarter they were up 4% on a year earlier and 2% on the March half’s quarterly average, a rise NAB put mainly down to lower credit impairment charges. Full-year FY25 cash earnings fell 0.2% and statutory profit fell 2.9% [50][51]. The slide reads “Benefit of rising rates largely reflected in replicating portfolios”, and the tailwind of “~5bps” is NAB’s estimate as at 31 March 2026, “Based on market implied 3 and 5 year swap rates trajectory as of 31 March 2026 and stable balances”: a forecast made before the May and September rises, not an outcome [50]. NAB’s own margin bridge for the March 2026 half shows its lending margin cut the group margin by 4 basis points (Australian home lending 2, Australian business lending 2), while replicating portfolios added 3, deposits 1, liquid assets 1 and Markets and Treasury 2, on THE RORT’s reading of NAB’s chart [50]. So the lending margin itself narrowed, and the group margin widened through replicating portfolios, deposits and Markets and Treasury [50][51]. NAB’s own account of the half: “Excluding a 2 bps increase from M&T and a 1 bp benefit from liquid assets, NIM was stable reflecting higher earnings from the deposit replicating portfolio combined with lower deposit cost and deposit mix benefits, offset by lending competition.” [51] NAB named lending competition as the drag on its margin in the December 2025 quarter, the March 2026 half and the June 2026 quarter [51]. No NAB or APRA margin or profit figure we have read covers any period after 30 June 2026. NAB’s FY26 result on 5 November covers the year to 30 September and so cannot show the effect of the September 2026 rate rise on its loan and deposit pricing; the March 2027 half, reported on 5 May 2027, is the first full half that can [52]. As at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October NAB’s headline savings rates were unchanged since 17 September [53][54]. In each of the three earlier 2026 rises NAB’s savings rise took effect on the same day as its home loan rise, ten days after the decision, and this time that day is 9 October [54][47]. A new article in this series, Above the 0.25, sets out NAB’s fixed-rate rises, the funding test and the case on each side.","r":[50,51,52,53,54,47]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In 2022-23 the pass-through was incomplete on both sides: outstanding variable mortgage rates rose about 70 basis points less than the cash rate and total deposit rates about 75 per cent as much, so neither borrowers nor savers received the full 425 basis points [16]. In 2026 the full rise reached advertised variable mortgage rates, and little or none reached transaction, cash management and one-month term deposit rates [20][23]. That is not illegal. The account below, made about the 2022-23 cycle, says the banks behave as a small pack that more competition would restrain. For 2026 the Reserve Bank’s paid and charged series show household deposit rates rising about as much as the rate owner-occupiers were charged on outstanding variable loans, with the shortfall at product level (see the update, 29 September 2026, in the first section) [21][22][23].","r":[16,20,23,21,22]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"The banks sort of behave as a small pack. I think if you had more competition they probably couldn’t all pass on the interest rates so easily. But once one of them goes, the other three fall into line and that’s always been the way in Australia because we have what we call the four pillar policy where we only have four major banks.","x":"Tim Harcourt, UTS chief economist","src":"SBS News, September 2023"},{"a":31,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The four pillar policy was designed to maintain competition by preventing the Big Four from merging. The argument made about the 2022-23 cycle is that, in practice, with only four major banks, the result is oligopolistic parallel behaviour on both mortgage rates and deposit rates: when one bank raises its mortgage rate, the others follow, and when one bank fails to raise deposit rates, the others have no competitive incentive to offer more. It is an argument, not a measurement, and it is not a finding about 2026."},{"a":31,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Depositors are also simply less responsive than borrowers. A mortgage borrower on a variable rate has no choice: the rate increases automatically. A deposit holder can move savings to a term deposit or a competitor, but many do not. The inertia of savers allows banks to delay deposit rate rises without immediately losing customers."},{"a":31,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The ACCC’s 2023 retail deposits inquiry found 4 major and 6 mid-tier banks supply 89 per cent of retail deposits, and that 71 per cent of bonus-interest accounts did not receive the bonus rate in an average month in the first half of 2023 [30]. The RBA’s own series for bonus saver rates assumes the conditions (a deposit made and nothing withdrawn each month) are met [23].","r":[30,23]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The House of Representatives Economics Committee held hearings with the chief executives of the four major banks during the rate cycle, on 12 and 13 July 2023 [7]. THE RORT has not re-checked the record of these hearings for this update. Bank executives appeared, defended their margins as reflecting competitive market outcomes, and noted that mortgage competition was intense. The government did not introduce a windfall levy on bank profits. Both major parties received donations from the banking sector.","r":[7]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. THE RORT has found no levy on bank profits, and no Senate vote on a bank windfall tax in 2026 in a search of the Senate Journals [31]. A different bank levy does exist: since 1 July 2017 the Major Bank Levy has applied to certain liabilities of banks with more than $100 billion in liabilities, 0.06 per cent a year at the Parliamentary Budget Office’s May 2024 costing, capturing five banks; ANZ alone booked $230 million for the March 2026 half [32]. The PBO assumed 75 per cent of any increase would be passed on to customers [32]. The Greens took a PBO-costed increase in the levy (to 0.08 per cent a quarter, from 0.015 per cent a quarter, plus a levy recouping Term Funding Facility benefits) to the 2025 election, estimated to improve the budget by about $35.1 billion over the forward estimates [33]. On the last sentence of the paragraph above: on their own AEC returns for 2024-25, CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ and the Australian Banking Association disclosed, as donations, payments of $340,501 to Labor and $394,557 to the Coalition, similar amounts to both major sides; the returns do not show why any party acted as it did [34]. The House Economics Committee’s review of the four major banks has its next hearing on 12 November 2026 [35].","r":[31,32,33,34,35]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The banks were questioned on deposit rate behaviour at committee hearings, and the banks explained their pricing as a competitive market outcome. THE RORT has not re-checked the record of those hearings for this update; the measured 2022-23 record is in the correction above (neither borrowers nor savers received the full rise) [16]. No structural change resulted.","r":[16]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Senate Economics Committee held multiple hearings on bank profits during the rate cycle, and that Labor senators questioned the banks; its heading called them the Senate hearings. THE RORT could not find those Senate hearings. The hearings with the four major banks’ chief executives in the 2022-23 cycle were held by the House of Representatives Economics Committee, on 12 and 13 July 2023, and the paragraphs and heading now say so. Reference [7], which pointed to the Senate committee’s homepage, now names the House’s announcement of those hearings, and reference [35], which pointed to the House committee’s homepage, now names its review of the four major banks.","r":[7,35]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Rate rises are a transfer from net debtors to net creditors. On the Australia Institute’s account [11], household debt is about double household deposits, so on that account rate rises are net negative for the household sector in aggregate: borrowers pay more than depositors receive. Outright owners, about a third of households, gain, though the median gain is about a third of the median mortgagor’s loss [38].","r":[11,38]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Whether the banking sector is the beneficiary depends on the period. In the first year of the 2022-23 rises the margin widened (net interest income over loans 2.12 to 2.35 per cent), which is banks keeping part of the difference between what borrowers paid extra and what depositors received extra, and industry net interest income rose about 16 per cent, before competition compressed the margin [17]. In 2026, on the Reserve Bank’s outstanding-rate series, the rate charged to owner-occupiers and the rate paid to households rose by the same 0.7 points, so that comparison does not show the gap widening, and the year’s profit growth was small in the two rise quarters (see the updates of 29 September 2026 above) [17][21][22].","r":[17,21,22]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The Reserve Bank itself pays interest on the reserves banks hold with it, their Exchange Settlement balances: $12,603 million in 2022/23, $14,651 million in 2023/24 and $9,674 million in 2024/25 on its audited accounts, about $36.9 billion over the three years (THE RORT’s sum). It is paid to all Exchange Settlement account holders and the RBA does not publish it by institution [36]. The RBA’s own review of the pandemic Term Funding Facility puts the facility’s cost to the RBA at about $9 billion, about $4 billion of it from the Board’s decision to extend the facility in early September 2020, when banks had taken up only 60 per cent of their initial allowances; the review says this suggested the banks ‘did not need TFF funding’ to meet borrowers’ demand [37]. The RBA attributes the surge in these balances to its own pandemic package, the Term Funding Facility and bond purchases, and David Jacobs, the RBA’s Head of Domestic Markets, last stated in a speech on 25 August 2026 that ‘The ES rate is set 10 basis points below the cash rate target’; the rate now in force is not published [36]. For the majors the facility cut average funding costs by about 5 basis points, and mortgage rates fell more than the cash rate from February 2020 to February 2022 (the RBA’s table) [37]. The same review says borrowers who locked in low fixed rates were ‘the ultimate beneficiaries’, which is the RBA’s claim [37]. The RBA’s own losses on these pandemic tools fell on its balance sheet (negative equity of $5.3 billion at June 2025), and it chose to rebuild capital from earnings with no government injection [36].","r":[36,37]},{"a":31,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The 13 rises of 2022-23 were designed to reduce demand to fight inflation. They accomplished this partly by making borrowing more expensive for households. Borrowers, who could not reduce their mortgage, paid more; banks’ margins widened in the first year of the rises before competition compressed them from mid-2023 [17].","r":[17]},{"a":32,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Against the 2022-23 price spike Australia leaned on rate rises, a six-month fuel excise cut and, from December 2022, a gas price cap. It introduced no windfall tax.","r":[16,3,20]},{"a":32,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The UK brought in its Energy Profits Levy 23 days after the Reserve Bank’s first rise, and raised rates too.","r":[1,16,43,47]},{"a":32,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Fossil fuel subsidies ran at A$11.1 billion in 2022-23, on the Australia Institute’s count. The Major Bank Levy applies to liabilities, not profits.","r":[23,24]},{"a":32,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"In 2026 the government cut fuel excise again, then ended the cut on 2 August. The ABC reported the Prime Minister “killed off” a move to model windfall levies on gas and coal.","r":[25,34,33]},{"a":32,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 3 May 2022 the Reserve Bank of Australia announced the first rise of its 2022-23 cycle, effective 4 May. [43] On 26 May 2022, 23 days later, the United Kingdom government introduced the Energy Profits Levy, which took effect that day; the Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022 that legislated it received Royal Assent on 14 July 2022. [1] [42]","r":[43,1,42]},{"a":32,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. ‘Three days later’ was wrong on this article’s own dates: 26 May 2022 is 23 days after 3 May 2022. The Reserve Bank announced its first rise on 3 May 2022 and it took effect on 4 May; the 23 days run from the announcement [16].","r":[16]},{"a":32,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"These two events happened within a month of each other, as the Ukraine war drove up energy prices. Both countries faced rising inflation as energy prices climbed, and both needed a policy response. Australia used monetary policy and, on the supply side, a six-month fuel excise cut and, from December 2022, a cap on new east coast gas contracts, with NSW and Queensland effectively capping coal for power generation, but introduced no windfall tax. The UK deployed both monetary and fiscal instruments."},{"a":32,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. This comparison covers 2022 and 2023. Since then the Reserve Bank has raised the cash rate four times in 2026, the latest on 29 September to 4.60% from 30 September, the highest since late 2011 [16]. See ‘Four rises in 2026’ in this series.","r":[16]},{"a":32,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"What follows is a comparison of what was available and what was used."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The UK’s Energy Profits Levy was a surcharge on oil and gas company profits: 25 per cent from May 2022, raised to 35 per cent from January 2023 and later extended. [1] [40] On HMRC figures it raised GBP 2.6 billion in 2022-23, GBP 3.6 billion in 2023-24 and GBP 2.9 billion in 2024-25, about GBP 9.1 billion in its first three financial years. [41] [40]","r":[1,40,41]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The UK also kept a bank surcharge, a levy on bank profits above an allowance on top of corporation tax, through the rate cycle, so part of any rise in UK bank profits was taxed."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph said the surcharge was an additional 3 percentage point levy on bank profits throughout the rate cycle. That was wrong: the surcharge was 8 per cent on bank profits above an allowance and fell to 3 per cent only from 1 April 2023, when the main corporation tax rate rose from 19 to 25 per cent [1]. The paragraph also said UK banks enjoyed the same margin expansion that Article 5 documents for Australian banks; Article 5 is about Australian banks only, and that line has been removed. The chart has been amended.","r":[1]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The UK also raised interest rates. [47] It did not replace monetary policy with fiscal tools. It deployed fiscal tools alongside monetary policy to share the stabilisation burden.","r":[47]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section, the chart, the key facts and the closing comparison said the Energy Profits Levy raised approximately GBP 10 billion. HMRC's figures put its receipts at GBP 2.6 billion in 2022-23, GBP 3.6 billion in 2023-24 and GBP 2.9 billion in 2024-25, about GBP 9.1 billion in its first three financial years [40] [41]; the text and the chart now say so. The opening now cites the Reserve Bank's 3 May 2022 decision [43], the 26 May 2022 factsheet [1] and the Act's Royal Assent on 14 July 2022 [42], so both dates in the 23-day count are sourced. References [1] and [2] now name the specific factsheet and regulation they rely on.","r":[40,41,43,1,42,2]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The European Union’s Regulation 2022/1854 introduced a solidarity contribution on fossil fuel sector companies. The levy applied to profits more than 20 per cent above the average of the preceding four years. Revenue was directed to member states for household energy bill relief."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The EU solidarity contribution raised far less than expected: about EUR 6.85 billion for 2022, under 30 per cent of the EUR 25 billion anticipated from it. It was paired with a revenue cap on generators, the two together expected to raise about EUR 140 billion to fund bill relief (Tax Foundation) [17]. Since 2023, 12 of the 27 EU countries have introduced new bank taxes; an IMF staff paper says EU bank profits since 2022 were ‘mostly driven by the delayed pass-through’ of rate rises to deposit rates and were likely transitory, and its review of the evidence warns bank taxes tend to be passed on to customers, an effect that ‘may be especially pronounced in concentrated markets’; this is EU evidence, not a finding about Australia [18].","r":[17,18]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"France went further, implementing a tariff shield that capped household gas and electricity prices from autumn 2021. The shields limited rises in regulated household tariffs: electricity to 4 per cent in 2022, and gas and electricity to 15 per cent in 2023 [12]. France’s audit court, the Cour des comptes, put the gross cost of all of France’s exceptional energy-price measures from autumn 2021 to 2024, the tariff shields among them, at about EUR 72 billion, and the net cost to the state at about EUR 36 billion [12].","r":[12]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The paragraph on France above said France ‘raised interest rates less aggressively’; THE RORT has no source for that and has removed it. It has also removed two sentences saying that France’s household inflation rate was lower than in unprotected markets and that France thus protected households, for the same reason."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. A separate figure for comparison: for 2023 alone, France budgeted a net EUR 16 billion to cap household and small-business power and gas price rises at 15 per cent, partly funded by producers reimbursing windfall revenues (Bloomberg, 14 September 2022) [19]. That is one year of one measure, on a net basis; the France paragraph above gives the Cour des comptes’ totals for all measures from 2021 to 2024 [12].","r":[19,12]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Spain, with Portugal, capped the price of gas used to generate electricity under a mechanism approved in May 2022 and cleared by the European Commission in June 2022 [44]. Germany capped gas, heating and electricity prices for households and smaller businesses through price brakes from 2023 [45]. Italy taxed energy companies’ windfall gains, at 25 per cent from May 2022 [46]. The Netherlands proposed a 90 per cent windfall tax on electricity producers’ income above set caps, backdated to December 2022 [46].","r":[44,45,46]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The France paragraph said the tariff shield capped prices from late 2021 through 2023 at a cost to the government of approximately EUR 45 billion, a figure THE RORT had not re-checked. France’s audit court puts the gross cost of all of France’s exceptional energy-price measures from autumn 2021 to 2024, the tariff shields among them, at about EUR 72 billion and the net cost to the state at about EUR 36 billion [12]; the paragraph, the key facts, the chart and its description now say so, and the end date has been dropped. Reference [12] now names that report rather than a ministry homepage. References [7], [13] and [14], which pointed to homepages, now name the specific Australia Institute, Tax Foundation and Reserve Bank pages; reference [8], a committee homepage for which no specific record was found, has been withdrawn, and no text relies on it. The same paragraph said the caps prevented the full Ukraine war energy price spike from reaching French households, which THE RORT could not source; it now says what the audit court records, that the shields held regulated tariff rises to 4 per cent for electricity in 2022 and 15 per cent for gas and electricity in 2023 [12], and the chart in the opening no longer quotes the removed sentence. The paragraph listing other countries said Spain capped energy prices, Germany subsidised household energy bills, the Netherlands introduced a windfall tax on the energy sector and Italy a solidarity contribution; it now states each measure as its source records it [44], [45], [46], and says the Netherlands proposed its tax, because THE RORT found it recorded only as a proposal.","r":[12,7,13,14,8,44,45,46]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The sentence on Spain said the gas price cap applied ‘from June 2022’; the source gives only the approval dates, May 2022 for the mechanism and June 2022 for the European Commission, so the sentence now says that. The sentence on Germany said household prices were capped on ‘most of their consumption’; the source describes a cap on 80 per cent of SME gas consumption and heat, and a 40 cents/kWh electricity price for households and small enterprises below 30,000 kWh, so the sentence now says prices were capped for households and smaller businesses. References [45] and [46] were reworded and extended to match.","r":[45,46]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s primary supply-side fiscal intervention in the 2022–23 inflation episode was a six-month halving of fuel excise. This reduced petrol prices by approximately 22 cents per litre from 30 March to 28 September 2022. It cost approximately A$3 billion in foregone revenue. When the cut ended on 28 September 2022, prices rose."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That is the main entry on the list."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The list was incomplete, and this article’s subtitle (‘No price caps’), its image and its key fact describing the fuel excise cut as Australia’s ‘sole’ supply-side intervention were wrong. From late December 2022 the government capped new east coast wholesale gas contracts at $12 a gigajoule; under the same December 2022 plan, New South Wales and Queensland, with Commonwealth funding, effectively capped the price of coal for electricity generation at $125 a tonne [20]. Treasury forecast the caps would reduce inflation by about half a percentage point in 2023-24; that was a forecast, and THE RORT has found no after-the-fact evaluation [20]. The emergency cap expired in December 2023; the mandatory Gas Market Code, in force since 11 July 2023, keeps a $12 ‘reasonable price’ until new arrangements are in place [21], [22]. The Gas Market Review (December 2025) reports stakeholders’ view that the mechanism ‘has not been sufficient to put downward pressure on prices in the context of tight supply conditions’ [22]. The subtitle, the introduction, image, caption, key fact, pullquote and the line on price caps below have been amended.","r":[20,21,22]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$3B vs A$11.1B","t":"Australia’s main 2022 supply-side fiscal intervention: a temporary fuel excise cut costing about A$3 billion over 6 months. Fossil fuel subsidies in 2022-23: A$11.1 billion, rising to A$16.3 billion by 2025-26 (Australia Institute). No windfall tax on the energy sector. No levy on bank profits; a Major Bank Levy on liabilities has applied since 2017.","src":"ACCC fuel monitoring / Australia Institute fossil fuel subsidies series (corrected 29 September 2026)"},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The fact box above said fossil fuel subsidies of A$14.9 billion were ‘maintained’ through the inflation episode, and that there was ‘No bank levy’. Both were wrong and have been amended, as have the paragraphs below. A$14.9 billion is the Australia Institute’s figure for 2024-25; its own series puts subsidies at A$11.1 billion in 2022-23, A$14.5 billion in 2023-24, A$14.9 billion in 2024-25 and A$16.3 billion in 2025-26, on its own classification [23]. And since 1 July 2017 a Major Bank Levy has applied to certain liabilities of banks with more than $100 billion in liabilities, at 0.06 per cent a year when the Parliamentary Budget Office costed an increase in May 2024; five banks were captured (CBA, Westpac, ANZ, NAB and Macquarie), and ANZ alone booked $230 million for the March 2026 half. It is a levy on liabilities, not on profits; THE RORT has found no levy on bank profits [24]. The PBO assumed 75 per cent of any increase in the levy would be passed on to customers through fees, mortgage rates or lower savings rates [24].","r":[23,24]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Windfall tax on oil and gas companies: not introduced. These companies were selling LNG and coal into international markets after the Ukraine price spike [35].","r":[35]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Windfall levy on bank profits: not introduced. APRA reports bank (ADI) profit after tax of $42.5 billion in the year to June 2026, up 7.5 per cent; the Major Bank Levy applies to liabilities, not profits [24], [39].","r":[24,39]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph gave the big four banks’ combined FY23 profit as A$32.5 billion, ‘as documented in Article 5’. Article 5 has withdrawn that figure because THE RORT has no primary source for it. It has been replaced here, in the key facts and in the chart."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Price caps on groceries: not introduced in 2022-23. In March 2025 the ACCC found Coles, Woolworths and ALDI among the world’s most profitable supermarkets, with average product margins up over five years, but did not allege price gouging [5]; the excessive-pricing ban came from 1 July 2026 (see the update below).","r":[5]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b9","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Fossil fuel subsidies: A$11.1 billion in 2022-23, rising to A$16.3 billion by 2025-26, on the Australia Institute’s figures. The Institute puts the federal Fuel Tax Credit Scheme alone at A$10.8 billion."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b10","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The combination: Australian governments were at the same time subsidising fossil fuel producers and major users, A$11.1 billion in 2022-23 on the Australia Institute’s count and classification [23], and the federal government imposed no windfall tax on what those companies earned from the same price spikes.","r":[23]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b11","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The two paragraphs above said subsidies were ‘maintained at A$14.9 billion’ through the inflation episode, including ‘A$9.5 billion in fuel tax credits’. A$14.9 billion is the Australia Institute’s figure for 2024-25, not the level through 2022-23: its series runs A$11.1 billion (2022-23), A$14.5 billion (2023-24), A$14.9 billion (2024-25) and A$16.3 billion (2025-26), on its own classification, and whether fuel tax credits count as a subsidy is contested [23]. THE RORT could not trace the A$9.5 billion fuel tax credit figure to its source; the Australia Institute (March 2026) puts the federal Fuel Tax Credit Scheme at A$10.8 billion [23]. Both paragraphs, the subtitle and the key fact have been amended.","r":[23]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b12","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The government points to underlying cash surpluses of $22.1 billion in 2022-23 and $15.8 billion in 2023-24, the second ‘entirely due to lower payments, not higher taxes’ (the Treasurer’s claim); the budget has been in deficit since 2024-25 [37].","r":[37]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s2-b13","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. In the 2026 round the government again cut fuel excise, citing the war: from 1 April the Commonwealth rate fell by 26.3 cents a litre and, with 5.7 cents funded by the states from extra GST revenue, by 32 cents in total (plus GST), more than half; it became a 16-cent discount from 1 July and ended at midnight on 2 August [25], [26]. The Budget costed the enlarged package at $2.9 billion [25]. The Treasurer expected it to lower headline inflation by half a point through the year to June 2026; economists warned it could add to inflation through demand [27]. The ABS attributes part of July’s 7.5 per cent monthly fuel rise to its partial unwinding, and the Reserve Bank expected the roll-off to lift September-quarter headline inflation [28], [29]. From 1 July 2026 excessive grocery pricing by Coles and Woolworths is prohibited [30]. The government’s own Budget now says fiscal policy is ‘better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks, such as the global oil shock’ [31]; the IMF says fiscal policy ‘should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls’ [32]. The ABC reported in March that a Prime Minister’s department document asked Treasury to model ‘new levy options’ on windfall gas and thermal coal profits, and in May that the Prime Minister had ‘killed off the move, concerned it could upset the trading partners Australia is relying on for fuel’ (the reporter’s characterisation, not a government quote) [33], [34]. The ABC also reported that the May Budget ‘refused calls for a broader 25 per cent tax on gas exports’; Treasurer Chalmers said ‘there are good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation’ [34]. Treasury officials told the 2026 Senate gas committee, as quoted in the Greens’ additional comments to its report, that after the Ukraine price spike oil and gas producers ran down accumulated tax losses, ‘and that’s what’s led to that increase in tax paid’ [35]. Prime Minister Albanese said on 29 April: ‘The middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them’ (ABC live blog) [36].","r":[25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s argument, not a finding we can source: fiscal tools aimed at a supply shock can share the load with rates. The government’s own Budget says fiscal policy is ‘better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks’ [31]; the IMF says fiscal policy ‘should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls’ [32].","r":[31,32]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph said the Grattan Institute and other analysts had documented that combining targeted fiscal intervention with monetary policy is more efficient at reducing inflation than monetary policy alone. THE RORT could not source that finding and has replaced it with a statement of its own argument, set beside the Budget and IMF passages above."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s estimate, not modelled: a levy on the UK’s scale might have raised several billion dollars, though the EU’s contribution raised under 30 per cent of what was expected [17]. Any such revenue could have funded: targeted energy bill relief for low-income households; a larger and longer fuel excise cut; targeted grocery vouchers for food relief.","r":[17]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s argument, not a modelled estimate: some of these tools lower measured prices while they run, but the record is mixed. The gas cap’s half-point effect was a Treasury forecast, and no after-the-fact evaluation was found [20]; economists warned the 2026 excise cut could add to demand [27]; the ABS put part of July’s 7.5 per cent monthly fuel rise down to its partial unwinding, and the Reserve Bank expected the roll-off to lift September-quarter headline inflation [28], [29].","r":[20,27,28,29]},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph gave an illustration (a borrower paying A$900 a month for eighteen months instead of A$1,210 a month for two years) and a sentence on superannuation. They were not a modelled estimate and THE RORT has found no source for them, so the illustration and the sentence have been removed. The opening claim that each of these interventions ‘would have directly reduced the consumer price level’ has also been replaced by the mixed record above."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The government’s stated reasons for not introducing a windfall tax are set out above; Article 7 reports donations to both major parties as facts, which do not show why any party acted."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article said the reason these tools were not deployed ‘is documented in Article 7’. Article 7 reports donations, which are facts beside each party’s stated reasons, not evidence of why any party acted; the government’s stated reasons are given in the update above."},{"a":32,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The pullquote said the UK levy raised \"GBP 10 billion+\". On HMRC figures it raised about GBP 9.1 billion in its first three financial years [40] [41], and the pullquote now says so.","r":[40,41]},{"a":33,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The banks, gas producers and Woolworths disclosed payments to both major parties. Neither party introduced a windfall tax on energy or a levy on bank profits. The returns do not show why any party acted.","r":[26,14]},{"a":33,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In 2024-25 the four major banks and their industry body disclosed $340,501 to Labor and $394,557 to the Coalition; gas producers and theirs, $430,940 and $532,429.","r":[26]},{"a":33,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Every recorded 2026 division on a 25 per cent gas export tax was lost. Both sides gave their reasons, including fuel supply and gas reservation.","r":[27,30,31]},{"a":33,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Since the peak came a mandatory grocery code, ACCC approval of large mergers and a supermarket excessive-pricing ban. None breaks up a company.","r":[19,20,21,18]},{"a":33,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"This article was the shortest in this series when it was published in April 2026, because the analysis it presents is the same analysis The Rort has documented across four previous series."},{"a":33,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"As THE RORT reported in those series: in the Gas Rort, fossil fuel companies extracted Australian resources, paid minimal PRRT, donated to both parties, and government after government declined to reform the tax. The Airline Rort: Qantas cultivated political relationships through the Chairman’s Lounge, donated to both parties, and, as THE RORT reported, the government blocked a competitor’s flights after Qantas asked it to (the government gave its own reasons; not re-verified in this round). The Roads Rort: Transurban donated to both parties, concessions were awarded at events designed to minimise scrutiny, and the toll model was endorsed across party lines."},{"a":33,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The Inflation Rort has the same architecture. Different industries, identical pattern."},{"a":33,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article’s subtitle and closing pullquote said there was ‘No bank levy’ and ‘No price caps’. Both were wrong. A Major Bank Levy on certain liabilities of the largest banks has applied since 1 July 2017; it is a levy on liabilities, not on profits [16]. From late December 2022 the government capped new east coast wholesale gas contracts at $12 a gigajoule, with New South Wales and Queensland effectively capping generation coal at $125 a tonne with Commonwealth funding [17]. THE RORT has found no windfall tax on energy companies and no levy on bank profits. The subtitle, pullquote and image have been amended.","r":[16,17]},{"a":33,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. THE RORT has not re-verified these claims in this article: the supermarket donations; the government’s stated position on bank profits; A$2.9 million for supplier education; the Treasurer’s ‘ongoing supermarket crackdown’; the Australian Food and Grocery Council’s position; ‘record revenues’ for exporters; the 24 per cent supermarket price figure in the image; ‘first such inquiry since 2008’; the Ukraine price spike as a primary driver of 2022-23 inflation, and exporters’ prices as a driver of energy inflation; the Gas Rort and Roads Rort summaries in the second paragraph; the December 2022 inflation peak and the February 2024 direction date; and the statement that the government blocked a competitor’s flights on Qantas’s explicit request. Donations are reported as facts, not as the reason any party acted."},{"a":33,"at":"at-lede-5","k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. Of the claims listed above as not re-verified, the supermarket donations have now been checked against the Australian Electoral Commission’s register: the Woolworths statement stands and the Coles statement is withdrawn (see the correction in the section on the supermarkets). The other claims listed above remain unverified."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In 2024-25 each of the four major banks disclosed payments to both major parties. The Finance Sector Union, which represents bank employees, is affiliated to the ALP [13]. Neither party introduced a windfall levy on bank profits during the rate cycle.","r":[13]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The chief executives of the four major banks appeared before the House of Representatives economics committee on 12 and 13 July 2023, in a year the committee described as characterised by rising interest rates [4]. The government’s position was that bank profits reflected competitive market outcomes.","r":[4]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article gave the big four banks’ combined FY23 profit as A$32.5 billion, and the reader note listed it as not re-verified. THE RORT has no primary source for that figure, so it has been withdrawn from the paragraph above, from the key facts, from the graphic (where the bank row now reads ‘no sourced figure’ in the windfall column) and its description, and from the reader note at the head of this article. The claim that no levy on bank profits has been introduced is unchanged; a Major Bank Levy on liabilities has applied since 1 July 2017 [16].","r":[16]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The AEC register supports this section’s first sentence: in 2024-25 each of the four major banks disclosed payments to both Labor and the Coalition, while in 2023-24 ANZ disclosed only $5,500, to the Coalition. On their own donor returns for 2024-25, CBA, Westpac, NAB, ANZ and the Australian Banking Association disclosed payments of $340,501 to Labor and $394,557 to the Coalition ($255,250 and $287,869 in 2023-24). These are payments disclosed as donations by the donors, which parties often record as other receipts, usually fundraiser or event payments, to both major sides in similar amounts; they do not show why any party acted as it did [26]. THE RORT found no Senate vote on a bank windfall tax in 2026 [27]; the Greens took a PBO-costed increase in the Major Bank Levy to the 2025 election [28]. Costing a 10 per cent increase in the levy in 2024, the Parliamentary Budget Office assumed 75 per cent of any increase would be passed on to customers through fees, mortgage rates or lower savings rates [16].","r":[26,27,28,16]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Finance Sector Union is affiliated with the ALP “through the union movement”; the union says it is affiliated to the Australian Labor Party itself [13], and the sentence now says so. It also said that “Senate hearings on bank profits during the rate cycle were held”, that Greens and crossbench senators proposed a temporary windfall levy and that Labor senators declined to support it, citing the Parliament’s home pages. The hearings THE RORT can find were the House of Representatives economics committee’s, on 12 and 13 July 2023, which the committee’s release set in a year of rising interest rates [4]; that sentence has been corrected. THE RORT could not find a record of the windfall levy proposal or of Labor senators’ response, so those two sentences have been removed. The reader note at the head of this article listed both lines as not re-verified; they have been taken off that list, since this correction resolves them.","r":[13,4]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The paragraph above, and the 7 October note, said the July 2023 hearings covered the banks’ deposit and loan rates. The committee’s release, reference [4], names the four chief executives’ appearance on 12 and 13 July 2023 and sets it in a year of rising interest rates; it does not mention deposits, and THE RORT has not found a record that the hearings covered deposit and loan rates. Both passages and the reference now say only what the release says.","r":[4]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Ukraine war energy price spike was a primary driver of 2022-23 Australian inflation. The LNG and coal exporters whose prices were elevated by that spike earned record revenues. Fossil fuel subsidies rose from A$11.1 billion in 2022-23 to A$14.5 billion in 2023-24, on the Australia Institute’s figures. No windfall tax was introduced."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The paragraph above said subsidies of A$14.9 billion were ‘maintained’ throughout the 2022-23 episode. A$14.9 billion is the Australia Institute’s figure for 2024-25; its series puts subsidies at A$11.1 billion in 2022-23, rising to A$16.3 billion in 2025-26, on its own classification [25]. The paragraph and the key fact have been amended.","r":[25]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Gas Rort series documented the fossil fuel sector’s political connections in detail: donations to both parties, revolving doors between industry and government, party memberships and industry body access. Donations to both major parties continued in 2023-24 and 2024-25 (see the update below). No windfall tax was introduced, while Australian households paid higher energy prices from the same price spikes."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. On their own AEC returns for 2024-25, Woodside, Santos, INPEX, Chevron, Tamboran and their industry body Australian Energy Producers disclosed payments of $430,940 to Labor and $532,429 to the Coalition; in 2023-24 the same group (Tamboran filed no return) disclosed $360,406 and $349,850. Woodside’s disclosed total over 17 financial years is $3,193,687, split between Labor ($1,498,412), the Liberal Party ($1,431,095) and the Nationals ($264,180). These are payments disclosed as donations by the donors, to both major sides in similar amounts; none of it shows why any party voted as it did [26]. The parties gave their own reasons. Prime Minister Albanese, 29 April 2026: ‘The middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them’ [29]. Treasurer Chalmers, reported 10 May 2026: ‘there are good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation’ [30]. Coalition senators McDonald and Dean Smith, in the committee’s additional comments: Australia ‘needs an increased tax take, not an increased tax rate’ [31]. Labor senators, in their additional comments, recommended that Treasury or the Productivity Commission evaluate the proposals after the crisis has passed and once gas reservation is designed, aiming to avoid ‘damaging vital regional relationships or undermining Australia’s energy and national security’ [32]. Treasury officials told the committee, as quoted in the Greens’ additional comments, that after the Ukraine price spike oil and gas producers ran down accumulated tax losses, ‘and that’s what’s led to that increase in tax paid’, and that further price pass-through ‘would also directly translate through to higher corporate tax paid’ [32]. In 2026 THE RORT found seven recorded parliamentary divisions on a 25 per cent gas export tax, and every one was lost: Senate 12 March (13-35 and 13-34), 31 March (10-26), 1 April (12-32), 29 June (10-33) and 12 August (11-30), and the House on 2 June (9-71, the Coalition not voting) [27].","r":[26,29,30,31,32,27]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The government directed the ACCC to conduct its Supermarkets Inquiry in February 2024. Australian inflation had peaked in December 2022. The inquiry was directed approximately 14 months after the inflation peak and reported about 13 months after that."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph’s intervals were wrong on its own dates. From the December 2022 inflation peak to the February 2024 direction is about 14 months (THE RORT’s count), not eighteen; and the ACCC published its final report with a media release dated 21 March 2025 [18], about 13 months after the direction (THE RORT’s count), not fifteen. The peak and direction dates are this article’s own and were not re-checked in this round. The places that said ‘eighteen months’ or ‘18 months’ (the subtitle, the section heading and contents entry, a key fact, the image and three reference descriptions) have been amended, as has the same phrase in ‘The reckoning’.","r":[18]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute and the Centre for Future Work published research during the inflation peak arguing that corporate margin expansion was a significant driver of inflation. In THE RORT’s view, if the government had acted on that analysis at the time, commissioning a rapid inquiry and deploying interim price transparency tools, the findings could have been available while inflation was still high, not two years later. The Reserve Bank’s May 2023 analysis found ‘little evidence’ of a broad rise in non-mining margins as an independent cause of inflation, though some highly profitable large firms widened margins [33], and a later RBA staff analysis found that import prices and business owner returns accounted for a larger share of household consumption deflator growth immediately after COVID [34]; the ACCC’s final report did not allege price gouging [18], [3].","r":[33,34,18,3]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The political context: Woolworths donates to both parties. The Australian Food and Grocery Council consistently opposes mandatory price controls and transparency mandates. The government’s ‘ongoing supermarket crackdown’, as Treasurer Chalmers described it, included an inquiry, A$2.9 million for supplier education, and promises of future transparency legislation."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The list above was incomplete when published. The Food and Grocery Code became mandatory on 1 April 2025 for supermarkets and grocery wholesalers earning over $5 billion (ALDI, Coles, Metcash and Woolworths), with penalties up to the greater of $10 million, three times the benefit or 10 per cent of turnover [19], and from 1 January 2026 acquisitions above the thresholds must be notified to the ACCC and wait for its approval, a reform the Treasurer tied to grocery prices [20]. This paragraph, the subtitle, pullquote, a key fact and the image have been amended.","r":[19,20]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. From 1 July 2026 excessive pricing by very large retailers (currently Coles and Woolworths), judged ‘significantly excessive’ against the cost of supply plus a reasonable margin, is prohibited [21]. The Unfair Trading Practices Bill passed on 2 July 2026, banning subscription traps and undisclosed checkout fees from 1 July 2027; for financial services the government is only exploring ‘further alignment’ with ASIC and the states [22].","r":[21,22]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph beginning ‘The political context’ and the subtitle said that Woolworths and Coles donate to both parties. THE RORT searched the Australian Electoral Commission’s Transparency Register (Annual Donor Returns, Donations Made Details) on 30 September 2026 [14]. The register supports the statement for Woolworths: the 2024-25 return of Woolworths Group Limited lists A$27,900 in donations, A$14,500 to the Australian Labor Party, A$10,100 to the Liberal Party of Australia and its Western Australian Division, and A$3,300 to the National Party of Australia. It does not support it for Coles as a donor: a search of the Annual Donor Returns and Donations Made Details for names containing ‘Coles’ finds returns only under the names Coles Myer Ltd, Coles Myer Finance Limited and Coles Group, the last of them for 2007-08, and none after that. The political parties’ own returns in the same register do record payments from Coles Group to the Australian Labor Party (A$82,500 in each of 2011-12, 2013-14 and 2015-16) and to the Liberal Party of Australia (2012-13 to 2014-15), entered as other receipts, not donations; none to a party appears after 2015-16. The receipts side of the register also lists payments from Coles Group Limited in each year from 2019-20 to 2024-25 to associated entities (the Cormack Foundation Pty Ltd, and in 2024-25 the Higgins Foundation Ltd), entered as other receipts and not disclosed as donations. The register names the Liberal Party of Australia (Victorian Division) as the associated party of both entities, and their returns list other receipts, often twice a year, from many listed companies, including BHP, ANZ, the Commonwealth Bank and Woolworths Limited. THE RORT has not established what the Coles payments were for. The Coles statement is withdrawn, and the subtitle, that paragraph and the pullquote in the section on the structural pattern (which said ‘The supermarkets donated to both parties’) now refer to Woolworths only. The image caption is qualified and the image alt text amended; the chart graphic has been redrawn to match: Woolworths gives to both parties, and Coles is shown separately. THE RORT did not search under other names, so this does not show that no company in the Coles group has made a donation since 2007-08. The register shows what donors reported to the Commission, not why any donation was made.","r":[14]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT has published a number of cases, among them Media Ownership, Gas, Airlines, Roads and Inflation. THE RORT reads the same political architecture in each of those five."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Regulated or oligopolistic industries with market power make above-normal profits from that power."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"These industries donate to both major parties and maintain relationships through revolving doors, hospitality, and industry bodies."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Regulators identify the structural problems, document them carefully, and make recommendations."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Governments commission reviews, produce responses, and announce crackdowns that consist primarily of monitoring and transparency measures."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Structural reform, the change that would actually reduce the market power producing the above-normal returns, is not implemented."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. Readers weighing this claim should know what has been put in place or announced since the inflation peak: a mandatory grocery code since 1 April 2025 [19], mandatory ACCC approval of large mergers since 1 January 2026 [20], a prohibition on excessive supermarket pricing since 1 July 2026 [21], the Gas Market Code’s $12 ‘reasonable price’ since 2023 [23], and a gas reservation scheme announced to start on 1 July 2027, whose legislation was at exposure-draft stage in September 2026 [24]. Whether any of these is structural is a judgement; none breaks up a company, and the ACCC did not recommend divestiture [18], [3].","r":[19,20,21,23,24,18,3]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above said a gas reservation scheme was announced to start on 1 July 2027. The department’s reform page, last updated 29 September 2026, still says ‘This scheme will commence from 1 July 2027.’ But the ministers’ joint media release of 10 September 2026 says the ‘licence application process will commence from 1 January 2027, with the Domestic Supply Obligation to commence from 1 January 2028’, and the same department page says ‘Obligations are expected to start on 1 January 2028.’ Licence applications therefore start on 1 January 2027 and the Domestic Supply Obligation on 1 January 2028, not on 1 July 2027. The 7 May 2026 announcement gave 1 July 2027 [24].","r":[24]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The consumer pays the above-normal price."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b10","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In THE RORT’s reading, structural reform in each of these cases is a political decision. This article does not say why governments have or have not made it."},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b11","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The paragraph above said the fix ‘requires a government willing to impose structural costs on industries that fund its re-election campaigns’ and that the rort persists because ‘the incentive structure that produces it also produces the political relationships that protect it’. Those sentences placed donations beside inaction as its explanation, which the record does not support. The donor returns show payments disclosed as donations to both major sides in similar amounts, which parties often record as other receipts, usually fundraiser or event payments; they do not show why any party acted [26]. The government and the Coalition have given their own reasons for their gas votes (see ‘The fossil fuel sector’ above). Those sentences have been removed, and the image caption, the subtitle and the pullquote no longer imply a cause. Two other phrases that implied a cause were also changed: ‘The political explanation’ in the supermarket section now reads ‘The political context’, and the fossil fuel section no longer says the sector’s ‘political protection remained intact’. The key number and graphic that read ‘0 structural reforms implemented’ now read ‘0 divestitures recommended by the ACCC’, and the graphic’s ‘NO REFORM’ now reads ‘NO BREAK-UP’, because whether the measures listed in the update above are structural is a judgement. The paragraph that said THE RORT had ‘published five complete series’ was also out of date; it now says only that THE RORT has published a number of cases.","r":[26]},{"a":33,"at":"at-s3-b13","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Several references named only a home page or section page, not a document. Reference [14] now gives the AEC Transparency Register pages it relied on, without the AEC section page. References [1] and [11] are no longer relied on: the donations they described are carried by the register data in reference [26]. References [9] and [12] are no longer relied on: no claim in this article rests on them. References [4], [7] and [13] are explained in the correction under “The bank donation pattern”.","r":[14,1,11,26,9,12,4,7,13]},{"a":34,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"THE RORT’s lesson from 2022-23: putting the whole burden of supply-side inflation on rates makes the cost fall hardest on borrowers, and among them on lower-income households with thinner buffers.","r":[45,43]},{"a":34,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Inflation was back in the band by late 2024 but did not stay. It peaked at 4.6 per cent in March 2026 and was 4.0 per cent in August.","r":[18,16,46]},{"a":34,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The cycle began again: four rises in 2026 took the cash rate to **4.60 per cent**, and real wages fell 0.7 per cent over the year to June 2026.","r":[19,20]},{"a":34,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"There is still no standing windfall mechanism. Every recorded 2026 division on a 25 per cent gas export tax was lost.","r":[27,28]},{"a":34,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"By late 2024, Australian inflation had returned to within the Reserve Bank’s 2 to 3 per cent target band. The thirteen rate rises worked. The official purpose of the rate cycle was achieved."},{"a":34,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. Inflation did not stay there. Annual CPI inflation, 1.9 per cent in June 2025, rose to 3.0 per cent in July 2025 and 3.8 per cent by October, was 3.7 per cent in February 2026 and peaked at 4.6 per cent in March 2026, before easing to 3.5 per cent in July 2026 [16][17]. The Reserve Bank had said in November 2024 that headline inflation would be temporarily within the target range ‘owing primarily to cost-of-living support measures’ [18]. After three cuts in 2025 it has raised the cash rate four times in 2026, to 4.60 per cent from 30 September, the highest since 2011 [19], and in August expected inflation to return to around the midpoint by late 2027, with underlying inflation at the 2.5 per cent midpoint in 2028 [40][20]. The subtitle’s ‘This is not contested’ and ‘They have not’ describe late 2024, as this article reported it in April 2026; by then inflation was already back above the band (3.7 per cent in February 2026) [17]; see also the update under ‘What has not changed’.","r":[16,17,18,19,40,20]},{"a":34,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The fall to 3.5 per cent in July 2026, described above, did not continue in August. The ABS published August CPI on 30 September: annual CPI rose 4.0 per cent in the 12 months to August 2026, up from 3.5 per cent in the 12 months to July, and trimmed mean inflation was 3.6 per cent, unchanged [46][47]. The words ‘easing to 3.5 per cent in July 2026’ in the update above describe the run to July; 3.5 per cent is no longer the latest figure.","r":[46,47]},{"a":34,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"What follows is an accounting of the cost."},{"a":34,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. The graphic at the head of this article, its description and reference [4] previously said that mortgage stress households rose from about 800,000 to more than 1,500,000, and that the big four banks’ annual profit rose from about A$28 billion to A$32.5 billion (marked as not re-verified). THE RORT has no primary source for the A$32.5 billion or the A$28 billion, could not verify the household figures, and reads the source cited for them as describing mortgage holders, not households; all four figures have been withdrawn. The graphic now shows Roy Morgan’s July 2026 estimate that 32.5 per cent of owner-occupier mortgage holders (1,786,000 people) were ‘At Risk’ of mortgage stress, a survey model that counts people, and KPMG’s figure of A$15.2 billion combined profit after tax for the big four’s latest half-year results, down 2.1 per cent [29]; neither has an earlier figure to compare. The caption’s line ‘Bank profits stayed high’ has been replaced to match.","r":[4,29]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Real wages, wages adjusted for inflation, fell approximately 5 per cent from 2021 by the RBA’s own measurement. They remain around their 2023 trough. For a worker who earned A$80,000 in December 2020, this represents earning approximately A$4,740 less per year in purchasing power terms. The cumulative three-year real wage loss is approximately A$10,000 for this worker."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Nominal wages grew during this period. They grew slower than inflation for most of 2022–23. When they caught up, when wage growth finally began to exceed the now-falling inflation rate, the real wage level had already been reduced. Catching up with a lower inflation rate is not the same as recovering the lost purchasing power."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Near 2023 trough","t":"Real wages (WPI measure) remain near 2023 trough. Cumulative 3-year real wage loss for average worker: ~A$10,000.","src":"RBA / Australia Institute"},{"a":34,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute calculated that workers who received average annual wage increases over the five years to early 2026 had endured cumulative real wage cuts of approximately 2.57 per cent. For a worker earning A$90,000 in December 2020: earning approximately A$2,780 less per year in real terms."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The fact box in this section said real household disposable incomes were expected to return to pre-inflation levels no earlier than 2027, citing the Australian Financial Review’s home page [2]. THE RORT could not find a document stating that date, so it has been removed from the fact box and the key facts; see the correction in the next section.","r":[2]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The rate cycle did not just hurt existing mortgage holders. It damaged the structural conditions of Australian housing for years."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Higher interest rates reduced the viability of new residential construction. In April 2023 the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation forecast that net new housing supply would fall from 148,500 dwellings in 2022-23 to around 127,500 in 2024-25, owing to higher interest rates [3]. Australia’s housing shortage, already severe before 2022, deepened during the rate cycle. The shortage that predated inflation was worsened by the response to it.","r":[3]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Those who bought at the bottom of the market, when rates were at their peak, paid the highest possible price in debt servicing costs for their housing."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"How long it will take to recover the ground lost during the inflation episode is not known."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section cited only home pages for its housing claims. It said “Fewer homes were built”; it now gives what the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation forecast in March 2023, a fall in net new supply from 148,500 dwellings in 2022-23 to around 127,500 in 2024-25 owing to higher interest rates [3]. It said first home buyers’ purchasing power fell by 35 to 40 per cent; THE RORT could not find a source for that figure, which has been removed, and the sentence now says the amount they could borrow was reduced [3]. It said real household disposable incomes were not expected to return to December 2019 levels until 2027 and that the lost ground would take a decade to recover; THE RORT could not find a document stating either, and both have been removed [2]. It also said that some first home buyers gave up on home ownership; THE RORT could not find a source for that, and the sentence has been removed.","r":[3,2]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the forecast fall in housing supply was owing to higher interest rates and lower prices, and that first home buyers found the amount they could borrow reduced by the rate rises, both citing the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. The Corporation’s release of 3 April 2023, reference [3], attributes the fall to the earlier rise in interest rates; it does not mention lower prices or buyers’ borrowing capacity. ‘Lower prices’ and the borrowing sentence have been removed, and the 7 October note above is wrong to say that the release carries the borrowing point. The release is dated 3 April 2023, not March 2023 as the paragraph and the 7 October notes said.","r":[3]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The structural conditions that contributed to the inflation episode and that determined who bore the adjustment cost are largely unchanged."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The supermarket oligopoly: Woolworths (38%) and Coles (29%) still control 67 per cent of grocery sales. EBIT margins remain among the highest globally. Woolworths and Coles shares surged on the day the ACCC’s report was released. The structural conditions for the next supply-shock margin expansion are intact."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The fossil fuel subsidy: A$16.3 billion in 2025-26 on the Australia Institute’s figures, rising. No windfall tax was introduced during the inflation episode. No windfall tax mechanism exists for the next one."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph gave fossil fuel subsidies as ‘A$14.9 billion annually, rising’. The direction was right but the figure was out of date when this article was published: the Australia Institute’s March 2026 edition put subsidies at A$16.3 billion in 2025-26, up 9.4 per cent on A$14.9 billion in 2024-25, on its own classification [21]. The paragraph, key fact and image have been amended.","r":[21]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The banking oligopoly: four major banks, four pillars policy intact. Bank combined profits were about A$15.5 billion in H1 FY25 (THE RORT's calculation from KPMG's 1H26 figure of A$15.2 billion, down 2.1 per cent). The asymmetric pass-through mechanism is unchanged."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The policy architecture: no standing mechanism for windfall taxes, no mandatory corporate price transparency during supply shocks, no pre-approved household relief packages for the next energy price spike."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. Since this was written, excessive pricing by ‘very large retailers’ in groceries (currently Coles and Woolworths) has been prohibited from 1 July 2026; no enforcement outcome has been checked [22]. Already in force when this was written, though not mentioned here: acquisitions above the thresholds have had to wait for ACCC approval since 1 January 2026 [23]; APRA has limited lending at a debt-to-income ratio of six or more to 20 per cent of new mortgage lending from February 2026, a limit framed around financial resilience rather than inflation [24]; and a Major Bank Levy on liabilities, not profits, has applied since 2017 [26]. A gas reservation scheme is due to start on 1 July 2027 [25]. There is still no standing windfall mechanism: the ABC reported that a Prime Minister’s department document asked Treasury in 2026 to model ‘new levy options’ on windfall gas and thermal coal profits, and later reported that the Prime Minister ‘killed off the move, concerned it could upset the trading partners Australia is relying on for fuel’ (the reporter’s characterisation, not a government quote) [27]. Every one of the seven recorded parliamentary divisions THE RORT found in 2026 on a gas export tax was lost [28]. The government’s stated reasons: the Treasurer said ‘I know that people would like us to go further but there are good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation’, and the Prime Minister said on 29 April that ‘The middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them’. The Coalition senators on the gas committee recommended ‘no arbitrary taxation such as a windfall levy on gas exports’, saying Australia ‘needs an increased tax take, not an increased tax rate’ [37][38]. The majors’ combined half-year profit, which this section put at A$15.5 billion for the first half of FY25, was A$15.2 billion in their latest halves, down 2.1 per cent on 1H25 (KPMG); those halves are mostly from before the 2026 rises, so they neither prove nor disprove that the rises enrich banks [29]. APRA puts the profit after tax of all authorised deposit-taking institutions, not only the majors, at A$42.5 billion in the year to June 2026, up 7.5 per cent [30]. In the March and June 2026 quarters, the two in which the first three 2026 rises took effect, APRA’s profit figure was A$20.33 billion against A$20.06 billion a year earlier, up 1.4 per cent, and the March 2026 quarter’s bad-debt charge was the highest since at least 2021 [30]. On the RBA’s tables, the average rate charged on outstanding owner-occupier variable loans and the average rate paid on outstanding household deposits both rose 0.7 points from December 2025 to July 2026, so the gap between them (2.7 points in both months) did not measurably widen at the precision published; this compares one loan type with deposits and is not a bank margin (THE RORT’s arithmetic). The asymmetry in 2026 is at product level: advertised transaction accounts paid nothing from November 2025 to August 2026, advertised cash management accounts and 1-month term deposits rose about 27 to 40 per cent as much as the 0.75 points of rises over that period (THE RORT’s calculation from Table F4: rises of 0.30 and 0.20 points against 0.75), and every advertised bank variable housing rate rose the full 0.75 points, while advertised bonus saver and online saver rates rose 0.80 points, bonus rates only if a deposit is made and nothing withdrawn each month; balances held in each product are not published, so how many savers sit in each is unknown [39].","r":[22,23,24,26,25,27,28,37,38,29,30,39]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above said a gas reservation scheme is due to start on 1 July 2027. The department’s reform page, last updated 29 September 2026, still says ‘This scheme will commence from 1 July 2027.’ But the ministers’ joint media release of 10 September 2026 says the ‘licence application process will commence from 1 January 2027, with the Domestic Supply Obligation to commence from 1 January 2028’, and the same department page says ‘Obligations are expected to start on 1 January 2028.’ Licence applications therefore start on 1 January 2027 and the Domestic Supply Obligation on 1 January 2028, not on 1 July 2027. The 7 May 2026 announcement gave 1 July 2027 [25].","r":[25]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Australia will face another supply shock. Supply shocks are not one-off events. Energy price spikes, pandemic-related supply chain disruption, geopolitical trade disruption: these are recurring features of a globalised economy."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In February 2026, the RBA raised rates again. Inflation was re-accelerating, partly because government electricity rebates were removed. Real wages were projected to fall further. The cycle threatened to begin again."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. The cycle did begin again. The February rise, to 3.85 per cent (announced 3 February, effective 4 February, unanimous) [31][19], was followed by rises to 4.10 per cent in March, by five votes to four [32], to 4.35 per cent in May, by eight votes to one [33], and to 4.60 per cent (announced 29 September, effective 30 September), unanimously [34][19]. The February rise came before the Middle East war: the IEA dates the US and Israeli air strikes on Iran to 28 February, 25 days after the 3 February decision [35]. The February statement does not mention oil, fuel, gas, energy or the Middle East; it said global uncertainty ‘remains significant’ and that part of the pick-up in inflation was temporary, and it cited inflation that ‘picked up materially in the second half of 2025’ and private demand ‘growing more quickly than expected’ [31]. From March the RBA did name the war: its 17 March statement said ‘the conflict in the Middle East has resulted in sharply higher fuel prices, which, if sustained, will add to inflation’ [32], and its 29 September statement gives the war and higher global energy prices as its first reasons [34]. On the rebates: measured electricity prices did jump as they ended (37.0 per cent over the year to February 2026, against 4.9 per cent excluding rebates) [36], but the February statement does not mention energy, so the link drawn here is one of timing only [36][31]. Real wages did fall further: the real Wage Price Index fell 0.7 per cent over the year to June 2026, and the RBA forecasts real wage growth to turn positive only from mid-2027 [20].","r":[31,19,32,33,34,35,36,20]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The lesson of the 2022–23 episode (that supply-side inflation requires supply-side tools, and that placing the entire burden on monetary policy makes the cost fall hardest on borrowers [45], and among them on lower-income households with thinner buffers [43], while leaving the structural causes of inflation intact) has not been institutionalised. There is no policy architecture in place to respond to the next supply shock differently.","r":[45,43]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This paragraph said placing the burden on monetary policy ‘transfers wealth from borrowers to banks’. The RBA’s figures do not support that as written: in 2022-23 neither borrowers nor savers got the full rise, and the majors’ lending spread over funding costs fell, though major bank margins increased modestly in 2022 before falling below their pre-pandemic level [42]; in 2026 the average rates charged on owner-occupier variable loans and paid on household deposits both rose 0.7 points (see the update under ‘What has not changed’) [39]. On the other side, the ABS reported that in the June quarter of 2026 financial corporations’ margins rose ‘as effective interest rates on loans rose more than interest rates on deposits’, a whole sector that includes more than banks, and business as well as housing loans [44]. The sentence has been amended.","r":[42,39,44]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Article 6 of this series documented the tools other OECD countries used that Australia did not. For the next supply shock, the policy toolkit that would more equitably share the adjustment cost:"},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A standing trigger mechanism for windfall taxes on corporate sectors earning excess profits from supply shocks, defined as profits more than a specified percentage above the preceding four-year average. Revenue directed to household relief."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Mandatory real-time price transparency for oligopolistic food retail, allowing the ACCC to identify margin expansion as it occurs, not 14 months after the peak."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. ‘Eighteen months after the peak’ repeated an interval that was wrong on the dates in ‘The political connections’: from the December 2022 inflation peak to the February 2024 direction of the ACCC inquiry is about 14 months (THE RORT’s count; the dates are as given in that article and were not re-checked in this round) [41]. The phrase has been amended.","r":[41]},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Pre-approved household energy relief packages, automatically triggered when energy prices exceed a threshold: the French tariff shield model."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A structural review of bank deposit rate pass-through, ensuring that banks move mortgage and deposit rates at symmetrical speed when the cash rate moves in either direction."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This recommendation was garbled: when the cash rate is cut, a symmetrical pass-through would lower deposit rates, not raise them. It should have read: a structural review ensuring banks move mortgage and deposit rates at symmetrical speed when the cash rate moves in either direction. The recommendation has been amended."},{"a":34,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The pull quote in this section said each of these tools “has been demonstrated in comparable economies”; nothing in this article carries that, and the words have been removed. References that named only a home page have been resolved. Reference [15], for inflation back in the band by late 2024, is now the ABS release for the September 2024 quarter (annual CPI 2.8 per cent). Reference [3] is now the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation’s March 2023 release on its State of the Nation’s Housing report. References [2], [9], [12] and [14] are no longer relied on; see the corrections in the first two sections. The recommendations in this section are THE RORT’s own. The image at the head of this article no longer shows the withdrawn 6.1 per cent fall or the 2027 date.","r":[15,3,2,9,12,14]},{"a":35,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Reserve Bank’s answer to inflation is to keep demand “subdued for a period”. On 29 September 2026 it raised the cash rate to **4.60 per cent**, unanimously.","r":[2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"It is the fourth rise of 2026, 100 basis points in all, and the highest cash rate since late 2011.","r":[1]},{"a":35,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The Bank puts the Middle East war and energy prices first. In May the Governor said the recent rises “will have no impact” on fuel-driven inflation.","r":[2,37]},{"a":35,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"All four major banks are lifting variable home loan rates from 9 October. Of the four, only Westpac had announced a savings rate rise.","r":[53,54,55,56]},{"a":35,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Board announced at 2.30 pm that it had raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, effective 30 September. The decision was unanimous. It is the fourth rise of 2026. It puts the rate above the 2023 peak of 4.35 per cent and makes 4.60 per cent the highest cash rate since late 2011 [1][2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The Bank’s statement puts the widening Middle East war and global energy prices first. It then names AI-related global demand and pressure on domestic capacity. Its stated method is that “growth in aggregate demand needs to remain subdued for a period” [2].","r":[2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article is the record. It sets down the 2025 and 2026 path from the Bank’s own cash rate table, statements and Minutes: every decision, the dates it was announced and took effect, and the vote. It gives the reasons in the Bank’s words, the forecasts the Board is steering by, what its statements do not mention (with the documents searched stated each time), what the Treasurer, the Prime Minister, the Opposition, ACOSS and Senator David Pocock said on the day, and the Board’s own case. It draws no conclusion the record cannot carry."},{"a":35,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"A note on dates. The Board announces its decisions at 2.30 pm, and the cash rate table lists the date each change takes effect, the following day [1][24]. This article gives both: announced on one day, effective the next.","r":[1,24]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Board announced the decision at 2.30 pm on 29 September. The cash rate table lists 4.60 per cent from 30 September, because a change takes effect the following day [1]. The Bank’s media release says: “At its meeting today, the Board decided to increase the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent.” It adds: “Today’s policy decision was unanimous.” [2]","r":[1,2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"4.60%","t":"Cash rate target from 30 September 2026: the fourth rise of 2026 and the highest since late 2011. The four 2026 rises total 100 basis points from 3.60 per cent. The decision was unanimous.","src":"RBA cash rate table; RBA Media Release 2026-27, 29 September 2026"},{"a":35,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The new rate is above the 2023 peak of 4.35 per cent. It is the highest since late 2011: the table shows 4.75 per cent until a cut effective 2 November 2011. The four rises of 2026 total 100 basis points from 3.60 per cent [1].","r":[1]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The statement’s reasons open: “Inflation remains elevated and some of the upside risks flagged in August are materialising.” It says the three earlier rises of the year “have tightened financial conditions and the economy appears to be slowing. But inflation is still too high”, and that “a further tightening in financial conditions is warranted to support a return of inflation to target in a reasonable period.” It says the Board could go further, “including increasing the cash rate target further if needed”, and that the Board “is focused on its mandate to deliver price stability and full employment.” [2]","r":[2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The statement puts the war first: “The conflict in the Middle East has broadened and global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts.” It says: “Higher fuel prices have partially been passed through to prices of other goods and services. This inflation impulse is in addition to the effect of capacity pressures in the economy.” And it adds: “And there remains pressure on domestic capacity.” [2]","r":[2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"It also names the artificial intelligence boom as a source of global price pressure: “AI-related demand is driving rapid growth in global prices for technology-related goods.” It says trading partners have grown faster than expected: “growth in Australia’s major trading partners has been stronger than expected, as the boost from AI-related investment has outweighed the adverse effects of the Middle East conflict.” [2]","r":[2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On prices at home, the Bank cites its business liaison: “Liaison indicates that firms are experiencing cost pressures and are either increasing the prices of their goods and services or looking to do so.” It adds: “Short-term measures of inflation expectations remain elevated.” The Bank also says recent inflation was stronger than expected [2].","r":[2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The statement also records “signs that growth in consumer spending is easing gradually as expected, although housing prices have fallen in most capital cities and new housing loans have declined noticeably.” Two sentences later, in the same paragraph, it says: “Meanwhile, growth in business investment and debt is strong.” Those are two of the Bank’s own sentences, set side by side here. They are not a finding by the Bank about who bears the burden of the rises [2].","r":[2]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Bank has said the same about business through the year. On 16 June: “Growth in business investment is strong and credit is readily available to both households and businesses.” On 11 August: “growth in business debt and investment is strong.” [6][7] The August forecast table has business investment growth slowing from 6.5 per cent (June 2026) to 0.2 per cent (December 2028), which is consistent with the Bank expecting firms to feel the rises with a lag [15].","r":[6,7,15]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**Before 2026.** The cash rate was 4.35 per cent through 2024. It was cut three times in 2025, effective 19 February, 21 May and 13 August, to 3.60 per cent. That 2025 low had last been in force in March and April 2023. The earlier cycle took the rate from 0.10 per cent to 4.35 per cent in 13 rises, the first effective 4 May 2022 and the last effective 8 November 2023. The rate then held at 4.35 per cent until the cut effective 19 February 2025 [1].","r":[1]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**3 February 2026 (effective 4 February): 3.85 per cent, unanimous.** The Board’s reasons were domestic. Inflation had “picked up materially in the second half of 2025”; “labour market conditions remain a little tight”; and “it is evident that private demand is growing more quickly than expected, capacity pressures are greater than previously assessed and labour market conditions are a little tight.” The Bank also said “part of the pick-up in inflation is assessed to reflect temporary factors” and that “the effects of earlier interest rate reductions are yet to flow through fully.” [3] That statement does not mention the Middle East, oil, fuel, gas or energy. It says global uncertainty “remains significant” [3].","r":[3]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The war came after that decision. The International Energy Agency dates the United States and Israeli air strikes on Iran to 28 February 2026, and the US Energy Information Administration records the “de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz” that followed [10][11]. That was 25 days after the Board’s 3 February decision (THE RORT’s calculation from the two dates). Inflation was above the 2 to 3 per cent band before the war: underlying inflation was 3.4 per cent over the year to the December quarter 2025, and monthly headline CPI was 3.7 per cent in the year to February 2026 [13][14].","r":[10,11,13,14]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**17 March 2026 (effective 18 March): 4.10 per cent, five votes to four.** The Board’s wording was: “Today’s policy decision was made by majority: five members voted to increase the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.10 per cent; four members voted to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 3.85 per cent.” [4]","r":[4]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The March statement cited the war: “the conflict in the Middle East has resulted in sharply higher fuel prices, which, if sustained, will add to inflation.” It also recorded: “Business investment was above expectations and consumption was below expectations. Meanwhile, growth in unit labour costs declined.” [4]","r":[4]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Minutes give the four dissenters’ case. “A minority of members judged that the case to leave monetary policy unchanged at the current meeting was the stronger one. These members reiterated that inflation was too high and that a further tightening in monetary policy would probably be required.” But they “placed more weight on the weaker-than-expected consumption outcome and slowing in the growth in unit labour costs in the December quarter 2025”, and “felt there was merit in delaying any tightening of monetary policy until the potential effects of the current conflict in the Middle East become clearer.” [8] The minority’s dispute, on the Minutes, was about timing, not about the tool [8].","r":[8]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**5 May 2026 (effective 6 May): 4.35 per cent, eight votes to one.** “Today’s policy decision was made by majority: eight members voted to increase the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.35 per cent; one member voted to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 4.10 per cent.” [5] The statement said the Bank “sees underlying inflation peaking higher than was expected in February. It then declines as demand growth slows and capacity pressures ease in response to higher interest rates.” It added: “There are early signs that many firms experiencing cost pressures are looking to increase prices of their goods and services.” [5]","r":[5]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Minutes record the dissenter’s reasons. One member “placed more weight on the arguments for leaving the cash rate target unchanged, judging that capacity pressures prevailing before the conflict were somewhat less than the staff had assessed.” That member saw a higher risk of a prolonged conflict sapping demand, expected inflation to return to target without more tightening, and preferred to hold “while awaiting additional evidence on how the Australian economy would respond to the conflict”, noting that “this approach was consistent with that adopted by other central banks.” The majority said underlying inflation would stay above target “for an extended period” in a range of scenarios and that 4.1 per cent might not be enough, and most members judged that a rise would best balance the Board’s two objectives, “accepting that the shorter term trade-off between these had worsened.” [9]","r":[9]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b9","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The same Minutes record the Board’s agreement that “monetary policy could not alter the near-term trajectory of inflation”, and that what it could do was limit the risk of “a broader and sustained lift in inflationary pressure” [9]. At her media conference that day the Governor said: “Already we’ve seen a sharp increase in fuel and related commodity prices and this is already feeding through to inflation. The recent increases in interest rates will have no impact on this. What these increases do, however, is to help to contain the domestic inflationary pressures after the inflation due to oil and related commodity prices eases.” [37]","r":[9,37]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b10","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**16 June 2026 (effective 17 June): hold at 4.35 per cent, unanimous.** “The latest data show that headline and underlying inflation are still too high.” The unemployment rate “was higher than expected in April”, and “growth in demand needs to slow to reduce capacity pressures and help bring inflation back to target.” [6]","r":[6]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b11","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**11 August 2026 (effective 12 August): hold at 4.35 per cent, unanimous.** The Board judged policy “somewhat restrictive”. It said inflation “is not expected to return to around the midpoint of the target range until late 2027 and there are upside risks to this projection”, and that “the disruption to global oil supply is adding directly to inflation”. It kept a further rise open, “including increasing the cash rate target further if upside risks materialise.” [7] It also said: “While the impact of the Middle East conflict on inflation has so far been less than expected, headline inflation is still too high.” [7]","r":[7]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b12","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**The inflation path.** Annual CPI was 1.9 per cent in June 2025 and 3.0 per cent in July 2025, then 3.8 per cent in October and again in December 2025. It peaked at 4.6 per cent in March 2026, then ran at 4.2, 4.0, 3.8 and 3.5 per cent to July 2026. Trimmed mean inflation was 3.6 per cent in July, unchanged [12]. The cut effective 13 August 2025 came on data to June, when annual inflation was 1.9 per cent; this article does not examine what drove the rise in inflation from July 2025 [12].","r":[12]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s2-b13","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The ABS published August CPI at 11:30 am AEST on 30 September, the day after the Board’s decision. Annual CPI was 4.0 per cent in the 12 months to August 2026, up from 3.5 per cent in the 12 months to July [51][52]. It is the first rise in the annual rate since March, when it reached 4.6 per cent: the run in the paragraph above, 4.6, 4.2, 4.0, 3.8 and 3.5 per cent, fell in every month to July (THE RORT’s reading of the ABS series) [12][52]. The CPI rose 0.4 per cent in the month of August in original terms, and trimmed mean inflation was 3.6 per cent over the year, unchanged from July [52]. On fuel, the ABS said Automotive fuel prices rose 14.8 per cent in August, compared with a rise of 7.5 per cent in July, and were 13.5 per cent higher over the 12 months [51][52]. It put the August rise down to higher world oil prices and the unwinding of the remainder of the federal government’s fuel excise relief measures in August, where it had described July’s rise as driven by higher world oil prices and the partial unwinding of the same relief [12][51]. The ABS gives the two causes together; the ABS pages THE RORT read give no figure for the excise share of the 14.8 per cent. The ABS also reported Transport up 5.6 per cent over the year to August, due to higher automotive fuel prices [51].","r":[51,52,12]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A word search of the body of the 29 September statement finds no “fiscal”, “government”, “budget”, “profit”, “markup”, “wage” or “rent”. The word “margin” appears once, in the phrase “at the margin”. That is an absence in one document. It is not proof of the Bank’s wider views [2]. Fiscal policy was raised with the Governor at her 11 August press conference; asked whether the slowdown came more from the Budget or from rates, she said: “I wouldn’t like to attribute a particular percentage to any.” [19] On 3 February she said she would not tell the government what to do with fiscal policy (“That’s not my business”), and on 5 May: “Fiscal policy has many more things that it can do.” She also said fiscal policy is “not a very nimble way to address inflation”, but that when governments are running up against capacity constraints “they do need to think about” ways to constrain demand [37].","r":[2,19,37]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The search was widened. None of the six 2026 decision statements, the transcript of the 11 August press conference or the Outlook chapter of the August Statement on Monetary Policy contains “profit” or “markup”. The five statements before September also do not contain “margin”. Apart from the March and May Minutes, set out below, the Minutes, the other chapters of the Statement on Monetary Policy, speeches and research were not searched for those words [2][3][4][5][6][7][15][19].","r":[2,3,4,5,6,7,15,19]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The March and May Minutes do not use the word “fiscal” or discuss Australian fiscal policy as a response to inflation. The only references to public spending are that public demand was “broadly as expected” (March) and “rising budget deficits” among the global trends that may have lifted estimates of the neutral rate (May). Neither Minute discusses corporate profits or margins arising from the war: “profit” appears once in March, as “corporate profitability” of AI-exposed US equities, and not at all in May. The nearest material is the liaison on pricing: “members acknowledged the information from liaison that some firms were actively considering whether to raise prices and that some expected workers would begin to seek higher nominal wages.” [8][9]","r":[8,9]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"These are scoped absences, stated as such. They record what these documents contain. They do not say what any member thinks about profits, government spending or wages."},{"a":35,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s August Statement on Monetary Policy, published before today’s rise, sets out the path the Board is steering by. Underlying inflation “is expected to remain above 3 per cent until mid-2027 before declining to the midpoint of the 2–3 per cent target range in 2028.” The table gives trimmed mean inflation of 3.6 per cent (June 2026), 3.3 (December 2026), 3.0 (June 2027), 2.6 (December 2027) and 2.4 (June 2028) [15]. The 11 August statement said inflation would be around the midpoint only by late 2027; the Statement on Monetary Policy has it at the midpoint in 2028 [7][15].","r":[15,7]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On jobs: “Subdued GDP growth will weigh on labour demand, with the unemployment rate forecast to increase gradually to 4.8 per cent by end-2028.” The forecast has unemployment at 4.4 per cent in June 2026, and GDP growth of 1.4 per cent over 2026 [15]. The forecast has 4.5 per cent for December 2026 and 4.6 per cent for June 2027 [15].","r":[15]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The ABS recorded unemployment at 4.6 per cent in August 2026 (4.5 per cent in July). Over the year, the number of unemployed people rose by 80,000 (12.4 per cent) to 722,900, while employment rose by 238,100 (1.6 per cent) to 14,836,600. The ABS flags a survey method change and recommends the trend series, in which unemployment was also 4.6 per cent; it calls the August data “fit-for-purpose” [18]. Unemployment is therefore already at the level the August forecast had for mid-2027. That is not the same as saying the forecast has been missed: the forecast is a quarterly average and the September quarter is incomplete. The July and August average is 4.55 per cent (THE RORT’s calculation from the two monthly figures) [15][18].","r":[18,15]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On wages: the real Wage Price Index fell 0.7 per cent and real average hourly earnings fell 1.2 per cent over the year to June 2026, on the Bank’s table, with real wage growth forecast to turn positive from mid-2027 [15]. The Bank also names public-sector wage deals and public demand as near-term pressures: public demand grew 3.6 per cent over the year to June 2026, against household consumption growth of 1.8 per cent [15].","r":[15]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The forecasts rest on a judgement about policy: “Financial conditions remain restrictive enough to keep growth below potential and for the labour market to ease gradually.” The assumed cash rate path “remains a bit above the top of the range of estimates of the neutral cash rate”, even as total employment keeps growing 1.1 to 1.4 per cent a year [15].","r":[15]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The August forecasts assumed “less than one full cash rate increase by the end of 2026, before a small reduction in the cash rate further out”. The forecast table takes unemployment from 4.4 per cent (June 2026) to 4.8 per cent (June 2028) while trimmed mean inflation falls from 3.6 per cent to 2.4 per cent. The Bank does not split the table by cause, so the 0.4 point rise in unemployment cannot be read as the cost of the rises [16]. Analysis, not fact: the Statement does not say what starting rate the assumption is measured from. If it is read from the 4.35 per cent rate in force when the forecasts were made, today’s 25 basis point rise takes the cash rate beyond that assumption. That reading is THE RORT’s, not the Bank’s [16].","r":[16]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Bank also treats part of the inflation as a supply shock: “Inflation is expected to ease over the next couple of years as somewhat restrictive financial conditions reduce capacity pressures in the domestic economy and the pass-through of higher costs related to the Middle East conflict are assumed to unwind.” [15] It has put a number on the indirect effect: conflict-related costs, excluding the direct effect of retail fuel prices, “contributed a bit more than 0.1 percentage points to trimmed mean inflation in the June quarter”, a little less than it expected in May, though “this estimate is uncertain”. Trimmed mean inflation, at 3.6 per cent, reflects “ongoing economy-wide capacity pressures and the pass-through of higher costs as a result of the Middle East conflict”, so trimmed mean is not a war-free measure [17].","r":[15,17]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Board’s case, in its own words, has five parts. Each is set down here without comment, because the record is what this article is for."},{"a":35,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"First, firms are raising prices. “Liaison indicates that firms are experiencing cost pressures and are either increasing the prices of their goods and services or looking to do so”, and “Short-term measures of inflation expectations remain elevated.” [2] Governor Michele Bullock told the House Economics Committee on 18 September that “many firms have passed input cost pressures arising from elevated fuel prices through to the prices of other goods and services.” [20]","r":[2,20]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Second, the pick-up began before the war. In February the Board said inflation had “picked up materially in the second half of 2025” [3], and underlying inflation was 3.4 per cent in the year to the December quarter 2025 [14]. Bullock told the committee: “The increase in inflation partly reflects capacity pressures in the Australian economy, and the conflict in the Middle East has added to these inflation pressures.” She said labour market conditions “remain close to, but a little tighter than, full employment”, and put the unemployment rate at 4.5 per cent, which she called “low by historical standards.” [20] The ABS August figure, released on 24 September after that statement, is 4.6 per cent [18]. The March Minutes record the majority’s view that “developments in the Middle East would further reduce the already constrained supply capacity of the Australian economy” and add to inflation “under a wide range of scenarios”; the same majority conceded that the war’s effect on demand was uncertain, given Australia’s position as a net energy exporter [8].","r":[3,14,20,18,8]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Third, gradualism protects jobs. On 11 August Bullock said: “if we were just focusing on inflation and we weren’t focusing on employment and the economy more broadly, then we could possibly raise interest rates very substantially and induce a very big impact but get inflation down very quickly. The reason why we’ve got this sort of slightly more flexible mandate is to allow us reasonable time to get inflation back down and hopefully avoid some of those costs, particularly on the employment side.” [19]","r":[19]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Fourth, waiting has a cost. On 28 July Bullock said: “Putting off a period of tight monetary policy today can mean higher rates and higher unemployment down the track.” [21] In November 2022 Governor Lowe said that bringing inflation back down “after it becomes ingrained in people’s expectations is very costly and almost certainly involves a recession”, and that in Australia and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s it took “a rise in the unemployment rate of at least 5 percentage points.” [22]","r":[21,22]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Fifth, the effects of earlier rises are yet to come. “Because monetary policy works with a lag, the full effects of recent rate increases are yet to be felt.” [20]","r":[20]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s job is set in law. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Reserve Bank Reforms) Act 2024, in force from 1 March 2025, tells the Board to determine monetary policy in a way that, in the Board’s opinion, best contributes to “price stability in Australia” and “the maintenance of full employment in Australia” (section 9B). The Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy records an agreed goal of “consumer price inflation between 2 and 3 per cent.” [23]","r":[23]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Treasurer, before the decision.** On the morning of 29 September Jim Chalmers appeared on ABC News Breakfast, ahead of the Reserve Bank’s decision [26].","r":[26]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Treasurer, after the decision.** The ABC’s live blog, in posts timed 3.02 pm, 3.12 pm and 3.18 pm AEST, carried his remarks. “Australian workers didn’t choose this war, but they are paying a hefty price for it,” he said, and the war is “making inflation linger for longer”. He said: “We take responsibility for our part of the fight against inflation. That’s why we’ve been managing the budget responsibility,” and “for every $5 of demand in our economy, four of those have been private demand, one has been public demand.” On productivity: “You don’t turn around a productivity challenge which has been entrenched for so long quickly in a couple of months.” [27] FXStreet, publishing at 2.54 pm AEST, reported him saying: “Today’s interest rate rise was widely expected and anticipated, that doesn’t make it any easier for people.” [28] No Treasury transcript of his Brisbane press conference was listed at 3.58 pm. The Final Budget Outcome, released by the Treasurer and the Finance Minister on 28 September, records headline inflation of 3.9 per cent through the year to the June quarter 2026 (a quarterly measure; the monthly annual figure for June was 3.8 per cent), “materially lower than the forecast of 5 per cent in the 2026-27 Budget”. The RBA had expected 4.8 per cent in May [17]. The Final Budget Outcome says: “This reflects lower-than-expected petrol prices, and subdued pass-through of broader cost pressures from the Middle East conflict to consumer prices.” [36] The Bank’s own sizing of the war’s indirect effect is in the section on forecasts above [17].","r":[27,28,17,36]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Prime Minister, before the decision.** In Adelaide on 29 September, in a press conference held before the announcement (the question put to him said “Potentially with another rate rise later on this afternoon”), Prime Minister Albanese said: “We understand that Australians are under financial pressure. We’ll continue to look at measures, but we’ll continue also to bear in mind that any measure we don’t want to have a further impact on inflation. And to bear in mind the fiscal position that that represents.” He said: “We’ve had two wars, to be fair, that have impacted on the price of fuel,” and “You might recall that we produced two budget surpluses.” He pointed to the 1 July tax cuts, free TAFE, Urgent Care Clinics and tripled bulk-billing incentives. Asked whether the government was “gaslighting” (Richard Holden’s word), he said: “What we’re doing is being straightforward.” [29] Those surpluses were underlying cash surpluses of $22.1 billion in 2022-23 and $15.8 billion in 2023-24. The budget has been in deficit since: $10.0 billion in 2024-25 and $22.3 billion in 2025-26, with a deficit of $31.5 billion forecast for 2026-27 [38].","r":[29,38]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Opposition.** Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, reported by Yahoo Finance’s live blog at about 3.25 to 3.30 pm, called it “a dark day, a tough day for hardworking Australian families with a mortgage”, and said: “Let’s be clear, we know this government is spending too much.” [30] Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson’s release says: “The Reserve Bank has been forced to raise interest rates on Australian families and small businesses for the 16th time under the Albanese Labor government because they can’t kick their spending and inflation addiction.” It says “households and small business will pay the bill” and gives repayment figures of “$120 a month” and “almost $4,600”, without stating their basis [31]. The count of 16 is the Opposition’s claim; THE RORT has not checked it. Yahoo Finance noted that the hiking cycle “actually commenced under Scott Morrison” [30].","r":[30,31]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**ACOSS.** Chief executive Cassandra Goldie, quoted in the ABC live blog: “Raising interest rates is creating unemployment by design, putting thousands of people out of work to slow the economy.” [27] That is a reaction, not a statement of fact about unemployment. The ABC framed it as a response to the Governor’s comments on unemployment; that framing is the ABC’s. The Governor’s own words, at a CEDA event on 22 September, from the RBA’s transcript: “There’s no particular level at which I think we can get to. I think between 4.5 and 5 will probably take enough heat out of the labor market that it’ll ease pressure on inflation.” In the same answer she said that 4.5 per cent “at the moment” is “a bit tight”, and, for balance, that “having a job is really important” and “high unemployment is not great.” [35]","r":[27,35]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**Senator David Pocock.** The independent ACT senator posted a 40-second video on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon. Only its caption is quoted here; the spoken words were not transcribed. The caption reads: “Why is it always households getting stung with increased costs while massive multinationals bank wartime profits? Why aren’t the major parties talking about a windfall profits tax or backing the push for a 25% gas export tax ?! There is more we can and must do to stop price gouging and get a fair return from the export of our resources.” In the caption “bank” is a verb, meaning to pocket; the post does not name the banking sector. This article records the caption as one of the day’s reactions and does not assess its claims [32]. Beside it, from the record: Woodside’s underlying profit for the half to 30 June 2026 rose 7 per cent, and Santos’s profit after tax fell 19 per cent, and its underlying profit was US$397 million against US$508 million a year earlier (all in US dollars; Santos blames one-off commissioning costs and cargo timing). Santos prices its LNG on oil with a three-month lag, so most of the war price falls in the second half; Woodside’s realised price rose 20 per cent, which it attributes to the war [39]. The Greens’ amendment calling for a minimum 25% gas export tax was lost in the Senate 13 to 35 on 12 March [39]. Every recorded 2026 division on a 25 per cent gas export tax that the desk found was lost, including a House vote on 2 June in which the Coalition did not vote [39]. (corrected 7 October 2026: ‘25 per cent’ added to this sentence. A 30 March Senate urgency motion for free public transport “paid for by a tax on gas exports”, lost 13 to 29, is not among the divisions counted; see Seven votes for a gas export tax, all lost.) The major parties have given their reasons. The Prime Minister said on 29 April, as reported by the ABC, that “The middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them.” In the Senate committee’s report of 7 May, Labor senators recommended that the Treasury or the Productivity Commission evaluate the proposals “After the current Middle East energy crisis has passed”, and Coalition senators said Australia “needs an increased tax take, not an increased tax rate.” [41][42]","r":[32,39,41,42]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The first bank moves.** Macquarie had announced changes by the afternoon. Its own help page says: “Macquarie is increasing its variable home loan reference rates by 0.25% per annum, effective 15 October 2026.” The page does not split owner-occupier and investor loans. The same page gives new ongoing savings rates from 15 October: 5.25 per cent up to $250,000; 5.05 per cent from $250,000.01 to $2,000,000; and 4.60 per cent above $2,000,000. They replace rates of 5.00, 5.00 and 2.75 per cent, rises of 25, 5 and 185 basis points. For a saver with a balance between $250,000 and $2 million that is 5 basis points, against the borrowers’ 25. The page shows no term deposit change. This is one lender’s schedule, not the market’s [33]. Across the market, on the RBA’s tables to July (before today’s rise), the average rate paid on household deposits and the average rate charged on outstanding owner-occupier variable loans each rose 0.7 points from December 2025 to July 2026, and the gap between them did not measurably widen at the one decimal place published. That compares one loan type with deposits and is not a bank margin [40].","r":[33,40]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above said that for a saver with a balance between $250,000 and $2 million the rise is 5 basis points, against the borrowers’ 25. That is too broad. The 5 basis points is Macquarie’s Savings Account ongoing rate only (5.00 to 5.05 per cent). Macquarie’s own release of 29 September puts its Transaction Account rate up from 2.75 to 3.00 per cent, 25 basis points, on every balance tier, including $250,000.01 to $2,000,000, from 15 October [43]. The release also gives the old and new Savings Account rates on one page (5.00 to 5.25, 5.00 to 5.05 and 2.75 to 4.60 per cent) [43].","r":[43]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b8","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The sentence “The page shows no term deposit change” is still true of Macquarie’s help page, and the words “term deposit” and “fixed” do not appear in its release [43]. But it leaves out what Macquarie did with term deposits in September, before the decision. Between its term deposits page of 1 September (14:15 AEST) and its page of 21 September (08:50 AEST), the Digital Term Deposit rates for $1 million or under, interest paid at maturity, rose by 5, 15, 15 and 20 basis points on 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, to 5.05, 5.20, 5.25 and 5.35 per cent; the day or days of the rise are not on the record [44]. That followed a cut of 5 basis points on the 6, 9 and 12 month rates between its pages of 1 August and 13 August, which savings.com.au reported on 5 August [45]. This is verified for the Digital Term Deposit only; its tables were unchanged at 5.17 am AEST on 30 September against the 21 September capture [44], and none of the Macquarie pages THE RORT read gives a reason for these moves.","r":[43,44,45]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b9","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The borrower side of Macquarie’s September also moved before the decision. Macquarie raised its fixed home loan rates twice: on its owner-occupier principal and interest table for loans up to 70 per cent of the property’s value, its own pages show the one-year fixed rate at 6.19 per cent on 13 August and 6.49 per cent on 30 September, the two-year at 6.14 and 6.59, the three-year at 6.09 and 6.59, and the four- and five-year at 6.29 and 6.64, net rises of 0.30 to 0.50 points, for new loans [46]. Media reports date the first rise to Tuesday 8 September, and the second was reported on 24 September [47]. Both sides belong to the record of the day: on the variable products announced on 29 September the middle Savings Account tier gets 5 basis points against 25 on the reference rates, and the Transaction Account 25; in September Macquarie also moved its Digital Term Deposit and new fixed loan rates up. These are advertised rates, and THE RORT draws no conclusion about Macquarie’s margin from them.","r":[46,47]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b10","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 4 October 2026. The paragraph above gives Macquarie’s net fixed-rate rises since 13 August (0.30 to 0.50 points) without saying that they followed cuts. On 5 June Macquarie cut its one- to five-year fixed rates by 0.25, 0.40, 0.50, 0.35 and 0.45 points, from 6.44, 6.54, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.74 per cent, Canstar reported, to 6.19, 6.14, 6.09, 6.29 and 6.29 per cent, the same levels its own page showed on 13 August [58]. Its rates on 30 September, unchanged on 3 October, of 6.49, 6.59, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.64 per cent are 0.05 points above the pre-June levels at one and two years, level at three and four years, and 0.10 below at five (THE RORT’s arithmetic) [58][46]. Most of the September rises reversed the June cuts. The figures and dates in the paragraph above stand; this adds the context they lacked.","r":[58,46]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b11","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. Macquarie was not the only lender to announce on 29 September; the paragraph headed “The first bank moves” names only Macquarie. Teachers Mutual Bank Limited announced that it will raise interest rates by 0.25 per cent a year across its variable savings products from Thursday 1 October 2026, and across its variable home loan products from 8 October 2026, in all five of its retail brands [48]. On Macquarie’s side, Ben Perham, its Head of Personal Banking, said: “With the RBA confirming another rate rise, we’re letting our customers know we’ll be lifting our variable home loan rates, as well as the variable rates available on our transaction and savings accounts. For any customers concerned about making their home loan repayments, we encourage them to get in touch, as financial assistance may be available.” [43]","r":[48,43]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b12","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Between 4.44 pm and 4.46 pm AEST THE RORT checked the four major banks’ websites. None had announced a change to variable home loan, savings or term deposit rates. CBA’s home loan page still showed 5 May 2026, and its savings page said: “we’re currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products”. Westpac said its rates were “currently under review”. NAB’s home loan page still showed 3 February 2026. ANZ said it was “reviewing its home loan and residential investment loan interest rates”. Whether each big four bank passes the rise to borrowers and to savers is not yet known [34].","r":[34]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b13","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. THE RORT re-read the four major banks’ own pages between 4.59 am and 5.00 am AEST on 30 September. None had announced a decision on the pages read. CBA’s home loan page still showed 5 May 2026, and its savings page, dated 29 September, still said “we’re currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products”; its home page carried an undated banner, “The Reserve Bank of Australia has increased the cash rate. We’re reviewing our rates and will share an update soon.” (when it first appeared is not known). Westpac’s page, dated Tuesday 29 September, still said its interest rates were “currently under review”. ANZ’s page, dated 29 September, said it was reviewing its home loan and residential investment loan interest rates. NAB’s home loan page still showed 3 February 2026, and its news page had nothing dated 29 or 30 September [49]. The Australian Banking Association’s news page and feed carried nothing on the rise; the newest item was dated 21 September [50]. Term deposit pages were not re-read. Whether each big four bank passes the rise to borrowers and to savers is still not known as at that time.","r":[49,50]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b14","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026, evening. THE RORT re-read the four major banks’ own pages and releases between 5.40 pm and 5.43 pm AEST on 30 September. All four had announced a rise of 0.25 per cent a year in variable home loan rates, effective 9 October 2026: CBA [53]; Westpac, for new and existing customers [54]; NAB [55]; and ANZ [56]. That is one day after Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s 8 October [48] and six days before Macquarie’s 15 October [43]. Of the four, only Westpac had stated a savings rate change: its Westpac Life total variable rate with bonus interest rises 0.25 per cent a year to 5.25 per cent, effective 9 October [54]. CBA’s savings page, dated 29 September, still said it was “currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products” [53]; NAB says it “regularly reviews its savings and deposit rates” [55]; ANZ says it “continues to review other interest rates” [56]. No term deposit change was stated by any of the four. The Australian Banking Association’s news page carried nothing on the rise; its newest item, dated 30 September, was on card surcharging [57]. Whether each big four bank passes the rise to savers, beyond the Westpac Life rate, is not yet known as at that time.","r":[53,54,55,56,48,43,57]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b15","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Governor.** The Governor’s media conference follows each decision [24]. The RBA’s transcript had not been posted at 4.08 pm, and this article does not quote press reports of the conference. When the transcript is posted, its text will be added here as a dated Update.","r":[24]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s6-b16","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The paragraph headed “The Treasurer, before the decision” quoted Jim Chalmers on the morning of 29 September: “Our inflation right now is not the fault of Australian workers” and “Australians are already paying a very hefty price for developments on the other side of the world.” Its reference [26] was the index of the Treasurer’s transcripts, not a transcript. THE RORT could not find the transcript or a report carrying those words, so both quotations have been removed. The paragraph now says only that he appeared on ABC News Breakfast before the decision, as The Nightly reported [26]. His remarks after the decision, in the next paragraph, are unchanged.","r":[26]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"**30 September.** The rise takes effect [1]. The ABS publishes August CPI at 11.30 am, the first CPI print after the decision. The annual rate was 3.5 per cent in July [12][24].","r":[1,12,24]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"**13 October.** The Minutes of the 29 September meeting are listed on the RBA’s release calendar for 11.30 am. The RBA’s footnote says Minutes are released two weeks after each Board meeting [24].","r":[24]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"**28 October.** The ABS publishes September CPI with the September quarter figures at 11.30 am AEDT [24]. The Bank had itself forecast that the end of the fuel excise cut would lift September-quarter inflation: “The roll-off of the fuel excise reduction in July and August is expected to boost retail fuel prices and quarterly headline inflation in the September quarter.” [12][15] The Supplementary Budget Estimates hearing of the Economics Legislation Committee (Treasury portfolio) sits on 28 and 29 October, and the RBA’s attendance is not yet posted [25].","r":[24,12,15,25]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"**3 November.** The next Board decision, at 2.30 pm, followed by the Governor’s media conference [24]. THE RORT will repeat the word search on the statement: fiscal policy, profits, markups, wages and rents, and the war’s pass-through.","r":[24]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"**12 November.** The House Economics Committee’s Review of Australia’s four major banks lists its next hearing [25].","r":[25]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"**25 November and 8 December.** ABS October CPI on 25 November, and the last Board decision of 2026 on 8 December at 2.30 pm [24].","r":[24]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Governor has committed, in the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy and not in statute, to appear twice a year before the House Economics Committee. She appeared before it on 6 February and 18 September 2026, and before Senate Estimates on 4 June 2026 [25].","r":[25]},{"a":35,"at":"at-s7-b7","s":7,"k":"p","t":"If the Reserve Bank, the government, the Opposition or any bank wants to reply to anything in this article, write to corrections@therort.com.au. The reply will be published in full as a dated Update."},{"a":36,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Reserve Bank is answering a global oil shock with a national rate. Its Governor said the rises “will have no impact” on oil-driven inflation; they aim at domestic pressure.","r":[7]},{"a":36,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"On the Bank’s own split, fuel added **0.8 percentage points** to March’s 4.6 per cent. Inflation was already 3.7 per cent in February, before the war.","r":[8,13]},{"a":36,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Of the central banks checked, the Reserve Bank tightened most in 2026, by 100 basis points. The Bank of England and the Bank of Canada held.","r":[2,25,32]},{"a":36,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"This article found no split of the 2026 rises between war pass-through and domestic capacity in the Bank documents it read.","r":[17,8]},{"a":36,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Board raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, effective 30 September. It was the fourth rise of 2026, the four total 100 basis points from 3.60 per cent, and the decision was unanimous [1][2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":36,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Three questions sit behind this article. Is the Reserve Bank pretending the Middle East war is not driving prices? How can a national interest rate fight a shock that began on the other side of the world? And when other central banks raise rates too, does that make it right?"},{"a":36,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The record answers each of them, and none of the answers is simple. The Bank does not deny the war: the statements of 17 March, 5 May, 16 June, 11 August and 29 September each name the conflict, and today's puts it first [3][4][5][6][1]. But its Governor said in May that the rate rises \"will have no impact\" on the inflation the oil shock causes directly, and on the Bank's own split fuel added 0.8 percentage points to March's 4.6 per cent [7][8]. The Bank's answer is that the rises are aimed at something else: domestic inflation that was already there before the war, and the risk that the shock spreads. Other central banks faced the same war. Some raised, some held, and of those checked the Reserve Bank raised the most. Both cases are set out below in the documents' own words.","r":[3,4,5,6,1,7,8]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"After the decision itself, today's statement begins: \"Inflation remains elevated and some of the upside risks flagged in August are materialising.\" The first cause it names is the war: \"The conflict in the Middle East has broadened and global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts.\" Later, explaining the decision, it says: \"Higher fuel prices have partially been passed through to prices of other goods and services. This inflation impulse is in addition to the effect of capacity pressures in the economy.\" [1]","r":[1]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The statement also names a second global force, which it names separately from the war. \"AI-related demand is driving rapid growth in global prices for technology-related goods.\" And it says \"growth in Australia's major trading partners has been stronger than expected, as the boost from AI-related investment has outweighed the adverse effects of the Middle East conflict.\" [1]","r":[1]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"After the war and AI, it turns home: \"And there remains pressure on domestic capacity.\" The rise, it says, is because \"a further tightening in financial conditions is warranted to support a return of inflation to target in a reasonable period.\" [1]","r":[1]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The war has been in every decision statement since March. On 17 March: \"the conflict in the Middle East has resulted in sharply higher fuel prices, which, if sustained, will add to inflation.\" [3] On 5 May: \"Higher fuel prices are adding to inflation and there are indications that this is likely to have second-round effects on prices for goods and services more broadly. This inflation impulse is in addition to the high inflation recorded around the start of 2026, reflecting capacity pressures in the economy.\" [4] On 16 June: \"As expected, the disruption to global oil supply is having an impact on inflation.\" [5] On 11 August: \"While the impact of the Middle East conflict on inflation has so far been less than expected, headline inflation is still too high.\" [6]","r":[3,4,5,6]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The May, June, August and September statements each set the war's effect beside domestic capacity pressure. The rest of this article asks how much weight each carries, and what a rate can do about each."},{"a":36,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The war began at the end of February. The International Energy Agency dates the United States and Israeli air strikes on Iran to 28 February 2026, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration records the \"de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz\" that followed [9][10]. The Reserve Bank's first 2026 rise was decided on 3 February (announced 3 February, effective 4 February). By THE RORT's count the war began 25 days after that decision.","r":[9,10]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The February statement argued the rise on domestic grounds: \"it is evident that private demand is growing more quickly than expected, capacity pressures are greater than previously assessed and labour market conditions are a little tight\". It does not mention the Middle East, oil, fuel, gas or energy. It did say global uncertainty \"remains significant\" [11]. The war is not a reason the Bank gave for the February rise, and this article does not offer it as one.","r":[11]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Inflation was already above the Bank's 2 to 3 per cent target band before the war. Underlying inflation was 3.4 per cent over the year to the December quarter 2025, and the ABS recorded monthly headline inflation of 3.7 per cent in the year to February 2026 [12][13].","r":[12,13]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The oil shock itself was large. Brent crude began 2026 at US$61 a barrel and finished the March quarter at US$118 (front-month futures), a quarterly rise the EIA called \"the largest on an inflation-adjusted basis in data going back to 1988\" [10]. The IEA reported on 12 March that Brent had traded \"within a whisker of $120/bbl\" before easing to about US$92, with \"nearly 20 mb/d of crude and product exports currently disrupted\": the position that day, not the peak [9]. The Reserve Bank's May Minutes estimated the disruptions had cut global oil supply by around 10 per cent and LNG by around 20 per cent, and in the next sentence noted that \"the real price of oil was still well below the levels it had reached on several prior occasions, including following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\" [14]","r":[10,9,14]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Oil then moved both ways. The June statement said \"Oil prices have eased in recent weeks, although energy and most related commodity prices remain higher than they were prior to the conflict in the Middle East\" [5]. Today's says \"global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts.\" [1] The EIA reports Brent averaging US$91 in August, US$7 above July, partly on \"the renewal of the U.S. blockade on Iran's oil exports\", and forecasts about US$90 for the second half of 2026 and US$77 by the June quarter 2027. Those are forecasts [15].","r":[5,1,15]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The first paragraph of this section now gives the full date of the start of the war, 28 February 2026, from which THE RORT's count of 25 days runs; nothing else changed."},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"March was the war month, and fuel drove the monthly jump: the ABS recorded regular unleaded petrol up 33 per cent and diesel up 41 per cent in the month. But the same release names Housing, \"the highest weighted group in the CPI\", as \"the largest contributor to annual inflation in March, with a rise of 6.5 per cent\". Monthly trimmed mean inflation was unchanged at 3.3 per cent [13].","r":[13]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"0.8 points","t":"Fuel's contribution to March 2026's 4.6 per cent headline inflation, on the Reserve Bank's own split. Inflation was already 3.7 per cent in February, before the war began on 28 February. The Governor said in May the rises 'will have no impact' on the oil-driven inflation; their aim is the domestic pressure after it.","src":"RBA SMP May 2026; ABS CPI, 29 April 2026; IEA Oil Market Report, March 2026; RBA media conference, 5 May 2026"},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank's own split of that peak is in its May Statement on Monetary Policy: \"headline inflation increased to 4.6 per cent in March, with the higher fuel prices contributing 0.8 percentage points\". Quarterly trimmed mean inflation was 3.5 per cent over the year to the March quarter, \"although it only captured one month of the conflict\" [8].","r":[8]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Budget, on 12 May, described the same figure differently: \"Headline inflation rose to 4.6 per cent in the 12 months to March 2026, driven by a 32.8 per cent rise in automotive fuel prices in the month.\" That is the Budget's wording. Set beside it the ABS's finding that Housing was the largest contributor to annual inflation in March, and the Bank's split of 0.8 points for fuel. The Budget also forecast headline inflation of 5 per cent through the year to the June quarter [16]. The outcome was 3.9 per cent, which the Bank said was \"substantially lower than the 4.8 per cent expected in the May Statement\", \"primarily\" because fuel and travel prices were weaker than expected, \"reflecting both global developments and lower retail margins for petrol\" [17]. Treasury's Final Budget Outcome of 28 September records the same 3.9 per cent, \"materially lower than the forecast of 5 per cent in the 2026-27 Budget\", and calls the pass-through of broader Middle East cost pressures to consumer prices \"subdued\" [18].","r":[16,17,18]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank has also put a number on the war's indirect effect. Its August Statement judged that \"conflict-related cost effects (excluding the direct effect of retail fuel prices) contributed a bit more than 0.1 percentage points to trimmed mean inflation in the June quarter\", a little less than it expected in May, \"although this estimate is uncertain.\" The same section is careful in the other direction: trimmed mean inflation of 3.6 per cent over the year reflected \"ongoing economy-wide capacity pressures and the pass-through of higher costs as a result of the Middle East conflict\". Trimmed mean is not a war-free measure. THE RORT found no Reserve Bank figure for the direct fuel contribution to June-quarter headline inflation [17].","r":[17]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ABS splits annual inflation into tradables and non-tradables. In February, before the war, they stood at 1.3 and 5.0 per cent. In March they were 4.5 and 4.6. In July they were 1.7 and 4.4 [19]. THE RORT's reading: the non-tradables part was high before the war and remains the larger part, while the tradables part spiked in the war month and was then damped, partly by the fuel excise cut.","r":[19]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The fuel path adds context. Automotive fuel rose 32.8 per cent in March, fell 7.0 per cent in April, and the ABS notes that the April fall \"includes the halving of the fuel excise on 1 April\"; fuel was still 23.5 per cent above February. It was up 18.6 per cent in the year to April, having been down 7.2 per cent a year in February, before the war. The ABS also gave fuel as an example of an item excluded from the trimmed mean in both March and April [20]. In June fuel fell 10.9 per cent: \"Lower world oil prices as a result of some stabilisation in the Middle East in June\" [21]. The ABS Transport group rose only 1.6 per cent in the year to July [19].","r":[20,21,19]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The ABS published August CPI on 30 September. Annual tradables inflation was 2.9 per cent and non-tradables 4.5 per cent in August, against 1.7 and 4.4 in July [19][49]. The Transport group rose 5.6 per cent over the year to August, against 1.6 per cent to July [19], and Automotive fuel rose 14.8 per cent in the month of August after 7.5 per cent in July [48][49]. The ABS put the August fuel rise down to higher world oil prices and the unwinding of the remainder of the federal government's fuel excise relief measures in August [48]; the ABS pages read give no figure for the excise share. The paragraphs above describe the position to July.","r":[19,49,48]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Energy prices abroad rose again after May. The Bank's August Statement records Asian LNG prices up around 20 per cent and European natural gas up around 18 per cent since May, \"on restocking demand in Europe ahead of winter and concerns over future supply availability\" [17]. The June Resources and Energy Quarterly says the conflict \"has flipped LNG markets from expected oversupply to expected undersupply for the next 2-3 years\" [22].","r":[17,22]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"That is the Governor, on 5 May, about the inflation the oil shock was already causing: \"Already we've seen a sharp increase in fuel and related commodity prices and this is already feeding through to inflation.\" At the same conference: \"these interest rates rises are not going to do anything for inflation in the next six months. That's done and dusted.\" [7]","r":[7]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Asked about the most vulnerable, she said: \"The shock with oil prices, there's nothing we can do about that. And as I said earlier, the interest rate rises will not do anything about that. That is going to happen.\" (\"That is going to happen\" refers to the first-round price rise.) And: \"it's a real income shock for Australia and the world. Australians are poorer because of this shock to oil prices and energy prices and all the other commodity prices that are being impacted. We are poorer and there is no way out of that.\" [7]","r":[7]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Asked whether there was \"a better way to deal with, largely oil shock-driven inflation\", she answered: \"the oil shock is not the sole reason why we are - we had an inflation problem before this. People often say to me, you must have a - well, you must have a better thing than the interest rate, we don't. It's all we have. And we know that it affects different people differently. We know that. But it's the only thing we have to address inflation.\" [7] She also said the Bank does \"look through\" the first effects: \"we can look through the initial impact. The indirect impact, if you like, on the costs of other businesses. And then we're looking for it to stop there. And any indications that it's not stopping there is the worry.\" [7]","r":[7]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Board said the same in its May Minutes: \"monetary policy could not prevent a near-term increase in the price level as higher fuel prices worked their way through to final prices\", and \"monetary policy could not alter the near-term trajectory of inflation and, additionally, that output growth would likely be lower than potential growth for some time.\" What it could do was \"limit the risk that this cost shock resulted in a broader and sustained lift in inflationary pressure, by bringing aggregate demand into closer alignment with aggregate supply and ensuring medium- to longer term inflation expectations remained anchored.\" [14]","r":[14]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Governor made a related point at CEDA on 22 September: \"these shocks to the supply side of the economy are very difficult for monetary policy to deal with. Monetary policy can deal with demand shocks ... But the supply side of the economy, when you get a supply shock, your trade-off worsens.\" She said policy must be set \"in a way that minimises the second-round and indirect effects which might perpetuate ongoing inflation\" [23].","r":[23]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 28 July she gave two limits of a different kind. Slow productivity growth is something monetary policy \"can't\" address, and while it persists \"Australians will continue to experience limited growth in real wages\": she tied that to productivity, not to the rate stance. And she said \"a given increase in oil prices has a less direct and less pervasive effect on inflation today than it would have in the 1970s\" [24].","r":[24]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Other central banks say it of their own rates. The Bank of England's September Minutes: \"Monetary policy could not influence global energy prices, but was being set to ensure that the economic adjustment to them occurred in a way that achieved the 2% inflation target sustainably\" [25]. Norges Bank, which like Australia is an energy exporter with mostly variable-rate mortgages, put it this way in May:","r":[25]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Board's argument is that a rate cannot change the oil price but can change what happens next. The Minutes for March and May show the argument being made, and contested inside the Board."},{"a":36,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In March the vote was 5 to 4 to raise. The majority held that developments in the Middle East \"would further reduce the already constrained supply capacity of the Australian economy, increasing inflationary pressures for any given level of aggregate demand\", and \"would add to global and domestic inflation under a wide range of scenarios\". It warned that \"if medium- and long-term inflation expectations increased, it would ultimately require significantly more contractionary monetary policy\". The same majority noted that the impact of the conflict on demand \"remains uncertain, given Australia's position as a net energy exporter and households' generally healthy balance sheets.\" [26]","r":[26]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The four-member minority \"reiterated that inflation was too high and that a further tightening in monetary policy would probably be required\". But they placed more weight on weak consumption and slowing unit labour costs, and \"felt there was merit in delaying any tightening of monetary policy until the potential effects of the current conflict in the Middle East become clearer.\" [26] Both dissents in 2026, March and May, were about timing, not about the tool.","r":[26]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In May the vote was 8 to 1. The lone dissenter judged that pre-war capacity pressures were \"somewhat less than the staff had assessed\", preferred to hold \"while awaiting additional evidence on how the Australian economy would respond to the conflict\", and \"noted that this approach was consistent with that adopted by other central banks.\" In setting out the case for holding, the Minutes record that \"several other central banks had chosen to hold their policy rates unchanged pending greater clarity\", and that \"given monetary policy had already been tightened twice in 2026, waiting for a clearer assessment of how the conflict might affect economic activity could be an appropriate course of action.\" The majority nonetheless judged that a rise \"would best balance the Board's two objectives, accepting that the shorter term trade-off between these had worsened.\" [14] The Minutes attribute no votes to named members.","r":[14]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Since then the Bank has kept returning to second-round effects and capacity. In June it said its aim was \"ensuring that inflation does not become embedded once the impulse from higher oil prices has passed through\", and that \"growth in demand needs to slow to reduce capacity pressures\" [5]. Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter set out a general test on 8 July, a framework rather than a verdict on this shock: looking through a supply shock \"is only appropriate if policymakers are confident that the shock will not be persistent, that second-round effects will be limited and that inflation expectations will remain anchored\", and \"When the economy is operating beyond its sustainable capacity, underlying inflation is above-target and we are on a steep part of the Phillips curve, firms may be more likely to pass on changes\" [27].","r":[5,27]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"To the House Economics Committee on 18 September the Governor said: \"The increase in inflation partly reflects capacity pressures in the Australian economy, and the conflict in the Middle East has added to these inflation pressures.\" She said \"many firms have passed input cost pressures arising from elevated fuel prices through to the prices of other goods and services\", that the labour market is \"a little tighter than\" full employment, and that \"Because monetary policy works with a lag, the full effects of recent rate increases are yet to be felt.\" [28] Today's statement adds that the Bank's liaison finds firms \"either increasing the prices of their goods and services or looking to do so\", and that \"Short-term measures of inflation expectations remain elevated.\" [1]","r":[28,1]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On 11 August she put the question herself: \"How do you react to these supply shocks? ... I think you've seen we have reacted firstly to the excess demand. We have also been reacting to what's been going on in the supply shock ... we have limited ability to completely ignore any future supply shocks.\" [29] The Governor's own account, then, is that the first reaction was to excess demand.","r":[29]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Scale, not direction, sets the Reserve Bank apart. Of the central banks THE RORT checked, the Reserve Bank has tightened most in 2026 and has the highest policy rate. The 2026 moves, from the banks' own decisions: Reserve Bank of Australia +100 basis points to 4.60 per cent; Norges Bank +50 to 4.50; European Central Bank +50 (deposit rate 2.50); Bank of Japan +50 (about 1.25); Federal Reserve +25 (3.75 to 4.00); Bank of England no change (3.75); Bank of Canada no change (2.25). The Swiss National Bank held at 0 per cent in September, and the Riksbank left its rate at 1.75 per cent at its August and September decisions; their earlier 2026 decisions were not checked. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is left out of the tally because its 2026 decisions could not be verified. THE RORT's tally is from the primary decisions cited below [30][31][25][32][33][34][35].","r":[30,31,25,32,33,34,35]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank's own June Minutes noted that the ECB and Norges Bank \"had both raised interest rates to contain the second-round effects of higher oil prices and address broader concerns about above-target inflation.\" [36]","r":[36]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Federal Reserve. It held at 3.50 to 3.75 per cent at every meeting through July, with three members wanting a rise in July, then raised to 3.75 to 4.00 per cent on 16 September by 12 votes to 0, its first rise since July 2023. Its April, June and July statements named energy and the Middle East conflict; the September text names only \"geopolitical developments\" [30]. US inflation was 3.4 per cent in the year to August, with core at 2.4 per cent, energy up 16.3 per cent and gasoline up 27.4 per cent. The Fed raised with core at 2.4 per cent [37].","r":[30,37]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"European Central Bank. It held in March, April and July, and raised by 25 basis points in June and again in September, naming the Middle East war both times: \"The conflict in the Middle East continues to generate inflation pressures, and inflation is set to remain well above target for an extended period.\" [31] Euro-area inflation was 3.2 per cent in August, with energy at 14.3 per cent and core at 2.4 per cent, so the ECB raised twice with core at 2.4 to 2.5 per cent [38]. President Lagarde's March speech, which is not a Governing Council decision, said a limited, short-lived energy shock should be looked through, but that the response \"does not depend only on its origin\" but \"also on its magnitude and persistence\", and that \"pass-through is measurably stronger when capacity utilisation is high and unemployment is low\" [39].","r":[31,38,39]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Bank of England. It held Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent at every meeting through September. The votes: February 5 to 4, with four members voting to cut, a split that predates the war; March unanimous; April 8 to 1; June 7 to 2; July 6 to 3; September 6 to 3, with three members voting to raise [25]. UK inflation was 3.1 per cent in August. The Bank projects about 3.75 per cent in the December quarter and slightly above 4 per cent in the March quarter 2027, with about 0.7 points of the 1.1-point overshoot from direct energy effects. It relies on \"weakness in economic activity and soft labour market conditions\" to contain second-round effects [25]. The Reserve Bank's statement says Australia still has \"pressure on domestic capacity\" [1].","r":[25,1]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Bank of Canada. It held at 2.25 per cent on 2 September, its seventh hold in a row, naming the Middle East conflict, and saw \"little evidence of higher energy prices spreading to other components of inflation\". Canadian inflation was 3.0 per cent in August, with the Bank's core measures CPI-trim at 1.9 and CPI-median at 2.0 [32].","r":[32]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Bank of Japan. It raised to about 1.0 per cent on 16 June (7 votes to 1), citing oil price pass-through \"progressing at a relatively fast pace in business-to-business transactions\", and to about 1.25 per cent on 18 September (7 to 2). Japan's inflation was 1.9 per cent in August, held down by government energy subsidies [33].","r":[33]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Norges Bank. It raised twice, to 4.25 per cent (decided 6 May, announced 7 May) and to 4.50 per cent (decided 23 September, announced 24 September), citing the war's effect on oil and gas. In September it said underlying inflation had slowed and was lower than projected [34].","r":[34]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Riksbank and Swiss National Bank. The Riksbank left its rate at 1.75 per cent on 24 September but signalled rises \"this year\", saying \"The supply shocks from the war in the Middle East remain and global cost pressures are still elevated\". The SNB held at 0 per cent the same day; Swiss inflation rose to 0.8 per cent in August, mainly on oil products. Eurostat records Sweden's August inflation at 0.3 per cent, the lowest in the EU [35][38].","r":[35,38]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"New Zealand's CPI was 4.1 per cent in the year to the June 2026 quarter, with petrol up 27.5 per cent the largest contributor. That is a price figure only; the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's decisions are not verified here [40]. Australia's own headline CPI was 3.5 per cent in the year to July [19]. The months differ across these countries, and each figure is that country's own headline measure.","r":[40,19]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b10","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The Australian figure above is for July. The ABS published August CPI on 30 September: annual CPI rose 4.0 per cent in the 12 months to August 2026, up from 3.5 per cent in July, and trimmed mean inflation was 3.6 per cent, unchanged [48][49]. The other countries' figures in this section are for August (United States, euro area, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden) or the June quarter (New Zealand), so the Australian figure that matches the August ones is 4.0 per cent, not the 3.5 per cent for July that the graphic showed until it was redrawn on 30 September.","r":[48,49]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s5-b11","s":5,"k":"p","t":"So \"others hiked too\" is context, not justification, and it is not universal. The Bank of England and the Bank of Canada held all year. The Federal Reserve raised only in September, and by 25 basis points. The Governor herself noted on 18 September that \"central banks in many other advanced economies are responding to this global inflation shock by increasing their policy rates or signalling they will do so if needed.\" [28] Whether the size of the Australian response is right is the question the peers do not settle.","r":[28]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The International Monetary Fund's April outlook, \"Global Economy in the Shadow of War\", projected global growth of 3.1 per cent in 2026 and 3.2 per cent in 2027. In an adverse scenario growth slows to 2.5 per cent and inflation reaches 5.4 per cent; in a severe one growth is about 2 per cent and headline inflation just above 6 per cent by 2027. Its guidance is conditional: \"Monetary policymakers should reserve the option to look through negative supply shocks\" ... \"as long as inflation expectations remain well anchored and the monetary policy stance is already properly calibrated\" [41]. Whether the Reserve Bank's stance was \"already properly calibrated\" when the war hit is a question this article cannot answer from the record. It is not THE RORT's verdict either way.","r":[41]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The IMF's July update, which put global growth at 3.0 per cent in 2026 and 3.4 per cent in 2027, sets out a general rule that bears on the Bank's position. It said that where inflationary pressures are judged temporary and expectations anchored, \"central banks should keep real rates broadly constant over a reasonable horizon, which may imply raising nominal policy rates\". Where technology-led demand adds pressure, \"central banks may need to do more to avoid overheating\". It added: \"fiscal policy should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls\" [42].","r":[42]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Bank for International Settlements said in June that \"policymakers must prioritise price stability\". Research by BIS staff, published on 5 August and reflecting their views, not the BIS's, found that \"When expectations are above target, the inflationary impact of oil supply shocks can be more than twice as large as when they are well anchored\", that \"an energy price surge combined with a loose fiscal position tends to be followed by higher inflation\", and that prompt responses cost less where activity is resilient [43].","r":[43]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"A BIS economic adviser, Hyun Song Shin, was reported by Reuters, as carried by Global Banking & Finance Review, on 16 March, the day before the Reserve Bank's March rise, as saying:"},{"a":36,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"He added: \"It really depends on how long the conflict lasts and how long the rise in the oil price will be sustained.\" These are remarks reported via Reuters, not a BIS publication [44].","r":[44]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The case for the Board, in the documents' own words. Inflation was above target before the war [12][13]. The March majority judged that the war would add to inflation \"under a wide range of scenarios\" and that expectations rising would \"ultimately require significantly more contractionary monetary policy\" [26]. The Governor says many firms have passed fuel costs on and that the labour market is \"a little tighter than\" full employment [28]. The IMF says holding real rates steady through a temporary shock \"may imply raising nominal policy rates\" [42], and BIS staff find oil shocks bite harder when expectations are above target [43]. Fed, ECB, Bank of Japan and Norges Bank all raised [30][31][33][34].","r":[12,13,26,28,42,43,30,31,33,34]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Governor's case for acting now, on 28 July: \"Putting off a period of tight monetary policy today can mean higher rates and higher unemployment down the track.\" [24] Her predecessor Philip Lowe said in 2022 that bringing inflation down once it is ingrained in expectations \"is very costly and almost certainly involves a recession\", and that in Australia and the US in the 1970s and 1980s it took \"a rise in the unemployment rate of at least 5 percentage points\" [45].","r":[24,45]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Arguments that cut the other way, from inside the Board. Member Iain Ross, speaking in his own name on 22 September and not for the Board, said: \"The overall thesis is that there is no evidence of the emergence of a wage-price spiral in the present circumstances and recent data suggest such an outcome is unlikely.\" He said the 1970s mechanisms (comparative wage justice, quarterly indexation) are gone and that enterprise agreements lock wages until expiry [46]. He spoke in his own name on 22 September; whether he attended today's meeting will be known when the Minutes are published on 13 October. That cuts against a wage-price spiral as a justification for tightening in 2026. It does not address the Board's argument from capacity and expectations. The minority in March and the dissenter in May, described above, preferred to hold or to delay, not to abandon the tool [26][14].","r":[46,26,14]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"What the record leaves open. The Reserve Bank has not published, in the documents THE RORT has read, a split of the 2026 rises between war pass-through and domestic capacity. It gives a bit more than 0.1 point for the war's indirect effect on one quarter's trimmed mean, and 0.8 points for fuel's direct contribution to March's headline, but no split of the policy response [17][8]. Whether it judged its stance \"already properly calibrated\", the IMF's condition, when the war hit is likewise not answered in that record.","r":[17,8]},{"a":36,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Minutes of today's meeting are listed for 13 October at 11.30 am, and the Board's next decision is on 3 November at 2.30 pm, followed by the Governor's media conference [47]. Any answer or fact that changes what is written above will be added here as a dated Update.","r":[47]},{"a":37,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A rate rise is a purchase: borrowers pay now, and the Reserve Bank says the goods arrive later. On 29 September 2026 the cash rate rose to 4.60 per cent.","r":[1,8]},{"a":37,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The Bank’s models say a 100 basis point rise cuts year-ended inflation by ⅛ to ½ of a percentage point, peaking around one to two years later in most models.","r":[3]},{"a":37,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In its MARTIN model, inflation “does not decline until” unemployment rises, by 0.3 percentage points per 100 basis points: about 46,700 people, on THE RORT’s calculation.","r":[4,10]},{"a":37,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Bank has published no estimate of what the 2026 rises will do to unemployment or inflation.","r":[5,6]},{"a":37,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Board raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, the fourth rise of 2026, and the decision was unanimous [1]. The four rises total 100 basis points from 3.60 per cent, and put the cash rate above the 2023 peak of 4.35 per cent and at its highest since late 2011 [2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":37,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"A rate rise is a purchase. Borrowers pay for it now, and savers earn more on their savings [8]; the Bank says the goods arrive later. This article sets out the Bank’s own price list: what its models say a one-point rise takes off inflation and output, what it adds to unemployment, and how long all of that takes. Every figure below is the Bank’s or the ABS’s, or is attributed to its source, unless it is marked as THE RORT’s calculation.","r":[8]},{"a":37,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The headline is in the Bank’s April 2025 Bulletin. In most of its models, a 100 basis point rise has its peak effect after around one to two years; across them it lowers the level of GDP by ¼ to 1 per cent and year-ended inflation by ⅛ to ½ of a percentage point [3]. In one of its two main macroeconomic models, MARTIN, inflation “does not decline until” the contraction in demand translates into a rise in the unemployment rate and a fall in input costs [4]. And the Bank has published no estimate of what the 2026 rises will do to unemployment or inflation [5][6].","r":[3,4,5,6]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s own explainer puts the mechanism in two stages: “Changes to monetary policy affect interest rates in the economy. Changes to interest rates affect economic activity and inflation.” Expectations matter too: “if workers expect inflation to increase, they might ask for larger wage increases to keep up with the changes in inflation.” [7]","r":[7]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The same explainer is candid about timing and confidence: “Some estimates suggest that it takes between one and two years for monetary policy to have its maximum effect. However, there is a large degree of uncertainty about these estimates because the structure of the economy changes over time, and economic conditions vary.” [7]","r":[7]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Assistant Governor Christopher Kent listed five channels through which a rise works, in October 2023. Of the cash-flow channel, he said: “When interest rates go up, households pay more on their debt and earn more on their savings. Because the cash-flow channel is so noticeable, and felt so keenly by borrowers, it gets a lot of attention.” [8]","r":[8]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s models rate the channels differently from the attention they get: across two of them, MARTIN and DINGO, the exchange rate channel “tends to be very important”, especially for inflation, while the cash-flow channel “is less important in aggregate, despite it having an obvious effect on individual households through changes in mortgage repayments” [3].","r":[3]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s cross-model estimate is in its Bulletin of April 2025, by Mulqueeney, Ballantyne and Hambur. It used three RBA models that span the different classes, and included an external benchmark labelled “Murphy” [3]. Its finding: “most models estimate the peak impact of policy occurs after around one to two years. But the estimates of the peak effect range from ¼ to 1 per cent for GDP, and ⅛ to ½ percentage points for inflation.” [3] The GDP figure is a per cent of the level of GDP, not a percentage point, and the inflation figure is a fall in the year-ended rate. The authors stress that “the entire future path of interest rates matters” [3].","r":[3]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"⅛ to ½ point","t":"Peak fall in year-ended inflation from a 100 basis point rise, across the RBA’s models, one to two years later in most of them; GDP ¼ to 1 per cent lower. The RBA has published no estimate of what the 2026 rises will do.","src":"RBA Bulletin, April 2025; RBA SMP May and August 2026"},{"a":37,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"MARTIN is the Bank’s macroeconometric model, one of the two the Bulletin calls its main macroeconomic models [3]. In the 2019 paper that documented it, a 100 basis point rise lasting four quarters lowers the level of GDP by around 0.8 per cent six quarters after the shock. “The lower level of economic activity translates into an increase in the unemployment rate, which rises by 0.3 percentage points.” Inflation falls by a little less than 0.2 of a point after two years [4]. The most interest-sensitive part of spending in MARTIN is dwelling investment, which declines by “slightly more than three per cent” [4].","r":[3,4]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A second Bank estimate, by Benjamin Beckers in a 2020 paper using data from 1994 to 2018, finds that “prices fall by around 0.7 per cent over the two years following a 100 basis point temporary increase in the cash rate, the unemployment rate peaks after six quarters at around one-third of a percentage point above its previous level and output falls by around 0.8 per cent over the course of one year” [9]. Its inflation effect is about twice as large as MARTIN’s, while its output and unemployment effects are “closely in line” with MARTIN’s [9].","r":[9]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Read together, the Bank’s estimates for a 100 basis point rise are a fall in year-ended inflation of ⅛ to ½ of a point, a fall in the level of GDP of about ¼ to 1 per cent, and, in the two Bank papers that report it, a rise in unemployment of about 0.3 to one-third of a point, from models whose output fall of about 0.8 per cent sits near the top of the cross-model range (THE RORT’s comparison) [3][4][9]. Of its timing estimates the Bank says there is “a large degree of uncertainty” [7].","r":[3,4,9,7]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank publishes rates, not headcounts. THE RORT’s calculation turns its unemployment estimates into people, on the August 2026 labour force of 15,559,500 (722,900 unemployed and 14,836,600 employed) [10]. MARTIN’s 0.3 of a point is about 46,700 more unemployed people at the peak of a 100 basis point rise; Beckers’ one-third of a point is about 51,900 [4][9][10]. The method is a straight multiplication of the labour force by each rate.","r":[10,4,9]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Three cautions travel with those numbers. They are per 100 basis points, at the peak, in models of a temporary rise, so they are not an estimate of what the four 2026 rises will do, which the Bank has not published [5]. THE RORT rates them medium confidence as an order of magnitude. And the Bank warns that the whole path of rates matters, not one step [3].","r":[5,3]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Scaled down to a single 25 basis point step, the same arithmetic gives about 11,700 to 13,000 people, and the Bank’s GDP range works out at about 0.06 to 0.25 per cent of the level of GDP and its inflation range at about 0.03 to 0.125 of a percentage point [3][10]. That is a rough scaling of the Bank’s 100 basis point estimates, and THE RORT rates it low confidence: linear scaling is a simplification the Bank warns against, and its model shocks are not one-off 25 basis point steps.","r":[3,10]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Beside those numbers, and not as their cause, sits the Bank’s own forecast. In August it forecast unemployment rising from 4.4 per cent in June 2026 to 4.8 per cent by 2028 [6]. At the August 2026 labour force, on THE RORT’s calculation, that is about 62,000 more unemployed people: each 0.1 of a point is about 15,600 people [10]. From the August count, 722,900 people or 4.6 per cent, reaching 4.8 per cent would mean about 24,000 more (15,559,500 multiplied by 4.8 per cent is 746,856, less 722,900) [10]. Employment is still forecast to grow, so the 24,000 is a floor; both figures are THE RORT’s arithmetic, not a Bank statement.","r":[6,10]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The forecast rise is not a headcount for the rises. The Bank does not split its forecast by cause [6].","r":[6]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Bank has published no estimate of what the 29 September rise, or the 2026 cycle, does to unemployment or inflation [5][6]. Its May 2026 Statement on Monetary Policy ran adverse scenarios, but its own words are that “the assumed cash rate for Australia in the scenario is the same as the baseline assumption and implies a cumulative tightening of 60 basis points by mid-2028” [5]. THE RORT searched the August 2026 Statement (PDF) for the word MARTIN and found it zero times [6].","r":[5,6]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"What the August Statement does say is: “Monetary policy is judged to be somewhat restrictive, which is expected to help bring the economy into better balance. But that process will take some time, reflecting the normal lags in transmission.” [6]","r":[6]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The August forecast table has unemployment rising from 4.4 per cent (June 2026) to 4.8 per cent by 2028, while trimmed mean inflation falls from 3.6 to 2.4 per cent and headline inflation from 3.9 to 2.4 per cent. “Inflation is expected to remain elevated in the near term and ease back to target only gradually, reaching 2½ per cent by early 2028.” The forecasts “assume less than one full cash rate increase by the end of 2026, before a small reduction in the cash rate further out” [6]. Because the Bank does not split its outlook by cause, neither the 0.4 of a point on unemployment nor the fall in inflation can be read as the cost or the proceeds of the rises.","r":[6]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The next Board decision is on Tuesday 3 November 2026 at 2.30 pm, followed by the Governor’s media conference [11]. THE RORT will check then whether the Bank has published any such estimate.","r":[11]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Bulletin carries a worked example of the trade-off, and it is illustrative and 18 months old. It applies to the Bank’s February 2025 Statement, “and so does not incorporate any information received since then” [3]. On the February 2025 market path, the February 2025 Statement had GDP growing by about 2¼ per cent a year on average from the beginning of 2025 to the end of 2026, and inflation was expected to stay above the midpoint of the target range, at about 2.7 per cent at the end of 2026. Under a “hold” path at 4.35 per cent, the models predicted GDP would grow by about 1½ per cent a year, and inflation would decrease to be “around or below the midpoint” of the target range by the end of 2026 [3].","r":[3]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s calculation from those two growth rates is about 0.75 of a percentage point a year of growth given up (2¼ less 1½) for inflation at or below, rather than above, the midpoint. The example compares two paths for the cash rate as they stood in February 2025, before any 2026 rise. It is not an estimate of the trade-off now."},{"a":37,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Bank is plain that a rise does not touch the fuel-price shock. In prepared remarks at her 5 May 2026 media conference the Governor, Michele Bullock, said of the fuel and commodity price increases already feeding through to inflation: “The recent increases in interest rates will have no impact on this.” What the increases do, she said, “is to help to contain the domestic inflationary pressures after the inflation due to oil and related commodity prices eases.” [12]","r":[12]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"At the same conference she said the rises “are not going to do anything for inflation in the next six months. That’s done and dusted.” [12]","r":[12]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The May Minutes say the same in the Board’s voice: monetary policy “could not prevent a near-term increase in the price level as higher fuel prices worked their way through to final prices”, and “could not alter the near-term trajectory of inflation and, additionally, that output growth would likely be lower than potential growth for some time” [13]. What it could do was “limit the risk that this cost shock resulted in a broader and sustained lift in inflationary pressure, by bringing aggregate demand into closer alignment with aggregate supply and ensuring medium- to longer term inflation expectations remained anchored” [13].","r":[13]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Nor can a rise fix productivity. In her 28 July 2026 speech the Governor said: “One thing monetary policy can’t do, however, is address the economy’s slow productivity growth. While this persists, the ability of the economy to grow without generating inflation is constrained, and Australians will continue to experience limited growth in real wages.” [14] That is a statement about productivity, not an admission of a cost of the rate stance.","r":[14]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"None of this is a charge THE RORT makes against the Bank. These are the Bank’s own statements of what a rise cannot reach."},{"a":37,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s answer is that the alternative costs more. In November 2022 Governor Lowe said that “bringing inflation back down again after it becomes ingrained in people’s expectations is very costly and almost certainly involves a recession”, and that in Australia and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s it required “a rise in the unemployment rate of at least 5 percentage points” [15].","r":[15]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Governor Bullock made the same argument on 28 July 2026, in her account of the 1970s oil shocks. Supply shocks, she said, have become more frequent, and credible targets reduce the risk that they persist [14]. She also said that “a given increase in oil prices has a less direct and less pervasive effect on inflation today than it would have in the 1970s” [14].","r":[14]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Bank for International Settlements makes a related argument. Its Annual Economic Report of 28 June 2026 says policymakers “must prioritise price stability” [16]. BIS staff research published on 5 August 2026, which states the authors’ views rather than the BIS’s, finds that “When expectations are above target, the inflationary impact of oil supply shocks can be more than twice as large as when they are well anchored”, and that prompt responses cost less where activity is resilient [17].","r":[16,17]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"In March the Board’s majority judged that developments in the Middle East “would add to global and domestic inflation under a wide range of scenarios”, that conditions were “not sufficiently restrictive”, and that if medium- and long-term inflation expectations rose, it “would ultimately require significantly more contractionary monetary policy” [18]. The same majority conceded that the war’s effect on demand “remains uncertain, given Australia’s position as a net energy exporter and households’ generally healthy balance sheets” [18].","r":[18]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Governor has also defended gradualism. On 11 August 2026 she said that “if we were just focusing on inflation and we weren’t focusing on employment and the economy more broadly, then we could possibly raise interest rates very substantially and induce a very big impact but get inflation down very quickly”. The Bank’s more flexible mandate exists, she said, “to allow us reasonable time to get inflation back down and hopefully avoid some of those costs, particularly on the employment side” [19].","r":[19]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"One member of the Board has said, in his own name, that he sees no evidence of a wage-price spiral now. Iain Ross said on 22 September 2026: “The overall thesis is that there is no evidence of the emergence of a wage-price spiral in the present circumstances and recent data suggest such an outcome is unlikely.” He said the 1970s mechanisms, comparative wage justice and quarterly indexation, are gone, and that enterprise agreements lock wages in until they expire. He added: “I am expressing my own views. I am not purporting to speak on behalf of the Monetary Policy Board or the RBA.” [20] The May Minutes frame the risk as “a broader and sustained lift in inflationary pressure”, and the response as keeping medium- to longer term inflation expectations anchored [13].","r":[20,13]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Inside the Board, the March decision to raise to 4.10 per cent was 5 to 4. The minority said inflation was too high and that “a further tightening in monetary policy would probably be required”, but judged there was “merit in delaying any tightening of monetary policy until the potential effects of the current conflict in the Middle East become clearer”, and placed more weight on weaker-than-expected consumption and slowing growth in unit labour costs [18].","r":[18]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"In May the decision to raise to 4.35 per cent was 8 to 1. The lone dissenter judged that capacity pressures before the conflict were “somewhat less than the staff had assessed”, saw a higher risk of a prolonged conflict that sapped demand, expected inflation to return to target without more tightening, and preferred to hold “while awaiting additional evidence on how the Australian economy would respond to the conflict”, noting that this was consistent with other central banks [13]. The majority said underlying inflation was projected to be above target “for an extended period” across a range of scenarios, and that an increase “would best balance the Board’s two objectives, accepting that the shorter term trade-off between these had worsened” [13].","r":[13]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Both dissents, in March and May, were about timing, not the tool: the dissenters argued for waiting, not for a different instrument [18][13]. The Minutes attribute no votes to individual members, and this article does not say how any member voted.","r":[18,13]},{"a":37,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"So what does a rise buy, on the Bank’s own numbers? A fraction of a point off inflation, a year or two on, at the price of a lower level of output and more unemployed people. The Bank’s case is that not paying would cost more later. What it has not published is the sum for the 2026 rises. That is the question this article leaves open."},{"a":38,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The rises land on borrowers fast: less than 5 per cent of mortgages are fixed, and a rise can take up to three months to reach variable repayments.","r":[7]},{"a":38,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Canstar projects the four 2026 rises add **$364 a month** on a hypothetical $600,000 loan: 8.4 per cent of a $1,000-a-week gross wage, 0.44 per cent of the Governor’s base salary (THE RORT’s arithmetic).","r":[3,12]},{"a":38,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Renters feel little directly, but in 2024 were around two times as likely as owner-occupiers to be in financial stress.","r":[20,23]},{"a":38,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Bank forecasts unemployment rising to 4.8 per cent by end-2028. It was already 4.6 per cent in August, youth unemployment 10.8 per cent.","r":[27,28]},{"a":38,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Board raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, unanimously, the fourth rise of 2026 [1]. The new rate takes effect on 30 September [2]. The four rises total 100 basis points from 3.60 per cent, and 4.60 per cent is above the 2023 peak of 4.35 per cent and the highest since late 2011 [2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":38,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Who pays for that? This article follows the cost on the record: the repayment on a mortgage, the rise in living costs, and the job cost. It rests on the Reserve Bank’s own research, forecasts and words, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) indexes and labour force data, a few attributed private sources, and labelled arithmetic by THE RORT. Where THE RORT has done the sum, the method is shown."},{"a":38,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The Bank’s best defence gets its own section at the end, in its own words. The charge is narrow. The rise is a cash cost to borrowers and a living cost to the households the ABS measures; the Governor has said the Bank expects that a period of subdued growth in the economy will be required to bring inflation down; and the Bank’s own forecasts have unemployment rising."},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Canstar’s projection for the 29 September rise assumes an owner-occupier making principal and interest repayments with 25 years remaining on their loan term in February 2026, at the average variable rate, with banks passing the rise on from the following month. On a $600,000 loan the September rise adds $91 a month, and the four 2026 rises together add $364 a month. On $500,000 the four add $303 a month; on $750,000, $454; on $1,000,000, $606 [3].","r":[3]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Two things about those figures. They are Canstar’s projection, not a bank’s announcement: when the desk checked (below), the big four had not announced any change. And they describe a modelled owner-occupier, not any particular household."},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In the Reserve Bank’s indicator lending rates table (F5), every advertised bank variable housing rate rose by exactly 0.75 points in the months of the three rises to May (25 basis points each in February, March and May): the standard owner-occupier rate went from 8.02 per cent in December 2025 to 8.77 per cent in August 2026 [4]. The average rate actually charged on outstanding owner-occupier variable loans, which the Bank publishes separately (table F6), rose 0.7 points, from 5.5 per cent to 6.2 per cent, between December 2025 and July 2026 [5]. Table F6 is published to one decimal place.","r":[4,5]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Why the cash rate reaches Australian repayments quickly is a matter of the Reserve Bank’s own record. It says, on the Bank’s graph of major banks’ housing credit, the share of outstanding housing loans with fixed rates fell to “a historical low of less than 5 per cent in 2025”, and that a lower fixed-rate share “increases the sensitivity of household cash flows to changes in interest rates, increasing the strength of monetary policy transmission through that channel” [6]. Its February 2026 Statement on Monetary Policy said that “less than 5 per cent of new and outstanding mortgages are on fixed-rate terms”, and its May 2026 statement: “Cash rate increases can take up to three months to flow through to minimum required variable-rate mortgage payments.” [7]","r":[6,7]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Abroad the structure differs. The Bank’s Christopher Kent said in November 2024 that fixed rates averaged around 20 per cent of Australian mortgages over two decades, mostly fixed for two years or less. Australia and Norway have over 80 per cent of mortgages at variable rates; in the United States over 80 per cent is long-term fixed. Australian fixed periods are about two years, against five in the United Kingdom and Canada and 30 in the United States (data from 2023 and 2024) [8]. Where rates are fixed for longer, the hit is delayed, not avoided: the Bank of England’s July 2026 Financial Stability Report projects a little over 5 million UK households will see their repayments increase by the end of 2028, and says nearly 750,000 households paying less than 3 per cent will roll off fixes in 2026, for an average increase of £170 a month [9].","r":[8,9]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Between 4.44 pm and 4.46 pm AEST on 29 September the desk re-checked the big four banks’ pages. None had announced a change to variable home loan, savings or term deposit rates. CBA’s savings page said “we’re currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products”; Westpac said “our interest rates are currently under review”; ANZ said it was “reviewing its home loan and residential investment loan interest rates”; NAB’s home loan page still showed 3 February 2026 [10]. Macquarie, which had announced, says on its own page: “Macquarie is increasing its variable home loan reference rates by 0.25% per annum, effective 15 October 2026” [11].","r":[10,11]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The desk re-read the big four banks’ pages between 4.59 am and 5.00 am AEST on 30 September, and the statement above that they had not announced any change still held on the pages read: CBA’s home loan page still showed 5 May 2026 and its savings page, dated 29 September, said “we’re currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products”; Westpac and ANZ, each dated 29 September, said they were reviewing their rates; NAB’s home loan page still showed 3 February 2026 [44]. Term deposit pages were not re-read. Two lenders the desk has verified have announced dates for variable home loans: Macquarie, from 15 October [42], and Teachers Mutual Bank Limited, from 8 October across its five retail brands, with repayments changing on or after 1 November 2026 [43]. Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s own example is about $62 a month more on a $400,000 loan over 25 years at 6.00 per cent [43], and Canstar’s is $91 a month more for the September rise on $600,000 [3]: between $15 and $16 a month for each $100,000 in both (THE RORT’s arithmetic).","r":[44,42,43,3]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026, evening. Between 5.40 pm and 5.43 pm AEST on 30 September the four major banks’ own pages and releases showed that all four had announced a rise of 0.25 per cent a year in variable home loan rates, effective 9 October 2026: CBA [47]; Westpac, for new and existing customers [48]; NAB, on its standard variable home loan rates [49]; and ANZ, on its home, residential investment and line of credit home loans [50]. That is one day after Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s 8 October [43] and six days before Macquarie’s 15 October [42]. Only ANZ gives a dollar figure: about $79 a month more on a $500,000 owner-occupier loan with principal and interest repayments [50], which is between $15 and $16 a month for each $100,000 ($15.80; THE RORT’s arithmetic), in the same range as Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s example [43] and Canstar’s [3]. CBA, Westpac and NAB give no repayment figure [47][48][49].","r":[47,48,49,50,43,42,3]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 4 October 2026. NAB’s 0.25 is the whole of its announced variable home loan rise: NAB’s release and customer notice state a 0.25 percentage point rise for its variable home loans, and neither states a larger rise for any home loan [51]. The larger NAB figures reported since 2 October are for other products. Between 14 September and 2 October NAB raised its owner-occupier principal-and-interest fixed rates by 0.35 to 0.47 percentage points, and investor fixed rates by 0.30 to 0.45, in two steps; owner-occupier interest-only fixed rates rose 0.15 to 0.25. These rates are for new loans [52]. Those rises followed NAB’s 22 July cuts: 0.05 points in its one-year owner-occupier rate and 0.20 in its two-year, to 6.34 per cent, and 0.15 points across its investor fixed rates; at 6.81 per cent its two-year owner-occupier rate is 0.27 above its level before the cut, 6.54 per cent [53]. NAB’s credit card purchase rates rise by 0.50 to 1.50 points from each customer’s first statement after 1 October, under changes that were public for its Rewards and frequent flyer cards by 28 July [54]. On THE RORT’s arithmetic, a new $600,000 loan over 30 years, principal and interest, fixed for two years at NAB’s lowest two-year rate, costs $3,915.55 a month at 6.81 per cent from 2 October, against $3,729.50 at 6.34 per cent on 14 September; at NAB’s two-year rate before its 22 July cut, 6.54 per cent, it would have been $3,808.21, so measured from there the rise is $107.34 a month [53]; that is a different loan from Canstar’s 25-year variable example above [52]. A new article in this series, Above the 0.25, sets out what NAB raised and what it did not, the funding test and NAB’s savings rates.","r":[51,52,53,54]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The question this section answers is whether a rate rise hurts someone on $1 million as it hurts someone on $1,000 a week or less. A rise is a cash cost to a borrower, so the fair test is to set the same cost against two incomes."},{"a":38,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Take one hypothetical loan: $600,000, owner-occupier, principal and interest, 25 years remaining. Canstar projects that the four 2026 rises together add about $364 a month to repayments on it [3]. That is $4,368 a year.","r":[3]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s calculation, with the method shown: $364 x 12 = $4,368. $4,368 / $52,000 (a hypothetical earner on $1,000 a week, gross) = 8.4 per cent. $4,368 / $987,132 (the Governor’s 2024/25 base salary) = 0.44 per cent [12].","r":[12]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Read that with its conditions. It is the same hypothetical loan applied to two incomes, both gross, before tax. It describes no real person’s loans or finances. A $600,000 loan on $52,000 a year is illustrative, not a claim that a lender would approve it. And a percentage of gross income is not a measure of hardship on its own: it does not show tax, savings, buffers or any other cost."},{"a":38,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The pay figures are the Reserve Bank’s own. The Governor’s total remuneration in 2024/25 was $1,195,275: base salary $987,132, other benefits $31,457, superannuation $132,457 and long service leave $44,229 [12]. THE RORT sets base salary, not the total package, against a wage; the ABS earnings series exclude employer superannuation [13].","r":[12,13]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"For scale, the ABS puts median employee earnings in main job at $1,425 a week in August 2025 (released 12 December 2025). In May 2026, full-time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings were $2,083.70 (seasonally adjusted, up 3.7 per cent) and all-employee average weekly total earnings were $1,579.20 [13]. The $1,000-a-week figure used above is a round hypothetical, below each of those.","r":[13]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The other side on pay. No bonus was paid to the Governor or to any other key management person in 2024/25: the annual report’s Bonuses column shows a dash for each [12]. And the Remuneration Tribunal decided on no adjustment for public offices in its jurisdiction from 1 July 2026, saying that the approach “will result in a reduction in real remuneration” [14]. Whether that freeze applies to the Governor’s package, which is set by the Governance Board inside a Tribunal band, was not confirmed.","r":[12,14]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ABS’s Selected Living Cost Indexes for the June quarter 2026, released on 5 August, list the policy instrument itself among the costs households carry."},{"a":38,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Employee households recorded the largest rise in living costs that quarter, 1.5 per cent, and the ABS attributes it largely to an 8.2 per cent rise in mortgage interest charges. It adds: “The remaining impact will be seen in the September 2026 quarter.” [15]","r":[15]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"8.2%","t":"Rise in mortgage interest charges in the June quarter 2026, which the ABS attributes to banks passing on the February, March and May rises. It drove employee households’ 1.5 per cent living-cost rise, the largest of any household type that quarter. Over the year, age pensioners’ costs rose most (4.7 per cent).","src":"ABS Selected Living Cost Indexes, June quarter 2026 (5 August 2026)"},{"a":38,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The quarter and the year differ. Over the 12 months to the June 2026 quarter the indexes rose between 3.7 and 4.7 per cent: age pensioners’ costs rose most (4.7 per cent, with housing up 10.8 per cent), then pensioners and beneficiaries (4.6 per cent), self-funded retirees (3.8 per cent) and employees (3.7 per cent) [15]. Employee households were hit hardest in the June quarter, not over the year.","r":[15]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Governor has made a different point about the same experience. On 11 August she said people with mortgages “see the cost of their mortgages going up, and therefore their cost of living goes up. And they’re conflating”, and: “they’re saying cost of living going up is inflation. They’re actually not the same thing. But I get why people think th[at]” [16]. What the ABS records is the thing she describes: banks passing the Bank’s rises on to home loans, and the rise showing up in households’ living costs [15].","r":[16,15]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The latest official tenure figures are from 2019-20: 37 per cent of households owned with a mortgage, 29 per cent owned outright and 31 per cent rented. Owners with a mortgage spent 16 per cent of income on housing costs, renters 20 per cent [17]. The 2021 Census counted 35 per cent of occupied private dwellings owned with a mortgage, 31 per cent owned outright and 30.6 per cent rented [18].","r":[17,18]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"There is nothing newer from the ABS’s housing-cost survey. It cancelled the 2020-21 and 2021-22 surveys because of COVID, and will not release the 2023-24 results because of data collection issues; results from the 2025-26 survey are expected from mid-2027 [19]. The desk found no published figure for the share of households with a mortgage in 2026. A mortgage share is not a household share, and a headline about borrowers is not a headline about everyone.","r":[19]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank estimates that a 100 basis point rise lowers total household disposable income by around 0.2 per cent, an estimate for the September quarter 2024, before the 2026 rises. It finds the reduction in cash flows is highest on average for households aged 30 to 54 [20].","r":[20]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"By income the picture is mixed, and the Bank says so. “The cash flows of higher income households tend to fall in aggregate when the cash rate increases”, because many of them have mortgages, while lower-income households gain in aggregate, because more of them are renters and outright owners. But inside the group with a mortgage the order reverses: “Looking just at households with housing debt, the impact of interest rate increases on disposable income is greater for lower income households”, who also have thinner buffers [20].","r":[20]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Outright owners, about a third of households, gain income when rates rise. “For the median outright homeowner household, the size of this increase is only around one-third of the decrease in cash flows experienced by the median mortgagor household”: a comparison of medians, not of totals. Many older households own outright, and the Bank says this group “typically benefit from higher interest rates” [20].","r":[20]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Savers earn more too. The Bank’s Assistant Governor Christopher Kent said in October 2023: “When interest rates go up, households pay more on their debt and earn more on their savings” [21]. The average rate households were paid on all outstanding deposits rose from 2.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent between December 2025 and July 2026, and on at-call household balances from 2.5 per cent to 3.2 per cent [22]. Those are averages across products.","r":[21,22]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s research says renters “tend to have much lower levels of both assets and debt, meaning changes in interest rates have very little direct effect on their cash flows” [20]. That is half the finding. Its Financial Stability Review says lower-income households, many of them renters, are more likely to be in financial stress: in 2024, “the share of renters experiencing at least one incident of financial stress was around two times that of owner-occupiers” [23]. The two halves belong together.","r":[20,23]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Governor made the same point on 3 February 2026: “it’s not just people with mortgages, renters are often struggling as well, inflation is what’s caused them lots of trouble. It’s the price level. The price level has gone up 20 to 25 per cent over the last few years” [24]. The 20 to 25 per cent is the Governor’s figure, not an ABS figure.","r":[24]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Rents rose 3.6 per cent over the 12 months to July 2026, the same rate as to June and May, and close to headline consumer price inflation of 3.5 per cent [25].","r":[25]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The ABS published August CPI on 30 September. Rents rose 3.6 per cent over the 12 months to August 2026, the same rate as to July, while headline CPI rose 4.0 per cent, up from 3.5 per cent in July [45][46]. Against the August headline figure, rents are 0.4 percentage points below it (THE RORT’s subtraction); the comparison above, close to headline, is July’s.","r":[45,46]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Whether landlords pass rate rises on to renters is a question the Bank has studied. Its research found that, on average, “for every dollar increase in their mortgage interest costs, investors increase their rents by one cent”, and at most three cents in rising-rate periods, and concluded: “Overall, we find limited evidence that investors pass-through changes in their interest costs to their rents” [26]. Two limits apply. The estimates use tax data for 2006-07 to 2018-19, and the Bank says pass-through may be higher when vacancies are very low, “as is currently the case” [26].","r":[26]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s August 2026 Statement on Monetary Policy forecasts unemployment rising from 4.4 per cent in June 2026 to 4.8 per cent by end-2028, and GDP growth of 1.4 per cent over 2026: “Subdued GDP growth will weigh on labour demand, with the unemployment rate forecast to increase gradually to 4.8 per cent by end-2028” [27].","r":[27]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Bank publishes a rate, not a headcount. THE RORT’s calculation: at the August 2026 labour force of about 15.56 million people, each 0.1 point of unemployment is about 15,600 people, so a rise from 4.4 to 4.8 per cent is roughly 62,000 more unemployed people [27][28]. From today’s actual count the gap to 4.8 per cent is smaller: 15,559,500 x 4.8 per cent = 746,856, less the 722,900 unemployed in August, is about 24,000 more [28]. Both figures are THE RORT’s arithmetic on the ABS count and the Bank’s forecast, not Bank statements. The cost in the forecast is more unemployed people as the labour force grows, not fewer jobs: employment is still growing.","r":[27,28]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Bank does not split that forecast rise by cause, and it has published no estimate of what the 2026 rises themselves do to unemployment; its forecasts rely on restrictive conditions keeping growth below potential so that the labour market eases [27].","r":[27]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The August count, from the ABS Labour Force survey (seasonally adjusted): unemployment 4.6 per cent, up from 4.5 per cent in July. Over the year unemployed people rose by 80,000 (12.4 per cent) to 722,900, while employment rose by 238,100 (1.6 per cent) to 14,836,600. Both halves are true together [28]. The ABS flags a survey method change and recommends using trend estimates (trend unemployment is also 4.6 per cent); it calls the August data “fit-for-purpose” [28].","r":[28]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In trend terms unemployment has not fallen at any point in 2026: it was 4.3 per cent in January and 4.6 per cent in August, the highest in the release’s 12-month table [28]. Underemployment was 6.2 per cent in August and has exceeded the unemployment rate in every month of 2026; underutilisation was 10.8 per cent in July and August, up from 10.0 per cent in January (seasonally adjusted) [28]. August’s job growth was all part-time: full-time employment fell by 6,300 and part-time employment rose by 45,800. That is one month, not a trend [28].","r":[28]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Unemployment is already at the level the Bank’s August forecast had for mid-2027: 4.6 per cent, against 4.5 per cent forecast for December 2026 [27][28]. That is not the same as saying the forecast has been missed. The forecast is a quarterly average, and the September quarter is incomplete: the July and August average is 4.55 per cent (THE RORT’s calculation).","r":[27,28]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What the Governor has said. On 11 August a Bloomberg journalist put it to her that “you say that we need higher unemployment”; those words are the journalist’s. Explaining what supply shocks do to the trade-off, she said: “Turned around, it means that for every inflation rate, we have to have a higher unemployment rate”. She said a slowing and a rise in unemployment are not a reason to reverse course: “Actually, we need that. We need growth to slow”. For balance, she said “I don’t like people losing their jobs generally. It’s stressful for them”, adding that employment “is still growing” [16]. On the same day: “We expect that a period of subdued growth in the economy will be required to bring inflation down sustainably” [16].","r":[16]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"That is the Governor’s answer to an audience question on the tolerable level of unemployment at the CEDA event on 22 September, in the Bank’s own transcript. The passage begins: “There’s no particular level at which I think we can get to.” In the same answer she said: “So it’s not that I can say I will only tolerate an unemployment rate of, say, 4.5 per cent at the moment. At the moment, we think that’s a bit tight.” And, for balance, she said that “having a job is really important” and that “high unemployment is not great” [29].","r":[29]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"On the day of the rise, ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said: “Raising interest rates is creating unemployment by design, putting thousands of people out of work to slow the economy.” That is a reaction, not a statement of fact about unemployment; the ABC live blog framed it as a response to the Governor’s comments, and the Governor’s own words are above [30].","r":[30]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Youth unemployment (ages 15 to 24) rose by 0.4 points to 10.8 per cent in August, more than double the national rate of 4.6 per cent [28]. Over the year to August it rose by 1.1 points (from 9.7 to 10.8 per cent), against 0.4 points nationally: about 2.75 times as much. In trend terms the figures are 0.7 against 0.3, about 2.3 times. The ratios are THE RORT’s calculation from the ABS series [28].","r":[28]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"It is the pattern Reserve Bank research predicted in 2018: the youth rate “tends to move twice as much”, possibly reflecting a “last in, first out” practice, with young workers “disproportionately concentrated in industries where the nature of work is quite cyclical, such as retail trade and food & accommodation” [31].","r":[31]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"More than one in four young people in the labour force is now unemployed or wants more hours. Youth underutilisation was 26.3 per cent in August 2026, against 23.4 per cent a year earlier and 26.4 per cent in July: up 2.9 points over the year, against 0.9 points nationally, about 3.2 times as much (THE RORT’s calculation). Youth underemployment rose from 13.8 per cent to 15.6 per cent [28].","r":[28]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Bank sets one cash rate for the country; the August 2026 labour force figures (seasonally adjusted) are not evenly spread. Unemployment: Victoria 5.2 per cent, Tasmania 5.0, South Australia 4.6, Queensland 4.5, Western Australia 4.5, New South Wales 4.3, against 4.6 for Australia. Underemployment: Tasmania 6.9 per cent, Victoria 6.8, Queensland and South Australia 6.4, Western Australia 5.8, New South Wales 5.4. The Northern Territory and the ACT have no seasonally adjusted estimate and are left out [28].","r":[28]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Small businesses pay far more to borrow than large ones. New loans in July 2026 cost small businesses 7.44 per cent, medium businesses 6.26 per cent and large businesses 5.54 per cent. The rise in rates on outstanding loans between January and July 2026 was similar across sizes: 0.61 points for small, 0.70 for medium and 0.67 for large [32]. The indicator small business variable rates rose by 0.75 points in the months of the three rises to May, from 8.25 to 9.00 per cent and from 10.01 to 10.76 per cent [4].","r":[32,4]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s Financial Stability Review says a higher cash rate reaches small businesses faster than large corporates: “This is in part because many smaller businesses take out variable-rate business loans secured with a residential property mortgage” [23]. It adds that company insolvencies “have stabilised at around longer run averages at an economy-wide level, although the share of companies entering insolvency remains elevated in the hospitality and construction sectors, where the operating environment has been more challenging, particularly for smaller firms” [33]. By contrast, the same review says “larger companies are expected to remain resilient to higher interest rates and cost pressures” [23].","r":[23,33]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s9-b0","s":9,"k":"p","t":"In its 29 September statement the Reserve Bank records that “housing prices have fallen in most capital cities and new housing loans have declined noticeably”, and, two sentences later, “Meanwhile, growth in business investment and debt is strong” [1]. These are two sentences of the same paragraph set beside each other by THE RORT; they are not a Bank finding on who bears the burden.","r":[1]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s9-b1","s":9,"k":"p","t":"There is early, unpublished research on buyers. The ABC reported on 25 September findings by James Graham (University of Sydney) and Avish Sharma (Northwestern University, a former Reserve Bank analyst): a typical 0.25 point rise caused “an immediate 5 per cent decline in home purchases”, and cut home ownership by up to about 0.3 points four years later, close to 30,000 households, with younger and lower-income buyers hit hardest. Each later rise did less than the first: “each subsequent rate rise produced a smaller shock than those before it” [34]. The research is unpublished and has been reported by one outlet; treat it as early findings.","r":[34]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s10-b0","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Roy Morgan estimates that 32.5 per cent of owner-occupier mortgage holders, 1,786,000 people, were “At Risk” of mortgage stress in July 2026, the highest in 18 years and up 341,000 on a year earlier. Twenty-two per cent (1,210,000) were “Extremely At Risk”, against a two-decade average of 16.4 per cent. Roy Morgan’s own model says a September rise to 4.6 per cent adds only 0.2 points, about 12,000 people [35]. Roy Morgan counts people, from a survey model, not households. Its chief executive Michele Levine said: “Mortgage stress has now increased six months in a row, interest rates have increased three times this year, housing prices are coming down in key markets” [35].","r":[35]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s10-b1","s":10,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank measures something else. Its March 2026 Financial Stability Review, written after the February and March rises and before May, found that the share of housing loans more than three months in arrears “has declined over the past year, returning to around pre-pandemic levels”, and that the share of mortgagors in severe financial stress has declined since mid-2024 and is small. Most mortgagors have large buffers: “The median mortgage prepayment buffer (relative to a borrower’s minimum scheduled payments) is larger than prior to the pandemic for all income quartiles”, though lower-income households have the thinnest buffers [23].","r":[23]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s10-b2","s":10,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s May 2026 Bulletin adds that, over five years, the share of housing loan facilities with an offset account rose from around 40 per cent to 55 per cent and with redraw facilities from around 70 per cent to 80 per cent [6]. Its May 2026 Statement on Monetary Policy says that in 2022-23 the spending of variable-rate households “remained similar to households with fixed-rate mortgages for at least two years after interest rates started to increase” [7]. The FSR put it this way: “A little over 1 per cent of variable-rate owner-occupier borrowers were estimated to be experiencing a cash flow shortfall as at the end of 2025” [23].","r":[6,7,23]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s10-b3","s":10,"k":"p","t":"The two sets of figures measure different things, and neither covers the September rise. Beside them, the Commonwealth Bank’s own filing for the year to 30 June 2026 records strain behind its results: home loan arrears of 0.73 per cent and personal loan arrears of 1.72 per cent “reflecting cost-of-living pressures”, more than 147,000 tailored payment arrangements for customers needing support, and loan impairment expense up 9 per cent to $788 million [36].","r":[36]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s11-b0","s":11,"k":"p","t":"The Bank does not dispute the cost. On 11 August the Governor said: “I know that these increases have been tough for households with mortgages who are also facing high inflation. But they were necessary.” She added: “High inflation hurts all Australians, especially the most vulnerable, and that is why bringing inflation down is our priority” [16]. On 18 September she told the House Economics Committee: “I recognise that higher interest rates are difficult for Australians with mortgages who are also facing cost-of-living pressures. But reducing inflation is essential”, and that “only a small share are facing severe difficulty with their loan repayments” [37].","r":[16,37]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s11-b1","s":11,"k":"p","t":"On who inflation hurts, she said in September 2024 that “high inflation hurts everyone, and especially the most vulnerable”, and that “most people have experienced similar rates of increase in inflation”. She also said the settings “are causing hardship to some households and businesses” and that “lower income borrowers are over-represented in the group of people who are really struggling” [38].","r":[38]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s11-b2","s":11,"k":"p","t":"On the cost of not acting, Governor Lowe said in November 2022 that “bringing inflation back down again after it becomes ingrained in people’s expectations is very costly and almost certainly involves a recession”, and that in the 1970s and 1980s it required “a rise in the unemployment rate of at least 5 percentage points” [39]. Governor Bullock said on 28 July 2026: “Putting off a period of tight monetary policy today can mean higher rates and higher unemployment down the track” [40].","r":[39,40]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s11-b3","s":11,"k":"p","t":"On gradualism, on 11 August she said: “if we were just focusing on inflation and we weren’t focusing on employment and the economy more broadly, then we could possibly raise interest rates very substantially and induce a very big impact but get inflation down very quickly. The reason why we’ve got this sort of slightly more flexible mandate is to allow us reasonable time to get inflation back down and hopefully avoid some of those costs, particularly on the employment side” [16].","r":[16]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s11-b4","s":11,"k":"p","t":"The data carry the Bank’s side as well. Employment rose by 238,100 over the year to August [28]. Most mortgagors have large buffers [23]. Outright owners gain when rates rise, and higher-income households lose more in aggregate [20]. And the oil shock makes Australians poorer whatever the cash rate: on 5 May the Governor said, “Australians are poorer because of this shock to oil prices and energy prices and all the other commodity prices that are being impacted. We are poorer and there is no way out of that” [41].","r":[28,23,20,41]},{"a":38,"at":"at-s11-b5","s":11,"k":"p","t":"That last answer is also the charge in one sentence: in the same answer the Governor said of the oil shock that “the interest rate rises will not do anything about that” [41]. In her prepared remarks that day she said what the rises are for: “What these increases do, however, is to help to contain the domestic inflationary pressures after the inflation due to oil and related commodity prices eases.” [41] The Bank’s case, in its own words above, is that inflation must come down, that a period of subdued growth is how it comes down, and that waiting costs more. The record above shows who carries the cash cost of the rises and who is exposed alongside them, on the Bank’s own research and the ABS’s figures: borrowers, lower-income mortgagors with the thinnest buffers, renters already about twice as likely to be in financial stress, and, on a forecast the Bank does not split by cause, more unemployed people, with youth unemployment rising faster than the national rate. Whether the trade is right is a judgment; the figures are here so that readers can make it.","r":[41]},{"a":39,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Rate rises do not land evenly on corporations. From June 2022 to June 2026, financial corporations’ surplus rose 36.6 per cent and private non-financial corporations’ fell 9.4 per cent, on THE RORT’s calculation.","r":[2]},{"a":39,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Small firms pay most: new loans in July 2026 cost small businesses 7.44 per cent and large ones 5.54 per cent.","r":[6]},{"a":39,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The Bank’s 29 September statement set falling house prices beside strong business investment and debt. None of its 2026 decision statements uses the word “profit”.","r":[1,30]},{"a":39,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Bank research finds margins had “only a modest impact” on inflation overall; the Fels inquiry found ‘profit push’ pricing added significantly.","r":[18,27]},{"a":39,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, unanimously: the fourth rise of 2026 [1]. Its statement recorded that housing prices have fallen in most capital cities and that new housing loans have declined noticeably. Two sentences later, in the same paragraph, it said: “Meanwhile, growth in business investment and debt is strong.” [1] That is a juxtaposition of the Bank’s own sentences, not a Bank finding on who bears the burden of its decision. It raises the question this article takes up: if the rises squeeze borrowers, are corporations affected at all, and which ones?","r":[1]},{"a":39,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The blanket claim that corporations are not affected is not supported by the record. The economy-wide profits share peaked at 33.1 per cent in June 2022 and was 27.1 per cent in June 2026, below its December 2019 level of 27.9 per cent [2]. “Corporations” is not one group. Between the June quarters of 2022 and 2026, financial corporations’ operating surplus rose 36.6 per cent while private non-financial corporations’ fell 9.4 per cent (THE RORT’s calculation from ABS levels) [2].","r":[2]},{"a":39,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article sets out what the record shows about who in the corporate sector has gained, who has paid, what the Reserve Bank has found about margins, and what its decision statements leave out. Each charge is set beside the Bank’s own research and the other side of the record. It does not say that corporate profits caused the 2026 inflation, and it does not say they did not."},{"a":39,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Australian Bureau of Statistics national accounts, released on 2 September 2026, show the wages share of total factor income at 54.3 per cent in the June quarter 2026, up from 49.0 per cent in the June quarter 2022 [2]. Over the same four years the economy-wide profits share fell from its June 2022 peak of 33.1 per cent to 27.1 per cent, below its December 2019 level of 27.9 per cent. The path in between, in seasonally adjusted terms, was 30.4 per cent in June 2023, 28.8 in June 2024 and 27.0 in June 2025 [2].","r":[2]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"+36.6% vs -9.4%","t":"Change in quarterly operating surplus, June quarter 2022 to June quarter 2026: financial corporations up 36.6 per cent, private non-financial corporations down 9.4 per cent. ‘Financial corporations’ is a whole ABS sector, not banks alone.","src":"THE RORT’s calculation from ABS National Accounts, Table 5206007, 2 September 2026"},{"a":39,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The split inside “corporations” is where the story is. From the June quarter 2022 to the June quarter 2026, financial corporations’ operating surplus rose 36.6 per cent, from $25.3 billion to $34.6 billion a quarter (the percentage changes here are THE RORT’s calculation from ABS levels). Compensation of employees rose 31.6 per cent. Private non-financial corporations’ operating surplus fell 9.4 per cent, from $157.3 billion to $142.5 billion a quarter [2].","r":[2]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ABS gives its own account of the latest quarter. Financial corporations’ surplus rose 2.4 per cent in the June quarter 2026, “driven by growth in balances and margins, particularly for dwelling and business loans”. The ABS adds: “Margins rose as effective interest rates on loans rose more than interest rates on deposits.” Through the year the surplus rose 10.2 per cent, against 6.0 per cent for compensation of employees [3].","r":[3]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That is a statement about a whole sector, not about banks alone, and it covers business loans as well as dwelling loans. The Reserve Bank’s own tables show something narrower for one product. The average rate charged on outstanding owner-occupier variable loans rose 0.7 points, from 5.5 per cent to 6.2 per cent, between December 2025 and July 2026. The average rate paid on household deposits rose the same 0.7 points, from 2.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent, so the gap between the two was 2.7 points in both months (against all deposits, 2.5 points and then 2.6). At the one-decimal precision published, it did not measurably widen over the rises. This compares one loan type with deposits and is not a bank margin, and a change of up to about 0.1 to 0.2 points could be hidden by rounding [4].","r":[4]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In the June quarter 2026, compensation of employees rose 1.5 per cent (6.0 per cent through the year). Private non-financial corporations’ operating surplus rose 2.5 per cent (5.1 per cent through the year), which the ABS says was “led by Mining with increased sales and higher prices particularly for coal, crude oil and lithium” [3].","r":[3]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s own account is that a rate rise does not reach every firm in the same way or at the same speed."},{"a":39,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The same review said: “Larger companies are expected to remain resilient to higher interest rates and cost pressures.” Its reasoning is that many small firms borrow at variable rates secured on a home, while larger firms issue fixed-rate debt or hedge [5].","r":[5]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s Table F7 shows the size of the difference. New business loans in July 2026 cost small businesses 7.44 per cent, medium businesses 6.26 per cent and large businesses 5.54 per cent: a gap between small and large of 1.90 percentage points (THE RORT’s subtraction from the table) [6]. On outstanding loans, the 2026 rises reached all three sizes about equally. Between January and July 2026 the outstanding rate rose 0.61 points for small businesses (6.85 to 7.46 per cent), 0.70 for medium (5.51 to 6.21) and 0.67 for large (5.07 to 5.74) [6]. The difference is chiefly in the level of the rate, not in the size of the 2026 increase.","r":[6]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Advertised rates moved in step with the cash rate. Two advertised small business variable rates in Table F5 rose 0.75 points, in the months of the three rises to May (25 basis points each in February, March and May): from 8.25 per cent to 9.00 per cent, and from 10.01 per cent to 10.76 per cent [7].","r":[7]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"There are signs of strain in parts of the small-business sector. The Bank’s March 2026 review found that company insolvencies “have stabilised at around longer run averages at an economy-wide level, although the share of companies entering insolvency remains elevated in the hospitality and construction sectors, where the operating environment has been more challenging, particularly for smaller firms” [8]. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s figures show fewer insolvencies overall: first-time company insolvencies were 14,153 in 2025-26, down from 14,722 in 2024-25 (11,053 in 2023-24 and 7,942 in 2022-23). In February to June 2026, the five months from the first 2026 rise, there were 6,106 against 6,509 a year earlier. Construction was the largest industry among companies entering external administration in the first 11 months of 2025-26 (24.4 per cent). ASIC’s figures do not show rate-driven corporate stress in 2026 [9]. Business non-performing loans rose slightly over 2025, partly from sole traders and partnerships in hospitality and construction, and remain well below the highs of the global financial crisis [10].","r":[8,9,10]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s 29 September statement recorded falling house prices and a noticeable drop in new housing loans. Two sentences later: “Meanwhile, growth in business investment and debt is strong.” [1] The pairing is the Bank’s own, and it is not a finding on who bears the burden.","r":[1]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"It is not a one-off. In June the Bank wrote: “Growth in business investment is strong and credit is readily available to both households and businesses.” In August: “growth in business debt and investment is strong.” [11] The March statement said business investment “was above expectations” while consumption “was below expectations” [12].","r":[11,12]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the same. Private business investment fell 0.5 per cent in the June quarter 2026 but rose 10.4 per cent through the year, and the ABS noted: “Business investment remained elevated with an increase in new building construction associated with data centres.” [3] Through the year, at least, business investment is up.","r":[3]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank does not expect this to last. Its forecasts have business investment growth slowing from 6.5 per cent (June 2026) to 0.2 per cent by December 2028, which is consistent with firms feeling the rises with a lag [11]. In October 2023 Assistant Governor Christopher Kent said Bank models implied that the 4 percentage point rise in the cash rate “might contribute to business investment being around 4 per cent lower than otherwise after two to three years”, while saying there is “mixed evidence” on how far interest rates affect business investment directly [13].","r":[11,13]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s liaison with firms, reported in the 29 September statement, finds that “firms are experiencing cost pressures and are either increasing the prices of their goods and services or looking to do so”. It adds: “Short-term measures of inflation expectations remain elevated.” [1] In May the Bank flagged “early signs that many firms experiencing cost pressures are looking to increase prices of their goods and services” [14].","r":[1,14]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 11 August Governor Michele Bullock said: “Some firms have passed these cost pressures through to the prices of their goods and services, and others are looking to do so.” Her remedy was to cool demand. Judging the economy to be in excess demand, she said, “our concern is that it will be easier to pass that on than it might otherwise be. And that’s why we need to get supply and demand back into better balance.” [15]","r":[15]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 18 September, to the House Economics Committee, she said inflation “partly reflects capacity pressures in the Australian economy, and the conflict in the Middle East has added to these inflation pressures”, and that “many firms have passed input cost pressures arising from elevated fuel prices through to the prices of other goods and services.” She added that “the full effects of recent rate increases are yet to be felt.” [16]","r":[16]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s own record is therefore that firms are raising prices or looking to, and the causes it names are cost pressure from fuel, strong demand and capacity limits. Whether margins belong on that list is the dispute taken up in the next section."},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank has looked at margins directly, in research and in testimony, and its findings should be stated before any charge against it."},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In May 2023, its analysis found “little evidence that there has been a broad-based increase in domestic non-mining profit margins, suggesting that changes in domestic profit margins have not been a significant independent cause of the increase in aggregate CPI inflation.” The rise in the profit share came largely from mining at global prices. But the same box also said: “Among the 200 largest firms, some highly profitable firms have been able to gradually increase their margins over this period.” It dated that trend from 2016. Its data ran to December 2022 [17].","r":[17]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In May 2026 a Bulletin article by Bank staff found that margin squeezes in retail and home building pushed inflation down in early 2025 and that their unwinding was “accentuating the pick-up in aggregate inflation in the latter part of 2025”, the pick-up behind the 2026 rises. Overall, it judged that “changes in margins had only a modest impact on inflation dynamics overall.” It treats changes in competition as “generally less relevant” over the horizon in which monetary policy operates [18].","r":[18]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"An August 2026 staff article (Isobel McKay, 27 August; a staff view, not the Board’s) looked at where consumer price growth came from. From 2023 to early 2026, it found, growth in the household consumption deflator was increasingly accounted for by domestic factors, labour costs and rents, while “the contribution from import prices and business owner returns moderated significantly. In fact, business owner returns have dragged on aggregate consumer price growth a little in some quarters.” Immediately after the pandemic, though, import prices and business owner returns “accounted for a larger share”. The article’s window ends in early 2026, before the war’s effects are in it [19].","r":[19]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter, answering an audience question on 8 July 2026, said that looking across the whole economy the Bank hasn’t “found much evidence for substantial moves in the profit metrics that we track”. Rates, she said, “are a blunt tool, but they work because they go everywhere in the economy.” [20] In February 2024 Bullock told Senate Estimates that “there probably are firms” using “the circumstances of lack of competition, strong demand and, as you mentioned, the cover of higher inflation”. But in the non-mining sector in aggregate, “there’s not evidence of a wholesale increase in margins across the board”, and that “to the extent that there are competition issues here”, it is “very relevant that the ACCC is engaged and involved” [21]. The Bank also sees a labour-cost component: unit labour costs, “the measure of labour costs most relevant for firms’ cost of production”, are forecast to ease gradually from elevated levels [22].","r":[20,21,22]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Others read the same period differently, and each should be read beside the Bank’s findings above, not in place of them."},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Australia Institute claims that rising corporate profits made up more than half of the inflation above the Reserve Bank’s target range, and that big companies earned some $100 billion above pre-pandemic margins, over December 2019 to June 2023. That is the Institute’s claim, about that period, published in November 2024, not a 2026 finding [23]. It also reported OECD data attributing 51 per cent of the rise in Australia’s GDP deflator, over five quarters to the end of 2022, to unit profits and 21 per cent to unit labour costs. The GDP deflator is not consumer inflation; the Reserve Bank notes that it rose 3¼ percentage points more than consumer prices over the two years to December 2022, largely on mining export prices [24].","r":[23,24]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Beside those claims sit the Bank’s May 2023 finding [17] and its August 2026 staff finding that, after the pandemic, import prices and business owner returns did account for a larger share of growth in the household consumption deflator before moderating [19]. The Institute’s figures and the Bank’s are on different measures, and this article does not resolve between them.","r":[17,19]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In February 2026 the Institute’s chief economist Greg Jericho wrote that “non-wage factors like massive corporate profits are driving inflation, not the meagre wage growth of workers” [25]. On 27 July 2026 he wrote that the OECD Employment Outlook 2026 found profits, not labour costs, drove the rise in Australian inflation in late 2025 and early 2026 [26]. Those are Jericho’s claims. The OECD’s own words were not read: THE RORT could not open the report, so only his account of it is given. Against them are the Bank’s staff finding that business owner returns “dragged on aggregate consumer price growth a little in some quarters” from 2023 to early 2026 [19], and the Bank’s forecast that unit labour costs, now elevated, ease only gradually [22].","r":[25,26,19,22]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b10","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Fels inquiry, run with the ACTU and reporting in February 2024 after more than 750 submissions and with 35 recommendations, concluded: “Not only are many consumers overcharged continuously but ‘profit push’ pricing has added significantly to inflation in recent times.” It said that claims that the rise in the profit share is explained by mining “do not hold up”, and that “Price-gouging by the banks has only exacerbated the consequences of restrictive monetary policy” [27]. On the Reserve Bank’s figures for that cycle, the major banks’ spread between lending rates and funding costs fell 60 basis points to about 190, and their margins, after rising modestly in 2022, later fell below pre-pandemic levels [34]. The Fels report’s finding differs from the Bank’s in 2023 [17]. This article reports both as findings.","r":[27,34,17]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s4-b11","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In March 2025 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s supermarkets inquiry found that “ALDI, Coles and Woolworths are some of the most profitable supermarket businesses among global peers and their average product margins have increased over the past five financial years”, and made 20 recommendations. According to The Conversation, it did not allege price gouging or recommend divestiture [28].","r":[28]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Australian Government company tax receipts were $141.2 billion in 2023-24, $138.8 billion in 2024-25 and $149.2 billion in 2025-26, up about 7.5 per cent on the year (THE RORT’s calculation from the Final Budget Outcome figures) [29]. These are Budget receipts, not profits. They do not show how any group of companies has fared under the 2026 rises, or how much any one company paid.","r":[29]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"None of the Reserve Bank’s six 2026 decision statements, its 11 August press conference transcript or the Outlook chapter of its August Statement on Monetary Policy contains the words “profit” or “markup”. The five statements before September do not contain “margin” either (the September statement uses it once, in the phrase “at the margin”) [30]. That is a scoped absence: the Minutes, the other chapters of the Statement, speeches and research papers were not searched in that count.","r":[30]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The March and May Minutes were searched separately. Neither discusses corporate profits or margins arising from the war. “Profit” appears once in March, as “corporate profitability” of AI-exposed US equities, and not at all in May. The nearest material is liaison on pricing: “members acknowledged the information from liaison that some firms were actively considering whether to raise prices and that some expected workers would begin to seek higher nominal wages.” [31]","r":[31]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"A word missing from a decision statement shows what the Board chose to put in its reasons, not what it knows. The Bank’s research on margins, above, addresses the question directly, and its Assistant Governor has said the Bank has not found much evidence for substantial moves in the profit metrics it tracks [20]. The charge that stands is narrower: the decision statements do not use the word profit, and what evidence the Bank holds on how the burden of tightening is shared between households and firms was not established in this round.","r":[20]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The record argues against the blanket claim, and it also argues against its opposite. The economy-wide profits share is 27.1 per cent, below its December 2019 level of 27.9 per cent [2]. Private non-financial corporations’ operating surplus is 9.4 per cent below its June 2022 level [2]. First-time company insolvencies fell in 2025-26 [9]. The Bank’s March 2026 review said: “The strong financial positions of most Australian households and businesses means that they are unlikely to be a source of instability, though financing pressures will increase for some if inflation is higher for longer than currently forecast.” [8]","r":[2,9,8]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Nightly reported on 24 September that Morgan Stanley had cut its FY2027 profit forecasts for the major banks by an average 7 per cent since May, citing rate rises, costs and property tax changes [35]. The Bank’s March 2026 review found that lending competition “does not appear to have ... substantially reduced their profitability” [10]. The ASX 200 rose over the 2025-26 financial year. It rose 2.8 per cent in price terms, and 5.9 per cent in total return, which CommSec, a bank-owned broker, summarised as containing “a war, an interest rate cut before three rate rises, an AI boom”. The weakest sectors fell on company and AI concerns, not rates [32].","r":[35,10,32]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Where corporate earnings have jumped, world prices explain some of it. Rio Tinto reported on 29 July 2026 that underlying earnings for the half to 30 June rose 43 per cent to US$6.9 billion, and its interim dividend rose 43 per cent, with about US$3.6 billion of EBITDA growth from world copper, gold and aluminium prices [33]. Those are prices set on world markets, not at home.","r":[33]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s own research has three lines that a fair reading must carry. Margins “had only a modest impact on inflation dynamics overall” [18]. Bank staff research finds business owner returns “dragged on aggregate consumer price growth a little in some quarters” between 2023 and early 2026 [19]. And Kent’s October 2023 model estimate is that the 4 percentage point rise in the cash rate up to that date may leave business investment around 4 per cent lower than otherwise after two to three years, though he said the evidence on that direct effect is “mixed” [13].","r":[18,19,13]},{"a":39,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"What the record supports is this. The corporate sector is not one group. Finance has gained on the ABS’s measure and private non-financial corporations have not, since June 2022, and on the Bank’s own account small firms face the highest rates and feel a rise sooner. The Bank has recorded strong business investment and debt and firms raising prices or looking to in the same statement as falling house prices. It has published research that finds margins had only a modest impact overall, and the Fels inquiry found, and the Australia Institute claims, that they mattered more. Neither side’s figures settle the other’s, and what evidence the Bank holds on how the burden of tightening is shared between households and firms was not established in this round."},{"a":39,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [30] pointed to the Reserve Bank's 2026 media releases index; it now gives the address of each of the six decision statements it counts. The count and its scope are unchanged.","r":[30]},{"a":40,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On average the banks did not keep most of the 2026 rises from savers: household deposit rates and owner-occupier variable loan rates both rose 0.7 points to July.","r":[3,4]},{"a":40,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Some savers got nothing: advertised transaction accounts paid **0.00 per cent** from November 2025 to August 2026, while every advertised variable housing rate rose the full 0.75 points.","r":[5,6]},{"a":40,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Bonus savers kept pace only with a deposit and no withdrawals each month. In 2023, 71 per cent of bonus accounts missed the bonus in an average month.","r":[5,9]},{"a":40,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"All four major banks lift variable home loan rates from 9 October. By 4 October Westpac and CBA had announced some savings rises; NAB showed none.","r":[33,44,41,32,34,35]},{"a":40,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The cash rate rose three times before today: 3.60 per cent to 4.35 per cent, effective 4 February, 18 March and 6 May 2026. On 29 September the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Board raised it a fourth time, by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, unanimously [1][2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":40,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This article asks one narrow question: did the banks keep those rises from savers? The Reserve Bank publishes both sides of the ledger, what banks pay on deposits and what they charge on loans, in its Tables F4, F4.1, F5 and F6, published on 7 September 2026. On those tables, the banks did not keep most of those rises from savers, on average: the average rate paid on all outstanding household deposits rose from 2.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent between December 2025 and July 2026, and the average rate charged on outstanding owner-occupier variable loans rose from 5.5 per cent to 6.2 per cent: 0.7 points each [3][4].","r":[3,4]},{"a":40,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The average is not the whole answer. In every month from November 2025 to August 2026, the advertised rate on a bank transaction account ($5,000) was 0.00 per cent, while every advertised bank variable housing rate rose exactly 0.75 points, in the months of the three rises [5][6]. What follows sets out both findings, the conditions attached to the savers who did keep pace, the first moves on the fourth rise, and what the Reserve Bank itself says about how banks earn on deposits.","r":[5,6]},{"a":40,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"The tables run to July (deposits and loans) and August (advertised rates) 2026, so none of them includes today’s rise [3][4][5][6].","r":[3,4,5,6]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Table F4.1 gives the weighted-average rate paid on all outstanding deposits. It rose from 3.0 per cent in December 2025 to 3.6 per cent in July 2026, a rise of 0.6 points: about 80 per cent of the 0.75 points the cash rate rose over the same period. The table is published to one decimal place, so the true change lies between about 0.5 and 0.7 points, or 67 to 93 per cent [3]. The percentages are THE RORT’s calculation from the table.","r":[3]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"For households alone, the average rate paid on all outstanding deposits rose from 2.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent, a rise of 0.7 points, about 93 per cent of the cash rate’s rise; allowing for rounding the range is roughly 80 to 107 per cent. On household at-call balances the rate rose from 2.5 per cent to 3.2 per cent [3].","r":[3]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Table F6 gives the average rate charged on outstanding owner-occupier variable loans. It rose from 5.5 per cent in December 2025 to 6.2 per cent in July 2026: also 0.7 points [4]. Set the two side by side. In December, 5.5 minus 2.8 is 2.7 points. In July, 6.2 minus 3.5 is 2.7 points. Against all deposits, not households alone, the gap was 2.5 points in December and 2.6 in July (THE RORT’s calculation from Tables F4.1 and F6) [4]. That 0.1-point change is within the rounding. At the one-decimal precision published, the gap between what owner-occupiers on variable loans were charged and what households were paid did not measurably widen over the rises [4].","r":[4]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That is not a bank margin. It compares one kind of loan with deposits, and a change of up to about 0.1 to 0.2 points could be hidden by the rounding [4].","r":[4]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s own words point the same way, with a qualification. Its August 2026 Statement on Monetary Policy reads: “Banks have passed on the three cash rate increases to deposit and lending rates.” It adds that variable mortgage rates “increased by nearly 75 basis points between January and June” [7]. Its May 2026 Bulletin reads: “Deposit costs declined by less than the decline in the cash rate over 2025 and rose by less than the cash rate as it was increased in early 2026” [8]. On the paid rates in Table F4.1 to July, “by less” now has a size: about 80 per cent of the cash rate’s rise for all deposits, and about 93 per cent for households (roughly 80 to 107 per cent allowing for rounding), at the one-decimal precision published [3].","r":[7,8,3]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The tables do not support a claim that the banks kept most of the 2026 rises on deposits. The narrower charge, in the next section, is the one they do support."},{"a":40,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"An average hides the spread between products. Table F4 lists advertised rates product by product. An advertised bank transaction account ($5,000) paid 0.00 per cent in every month from November 2025 to August 2026 [5]. Bank cash management accounts rose only 0.30 points: $10,000 from 0.25 per cent to 0.55 per cent, and $50,000 from 0.40 per cent to 0.70 per cent, about 40 per cent of the cash rate’s rise. One-month term deposits rose 0.20 points, from 1.20 per cent to 1.40 per cent, about 27 per cent. Three-month term deposits rose 0.45 points, from 2.85 per cent to 3.30 per cent, 60 per cent [5]. The percentages are THE RORT’s calculation from the table.","r":[5]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"0.00%","t":"Advertised rate on bank transaction accounts ($5,000) in every month from November 2025 to August 2026, while every advertised bank variable housing rate rose 0.75 points. On average, what households were paid on all deposits rose about 0.7 points, about as much as owner-occupier variable loan rates charged.","src":"RBA Tables F4, F4.1, F5 and F6, published 7 September 2026"},{"a":40,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The tables THE RORT read do not publish the balances held in each product, so how many savers sit in each of these accounts is unknown [5]. The ACCC’s 2023 deposits inquiry found that four major banks and six mid-tier banks supply 89 per cent of retail deposits [9].","r":[5,9]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On THE RORT’s reading of the tables, this is the supportable charge: savers in transaction accounts, and in cash management accounts and short term deposits, got little or none of the rise, while every advertised variable housing rate rose the full amount in the same months [5][6]. It is a charge about products, not about the average. Some borrowers also hold an offset account; over five years, loans with one rose from about 40 per cent to 55 per cent of housing facilities [8]. The tables do not publish balances by product, so what share of any product sits in offsets is unknown [5].","r":[5,6,8]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Other advertised rates rose by as much as the cash rate or more. Bonus saver accounts rose from 4.00 per cent to 4.80 per cent, 0.80 points, 107 per cent of the cash rate’s rise, but only if a deposit is made and nothing is withdrawn each month. The Reserve Bank’s own table note says bonus accounts “pay a higher rate of interest if at least one deposit and no withdrawals are made each month”, and the series is “an average of the five largest banks’ rates assuming these requirements are met” [5].","r":[5]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"How often those conditions are met matters. The ACCC found that 71 per cent of bonus interest accounts did not receive the bonus interest rate in an average month over the first six months of 2023 [9]. That figure is for 2023; it does not show how often the conditions were met in 2026.","r":[9]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Online savers rose from 2.30 per cent to 3.10 per cent, also 0.80 points; the series is prominent providers, not the big four only. Six-month term deposits rose 0.75 points, a full move only by June. One-year term deposits rose 1.20 points, from 3.75 per cent to 4.95 per cent, and three-year term deposits 1.25 points, from 2.95 per cent to 4.20 per cent; both partly price expected rises, and both are off their May and June peaks (the one-year rate was 5.05 per cent, then 4.95 per cent in August). The average across all term deposit terms at the five largest banks rose 0.65 points, from 2.90 per cent to 3.55 per cent, 87 per cent of the cash rate’s rise [5].","r":[5]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Newly written term deposits outran the cash rate. The rate on all new term deposits rose 0.8 points, from 3.8 per cent to 4.6 per cent, and on households’ new term deposits 1.1 points, from 3.7 per cent to 4.8 per cent. Fixed-term rates price expected rises too [3].","r":[3]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A saver who moved to a bonus or online account, or locked in a one-year term deposit, kept pace with the cash rate only on those conditions and that timing [5].","r":[5]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Table F5 lists advertised lending rates. Every advertised bank variable housing rate in it rose exactly 0.75 points, in the months of the three rises: 25 basis points each in February, March and May. The standard owner-occupier rate went from 8.02 per cent to 8.77 per cent. The discounted rate, which is a rate for professional packages and not a rate for new loans, went from 6.05 per cent to 6.80 per cent. Investor and interest-only rates rose likewise [6].","r":[6]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Small business variable rates also rose 0.75 points, from 8.25 per cent to 9.00 per cent, and from 10.01 per cent to 10.76 per cent. Advertised credit card rates did not move: 20.99 per cent and 13.49 per cent in every month from November 2025 to August 2026 [6].","r":[6]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 4 October 2026. The card rates above are the Reserve Bank’s indicator rates across large lenders, not any one bank’s. F5’s latest figures are for 31 August 2026, before any of the big-bank card rises. ANZ’s 28 September rise, and possibly Westpac’s from 30 September, fall within the 30 September observation; NAB’s 1 October rise cannot appear before the 31 October observation [37]. NAB’s variable purchase rate rises from 20.99 to 22.49 per cent on its Low Fee, frequent flyer and Rewards cards, and from 13.49 to 13.99 per cent on its Low Rate Card, from each customer’s first statement after 1 October [38]; ANZ’s purchase rate rose to 22.49 per cent from 28 September [39]. A new article in this series, Above the 0.25, sets out when NAB’s changes became public.","r":[37,38,39]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The average rate actually charged on outstanding owner-occupier variable loans rose 0.7 points, as the first section showed, to one decimal place [4].","r":[4]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Advertised fixed mortgage rates rose before the first 2026 rise. The three-year fixed owner-occupier rate went from 5.56 per cent in November 2025 to 5.77 per cent in December, 5.99 per cent in January, and 6.74 per cent by June to August: 0.97 points up from December. The investor three-year fixed rate rose 0.88 points [6].","r":[6]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s February 2026 Statement on Monetary Policy says that less than 5 per cent of new and outstanding mortgages are on fixed-rate terms [10]. Its May 2026 Statement says: “Cash rate increases can take up to three months to flow through to minimum required variable-rate mortgage payments” [11].","r":[10,11]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank announced today’s rise at 2.30 pm on 29 September, effective 30 September [1][2]. When THE RORT last checked, at 4.46 pm, Macquarie had published its new savings rates and its home loan change, UBank’s savings changes had been reported, and the four major banks had announced none [12][15][17].","r":[1,2,12,15,17]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. Teachers Mutual Bank Limited also announced on 29 September that it will raise interest rates by 0.25 per cent a year across its variable savings products from Thursday 1 October 2026, and across its variable home loan products from 8 October 2026, across its five retail brands. The bank states no rate levels. Its Chief Customer Officer, Greg Johnson, said: “A large number of our members also have significant savings with the bank, and this rate change provides higher returns on the money they have worked hard to put aside.” [29] Its savers’ rise takes effect seven days before its borrowers’; that is one bank, not the system. The paragraph above records what THE RORT found at 4.46 pm on 29 September; the four major banks’ position at about 5.00 am on 30 September is set out later in this section.","r":[29]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Macquarie’s own help page says: “Macquarie is increasing its variable home loan reference rates by 0.25% per annum, effective 15 October 2026.” The page does not split owner-occupier and investor loans [12]. The same page gives new ongoing variable rates for its savings accounts, by balance: 5.25 per cent up to $250,000, 5.05 per cent from $250,000.01 to $2,000,000, and 4.60 per cent above $2,000,000 [12]. Its savings account page, still showing the old rates, lists them as 5.00 per cent, 5.00 per cent and 2.75 per cent [13]. By THE RORT’s difference between the two pages, that is a rise of 25 basis points up to $250,000, 5 basis points from $250,000.01 to $2,000,000, and 185 basis points above $2,000,000. A Macquarie saver with a balance from $250,000.01 to $2,000,000 gets 5 basis points, against the 25 basis points borrowers get on the home loan reference rates [12][13].","r":[12,13]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above said that a Macquarie saver with a balance from $250,000.01 to $2,000,000 gets 5 basis points, against the 25 basis points borrowers get on the home loan reference rates. That is too broad. The 5 basis points is the Savings Account’s ongoing rate only (5.00 to 5.05 per cent). Macquarie’s own release of 29 September puts its Transaction Account rate up from 2.75 to 3.00 per cent, 25 basis points, on every balance tier, including $250,000.01 to $2,000,000, from 15 October [24]. In that bracket a Savings Account holder gets 5 basis points and a Transaction Account holder 25, the same as the home loan reference rates. The release also gives the old and new Savings Account rates on one page (5.00 to 5.25, 5.00 to 5.05 and 2.75 to 4.60 per cent), so the 25, 5 and 185 basis point differences no longer rest on comparing two pages; they remain THE RORT’s calculation from the published rates [24].","r":[24]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The page also says: “we will also be increasing the interest rates available across our Transaction, Savings, Business Savings and Cash Management accounts effective 15 October 2026.” It lists a Transaction Account rate of 3.00 per cent on all tiers, and rises to its Business Savings and Cash Management accounts; THE RORT has not verified the size of those changes. Its welcome rate of 5.60 per cent up to $250,000 is “no longer available to savings accounts opened after 11:59pm AEST Monday 14 September 2026”; THE RORT has not verified the size of any change to it. The page shows no term deposit change [12].","r":[12]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The size of the Transaction Account change, which the paragraph above says THE RORT had not verified, is 25 basis points on every tier (see the correction above) [24]. The sizes of the Business Savings and Cash Management changes remain unverified: the release prints only the Transaction and Savings tables [24]. The sentence “The page shows no term deposit change” is still true of that help page, and the words “term deposit” and “fixed” do not appear in Macquarie’s release [24]. But beside the 5 basis point line it leaves out what Macquarie did with term deposits in September, before the decision. Between Macquarie’s term deposits page of 1 September (14:15 AEST) and its page of 21 September (08:50 AEST), the Digital Term Deposit rates for $1 million or under, interest paid at maturity, rose by 5, 15, 15 and 20 basis points on 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, to 5.05, 5.20, 5.25 and 5.35 per cent; the day or days of the rise are not on the record, and the minimum investment is $25,000 [25]. That followed a cut of 5 basis points on the 6, 9 and 12 month rates between its pages of 1 August and 13 August, which savings.com.au reported on 5 August [26]; net of the two, the rates are up 5, 10, 10 and 15 basis points from 1 August to 30 September (THE RORT’s arithmetic). A saver in the $250,000.01 to $1,000,000 part of the bracket could have opened a 12-month Digital Term Deposit (individual or joint, minimum $25,000) at 5.35 per cent, against 5.05 per cent on the Savings Account from 15 October [25][24]. This is verified for the Digital Term Deposit only; whether the classic Macquarie Term Deposit, which also prices existing individual and joint rollovers, rose in September is not verified. Macquarie’s term deposit tables were unchanged at 5.17 am AEST on 30 September against the 21 September capture [25]. None of the Macquarie pages THE RORT read gives a reason for these moves.","r":[24,25,26]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The borrower side of Macquarie’s September also moved before the decision. Macquarie raised its fixed home loan rates twice. On its owner-occupier principal and interest table for loans up to 70 per cent of the property’s value, its own pages show the one-year fixed rate at 6.19 per cent on 13 August and 6.49 per cent on 30 September, the two-year at 6.14 and 6.59, the three-year at 6.09 and 6.59, and the four- and five-year at 6.29 and 6.64: net rises of 0.30, 0.45, 0.50, 0.35 and 0.35 points (THE RORT’s arithmetic). The rates are for new loans [27]. Media reports date the first rise to Tuesday 8 September, and the second was reported on 24 September [28]; Macquarie’s newsroom page lists no release on either [27]. Fixed-rate loans are a small slice of the stock: the Reserve Bank’s February statement puts fixed-rate terms at less than 5 per cent of new and outstanding mortgages [10]. The like-for-like comparison stands: on the two variable products announced together on 29 September, with the same effective date, the middle Savings Account tier gets 5 basis points against 25 on the home loan reference rates, and the Transaction Account gets 25. What the September record adds is that the 5 basis points is not the whole of what Macquarie did in September, on either side. These are advertised rates. Balances by product are not published, and THE RORT draws no conclusion about Macquarie’s margin from them.","r":[27,28,10]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 4 October 2026. The paragraph above gives Macquarie’s net fixed-rate rises since 13 August (0.30, 0.45, 0.50, 0.35 and 0.35 points) without saying that they followed cuts. On 5 June Macquarie cut its one- to five-year fixed rates by 0.25, 0.40, 0.50, 0.35 and 0.45 points, from 6.44, 6.54, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.74 per cent, Canstar reported, to 6.19, 6.14, 6.09, 6.29 and 6.29 per cent, the same levels its own page showed on 13 August [40]. Its rates on 30 September, unchanged on 3 October, of 6.49, 6.59, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.64 per cent are 0.05 points above the pre-June levels at one and two years, level at three and four years, and 0.10 below at five (THE RORT’s arithmetic) [40][27]. Most of the September rises reversed the June cuts. The figures and dates in the paragraph above stand; this adds the context they lacked.","r":[40,27]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Macquarie’s own release of 3 February said the bank would “increase variable interest rates paid on its transaction and savings accounts by 0.25% p.a. from 20 February 2026” [14]. That is one bank, not the system [8].","r":[14,8]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"UBank’s own page was not read by THE RORT. Savings.com.au reports that UBank’s Save account welcome bonus rate rises to 6.10 per cent, “up 25 basis points from 5.85% p.a.”, and its ongoing Save rate with bonus, up to $1 million, to 5.35 per cent, “up 25 basis points from 5.10% p.a.”, both effective 6 October 2026 [15]. Finder’s tracker describes the 5.85 per cent as an introductory rate for four months [16].","r":[15,16]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b10","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT re-checked the four major banks’ own pages between 4.44 pm and 4.46 pm AEST on 29 September. None had announced a change to variable home loan, savings or term deposit rates. CBA’s savings page said: “we’re currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products”; its home loan page still showed 5 May 2026. Westpac said its interest rates were “currently under review”. ANZ said it was “reviewing its home loan and residential investment loan interest rates”. NAB’s home loan page still showed 3 February 2026 [17]. The test of borrowers against savers for the big four is still open.","r":[17]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b11","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. THE RORT re-read the four major banks’ own pages between 4.59 am and 5.00 am AEST on 30 September. None had announced a decision on the pages read. CBA’s home loan page still showed 5 May 2026; its savings page, dated 29 September, still said “we’re currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products”; and its home page carried an undated banner, “The Reserve Bank of Australia has increased the cash rate. We’re reviewing our rates and will share an update soon.” (when the banner first appeared is not known). Westpac’s page, dated Tuesday 29 September, still said its interest rates were “currently under review”. ANZ’s page, dated 29 September, said it was reviewing its home loan and residential investment loan interest rates. NAB’s home loan page still showed 3 February 2026, and its news page had nothing dated 29 or 30 September [30]. Term deposit pages were not re-read. The test of borrowers against savers for the big four is still open as at that time.","r":[30]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b12","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026, evening. THE RORT re-read the four major banks’ own pages and releases between 5.40 pm and 5.43 pm AEST on 30 September. All four had announced a rise of 0.25 per cent a year in variable home loan rates, effective 9 October 2026: CBA, whose release quotes Angus Sullivan, Group Executive Retail Banking [32]; Westpac, for new and existing customers [33]; NAB, whose release says its new rates “take effect from October 9” and that the change applies to its standard variable home loan rates [34]; and ANZ, across its home, residential investment and line of credit home loans [35]. That is one day after Teachers Mutual Bank Limited’s 8 October [29] and six days before Macquarie’s 15 October [24]. On savings the record is narrower. Westpac announced that its Westpac Life total variable rate with bonus interest rises 0.25 per cent a year to 5.25 per cent, effective 9 October [33]. CBA’s savings page, dated 29 September, still said “we’re currently reviewing the interest rates for savings products”, and its release says nothing about savings or term deposits [32]. NAB’s release says it “regularly reviews its savings and deposit rates” and states no change [34]. ANZ says it “continues to review other interest rates” [35]. Apart from the Westpac Life rate, none of the four had stated a savings or bonus saver change, and none had stated a term deposit change, on the pages read. The Australian Banking Association’s news page carried nothing on the rise; its newest item, dated 30 September, was on card surcharging [36]. The test of borrowers against savers for the big four is therefore still open on the savers’ side, at CBA, NAB and ANZ and for Westpac’s products other than Westpac Life, as at that time.","r":[32,33,34,35,29,24,36]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s4-b13","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 4 October 2026. NAB’s savings side, and the other banks’ since 30 September. As at 14:23 AEDT on Sunday 4 October, NAB’s savings page, deposit rate schedule (effective 28 September), term deposit pages, newsroom and interest-rates news index showed no savings or term deposit rate change after the RBA’s 29 September decision [41][43]. NAB’s Reward Saver pays a total of 5.00 per cent, a 0.01 per cent base rate and a 4.99 per cent bonus in months when the customer qualifies; the iSaver pays 5.25 per cent for four months, then 1.65 [41]. In each of the three earlier 2026 rises NAB’s savings rise took effect on the same day as its home loan rise, ten days after the decision; this time that day is Friday 9 October, and whether NAB will move is not known [42][34]. Across the four 2026 rises the cash rate is up 1.00 point; as at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October, five days after the fourth decision, NAB’s Reward Saver bonus rate is up 0.85, all of it from the first three rises, which totalled 0.75; its unconditional base rate is unchanged at 0.01%, and the iSaver standard rate is up 0.40 [42][1]. Between NAB’s 31 August and 28 September rate schedules, NAB raised its 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 month term deposit rates by 0.05 to 0.15 points (12 months 5.15% to 5.30%), cut its 9 month rate from 5.00% to 3.80%, and left 30 day to 6 month and 24 to 60 month rates unchanged; the 9-month rate was cut to 3.70% in the first half of September and set at 3.80% in the 28 September schedule, both before the RBA decision [43]. CBA announced on 2 October “a variety of increases across select savings products, effective 9 October 2026”, including its NetBank Saver standard rate from 2.10 to 2.30 per cent for new and existing customers and its GoalSaver rate with bonus from 5.00 to 5.25 per cent [44]. ANZ’s own pages and product data showed no savings rate change; Yahoo Finance reported on 1 October that ANZ will raise the bonus rate on its Plus Growth Saver by 0.25 from 9 October, which THE RORT did not find on ANZ’s own pages [45]. UBank, whose products are issued by “Ubank, part of National Australia Bank Limited”, now says on its own page: “From 6 October 2026, our Everyday Bonus Rate will increase to 5.35% p.a. Customers receiving our Welcome Bonus Rate will earn 6.10% p.a. from that date.” [46] The earlier paragraph on UBank in this section relied on Savings.com.au. On the borrower side, between 14 September and 2 October NAB raised its owner-occupier principal-and-interest fixed rates by 0.35 to 0.47 percentage points, and investor fixed rates by 0.30 to 0.45, in two steps; owner-occupier interest-only fixed rates rose 0.15 to 0.25. The RBA’s cash rate rose 0.25 [47]. Those rises followed NAB’s 22 July cuts: 0.05 points in its one-year owner-occupier rate and 0.20 in its two-year, to 6.34 per cent, and 0.15 points across its investor fixed rates; at 6.81 per cent its two-year owner-occupier rate is 0.27 above its level before the cut, 6.54 per cent [48]. The Reserve Bank says new fixed rates have followed tenor-matched swap rates, “which they typically reference” [8]; a new article in this series, Above the 0.25, tests NAB’s rises against swap rates and, as a proxy, government bond yields. These are advertised rates, and THE RORT draws no conclusion about any bank’s margin from them.","r":[41,43,42,34,1,44,45,46,47,48,8]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A deposit that pays a saver little or nothing is not necessarily a deposit that earns the bank little. The Reserve Bank’s April 2024 Bulletin describes how banks hedge near-zero-rate deposits: “This ‘replicating portfolio’ of a rolling portfolio of receive-fixed, pay-floating interest rate swaps makes the effective interest rate associated with these deposits move with short-term market interest rates.” The banks’ earnings on those deposits therefore rise with market rates [18].","r":[18]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The same Bulletin says the mechanism smooths bank margins: “changes in the cash rate have a relatively small effect on NIMs”, the net interest margins [18]. THE RORT’s reading of the Bulletin is that the mechanism limits the size and speed of any windfall to banks from a rate rise; it does not show that there is none [18].","r":[18]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"On the charge side, KPMG said the major banks’ net interest income rose 5.9 per cent to $78.8 billion in FY25 “primarily due to higher earnings on capital and deposits replicating portfolios”, partly offset by competition [23].","r":[23]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This article does not examine any bank’s own results."},{"a":40,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The pattern is not new. In the 2022-23 cycle the cash rate rose 4.25 points, from 0.10 per cent to 4.35 per cent [1]. On average, neither borrowers nor savers got the full 425 basis points. The average interest rate on total deposits excluding offset accounts rose 325 basis points, “around 75 per cent of the total increase in the cash rate”; at-call deposit rates rose about 275 basis points and new term deposit rates about 435 basis points [19]. The average outstanding variable rate rose about 70 basis points less than the cash rate between May 2022 and September 2023, and new variable rates 40 basis points less [19]. The major banks’ spread between lending rates and funding costs declined 60 basis points, to around 190 basis points; their NIMs “increased modestly in 2022” and “have more recently declined below their pre-pandemic level” [19].","r":[1,19]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"In the three 2025 cuts, to 3.60 per cent [1], the major banks’ funding costs fell about 90 basis points from late 2024. At-call deposit rates fell about 50 basis points and new term deposit rates about 75 basis points, while lending rates fell in line with the cash rate [20].","r":[1,20]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Higher rates do more than cost borrowers. Assistant Governor Christopher Kent, in October 2023, listed five transmission channels and said of the cash-flow channel: “Because the cash-flow channel is so noticeable, and felt so keenly by borrowers, it gets a lot of attention” [21].","r":[21]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Outright owners, about a third of households, gain income when rates rise. The Reserve Bank’s January 2025 Bulletin, which predates the 2026 rises, estimated that the median outright owner’s gain is only about one-third of the median mortgagor’s loss, and that many older households, who own outright or owe little and hold large deposit savings, “typically benefit from higher interest rates” [22].","r":[22]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The tables themselves carry the rest of the other side. On average, household deposit rates rose 0.7 points, about as much as owner-occupier variable loan rates [3][4]. Bonus and online savers, and savers who locked in one-year term deposits, kept pace or better, on conditions and timing [5]. The Bulletin of May 2026 says the spread between banks’ lending rates and funding costs “has increased since early 2025 but remains well below its pre-pandemic levels”, and that margins “stabilised in 2025 around historical lows” [8]. The replicating portfolio smooths margins [18]. The one-decimal rounding cuts both ways: a change of up to about 0.1 to 0.2 points in the gap could be hidden [4].","r":[3,4,5,8,18]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Three things remain open. How much money sits in each deposit product is not published [5]. What the big four will pay savers, and from when, was not announced by 4.46 pm on 29 September [17]. And none of the tables yet includes the September rise; later releases of Tables F4, F4.1, F5 and F6 will show it. If Macquarie, any of the four major banks or the Australian Banking Association wants to reply to anything in this article, write to corrections@therort.com.au; any reply will be added as a dated update.","r":[5,17]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. As at about 5.00 am AEST on 30 September the big four had still not announced, on the pages THE RORT read, what they will pay savers, or from when (see the update in the section “The first moves on the fourth rise”) [30]. The Australian Banking Association’s news page and feed carried nothing on the rise; the newest item was dated 21 September [31]. The invitation to reply above stands.","r":[30,31]},{"a":40,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026, evening. By 5.40 pm AEST on 30 September CBA, Westpac, NAB and ANZ had each announced a rise of 0.25 per cent a year in variable home loan rates, effective 9 October 2026 [32][33][34][35]; the only savings rate change any of the four had stated was Westpac’s, on its Westpac Life total variable rate with bonus interest (to 5.25 per cent) [33], and CBA’s savings page still said it was reviewing (see the update in the section “The first moves on the fourth rise”). The Australian Banking Association’s news page carried nothing on the rise [36]. The invitation to reply above stands.","r":[32,33,34,35,36]},{"a":41,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Reserve Bank pays interest on the reserves banks hold with it, at a floating rate linked to the cash rate, so the interest follows the cash rate up.","r":[7,2]},{"a":41,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"It paid about **$36.9 billion** on those balances over 2022/23 to 2024/25, on THE RORT’s sum of audited figures. It does not publish the payment by institution.","r":[6]},{"a":41,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Its pandemic Term Funding Facility cost about $9 billion, about $4 billion of it from an extension when banks’ slow take-up suggested they did not need the funding.","r":[10]},{"a":41,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The losses fell on the Bank’s own capital, which it says retained earnings can restore. The ES rate in force from 30 September is not published.","r":[12,3]},{"a":41,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank announced a 25 basis point rise in the cash rate target to 4.60 per cent, effective 30 September, the fourth rise of the year [1]. The interest the Bank itself pays on the money banks keep with it is linked to the cash rate. The Bank says those balances are ‘paid a floating interest rate linked to the official cash rate’ [7].","r":[1,7]},{"a":41,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The sums are large. On THE RORT’s addition of three audited figures, the Bank paid about $36.9 billion in interest on those balances over the three years to June 2025 [6]. The Bank does not publish the payment by institution, so none of it can be attributed to the big four or to any named bank, and this article does not attribute it.","r":[6]},{"a":41,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The Bank’s own record has another side, and it is set out in full below. The Bank says the banks passed the lower funding costs of its pandemic loans on in full, and that borrowers who had locked in low fixed rates were ‘the ultimate beneficiaries’ [10]. It also says its capital can be restored over time from its own retained earnings, and it rejected a capital injection from the government [12]. This article follows the money through the Bank’s audited accounts, its speeches and its own review of the Term Funding Facility, and says at each point whose claim is whose.","r":[10,12]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Bank pays interest on banks’ Exchange Settlement (ES) balances, the reserves they hold at the Bank [2]. The ES rate is the floor of the corridor around the cash rate target. As David Jacobs, the Bank’s Head of Domestic Markets, stated on 25 August 2026, ‘The ES rate is set 10 basis points below the cash rate target and the OMO rate 10 basis points above the cash rate target’ [2]. Assistant Governor Christopher Kent said on 2 April 2025 that the overnight standing facility provides reserves at 25 basis points above the cash rate target [3]. The Bank’s annual report describes the arrangement in one sentence: ‘our ES balances (currently our main interest-bearing liability) are paid a floating interest rate linked to the official cash rate’ [7].","r":[2,3,7]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The rate was not always paid at that level. Before the pandemic the ES rate was 25 basis points below the cash rate target [5]. On 19 March 2020 the Bank set it at 10 basis points, ‘rather than zero, to mitigate the cost to the banking system associated with the large increase in banks’ ES balances’ [5]. On 3 November 2020 it went to zero as the cash rate target went to 0.1 per cent [5]. From May to September 2022, as the cash rate rose from 0.10 per cent to 2.35 per cent, the ES rate rose from zero to 2.25 per cent, and the 10 basis point gap held [5].","r":[5]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Since May 2025 the Board has not announced the ES rate with its decisions. In the same speech, Kent said that ‘starting in May the Monetary Policy Board will announce the cash rate target in its decisions but not the ES rate’, adding that ‘from time to time the RBA may adjust the ES rate if that will help to better meet the objectives of the ample reserves system’ [3]. Today’s decision statement does not state it [1]. The rate in force from 30 September is therefore not published, and THE RORT does not print a figure for it.","r":[3,1]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The balances themselves are far smaller than they were. ‘ES balances stabilised at around $460 billion in 2022, following the end of the bond purchase program’, Kent said in 2024, and they fell from February 2023 as bonds matured and the Term Funding Facility was repaid [8]. The Bank’s weekly series put them at $186,719 million on 23 September 2026 [8].","r":[8]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s audited accounts (Note 4, interest) give three figures. In 2022/23 it paid $12,603 million on an average ES balance of $447,551 million, an average rate of 2.8 per cent. In 2023/24 it paid $14,651 million on $351,869 million, at 4.2 per cent. In 2024/25 it paid $9,674 million on $233,674 million, at 4.1 per cent [6]. For contrast, in 2021/22 the Bank’s total interest expense on all its liabilities was $411 million [6].","r":[6]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s sum of the three: $12,603 million plus $14,651 million plus $9,674 million is $36,928 million, about $36.9 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25. The audited figures show both forces at work: the average balance fell from $447,551 million to $233,674 million while the average rate rose from 2.8 to 4.1 per cent [6].","r":[6]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"$36.9bn","t":"Interest the Reserve Bank paid on Exchange Settlement balances, the reserves banks hold with it, over 2022/23 to 2024/25: THE RORT’s sum of its audited figures. In 2021/22 its interest on all liabilities was $411 million. Paid to all ES account holders; the RBA does not publish it by institution.","src":"RBA Annual Reports 2023, 2024 and 2025, Note 4"},{"a":41,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The interest is paid to all ES account holders, and the Bank does not publish it by institution [6]. It cannot be attributed to the big four or to any named bank, and this article does not do so.","r":[6]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The 2025/26 figure is not yet published. The Bank’s 2026 annual report was not available when THE RORT checked on 29 September [6]. THE RORT has not estimated it: the weekly balances in the previous section are not an interest bill, and no rate has been applied to them.","r":[6]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank attributes the surge in ES balances to its own pandemic measures. Its explainer on how it implements monetary policy names its measures ‘such as its “Term Funding Facility” and bond purchase program, which increased the supply of ES balances’ [4].","r":[4]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The bond purchase program ran from November 2020 to 10 February 2022 and bought $281 billion of Australian, state and territory government bonds in the secondary market [11]. Separately the Bank bought $36 billion of Commonwealth bonds for its 3-year yield target, which was dropped at the 2 November 2021 meeting [11]. The Term Funding Facility, covered in the next section, had $188 billion outstanding when it closed to new drawdowns [9].","r":[11,9]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s own review of the bond program, given by Michele Bullock, then Deputy Governor, in September 2022, foresaw ‘the losses that the Bank is expected to incur over coming years because the return on its assets will be less than the interest paid on its liabilities’, ‘primarily balances in Exchange Settlement accounts’ [11]. The ES rate is the floor of the corridor around the cash rate [2]; the Bank itself attributes the surge in balances to its own measures [4]; and the interest follows the cash rate up [7].","r":[11,2,4,7]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Term Funding Facility (TFF) was announced on 19 March 2020: low-cost three-year funding for banks [9], at a rate first fixed at 0.25 per cent and lowered to 0.1 per cent in November 2020 [10]. ‘The facility closed to new drawdowns on 30 June 2021, at which time $188 billion of funding was outstanding’, the Bank’s Term Funding Facility page says [9]. By bank category, and not by bank, the Bank’s table shows what was drawn: major banks $133 billion, 100.0 per cent of their allowance; mid-sized banks $24 billion, 99.6 per cent; small banks $9 billion, 58.3 per cent; foreign banks $22 billion, 54.2 per cent [10]. ‘Banks repaid all TFF funds as scheduled by mid-2024 without incident’ [10].","r":[9,10]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s review, by Assistant Governor Christopher Kent on 9 October 2024, puts the cost to the Bank at about $9 billion: ‘The total cost to the RBA is estimated to have been $9 billion’ [10]. It says the facility was profitable for the Bank until May 2022, and that after that the Bank was paying the banks more interest on their ES balances than they were paying on their fixed-rate TFF loans [10].","r":[10]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"About $4 billion of the cost came from the Board’s decision in early September 2020 to extend the facility. At that point banks had taken up only 60 per cent of their initial allowances, almost half of that as late as August [10]. The review reads that pattern as follows.","r":[10]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The review gives the reason for the late drawdowns: ‘the banks waited until as late as practical to draw down TFF funds because doing so extended the time the TFF would contribute to meeting regulatory liquidity requirements on the banks’ [10].","r":[10]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"There was a direct benefit to the major banks, and the Bank measures it. ‘For the major banks, the TFF was around 60 basis points cheaper than issuing bonds during the TFF drawdown phase (Graph 2). It lowered their average cost of funds by around 5 basis points’ [10].","r":[10]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s interest account shows the gap. Its total interest expense on all liabilities was $18,425 million in 2023/24 and $13,404 million in 2024/25, against total interest income of $10,653 million and $10,385 million [6]. THE RORT’s subtraction gives shortfalls of $7,772 million ($18,425 million less $10,653 million) and $3,019 million ($13,404 million less $10,385 million). These are the Bank’s whole interest account, all liabilities against all assets, not the ES balances alone, though the Bank calls those its main interest-bearing liability [7]. It pays them a floating rate, against fixed low-yield assets bought in the pandemic [7].","r":[6,7]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Two things have moved the Bank’s balance sheet: valuation changes on its bonds and foreign exchange holdings, and the gap between what it pays on its liabilities and what it earns [12]. In 2021/22, when its whole interest bill was $411 million, it recorded an accounting loss of $36.7 billion, which included $44.5 billion of unrealised valuation losses, and negative equity of $12.4 billion at 30 June 2022. On an amortised cost basis, which many peers use, the Bank estimates its 2021/22 bond return at about $3 billion [12]. In 2022/23 the loss was $6 billion, with underlying earnings of negative $4.6 billion because the Bank ‘currently pays a higher interest rate on ES balances than it earns on its portfolio of assets’, and negative equity was $17.7 billion [12]. In 2023/24 the loss was $4.2 billion, underlying earnings negative $8.3 billion, negative equity $20.4 billion and accumulated losses $34 billion [12]. In 2024/25 the Bank recorded an accounting profit of $11.0 billion, with underlying earnings of negative $3.7 billion and valuation gains of $14.7 billion; negative equity was $5.3 billion and accumulated losses $34.7 billion [12].","r":[12]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On the Bank’s account, valuation losses on bonds held to maturity reverse when they mature: ‘Given the intention to hold these bonds to maturity, any valuation losses that occur as yields increase will be offset at the time that the bonds mature at their face value’ [12].","r":[12]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In July 2022 the Board considered a capital injection from the government and rejected it. ‘It concluded that a capital injection was not necessary, as the Bank’s capital can be restored over time through the retention of future earnings’ [12]. The Treasurer endorsed that, has supported the Board’s judgement each year since, and in 2025 agreed with the Governance Board’s judgement ‘that the negative equity position does not affect the RBA’s ability to operate effectively or perform its functions’ [12]. In 2024 the Bank said a return to its reserve fund target ‘is not expected for a further decade or so’ [12].","r":[12]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"So the losses have fallen on the Bank’s own capital, on the public balance sheet, which the Bank says can be restored over time from its own retained earnings, without an injection from the government [12].","r":[12]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s answer to the charge is in the same review, and in the same passage that describes the payment. It is the Bank’s claim, and THE RORT reports it as the Bank’s."},{"a":41,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s table for February 2020 to February 2022 shows what fell on outstanding loans, in basis points: the cash rate target fell 65; the major banks’ funding costs fell 84; overall mortgage rates fell 97 (variable 68, fixed 152); business lending rates fell 105 (variable 103, fixed 89) [10]. Over that period, in other words, rates on outstanding mortgages fell by more than the cash rate. The Bank also says its staff estimate that the indirect effects of the facility lowered yields on residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) by ‘around 50 basis points’, while the review’s own caveat is that the facility’s share of these lower wholesale funding costs, for lenders and corporations with no access to it, is ‘hard to identify’ [10]. Its own lesson is that the fixed rate ‘lacked flexibility’ and incurred ‘a material financial cost to the RBA’ when the recovery and the pick-up in inflation turned out to be much stronger, and to start much earlier, than expected [10].","r":[10]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The bond purchase program has its own defence. The Bank estimated that it ‘lowered Australian Government bond yields by around 30 basis points’ and, with other measures, contributed to a strong recovery and a sharp drop in unemployment, while cautioning that ‘it is very difficult to isolate the specific effect of the BPP on the economy’ [11].","r":[11]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The payment itself is part of the machinery of the cash rate: the ES rate is the floor of the corridor [2]. It goes to all ES account holders, and the Bank does not publish it by institution [6]. And the cost has fallen on the Bank’s own capital, which the Bank says can be restored over time from its own retained earnings; the Treasurer has agreed that negative equity does not affect its ability to operate [12].","r":[2,6,12]},{"a":41,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What the published record does not show: how the interest divides between institutions, the interest bill for 2025/26, and the ES rate in force from 30 September. None of them is published. Questions on the ES rate, its 2025/26 cost and the Term Funding Facility extension are published in The grill, in this series (G12 and G13); answers will be added as they arrive."},{"a":42,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Governor calls the cash rate “all we have”. The government’s own Budget says fiscal policy is “better suited than monetary policy” to supply shocks such as the oil shock.","r":[3,8]},{"a":42,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The government halved fuel excise from 1 April, then let the cut roll off. Fuel rose 7.5 per cent in July and 14.8 per cent in August.","r":[18,22,62]},{"a":42,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"A 25 per cent gas export tax lost all seven recorded divisions THE RORT found in 2026.","r":[35]},{"a":42,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Each alternative has costs: the IMF says avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts and price controls, and the PBO assumed 75 per cent of a higher bank levy would be passed on.","r":[9,33]},{"a":42,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank announced a rise of 25 basis points in the cash rate, to 4.60 per cent, effective 30 September. It is the fourth rise of 2026 [1][2]. The Bank’s reasons put the widening Middle East war and global energy prices first, and said higher fuel prices were partly passing through to other prices on top of domestic capacity pressure [2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":42,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"A reader is entitled to ask whether raising the cash rate is the only thing that can be done. The answer depends on whose powers are meant. For the Reserve Bank it is, in the Governor’s words: “the only thing we have to address inflation” [3]. For the country, on the record, it is not. The government’s own 2026-27 Budget says fiscal policy is “better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks, such as the global oil shock” [8]. The International Monetary Fund adds that fiscal policy should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts and price controls [9].","r":[3,8,9]},{"a":42,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article is an inventory, not a verdict. It sets out the main other levers on the record: who holds each, whether it was used in 2026, what the record says each did, and what it costs. Where a source argues against a lever, that argument sits beside it. The questions this inventory raises are published in The grill, article 19 of this series; answers will be added as they arrive."},{"a":42,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s job is set in statute. The Board must determine monetary policy in the way that, in its opinion, best contributes to price stability and the maintenance of full employment. The Bank’s overarching objective is to promote “the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia both now and into the future”. The 2025 Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy sets the inflation goal at between 2 and 3 per cent [4].","r":[4]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Governor, Michele Bullock, has been plain about the tool. On 3 February 2026 she said “the interest rate is our only instrument we’ve got” and called it “a very blunt instrument”. On 5 May: “It’s blunt. It does affect people in different ways. But it’s the best way we’ve got of controlling inflation” [3]. Asked the same day whether there was a better way to deal with largely oil shock-driven inflation, she said the oil shock was not the sole reason, “we had an inflation problem before this”, and that people often say she must have a better thing than the interest rate: “we don’t” [3].","r":[3]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Bank’s own account of why it works is that it reaches everything. Its transmission explainer says changes to monetary policy affect interest rates, and changes to interest rates affect activity and inflation, with expectations mattering because workers who expect higher inflation may seek bigger wage rises [6]. Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter said on 8 July, answering an audience question: “They are a blunt tool, but they work because they go everywhere in the economy” [5].","r":[6,5]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"How much the tool buys is on the record too. In April 2025 three RBA models and one external model were run side by side. Most of the models put the peak effect of a 100 basis point rise after around one to two years, lowering the level of GDP by ¼ to 1 per cent and year-ended inflation by ⅛ to ½ of a percentage point [7]. The Bulletin stresses that “the entire future path of interest rates matters”, and it was published before any 2026 rise, so it is not an estimate of them [7]. THE RORT’s arithmetic, from published figures: the four 2026 rises total 100 basis points, from 3.60 per cent to 4.60 per cent [1], so the same models’ range for a rise of that size is ⅛ to ½ of a point off inflation at the peak, one to two years on. The Bank has published no estimate of what the 2026 rises do to inflation [61]; four staggered rises that followed three 2025 cuts are not one 100 basis point rise, so this is a rough mapping, not a forecast.","r":[7,1,61]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s reading, labelled as analysis rather than a sourced finding: the cash rate acts through interest rates; it does not tax or cap profits. Tools that do belong to Parliament, the government and the regulators. The rest of this article is those tools."},{"a":42,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The 2026-27 Budget, released on 12 May 2026, contains a sentence that answers the question in its own terms."},{"a":42,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On 29 September the Reserve Bank put the war and energy prices first: “The conflict in the Middle East has broadened and global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts” [2]. The government’s own document says fiscal policy is better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks such as the global oil shock [8].","r":[2,8]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The referee beside it is the International Monetary Fund. Its July 2026 update says fiscal policy “should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls” [9]. The same update backs the Reserve Bank’s side of the argument in part: where inflationary pressures are judged to be temporary and expectations remain anchored, central banks should keep real rates broadly constant, “which may imply raising nominal policy rates”, and where a technology-led upturn adds demand pressure they “may need to do more” [9]. THE RORT’s reading: the passage quoted does not tell governments to stand aside; it names which fiscal responses to avoid.","r":[9]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Governor’s own position is less absolute than “all we have” suggests. On 3 February she said “I’m not going to tell the government what to do with fiscal policy. That’s not my business”. Asked on 5 May about another tool, she said: “Fiscal policy has many more things that it can do” [3]. On 5 May she also called fiscal policy “not a very nimble way to address inflation”, but added that when governments are spending a lot and “running up against capacity constraints, then they do need to think about whether or not there’s ways they can help the inflation problem by looking for ways to constrain demand” [3]. She did not rule out a fiscal role.","r":[3]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The two institutions have a formal channel. The Statements on the Conduct of Monetary Policy, agreed in December 2023 and July 2025, have the government recognise the role of sound fiscal management. The 2025 Statement says the government recognises “the role that sound fiscal management plays in achieving the Monetary Policy Board’s objectives”, and commits the Reserve Bank and Treasury to work together to enhance their understanding of macroeconomic conditions and of the impact monetary and fiscal policy settings have on them [10]. That is a commitment to shared understanding. It does not commit either side to joint action or to a fiscal rule.","r":[10]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The government’s own budget balance is a lever too. Before the 2026 rises it ran underlying cash surpluses of $22.1 billion in 2022-23 and $15.8 billion in 2023-24; the Treasurer described the second as “entirely due to lower payments, not higher taxes” [55]. The budget has been in deficit since: $10.0 billion in 2024-25 and $22.3 billion in 2025-26, with a deficit of $31.5 billion forecast for 2026-27 [56][8]. The government says its Budget is “helping to take pressure off inflation”; that is the government’s claim, and no fiscal impulse figure is given [57]. Market economists called the 2026-27 settings “neutral to mildly expansionary”, and CBA’s economists said the Budget “does little to help in the fight against inflation” [58]. The Budget also funds $5.9 billion of new and amended Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) listings under the heading “Cheaper medicines”; no effect on the CPI is claimed or verified [57].","r":[55,56,8,57,58]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"f","x":"‘Better suited’","t":"The government’s own 2026-27 Budget: fiscal policy is better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks, such as the global oil shock. The RBA’s 29 September reasons put the war and energy prices first. The IMF adds that fiscal responses should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts and price controls.","src":"Budget Paper No. 1, Statement 3, 12 May 2026; RBA Media Release 2026-27; IMF WEO Update, July 2026"},{"a":42,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"At home, east coast wholesale gas did not follow world prices up during the war. The Australian Energy Market Operator recorded an average of $10.61 a gigajoule in the March quarter of 2026, with March itself at $9.22, “a four-year low”, and $9.08 in the June quarter, the lowest quarter since the June quarter of 2021. A year earlier, in the June quarter of 2025, the average was $12.36 [11]. The case that war-driven energy costs reached households has therefore to be made on fuel, not on domestic gas.","r":[11]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"What exporters could get was very different. In the June quarter the ACCC’s LNG netback, the export-parity price, was $20.84 a gigajoule against the AEMO domestic average of $9.08. AEMO says international LNG spot prices were at their highest since February 2023 [11]. The ACCC’s June 2026 interim report, published on 10 July, found that the war had “so far” had no material impact on east coast gas prices, with one exception: commodity-linked contracts, 12 per cent of 2026 supply, whose average estimated price rose from $11.86 in December 2025 to $16.85 in April 2026. Producer and retailer contract prices for 2026 supply fell but stayed in the $13 to $15 range seen since the 2022-23 crisis. That contract data runs to 31 March, mostly before the war, so it is not a like-for-like comparison with the June-quarter spot prices [12].","r":[11,12]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The price lever on the books is a cap. From late December 2022 a $12 a gigajoule cap applied to new east coast wholesale gas contracts from developed fields, and New South Wales and Queensland effectively capped generation coal at $125 a tonne, with the Commonwealth to contribute to the cost [13]. The temporary cap was then replaced by the mandatory Gas Market Code, which commenced on 11 July 2023 with a $12 “reasonable price” and sunsets on 1 October 2033 [14][15]. The regulations remain in place until new arrangements are implemented [16].","r":[13,14,15,16]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"What the record says it did is thin. Treasury forecast, and did not measure, that the caps would cut inflation by about half a point in 2023-24, and that without them the average family would pay $230 more on its electricity bill [13]. No after-the-fact evaluation was found. Energy Minister Bowen claimed in October 2023 that the caps had a “significant impact” in limiting the worst impacts of the invasion of Ukraine on power bills; that is the minister’s claim, and THE RORT did not read the Australian Energy Regulator’s own attribution [17]. AEMO’s figures record the 2026 price.","r":[13,17]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The other side is in the government’s own review. The Gas Market Review of December 2025 says stakeholders indicated that the reasonable price mechanism “has not been sufficient to put downward pressure on prices in the context of tight supply conditions”. It notes that in 2023 netback prices dipped below $12 a gigajoule but east coast spot prices “remained clustered around $12/GJ, suggesting domestic market dynamics may have inadvertently prevented prices from adjusting down” [15]. The Review recommends phasing the reasonable price out [14].","r":[15,14]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A replacement is coming. On 7 May 2026 the government set a gas reservation scheme at the equivalent of 20 per cent of exports, from 1 July 2027, respecting export contracts entered into before 22 December 2025. At 10 September 2026 the legislation was at exposure-draft stage [16].","r":[16]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above gave 1 July 2027 as the start of the gas reservation scheme. The department’s reform page, last updated 29 September 2026, still says “This scheme will commence from 1 July 2027.” But the ministers’ joint media release of 10 September 2026 says the “licence application process will commence from 1 January 2027, with the Domestic Supply Obligation to commence from 1 January 2028”, and the same department page says “Obligations are expected to start on 1 January 2028.” Licence applications therefore start on 1 January 2027 and the Domestic Supply Obligation on 1 January 2028, not on 1 July 2027. The 7 May 2026 words, “equivalent to 20 per cent of exports, from 1 July 2027”, are left in place as what was announced then [16].","r":[16]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The fuel excise cut was the war-linked lever. On 30 March 2026 the Prime Minister announced the halving of the excise, saying: “The spike in fuel prices as a result of the war in the Middle East is hurting Australians and causing financial stress.” It cut fuel by 26.3 cents a litre from 1 April to 30 June. On 2 April the states funded a further 5.7 cents from extra GST revenue, 32 cents in total, plus GST, taking the rate to 20.6 cents, so the excise was cut by more than half. The government also tasked the ACCC with stepping up fuel price monitoring and issuing on-the-spot fines, and the ACCC warned retailers on 2 April [18].","r":[18]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The cut then wound down. From 1 July it became a 16-cent discount, and it ended at midnight on 2 August, as the Treasurer confirmed that day [18]. The ABC’s table puts the rate from 3 August at 53.7 cents after indexation [18]. The Budget costs the enlarged package at $2.9 billion [20].","r":[18,20]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The measured effect shows in the ABS figures. Automotive fuel fell 7.0 per cent in April after rising 32.8 per cent in March, a fall the ABS says “includes the halving of the fuel excise on 1 April”, and it was still 23.5 per cent above February, before the conflict [21]. Fuel fell 10.9 per cent in June, which the ABS put down to “some stabilisation in the Middle East” lowering world oil prices, with excise relief having lowered fuel in April and May [22]. The Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said he anticipated the cut would lower headline inflation by half a percentage point through the year to the June quarter of 2026; that is the Treasurer’s claim, and THE RORT found no ABS decomposition of the cut’s effect. Economists warned it could add to inflation through demand [19].","r":[21,22,19]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Then it reversed. Fuel rose 7.5 per cent in July, which the ABS put down to “higher world oil prices and the partial unwinding of the federal government’s fuel excise relief measures” [22]. The Reserve Bank had said in August: “The roll-off of the fuel excise reduction in July and August is expected to boost retail fuel prices and quarterly headline inflation in the September quarter” [23]. The ABS publishes the September-quarter CPI on 28 October [54].","r":[22,23,54]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The ABS published August CPI on 30 September. Automotive fuel rose 14.8 per cent in the month of August, after 7.5 per cent in July, and 13.5 per cent over the 12 months [62][63]. The ABS put the August rise down to higher world oil prices and the unwinding of the remainder of the federal government’s fuel excise relief measures in August; the ABS pages read give no figure for the excise share [62]. Annual CPI was 4.0 per cent in the 12 months to August, up from 3.5 per cent in July [63].","r":[62,63]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The June-quarter outcome came in lower than forecast. Headline inflation was 3.9 per cent, which the Bank said was “substantially lower” than the 4.8 per cent it expected in May, “primarily” because of weaker fuel and travel prices, in part “lower retail margins for petrol” [23]. Treasury’s Final Budget Outcome, published on 28 September, records the same 3.9 per cent, “materially lower” than the 5 per cent forecast in the Budget, reflecting lower-than-expected petrol prices and “subdued pass-through of broader cost pressures from the Middle East conflict to consumer prices” [24]. Neither passage apportions the shortfall to the excise cut.","r":[23,24]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Energy bill relief is a lever that works on the measured index in both directions. In July 2024 Commonwealth and state rebates led to a 6.4 per cent fall in electricity prices in the month, against a 0.9 per cent rise without them [25]. The Reserve Bank said in November 2024 that headline inflation was expected to be “temporarily” within the target range, “owing primarily to cost-of-living support measures” [25].","r":[25]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"When the rebates ran out, the measured index jumped. Measured electricity prices were up 37.1 per cent to October 2025 and 37.0 per cent in the 12 months to February 2026, against 5.0 per cent and 4.9 per cent excluding the rebates [25]. The ABS attributes electricity’s 6.1 per cent annual rise to July 2026 (22.4 per cent to June) “largely” to the ending of Commonwealth and state rebates [22], and says the fall from 22.4 to 6.1 per cent was mainly due to the timing of rebate payments in 2025 [22].","r":[25,22]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT’s reading, labelled as analysis: measured electricity inflation was 37.1 per cent in the 12 months to October 2025 and still 37.0 per cent to February 2026, either side of the Reserve Bank’s first decision of 2026, on 3 February. That is timing, not proof that the Bank raised rates because of the rebates; the Bank also cites trimmed mean inflation."},{"a":42,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The relief itself was time-limited. The Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief Fund extension paid relief from 1 July 2024 to 31 December 2025, with total funding of $5.3 billion. The agreement’s formal end date is 31 December 2026, but nothing found says relief is paid in 2026 [26].","r":[26]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The ABS published August CPI on 30 September. Electricity costs rose 13.2 per cent over the 12 months to August 2026, up from 6.1 per cent to July. The ABS said the annual rise is “largely due to the ending of Commonwealth electricity rebates”, and that it is up from the 6.1 per cent to July “driven by the timing of rebate payments in 2025” [63]. The second paragraph of this section describes the position to July.","r":[63]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A cluster of measures aims at how markets behave rather than at demand. The Food and Grocery Code became mandatory on 1 April 2025 for supermarkets and grocery wholesalers earning over $5 billion (ALDI, Coles, Metcash and Woolworths), with penalties up to the greater of $10 million, three times the benefit or 10 per cent of turnover. It mainly governs retailer and supplier conduct [28].","r":[28]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"From 1 July 2026 excessive grocery pricing by very large retailers, those with more than $30 billion in revenue, currently Coles and Woolworths, is prohibited under the Food and Grocery Code regulations and enforced by the ACCC. The test is whether prices are “significantly excessive” against cost plus a reasonable margin; the maximum penalty is the greater of $10 million, three times the benefit or 10 per cent of turnover [27]. No enforcement outcome under it has been checked.","r":[27]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Since 1 January 2026 merger notification to the ACCC above thresholds has been mandatory and suspensory, with 50 notifications and 108 waiver applications in the first quarter. The Treasurer tied merger reform to grocery prices in October 2024 [29]. The Unfair Trading Practices Bill passed on 2 July 2026, banning subscription traps, undisclosed checkout fees and manipulative online design from 1 July 2027. For financial services the government is only exploring “further alignment” of protections with ASIC and the states and territories, so the ban does not yet squarely cover banks [30].","r":[29,30]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The government’s 30 March fuel package lists among its measures: “Passed new laws to double penalties for petrol companies for price gouging”. That is the government’s claim; THE RORT did not fetch the law [18].","r":[18]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s supermarkets inquiry, released on 21 March 2025, found ALDI, Coles and Woolworths to be “some of the most profitable supermarket businesses among global peers”, with average product margins up over five years, and made 20 recommendations. It did not allege price gouging or recommend divestiture, according to The Conversation’s reading of it [31].","r":[31]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The prudential regulator has tools that limit lending, but they are framed around financial resilience rather than inflation. The 3-point serviceability buffer was kept in 2024 and 2025, and APRA’s Chair said the current level “has not been restrictive on new credit to the household sector”. From February 2026 lending at a debt-to-income ratio of six or more is capped at 20 per cent of all new mortgage lending, a limit APRA says is unlikely to bite on owner-occupiers in the near term [32].","r":[32]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Australia already has a bank-specific levy. The Major Bank Levy, in place since 1 July 2017, is charged at 0.06 per cent a year on certain liabilities of banks with more than $100 billion in liabilities. At the Parliamentary Budget Office’s May 2024 costing it captured five banks: CBA, Westpac, ANZ, NAB and Macquarie [33]. It is a levy on liabilities, not on profits. THE RORT did not re-read the Act for any change since, so the 0.06 per cent rests on that costing and on no change having been found. ANZ alone booked $230 million for it in the March 2026 half [33]. A 2024 PBO costing of a 10 per cent increase, requested by Senator Canavan, came to $495.8 million over the forward estimates; it was not legislated [33].","r":[33]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"A bigger levy has a cost. The PBO assumed that 75 per cent of any increase would be passed on to consumers “through mechanisms such as increases to fees on banking products, increases to interest rates on mortgage products, or decreases in interest payments on savings” [33].","r":[33]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"No 2026 proposal for a bank windfall tax or a higher bank levy was found. The Greens took a bank levy increase to the 2025 election: the PBO costed their “Big corporations tax (banks)” as raising the Major Bank Levy to 0.08 per cent per quarter, from 0.015 per cent, plus a levy recouping Term Funding Facility benefits, improving the fiscal balance by about $35.1 billion over the forward estimates [34]. That is a 2025 costing of a party policy, not a 2026 proposal or a vote. THE RORT found no Senate vote on a bank windfall tax in 2026: a search of the Senate Journals for “bank” and “levy” returned one documents entry, dated 11 August 2026, and no motion, amendment or division. The House was not searched for this [35].","r":[34,35]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"On gas and coal, the ABC reported on 20 March 2026 a Prime Minister and Cabinet document asking Treasury to model “new levy options” on windfall gas and thermal coal profits, stating: “Energy producers should not benefit from high international prices at the expense of domestic customers” [36]. A later ABC article, on 10 May, reported that the Prime Minister “killed off the move, concerned it could upset the trading partners Australia is relying on for fuel”; that is the reporter’s characterisation, not a government quote [37].","r":[36,37]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"In the May Budget the government, in the ABC’s words, “refused calls for a broader 25 per cent tax on gas exports”. The Treasurer said it was “not proposing any changes to the existing tax arrangements” and that “I know that people would like us to go further but there are good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation” [37]. The Prime Minister said on 29 April: “The middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them”, reported in the ABC’s live blog. SBS reported him on 24 April saying gas companies “pay around about $22 billion” and that “you need to acknowledge the tens of billions of dollars of investment that occurs in order to have that gas extracted”. On 18 June the Treasurer told 7.30: “When it comes to arrangements around gas taxes, that’s not something that we’ve been working on” [38].","r":[37,38]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT found seven recorded divisions on a 25 per cent gas export tax in 2026, and every one was lost. In the Senate: 12 March, 13 to 34 on an amendment to the Greens’ amendment; 31 March, 10 to 26; 1 April, 12 to 32; 29 June, 10 to 33; and 12 August, 11 to 30 on an urgency motion. On 12 March, Labor, the Coalition and One Nation voted down the Greens’ 25% export tax amendment, 13 votes to 35. In the House of Representatives on 2 June, 9 to 71: the government’s members voted it down and the Coalition did not vote [35].","r":[35]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"What each side of the Senate’s gas tax inquiry recommended is in the additional comments to its 7 May 2026 report, because the committee “has not been able to reach agreement on a set of recommendations” [39]. The Greens recommended replacing the petroleum resource rent tax on gas profits with a flat tax of at least 25 per cent on gas export revenue. Senator David Pocock recommended a 25 per cent tax on the value of gas exports, “simple, permanent, based on export revenue rather than profit”. Labor senators recommended that Treasury or the Productivity Commission evaluate the proposals after the crisis has passed and once gas reservation is designed, aiming to avoid “damaging vital regional relationships or undermining Australia’s energy and national security”. Coalition senators recommended “no arbitrary taxation such as a windfall levy on gas exports”, because “Australia needs an increased tax take, not an increased tax rate” [39].","r":[39]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b7","s":7,"k":"p","t":"What a gas tax would touch is not simple. The petroleum resource rent tax raised $1,416 million in cash receipts in 2025-26 and $1,661 million on an accrual basis [24]. PRRT is a profit-based tax on petroleum projects, oil included, and it is not the whole government take: company tax, royalties and excise also apply. Treasury officials told the committee that after the Ukraine price spike oil and gas producers ran down accumulated tax losses, “and that’s what’s led to that increase in tax paid”, and that further price pass-through “would also directly translate through to higher corporate tax paid” [39]. The committee itself found that a lack of timely, transparent entity-level data makes revenue, profits and PRRT liabilities difficult to understand [39].","r":[24,39]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s7-b8","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Industry and the government have stated their cases on the record. Woodside’s chief financial officer, Graham Tiver, told the committee on 24 April, of an export tax on top of existing taxes: “If you were putting that on top of PRRT, if you were putting it on top of corporate income tax, I’m not sure how any project would survive” [59]. Resources Minister Madeleine King, asked on ABC Radio National on 24 April about the Greens’ claim that the investment could be considered free, said: “It’s clearly an absurd proposition” [60]. She told SBS the same day: “We’ve got to remember what those billions of dollars of investment has delivered for the Australian people” [38].","r":[59,60,38]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Other countries used other levers, and some used the cash rate as well. Japan raised its policy rate to about 1.0 per cent on 16 June 2026, by seven votes to one, citing the fast pass-through of higher crude oil prices in business-to-business prices, and to about 1.25 per cent on 18 September, by seven votes to two [41]. Japan’s consumer price index was 1.9 per cent in August (1.7 per cent excluding fresh food), below 2 per cent “due to factors such as the effects of the government’s measures to reduce the household burden of higher energy prices”, and its energy index was 0.7 per cent lower than a year earlier [41]. Japan’s energy subsidies held its measured inflation down. Its central bank raised rates as well.","r":[41]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"In Europe, Bloomberg reported in September 2022 that France would budget a net EUR 16 billion to cap 2023 household and small-business power and gas price rises at 15 per cent, partly funded by power producers reimbursing windfall revenues [42]. The Tax Foundation reports that the EU’s 2022 energy package paired a solidarity contribution on fossil fuel surplus profits with a revenue cap on inframarginal generators, expected to raise about EUR 140 billion together, EUR 25 billion of it from the contribution. The contribution collected about EUR 6.85 billion for 2022, under 30 per cent of what was expected. It was a revenue measure to fund bill relief, not a demand tool [43].","r":[42,43]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Bank taxes spread further. An IMF staff working paper, which is not an IMF Board view, counts 12 of 27 EU countries introducing new bank taxes since 2023. It says EU bank profits since 2022 were “mostly driven by the delayed pass-through” of the rapid monetary policy tightening to deposit rates and are likely transitory. That is EU evidence, not a finding about Australia [44]. Italy in 2023 imposed a one-off 40 per cent tax on net interest income more than 10 per cent above its 2021 level, which most banks avoided by putting 2.5 times the tax into capital reserves; Rome had expected under EUR 3 billion. Spain collected EUR 1.2 billion from a surtax in 2023, Hungary EUR 640 million in the first year of its tax, and Lithuania EUR 250 million from its excess interest tax [44]. Italy’s government justified its tax by saying household and business borrowing costs had doubled while depositors’ returns had not; European bank shares had their biggest daily fall since the March 2023 Credit Suisse turmoil on the announcement, with Intesa down 8.2 per cent and UniCredit 7.2 per cent, Al Jazeera reported [45].","r":[44,45]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The costs of such taxes are on the record too. The IMF staff review warns that bank taxes tend to raise loan rates, cut lending, lower deposit rates and raise fees; that “the cost of bank taxes may be particularly likely to fall on households as their demand for bank services is less price-sensitive”; and that these effects may be especially pronounced in concentrated markets. It suggests locking temporary profits in as bank capital instead [44]. The Tax Foundation reports that the European Central Bank objected to bank windfall taxes in Spain, Lithuania and Italy on credit-supply and resilience grounds [44].","r":[44]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s8-b4","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The Bank of England, which held Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent at every 2026 meeting (in September by six votes to three, with three members voting for a rise), wrote in its September Minutes that monetary policy “could not influence global energy prices, but was being set to ensure that the economic adjustment to them occurred in a way that achieved the 2% inflation target sustainably”. It projected inflation of about 3.75 per cent in the December quarter, and judged that “weakness in economic activity and soft labour market conditions would help to contain the strength of second-round effects from higher energy prices” [46]. The Reserve Bank’s 29 September statement, by contrast, describes Australia as still having “pressure on domestic capacity” [2]. Other central banks’ choices are context, not justification.","r":[46,2]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s9-b0","s":9,"k":"p","t":"Some alternatives are proposals, not policies, and each has an owner. In 2022 the Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss, an advocacy source, argued for alternatives to rate rises: a windfall tax on gas and coal, used to cut education or child care costs, and a bigger bank levy [47]. His words: “imagine if we didn’t just introduce a windfall profits tax on the gas and coal industry, which is making bumper profits off the back of Putin’s brutal war, but used it to push down the cost of education or child care.”","r":[47]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s9-b1","s":9,"k":"p","t":"In 2026, Josh Dowse wrote in Yahoo Finance on 4 May that the super guarantee could be varied around 12 per cent as a third lever: “when inflation is running you might nudge the 12% up a little to constrain demand.” It is an opinion column, not a costed proposal. Compulsory super began partly as a trade-off for restrained wage rises under the Hawke government [48].","r":[48]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s9-b2","s":9,"k":"p","t":"The Greens said on 3 July 2026 that they wanted “a minimum 25 per cent gas export tax”, citing unattributed “new analysis” that gas companies were expected to receive an additional $18 billion windfall “over the next year” [40]. The $18 billion is an unsourced claim by a party, not the Greens’ own named modelling. The $17 billion a year that Senator Pocock and the Greens cite for a 25 per cent export tax is advocates’ modelling: Senator Pocock’s comments attribute it to modelling commissioned by Future Group from the consultants Arthur D. Little, “consistent with” separate analysis by the Australia Institute. It is not an independent costing [39].","r":[40,39]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s10-b0","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Every lever above carries a cost, and the record has arguments against most of them. Price controls have a poor record: the United States’ 1971 to 1974 wage and price controls “only temporarily slowed the rise in prices while exacerbating shortages”, in the Federal Reserve’s history. A Baker Institute brief in 2023 argued that Australia’s gas cap would reduce investment and production and that taxing the value of the resource would be better than a cap [49]. The Gas Market Review’s own stakeholders said the reasonable price mechanism had not been sufficient in tight supply [15].","r":[49,15]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s10-b1","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Windfall and bank taxes are passed on. The PBO assumed 75 per cent of any bank levy increase would be passed to customers [33], and the IMF staff review warns the costs may fall on households [44]. Most Italian banks avoided the 2023 tax by putting 2.5 times its amount into capital reserves [44].","r":[33,44]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s10-b2","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Rebates and subsidies move measured inflation. Rebates moved measured electricity prices down and then up [25]. The IMF says fiscal policy should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts and price controls [9]. The Bank for International Settlements says in its Annual Economic Report of 28 June 2026 that policymakers “must prioritise price stability”; its staff research, which states staff views and not the BIS’s, finds that oil shocks can be more than twice as inflationary when expectations are above target, that “an energy price surge combined with a loose fiscal position tends to be followed by higher inflation”, and that prompt responses cost less where activity is resilient [53].","r":[25,9,53]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s10-b3","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Timing matters. A US textbook says monetary policy can be set faster than fiscal policy but works slowly, while for fiscal policy “the impact lag may be shorter” [50]. Most of the Bank’s own models put the peak effect of a rate rise after around one to two years [7]. Fiscal restraint carries its own burdens too: a Senate committee, citing NATSEM, found that the 2014-15 Budget’s burden “falls most heavily on low and middle income families with children” [51].","r":[50,7,51]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s10-b4","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Some tempting levers are not levers on the Bank’s own analysis. The Reserve Bank says slower migration would cut demand but also supply, “such that there will not be a material effect on the degree of spare capacity in the economy and therefore inflation” [52].","r":[52]},{"a":42,"at":"at-s10-b5","s":10,"k":"p","t":"So is the cash rate the only thing that can be done? On the record, no. The Reserve Bank holds one instrument and says so. The government holds several, and used some in 2026: a fuel excise cut that has since rolled off, and competition measures that took effect in 2025 and 2026. It has set a gas reservation scheme to start on 1 July 2027. According to the ABC, it considered and then dropped a windfall levy; it refused a 25 per cent gas export tax that lost every one of the seven recorded votes THE RORT found in 2026. Each of those choices has reasons on the record and costs on the record, and both sets are above."},{"a":42,"at":"at-s10-b6","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The sentence above that the government has set a gas reservation scheme to start on 1 July 2027 is corrected in the section on gas at home: licence applications start on 1 January 2027 and the Domestic Supply Obligation on 1 January 2028 [16].","r":[16]},{"a":43,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Nine people set the cash rate. The Treasurer appoints six, and the Treasury Secretary sits and votes, which the RBA Review called “unusual” but kept.","r":[3,14]},{"a":43,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Votes are published unattributed and the Minutes name no voters. The March 2026 rise passed by five votes to four.","r":[3,21,22]},{"a":43,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Only the Governor’s and Deputy Governor’s interest declarations are published. A member may vote despite a material personal interest disclosed confidentially to the Treasurer.","r":[19,17,6]},{"a":43,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Government kept its power under s 11 to override the Bank, exercised by an order of the Governor-General in Council, which the Review recommended removing. The sources used give no reason for keeping it.","r":[15,17]},{"a":43,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Board raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, the fourth rise of 2026. The decision was unanimous, and the new rate takes effect on 30 September [1][2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":43,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The Board that made it has nine members. Six are non-executive members appointed by the Treasurer; the other three are the Governor, the Deputy Governor and the Treasury Secretary. The Board decides by majority, with the Chair holding a casting vote if one is needed, and it publishes an unattributed record of votes on decision day [3].","r":[3]},{"a":43,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article asks whether the Reserve Bank is really independent, and what the people who set the rate are paid. It answers both from the Bank's own pages, its annual reports, the RBA Review, the Reserve Bank Act and the Remuneration Tribunal, with the ABS, the Treasurer's releases and company pages. It makes no allegation against any member. It sets out who the nine are, how they are chosen, what is and is not published about their interests, how they voted this year, what they are paid, and the safeguards the Bank points to."},{"a":43,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"In short: the Act sets the Bank's objectives and makes the Treasury Secretary's independence on the Board explicit, and it also keeps several ties to the executive. Both are set out below, each with the other side on the record."},{"a":43,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Michele Bullock has been Governor since 18 September 2023; her term runs to 17 September 2030. Andrew Hauser is Deputy Governor, to 11 February 2029. Jenny Wilkinson PSM, Secretary to the Treasury, has sat as an ex officio member since 16 June 2025. The six non-executive members are Marnie Baker AM and Renee Fry-McKibbin (both to 28 February 2030), Carolyn Hewson AO (to 28 February 2027, the next to expire), Iain Ross AO (to 31 August 2028), Bruce Preston (since 1 March 2026, to 28 February 2031) and Melinda Cilento (since 1 September 2026, replacing Ian Harper AO) [3][4].","r":[3,4]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On the Bank's own board page, none of the nine lists a current bank directorship. Three list current roles connected to finance or wealth. Ms Baker is employer representative director of Australian Retirement Trust, a superannuation fund, and chairs its Technology and Transformation Committee. Ms Cilento is Deputy Chair of Australian Unity. Governor Bullock chairs the Financial Markets Foundation for Children. Ms Hewson's only listed current company role is non-executive director of CSL [3]. Ms Baker became a trustee director of Australian Retirement Trust on 7 February 2025, three weeks before the Monetary Policy Board began [5]. The Board's Code of Conduct allows it, and no conflict is alleged [6].","r":[3,5,6]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Earlier careers are on the public record. Ms Baker was Managing Director and CEO of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank from 2018 to 2024 and Deputy Chair of the Australian Banking Association; the Treasurer's appointment release of 16 December 2024 says she \"recently\" held those roles [7][8]. The RBA describes Ms Hewson as \"a former investment banker with over 35 years' experience in the finance sector\". She was previously an executive director of Schroders Australia and is a former director of BHP, Stockland, BT Investment Management, Westpac, AGL Energy, the Australian Gas Light Company, CSR and AMP; the page gives no dates for those roles and lists all of them as former [9].","r":[7,8,9]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Ms Cilento was a director of Woodside Petroleum until 1 May 2019 and of Wesfarmers General Insurance until June 2014, was Head of Economics at Invesco Australia, worked with Treasury and the IMF, and was deputy chief executive of the Business Council of Australia. On Australian Unity's board she sits on the Investment Committee. Australian Unity transferred its banking business to Bank Australia effective 23 November 2025, before she joined the Bank's Board [10].","r":[10]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Mr Hauser had been with the Bank of England \"for over 30 years\" when the RBA announced his appointment on 27 November 2023, and was its Executive Director for Markets [11]. Mr Preston's earlier roles, on the RBA's biography, include \"Senior Economic Research Advisor to the Reserve Bank of Australia and consultant to the Australian Treasury\" [12]. Iain Ross was President of the Fair Work Commission, earlier an Assistant Secretary of the ACTU and a partner at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, and now chairs the Net Zero Economy Authority [13].","r":[11,12,13]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"These roles are listed because they are public and bear on who sits on the Board. No conflict is alleged against any member."},{"a":43,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Treasurer appoints the six non-executive members: the Bank's board page says so in as many words, \"six non-executive members, who are appointed by the Treasurer\" [3]. New appointments now run through a panel. The RBA Review's recommendation was that \"A panel comprising the Treasury Secretary, the Governor and a third party should recommend options for suitable candidates to the Treasurer.\" That puts two of the Board's own voting members, the Governor and the Treasury Secretary, on the panel that advises on the six who vote beside them. The panel is by design: the Review recommended it (recommendation 8.5) [14].","r":[3,14]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Review asked for expertise in four areas, \"open-economy macroeconomics, the financial system, labour markets, or the supply side of the economy\", and for selection with \"regard to avoiding material conflicts of interest\" [14].","r":[14]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The first appointments did not all come through the new process. Four of the six first external members (Carolyn Hewson, Ian Harper, Iain Ross and Alison Watkins) were carried over from the old Reserve Bank Board after \"consultation\"; only Ms Baker and Ms Fry-McKibbin were new. The Treasurer's release of 16 December 2024 says: \"Following that consultation, Carolyn Hewson AO, Ian Harper AO, Iain Ross AO and Alison Watkins AM agreed to serve on the Monetary Policy Board.\" [7]","r":[7]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Mr Preston, who joined on 1 March 2026, was appointed on the advice of a panel of the Treasury Secretary, the Governor and former Treasury and Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary Martin Parkinson AC PSM. The shortlist drew on the 2024 expression-of-interest process, and the Opposition was consulted [12].","r":[12]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Ms Cilento joined on 1 September 2026, replacing Ian Harper [3][4].","r":[3,4]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Treasury Secretary sits and votes. The RBA Review, whose report recommended the Board's design, put it this way:"},{"a":43,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Review's own comparison was that \"In a few cases, an official attends but does not vote (for example the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand).\" It kept the seat all the same, and gave its reason: \"the Review is confident that a Treasury Secretary has not been directed in recent decades to argue the position of the Treasurer\" [14].","r":[14]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank's progress report on the Review says: \"The independence of the Secretary to the Treasury in undertaking their role on the Board was made explicit by legislation and is reflected in the updated Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy.\" [15]","r":[15]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Ms Wilkinson attended the March and May meetings, as every member did. The Minutes attribute no votes, so this article does not say how the Treasury Secretary, or any member, voted [22][24].","r":[22,24]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Bank and the Government also have a written agreement, the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy (December 2023, and July 2025). In the 2025 version the Government \"recognises the role that sound fiscal management plays in achieving the Monetary Policy Board's objectives\", and the Bank and the Government, through the Treasury, \"commit to working together to enhance their understanding of prevailing macroeconomic conditions and the impact that monetary and fiscal policy settings have in influencing these conditions.\" The commitment is to shared understanding, not to joint action or a fiscal rule [16].","r":[16]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Government can still override the Bank. Section 11 of the Reserve Bank Act survived the 2024 reforms; only s 11(1) was repealed. Under s 11(4), \"the Governor-General, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council, may, by order, determine the policy to be adopted by the Bank\", and the order is tabled in Parliament [15][17]. THE RORT read the Act as compiled on 1 March 2025.","r":[15,17]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The RBA Review had recommended removing the power. The Bank's own progress report records that the Government did not do it: \"The Government's legislative response to the Review did not implement the Review's recommendations to remove the Treasurer's power to override RBA decisions, or to remove the RBA's power in the Banking Act 1959 to determine the lending policy of banks.\" [15]","r":[15]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The other side is on the public record. Former governors and treasurers of both parties (Macfarlane, Fraser, Costello and Keating) argued in February 2024 that the power should stay as a democratic check. The ABC reported that Treasurer Jim Chalmers had \"quickly accepted\" the Review's recommendation to strip it, and that reviewer Gordon de Brouwer said it had never been used (the ABC's paraphrase) [18].","r":[18]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The sources THE RORT used for this article do not give the Treasurer's reasons for keeping the power. That question is published in the article \"The grill\" (T9)."},{"a":43,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section, the subtitle and the key facts said the Treasurer can override the Bank and called s 11 the Treasurer's override power. Under s 11(4) of the Reserve Bank Act, as quoted above, the policy is determined by an order of the Governor-General acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council, so the text now says the Government can override the Bank, by that order. The quotation from the Bank's progress report, which uses the words \"the Treasurer's power\", is left as written [15][17].","r":[15,17]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Only the Governor's and the Deputy Governor's declarations of material personal interests are published, and they are published voluntarily. The Bank's accountability page says: \"These declarations are made voluntarily to promote openness and accountability and are made in addition to the declarations to the Treasurer that are required in terms of the Reserve Bank Act.\" [19]","r":[19]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Every member must also give the Treasurer a statement of interests each year. It is confidential, and it is not published for anyone, including the six non-executive members and the Treasury Secretary [19][6]. The RBA Review recorded the same gap: \"Only the declarations of the Governor and Deputy Governor are made public (on a voluntary basis).\" [14] That leaves the declarations of the other seven of the nine unpublished. This article is about the rules, not about any member's finances, and does not report what any declaration contains.","r":[19,6,14]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Act lets a member with a material personal interest in a monetary policy matter be present and vote, provided the interest was disclosed in writing to the Treasurer within the previous 12 months and has not substantially changed (s 7D). Section 7D(2) says the member \"may do either or both of the following: (a) be present ... (b) vote on the matter at the meeting.\" The Code of Conduct states the purpose: \"This disclosure enables members to discuss and decide monetary and financial system stability policies notwithstanding a material personal interest in the outcome.\" Those disclosures to the Treasurer are confidential [17][6].","r":[17,6]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The other side is the Code of Conduct (April 2025). It bars members and their \"associated entities\" from foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives and from \"active trading\" (\"frequent and speculative\"), and from any transaction in the blackout period, which runs from the release of board papers, usually 10.00 am on the Friday before a meeting, to 5.00 pm on decision day. It bars paid or unpaid work for a bank or credit licensee, requires members to advise the Governor of any material interest in an authorised deposit-taking institution or other financial entity, and bars participation in superannuation or managed fund deliberations where a conflict could be perceived (\"governance of the entity's investment strategy\" is allowed) [6]. The RBA Review had recommended stronger conflict rules (recommendation 10.6), and the Bank reports that it addressed this \"through updates to the codes of conduct for the RBA's boards in 2023 and 2025\" [14][15].","r":[6,14,15]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The bank bar is worded carefully. Section 25AB(2) of the Act bars the appointment of an external member who is a director, officer or employee of an authorised deposit-taking institution; the continuing ban for all members is in the Code, which says \"a member is not permitted to be a director, officer or employee of an Authorised Deposit-taking Institution\" [17][6]. The Bank's progress report puts it this way, in its own sentence: \"Under Section 25AB(2) of the Reserve Bank Act, members of the Board may not be a director, officer or employee of an authorised deposit-taking institution\" [15].","r":[17,6,15]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Code as published has no cooling-off period for previous roles or for work after leaving; its only duty after a term ends is confidentiality [6]. That finding covers the board Code only. THE RORT did not read the RBA staff code, which also binds the Governor and the Deputy Governor.","r":[6]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Bank announces each decision at 2.30 pm; the change takes effect the following day [1][37]. The 2026 record, from the Bank's media releases:","r":[1,37]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"3 February (effective 4 February): the Board raised the cash rate 25 basis points to 3.85 per cent. \"Today's policy decision was unanimous.\" [20]","r":[20]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"17 March (effective 18 March): the cash rate rose to 4.10 per cent. The Bank's statement: \"Today's policy decision was made by majority: five members voted to increase the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.10 per cent; four members voted to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 3.85 per cent.\" [21]","r":[21]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"f","x":"5 votes to 4","t":"The March 2026 rise passed by one vote. Votes are published the same afternoon, unattributed, and the Minutes attribute no votes, so how any member voted is not known. The four in the minority wanted to delay, not to rule out, a further rise.","src":"RBA Media Release 2026-08; RBA Minutes, 16 and 17 March 2026"},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The March Minutes record what the four argued. A minority \"reiterated that inflation was too high and that a further tightening in monetary policy would probably be required\", but \"felt there was merit in delaying any tightening of monetary policy until the potential effects of the current conflict in the Middle East become clearer\". They also \"placed more weight on the weaker-than-expected consumption outcome and slowing in the growth in unit labour costs in the December quarter 2025\" [22].","r":[22]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"5 May (effective 6 May): the cash rate rose to 4.35 per cent. The Bank's statement: \"Today's policy decision was made by majority: eight members voted to increase the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.35 per cent; one member voted to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 4.10 per cent.\" [23]","r":[23]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The May Minutes record that one member \"placed more weight on the arguments for leaving the cash rate target unchanged, judging that capacity pressures prevailing before the conflict were somewhat less than the staff had assessed\", and that holding \"while awaiting additional evidence on how the Australian economy would respond to the conflict, would best balance the risks to the Board's two objectives\". The member \"noted that this approach was consistent with that adopted by other central banks\". \"Most members also judged that an increase in the cash rate target at this meeting would best balance the Board's two objectives, accepting that the shorter term trade-off between these had worsened.\" In the case for holding, members also noted that \"several other central banks had chosen to hold their policy rates unchanged pending greater clarity on the likely effects of the conflict\", and that waiting \"could be an appropriate course of action\" [24].","r":[24]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Both dissents, as the Minutes record them, were about timing and evidence, not about the tool. In March the minority said a further tightening would probably be required and wanted to delay it. In May the dissenter's case was to hold while awaiting evidence [22][24].","r":[22,24]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"16 June (effective 17 June): the Board held at 4.35 per cent, unanimously, saying \"The latest data show that headline and underlying inflation are still too high\", that the unemployment rate \"was higher than expected in April\", and that \"growth in demand needs to slow to reduce capacity pressures and help bring inflation back to target.\" [25]","r":[25]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"11 August (effective 12 August): the Board held at 4.35 per cent, unanimously. It said inflation was \"not expected to return to around the midpoint of the target range until late 2027 and there are upside risks to this projection\", and it kept further rises open, \"including increasing the cash rate target further if upside risks materialise.\" [26]","r":[26]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b10","s":5,"k":"p","t":"29 September (effective 30 September): the Board raised the cash rate to 4.60 per cent. \"Today's policy decision was unanimous.\" [2]","r":[2]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s5-b11","s":5,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT read the attendance lists in the March and May Minutes. All nine members attended both the March and the May meetings, including the Treasury Secretary: Bullock, Hauser, Baker, Fry-McKibbin, Harper, Hewson, Preston, Ross and Wilkinson. Ian Harper, not Melinda Cilento, was then a member. The Minutes attribute no votes, so this article does not say how any member voted [24][22]. Mr Preston joined on 1 March 2026, after the February decision, and Ms Cilento on 1 September 2026, so 29 September was her first decision [3].","r":[24,22,3]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"On 22 September, a week before the decision, Iain Ross, a Monetary Policy Board member, gave a speech in his own name:"},{"a":43,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Dr Ross also said: \"I am expressing my own views. I am not purporting to speak on behalf of the Monetary Policy Board or the RBA.\" His argument was that the 1970s mechanisms (comparative wage justice and quarterly indexation) are gone, and that enterprise agreements lock wages until they expire [27].","r":[27]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Beside it, the Board's own statement on 29 September: \"The Board remains focused on ensuring that high inflation does not become embedded. To achieve this, growth in aggregate demand needs to remain subdued for a period to reduce capacity pressures and bring inflation back to target.\" [2] THE RORT does not claim the two conflict. The Board's statement speaks of high inflation becoming embedded; Dr Ross's speech is about a wage-price spiral, and he says he does not speak for the Board.","r":[2]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT does not know whether Dr Ross attended the 29 September meeting. The Minutes are due on Tuesday 13 October 2026 at 11.30 am, and the March and May Minutes listed who attended [28][24].","r":[28,24]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Governor Bullock's total remuneration in 2024/25 was $1,195,275: base salary $987,132, other benefits $31,457, superannuation $132,457 and long service leave $44,229. There was no bonus: the Bonuses column shows a dash for every key management person in 2024/25 [29]. Deputy Governor Hauser's total was $879,714 in 2024/25, his first full year, and $356,166 in 2023/24, a part year from his appointment on 12 February 2024 [29][30].","r":[29,30]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Non-executive members are paid what the Remuneration Tribunal determines (s 25AG of the Act). The Tribunal sets the fee at $94,190 a year, excluding superannuation (2025 determination), unchanged from 1 July 2026. As paid in 2024/25, each non-executive member received $30,744 plus $3,536 superannuation for 1 March to 30 June 2025. Ms Hewson, Dr Ross, Ian Harper and Alison Watkins were also paid Reserve Bank Board fees of $57,168 plus $6,574 superannuation for July 2024 to February 2025. These are part-time Tribunal rates, and no bonuses are paid [31][29]. Ms Wilkinson is not paid for board service [29].","r":[31,29]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Governor's pay is set differently. Her terms and conditions, including remuneration, are \"determined by the Governance Board\" (s 24A), inside the Remuneration Tribunal's principal executive office framework, whose top band is \"PEO band E from $645,570\" with no ceiling. The employing body sets total remuneration within the band, and it \"may not be varied, except with the written consent of the Tribunal\". Which band the Governor sits in was not found [32][17]. On the RBA's own account, the Reserve Bank Board's Remuneration Committee advised the Board on Governor and Deputy Governor pay until 28 February 2025. Iain Ross sat on that committee from 7 June 2023 to 28 February 2025. That is a fact about his role; no impropriety is suggested [13][29].","r":[32,17,13,29]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Against wages: the ABS put median employee earnings in main job at $1,425 a week in August 2025, which over 52 weeks is $74,100. In May 2026, full-time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings were $2,083.70 (seasonally adjusted, up 3.7 per cent), which over 52 weeks is about $108,352. The ABS series exclude employer superannuation [34]. THE RORT's calculation from the Annual Report and those two ABS releases: the Governor's 2024/25 base salary of $987,132 is about 13.3 times median employee earnings ($987,132 divided by $74,100) and about 9.1 times annualised full-time adult ordinary time earnings ($987,132 divided by $108,352). The comparison uses base salary, not the $1,195,275 package, because the package includes superannuation and leave accruals that the ABS series exclude. The periods also differ: 2024/25 salary, an August 2025 median, a May 2026 average. THE RORT's calculation of what the four 2026 rises would mean for the same hypothetical loan on two incomes is in the article \"Who pays for the rises\".","r":[34]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The other side on pay: the Remuneration Tribunal decided on no adjustment for public offices in its jurisdiction from 1 July 2026, accepting a real cut: \"While this approach will result in a reduction in real remuneration, it preserves existing relativities\". Whether that freeze applies to the Governor's package, which the Governance Board sets inside a Tribunal band, was not confirmed [33].","r":[33]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The record of votes is published at 2.30 pm on decision day, unattributed [3]. The Minutes of the discussion are published two weeks after each meeting: \"Minutes of the monetary policy discussion of the Board are published two weeks after each meeting.\" The Minutes of the 29 September meeting are listed on the RBA's release calendar for Tuesday 13 October 2026 at 11.30 am [28]. The Governor gives a press conference after every meeting, and external members commit to at least one public engagement a year [35].","r":[3,28,35]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The Governor appeared before the House Economics Committee on 6 February and 18 September 2026 and at Senate Estimates on 4 June 2026, and commits, in the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy rather than in statute, to appear twice a year. Supplementary Budget Estimates for the Treasury portfolio sit on 28 and 29 October 2026; RBA attendance is not yet posted. The House Economics Committee's review of Australia's four major banks has its next hearing on 12 November 2026 [36].","r":[36]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The Board's next decisions are on 3 November and 8 December 2026 [37].","r":[37]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The unanswered questions this article raises, on attributing votes, on how many members have voted after disclosing an interest to the Treasurer, on publishing all nine declarations and on the Treasurer's reasons for keeping s 11, are published in THE RORT's article \"The grill\". Answers will be added there, and here, as they arrive."},{"a":43,"at":"at-s9-b0","s":9,"k":"p","t":"The Bank's case is substantial. The dual mandate is in statute (Treasury Laws Amendment (Reserve Bank Reforms) Act 2024, s 9B): price stability and full employment, with 2 to 3 per cent inflation as the goal under the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy. The Bank's overarching objective (s 8AA) is \"the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia\" [38][16].","r":[38,16]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s9-b1","s":9,"k":"p","t":"On structure, the Treasury Secretary's independence on the Board \"was made explicit by legislation\" [15], and the Review was \"confident that a Treasury Secretary has not been directed in recent decades to argue the position of the Treasurer\" [14]. Votes are published the same day, Minutes two weeks after each meeting, and the Governor holds a press conference after every meeting [3][28][35]. Of the Review's 51 recommendations, 41 had been addressed by December 2025; the Expert Advisory Group first met on 3 June 2026 (11 economists, and only that meeting is listed) [35]. The Governor commits to report twice a year to the House Economics Committee [36].","r":[15,14,3,28,35,36]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s9-b2","s":9,"k":"p","t":"On appointments, Mr Preston was chosen on the advice of a panel with the Opposition consulted [12]. On conflicts, the Code bars transactions in the blackout period around each meeting, bars bank roles, and requires members to advise the Governor of any material interest in an authorised deposit-taking institution or other financial entity [6]. The bank bar on sitting members is in the Code, and s 25AB(2) bars such appointments [17]. On s 11, the power has, on reviewer Gordon de Brouwer's account as the ABC reported it, never been used, and former governors and treasurers of both parties wanted it kept as a democratic check [18]. On pay, there is no bonus, the Governor's package is set by the Governance Board inside a Tribunal framework and cannot be varied without the Tribunal's written consent, and the Tribunal's 2026 decision accepts a real cut [29][32][33].","r":[12,6,17,18,29,32,33]},{"a":43,"at":"at-s9-b3","s":9,"k":"p","t":"What this article does not show: it does not show that any member voted, or was asked to vote, in a particular way, and it makes no allegation against any member. It reports the structure the law and the Bank's own pages describe. Whether that structure is independent enough is a judgment; the facts above are the material for it."},{"a":44,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"PRRT raised $1,416 million in cash receipts in 2025-26, against LNG export earnings of $59.4 billion: 2.4 per cent, on THE RORT’s calculation.","r":[25,26]},{"a":44,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"THE RORT found seven recorded divisions on a 25 per cent gas export tax in 2026. Every one was lost.","r":[11,12,15,16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"On 12 March Labor, the Coalition and One Nation voted down the Greens’ amendment **13 to 35**. In the House on 2 June, the Coalition did not vote.","r":[11,16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Treasurer cites fuel supply and gas reservation; Coalition senators want “an increased tax take, not an increased tax rate”. The Senate inquiry agreed no recommendations.","r":[19,14,13]},{"a":44,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 29 September 2026, the afternoon the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate to 4.60 per cent, Independent Senator for the ACT David Pocock posted a 40-second video to Facebook and asked why the major parties were not “talking about a windfall profits tax or backing the push for a 25% gas export tax” [1][2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":44,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The Parliament’s own records answer part of that question. In the Journals of the Senate and the House of Representatives Votes and Proceedings, THE RORT found seven recorded divisions on a 25 per cent gas export tax in 2026. Every one was lost. That is a count of what THE RORT found, not a claim that no other division exists."},{"a":44,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article sets out who voted how, and the reasons each side has given in its own words. It does not decide whether a gas export tax is good policy, and it does not attribute any vote to a motive. The Journals record votes, not reasons."},{"a":44,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That is the caption of the video; its spoken words were not transcribed and are not quoted here. “Bank” is a verb in it: the post says multinationals “bank” wartime profits, meaning they pocket them. It does not name the banking sector [1]. Company results for the half to 30 June 2026, in US dollars, are mixed. Woodside’s underlying profit rose 7%, from US$1,247 million to US$1,334 million; its reported profit, up 27% to US$1,672 million, includes US$596 million of PRRT deferred tax assets recognised because of higher prices [3]. Santos’s profit after tax fell 19%, to US$355 million, which Santos attributes to one-off commissioning costs and cargo timing [4]. Those are half-year company results, not tax paid and not a verdict on the post.","r":[1,3,4]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The gas tax is not a new theme for Pocock. On 2 March 2026 his office released a proposal for a Senate inquiry that would examine the amount of petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) paid on liquefied natural gas “and why it is so low”, comparable policies in Norway and Qatar, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ proposal for a 25% tax on gas export revenue [5]. Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May was quoted by Accounting Times on 16 March: “Australia doesn’t have a gas shortage. We have an export problem.” [6] The ABC reported on 21 April that Pocock had raised “more than $94,000 in just one week” for billboards [7], and on 2 May “more than $130,000”, with “nearly 10 million” Instagram views of his clip [8]. Reporting for the ABC’s 7.30 on 20 July, the reporter said the ACTU “continues to support a 25 per cent tax on gas” [9]. Each of these is advocacy, dated, and none is a finding.","r":[5,6,7,8,9]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"One attribution needs care. The Greens’ release of 5 May 2026 on that month’s rate rise, which called another rise “simply punishment for homeowners and more profit for the banks already raking it in”, was by Greens Senators Nick McKim and Barbara Pocock (SA). It was not by David Pocock, who is an Independent for the ACT. It answered the May rise, not the 29 September one, and it proposed no bank tax [10].","r":[10]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Senate’s Journal for 12 March 2026 records four divisions on One Nation’s gas motion (item 6). It began when Senator Hanson, the leader of One Nation, moved that the Senate note that “the petroleum resource rent tax has fundamentally failed to properly tax gas exports and must be changed to apply to production volume”, and call for “a 15% minimum domestic reserve” [11].","r":[11]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Senator Hodgins-May (Greens) moved to replace Hanson’s reserve call with a call for a 25% gas export tax. First, Pocock’s amendment to that amendment, to add the tax call rather than replace the reserve call, was lost 13 to 34 [11].","r":[11]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Second, Senator Hodgins-May’s amendment calling “to subject all gas production to a minimum 25% gas export tax” was lost 13 to 35. The ayes were the Greens plus Senators Payman, Thorpe and Tyrrell. David Pocock is not recorded in this division. The noes included the government ministers Senators Gallagher and Watt, Coalition Senator McDonald (LNP), and Senators Hanson and Roberts. In short, Labor, the Coalition and One Nation voted down the Greens’ 25% export tax amendment, 13 votes to 35 [11].","r":[11]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Third, the Finance Minister’s amendment noting the government’s own reservation scheme, which the Journal describes as one that “will require exporters to reserve between 15 and 25% of gas production for the domestic market”, was lost 25 to 42. The government lost its own amendment. The noes included Senator McDonald, Senator Hanson, the Greens and David Pocock [11].","r":[11]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Fourth, Hanson’s main motion, with its 15% reserve and its call for PRRT to apply to production volume, was lost 8 to 43. The ayes were Senators Babet, Bell, Hanson, David Pocock, Payman, Roberts, Tyrrell and Whitten. The Greens voted no, with Labor and the Coalition [11]. The 8 to 43 count belongs to Hanson’s motion, not to the Greens’ amendment.","r":[11]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Only the first two of these are among the seven: the third was about the government’s reservation scheme and the fourth about a change to the PRRT and a domestic reserve, and neither put a gas export tax to the Senate. The Journal records the votes, not the reasons; the reasons below are the ones each side stated elsewhere, in its own words, and THE RORT adds none of its own."},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Also on 12 March 2026, Pocock’s motion for a “Select Committee on Why Gas Companies Pay Less for Offshore Liquefied Natural Gas than Australians Pay in Beer Excise”, with the ACTU’s 25% export revenue tax proposal among its terms and Pocock to chair, was lost 17 to 23. The ayes included the Greens, Pocock, Payman, Thorpe, Tyrrell, Roberts, Whitten and Bell; the noes included the ministers Gallagher and Watt and Senators Ghosh, Darmanin, Askew and O’Sullivan [12].","r":[12]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On 30 March 2026 the Senate instead established the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, on Hodgins-May’s motion, by 35 votes to 21. The ayes included Labor Senators Ghosh and Darmanin, the Greens, David Pocock and Senator Tyrrell; the noes included Senator McDonald (LNP) and Senator Dean Smith (Liberal) [12]. Neither committee vote is among the seven, which count votes on a tax itself.","r":[12]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The committee’s chair was Hodgins-May (Australian Greens) and its deputy chair Senator Varun Ghosh (Labor). Its other members were Senators Lisa Darmanin (Labor), Susan McDonald (LNP), David Pocock (Independent) and Dean Smith (Liberal). It held hearings on 21 and 22 April in Canberra and 24 April in Perth and received more than 230 public submissions, including five form-letter campaigns all backing a 25% export levy and a GetUp submission carrying comments from 50,000 petition signers. That is a measure of advocacy volume, not of the merit of the proposal [13].","r":[13]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The committee tabled its report on 7 May 2026. It “has not been able to reach agreement on a set of recommendations on Australia’s approach to the taxation of its gas resources”, and the members’ views appear in additional comments. The report “notes the Prime Minister’s stated concerns about timing and invites the government to reconsider this issue following the resolution of the current conflict in Iran”, and “finds that lack of timely, transparent entity-level data continues to make it difficult for industry, government and the community to have a shared understanding of revenue, profits, and PRRT liabilities” [13].","r":[13]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Each side’s recommendation, from those additional comments [14]. The Greens: “replace the PRRT on gas profits with a flat tax of at least 25 per cent on gas export revenue”. Pocock: “a 25 per cent tax on the value of gas exports in the upcoming budget”, “simple, permanent, based on export revenue rather than profit”, with no sunset. The Labor senators: that “After the current Middle East energy crisis has passed and following finalisation of the government gas market review and gas reservation design, the Treasury or the Productivity Commission evaluate the reform proposals to the inquiry”, aiming to avoid “damaging vital regional relationships or undermining Australia’s energy and national security”. The Coalition senators McDonald and Smith: “no arbitrary taxation such as a windfall levy on gas exports”.","r":[14]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Treasury officials gave the committee evidence on how higher prices flow into tax. As quoted in the Greens’ additional comments, they said that after the Ukraine price spike oil and gas producers ran down “a lot of the accumulated losses in the corporate tax system”, and “that’s what’s led to that increase in tax paid”, and that further price pass-through “would also directly translate through to higher corporate tax paid” [14].","r":[14]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Two figures in this debate need their owners named. The $112 billion appears in the Greens’ additional comments as the Australia Institute’s estimate of gas companies’ windfall profits since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a cumulative, multi-year price-difference estimate. It is not a committee finding, and it is not comparable with annual LNG export earnings. The $17 billion a year that Pocock and the Greens cite for a 25% export tax is advocates’ modelling: Pocock’s comments attribute it to modelling commissioned by Future Group from consultants Arthur D. Little, “consistent with” separate Australia Institute analysis. It is not an independent costing [14].","r":[14]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The year 2026 was added to the dates of the 12 March and 30 March votes in this section, so each date is stated whole; no date, vote or count changed."},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 31 March 2026 a Greens urgency motion linking child care costs to “imposing a 25% tax on gas exports” was lost 10 to 26. The ayes were the ten Greens; David Pocock is not recorded in that division [12].","r":[12]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 1 April 2026 Pocock’s second-reading amendment to the Excise Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025 called on the government “to get a fair deal on the sale and export of Australian gas by instituting a 25% tax on LNG export revenue, which is estimated to generate $17 billion a year”, and set the $2.7 billion beer excise estimate in the mid-year budget update (MYEFO) against $1.5 billion in PRRT for 2025-26 (the amendment’s figure, a forecast; the outcomes, below, were $1,416 million in cash receipts and $1,661 million in accrual revenue). It was lost 12 to 32. The ayes included Senators Hodgins-May, McKim, Barbara Pocock and David Pocock, who was teller. The noes included the ministers Gallagher and Watt and Senators Hume, Duniam, Ruston, Askew, Collins, Roberts, Whitten, Bell and Babet [15]. A post by Pocock on X that day said Labor, the Coalition and One Nation “all just voted against”; the party descriptions there are his, not the Journal’s [15].","r":[15]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 2 June 2026, in the House of Representatives and not the Senate, Elizabeth Watson-Brown’s second-reading amendment to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027, moved on 25 May, said that “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House calls on the Government to implement a 25 per cent gas export tax”. It was lost 9 to 71. The ayes were Chaney, Gee, Haines, Le, M Ryan, Scamps, Steggall, Watson-Brown and Wilkie. No Coalition member appears on either list. The Votes and Proceedings give no count by party for the 71 noes: the government’s members voted it down, and the Coalition did not vote [16].","r":[16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 29 June 2026 the Greens’ second-reading amendment to the Appropriation Bills, which combined a 25% gas export revenue tax with reversing cuts to the NDIS, was lost 10 to 33. David Pocock voted no on the amendment but, in the Journal’s words, “by leave, recorded his vote for the ayes in respect of paragraph (a)”, the gas paragraph [16].","r":[16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 12 August 2026 a Greens urgency motion, moved by Hodgins-May at Senator McKim’s request, called for “The need for the government to finally introduce a minimum 25% tax on gas exports” and said this was needed “as gas corporations including Shell, Santos and Woodside benefit from reported war-driven windfall revenues”. Those are the motion’s words, not findings. It was lost 11 to 30. The ayes were the Greens plus David Pocock. The noes included Labor Senators Ghosh and Darmanin, Senator McDonald (LNP) and Senator Hanson [16].","r":[16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The tally, all in 2026: Senate on 12 March (13 to 35 and 13 to 34), 31 March (10 to 26), 1 April (12 to 32), 29 June (10 to 33) and 12 August (11 to 30), and House on 2 June (9 to 71). Seven divisions, every one lost [11][12][15][16].","r":[11,12,15,16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. THE RORT checked the Journals again and found one more lost Senate division that mentions a tax on gas exports. On 30 March 2026 the Senate lost, 13 to 29, an urgency motion for free public transport “paid for by a tax on gas exports”, and Senator David Pocock voted for it [30]. It is outside the seven because its wording is a tax on gas exports, not a 25 per cent gas export tax, and the seven are the divisions whose wording is a 25 per cent gas export tax, a count that was always THE RORT’s own. The fact box and the key facts now say 25 per cent, and the headline’s seven is that same count. Separately, the 1 April count of 12 to 32 is the Journal’s: the Journal also records that Senator Payman’s vote for the ayes was recorded by leave, so the ayes in that division in effect number 13 [15]. Also on 7 October 2026, the year 2026 was added to each division date in this section that lacked one, so each date is stated whole; no date, vote or count changed.","r":[30,15]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"f","x":"13 to 35","t":"Labor, the Coalition and One Nation voted down the Greens’ 25% gas export tax amendment in the Senate on 12 March 2026. THE RORT found seven recorded divisions on a 25 per cent gas export tax in 2026; every one was lost.","src":"Journals of the Senate No. 39, 12 March 2026; Journals of the Senate and House Votes and Proceedings, 2026"},{"a":44,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Greens described the 2 June 2026 House vote in a release the same day, and their words are theirs. Hodgins-May: “This was Labor’s chance to listen to the Australian people and back a tax on gas exports.” Watson-Brown: “More than three in five Australians support a 25% tax on gas exports”, that it “would raise $17 billion a year” (the advocates’ figure above), and “One Nation and the LNP didn’t even bother to show up” [17].","r":[17]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The ABC reported on 20 March that a document from the Prime Minister’s department asked Treasury to model “new levy options” on windfall gas and thermal coal profits, stating that “Energy producers should not benefit from high international prices at the expense of domestic customers” [18]. On 10 May the ABC reported that the Prime Minister “killed off the move, concerned it could upset the trading partners Australia is relying on for fuel”. That is the reporter’s characterisation, not a government statement [19]. THE RORT has not found whether the modelling was completed or released.","r":[18,19]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In the May 2026 Budget, the ABC reported, the government “refused calls for a broader 25 per cent tax on gas exports”. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government was “not proposing any changes to the existing tax arrangements” and: “I know that people would like us to go further but there are good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation.” [19]","r":[19]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister added on 29 April: “This is why I can confirm that the budget will not undermine existing contracts on gas exports”, and “Australia is a reliable supplier of energy” [20]. Reported by SBS on 24 April, he said gas companies “pay around about $22 billion” and “you need to acknowledge the tens of billions of dollars of investment that occurs in order to have that gas extracted” [21]. The interview date is not confirmed; those are his words as SBS reported them.","r":[20,21]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On ABC’s 7.30 on 18 June, Chalmers said: “When it comes to arrangements around gas taxes, that’s not something that we’ve been working on.” [9]","r":[9]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Resources Minister Madeleine King, on ABC RN Breakfast on 24 April, rejected what she described as the Greens’ claim that the investment could be considered free: “it’s only in the universe of the Greens Party and their friends that they can say that spending hundreds of billions of dollars across the country could be considered in any way free. It’s clearly an absurd proposition. And to be frank, I’m mystified as to how they get away with such tosh.” [22] To SBS the same day she said: “We’ve got to remember what those billions of dollars of investment has delivered for the Australian people” and “One of the things [we get out of it] is a domestic gas supply” [21].","r":[22,21]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The government’s alternative is gas reservation. It announced on 22 December 2025 a reserve of “between 15 and 25 per cent” to start in 2027, and on 7 May 2026 set it at “equivalent to 20 per cent of exports, from 1 July 2027”, respecting export contracts entered into before 22 December 2025. The department says the current $12 a gigajoule regulations “will remain in place until new arrangements are implemented” and that the draft legislation is intended to go to Parliament “this year”. At 10 September 2026 it was at exposure-draft stage [23]. As the Journal shows above, the Senate voted down, 25 to 42, the government’s own amendment describing that scheme [11].","r":[23,11]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above said the reservation scheme would start in 2027 and quoted the 7 May 2026 date of 1 July 2027. The department’s reform page, last updated 29 September 2026, still says “This scheme will commence from 1 July 2027.” But the ministers’ joint media release of 10 September 2026 says the “licence application process will commence from 1 January 2027, with the Domestic Supply Obligation to commence from 1 January 2028”, and the same department page says “Obligations are expected to start on 1 January 2028.” Licence applications therefore start on 1 January 2027 and the Domestic Supply Obligation on 1 January 2028, not on 1 July 2027. The 7 May 2026 words, “equivalent to 20 per cent of exports, from 1 July 2027”, are left in place as what was announced then [23].","r":[23]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT has not found a formal government response to the committee’s 7 May report; that search was not exhaustive. Nor has it found whether the evaluation the Labor senators recommended has been commissioned."},{"a":44,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Coalition’s stated reasons are in its senators’ additional comments to the committee’s report. McDonald and Smith recommended “no arbitrary taxation such as a windfall levy on gas exports”, and wrote that “it is the Coalition members of the committee’s view that Australia needs an increased tax take, not an increased tax rate.” Their comments also cite what they describe as disregarded evidence, undisclosed conflicts of interest from fossil fuel activism, rushed reporting (24 hours to respond to the Chair’s draft) and the global energy crisis [14]. Those are their assertions, and this article has not tested them.","r":[14]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"On 2 June 2026 no Coalition member appears on either list in the House division [16]. Why the Coalition did not vote is among the questions THE RORT publishes in The grill, and answers will be added as they arrive.","r":[16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Industry’s case was put to the committee on 24 April by Graham Tiver, Woodside’s chief financial officer. Of an export tax on top of existing taxes he said: “If you were putting that on top of PRRT, if you were putting it on top of corporate income tax, I’m not sure how any project would survive.” [24]","r":[24]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The year 2026 was added to the date of the 2 June House division in this section, so the date is stated whole; nothing else changed."},{"a":44,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"PRRT is a profit-based tax on petroleum projects, oil included. In 2025-26 it raised $1,416 million in cash receipts (the estimate was $1,400 million) and $1,661 million in accrual revenue (the estimate was $1,670 million). The basis matters, so both are given [25]. LNG export earnings were $59.4 billion in 2025-26 in nominal terms, below $64.6 billion in 2024-25 [26]. By THE RORT’s calculation, dividing PRRT by those export earnings gives 2.4 per cent on the cash figure and 2.8 per cent on the accrual figure. That ratio is not the total government take: company tax, royalties and excise also apply [25]. The Greens’ committee recommendation would replace the PRRT with a flat export tax; Woodside’s chief financial officer, above, was speaking of an export tax on top of PRRT and corporate income tax.","r":[25,26]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The war shows in the forecasts, not yet in the 2025-26 outcome. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources’ June 2026 Resources and Energy Quarterly forecasts LNG export earnings of $67.6 billion nominal in 2026-27 ($65 billion in 2025-26 dollars). It says its nominal 2026-27 forecast was “revised up by $20 billion from the December 2025 REQ due to the outbreak of the Middle East conflict” [26]. Export earnings are revenue, not profit and not tax. The department’s figures also do not net off higher import prices: “The REQ does not account for the net effect on Australia from increased import prices, for example oil and its derivatives, such as diesel.” [26]","r":[26]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"One more figure sits beside the caption’s picture of households stung by higher costs. At home, east coast wholesale gas did not follow world prices up during the war. The Australian Energy Market Operator recorded an average of $10.61 a gigajoule in the March quarter 2026, with March at $9.22, a four-year low, and $9.08 a gigajoule in the June quarter, the lowest for any quarter since the second quarter of 2021 (the second quarter of 2025 averaged $12.36) [27]. The ACCC’s June 2026 interim report, published on 10 July, found that the war had “so far” had no material impact on east coast gas prices, with one exception: commodity-linked contracts, 12% of 2026 supply, whose average estimated price rose from $11.86 a gigajoule in December 2025 to $16.85 in April 2026 [28]. On the AEMO averages, east coast wholesale gas prices did not follow world prices up; the exception is the commodity-linked contracts the ACCC names. Whether an export tax would be a fair return on the resource is a separate question from what households pay for gas, and the votes above were about the first.","r":[27,28]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Pocock’s caption asks about “a windfall profits tax” and does not name banks. THE RORT also checked the record for a bank windfall tax. In the Senate Journals, a search for “bank” and “levy” in 2026 returned one documents entry, from 11 August 2026, and no motion, amendment or division. THE RORT therefore says that no Senate vote on a bank windfall tax was found in 2026. The House was not searched for this [16].","r":[16]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"A bank levy increase was, however, part of the Greens’ 2025 election platform. The Parliamentary Budget Office costed their “Big corporations tax (banks)” policy as raising the Major Bank Levy to 0.08% per quarter, from 0.015%, plus a levy recouping Term Funding Facility benefits, from 1 July 2025. It estimated the policy would improve the fiscal balance by about $35.1 billion over the forward estimates [29]. That is a 2025 costing of a party policy, not a 2026 proposal and not a vote.","r":[29]},{"a":44,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Greens’ 5 May 2026 release described above criticised bank profit from the rate rise but proposed no bank tax [10].","r":[10]},{"a":45,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Governor calls the cash rate “all we have”; the government’s own Budget says fiscal policy is better suited to supply shocks such as the oil shock.","r":[3,4]},{"a":45,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In the May and August Statements, THE RORT found no Bank estimate of what the 2026 rises do to unemployment or inflation.","r":[11]},{"a":45,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The Treasurer says a big driver of inflation “comes from the Middle East”. Treasury’s own Final Budget Outcome calls the pass-through of Middle East cost pressures “subdued”.","r":[34,42]},{"a":45,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"This article’s own forty questions go to the Bank, Treasurer, Prime Minister and Opposition. Many can be settled by the Minutes on 13 October and Senate Estimates on 28 October.","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 29 September 2026 the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Board raised the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent, the fourth rise of 2026. The decision was unanimous [1]. The Board’s stated reasons put the widening Middle East war and global energy prices first [1]. Who else could have acted, and on what, is what this article asks of those who decide.","r":[1]},{"a":45,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This article does not answer that with a verdict. It publishes questions, and holds each of them to the standard THE RORT applies to everything else: each rests on a public document or statement, most from the office asked, each can be answered directly, most with a yes, a no or a number, and where the record has a date for it, the question carries that date."},{"a":45,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Nothing here says that any question has been sent or put to anyone. We publish the questions today. Answers will be added as they arrive, each as a dated update under its question. Where no answer has been published by the date the record can settle a question, the update will say so."},{"a":45,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Each question has four parts. First, the record it rests on: a statement, a table, a vote or a document from the office being asked, with a reference number. Second, that office’s own position where the record has one, so the charge and the answer sit side by side. Third, the question, put so that it can be answered directly, most with a yes, a no or a number. Fourth, a line marked **Checkable**: the date or event by which the public record can settle it, or ‘answer’ where only the office can."},{"a":45,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The codes are for later reference. G is the Governor and the Monetary Policy Board (17 questions), T the Treasurer (14), P the Prime Minister (4) and O the Opposition, its leader, Shadow Treasurer, senators and members (5)."},{"a":45,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A question is not a finding, and nothing here says why anyone did anything. No question asks about any person’s own holdings or finances. The two questions about how the Board’s interests are disclosed (G15 and T11) ask about the system, not about any member."},{"a":45,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The desk will next review answers on Thursday 8 October 2026 (moved on 2 October from Wednesday 7 October, one working day later, because Monday 5 October is a public holiday in New South Wales, the ACT, South Australia and Queensland) and record every answer it has received by then. Answers that arrive later will be added as they come."},{"a":45,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Two sets of words frame much of what follows. The Governor has called the cash rate ‘our only instrument we’ve got’ and ‘all we have’ [2][3]. The Treasurer says the government accepts its part [34], and says a big driver of inflation ‘comes from the Middle East’ [34][36]. Treasury’s own Final Budget Outcome, published on 28 September, calls the pass-through of broader Middle East cost pressures to consumer prices ‘subdued’ [42]. T3 asks about that.","r":[2,3,34,36,42]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G1. The only instrument.** The Governor called the cash rate ‘our only instrument we’ve got’ (3 February) and ‘all we have’ (5 May), and said fiscal policy ‘has many more things that it can do’ [2][3]. The government’s own 2026-27 Budget says fiscal policy is better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks such as the oil shock [4], and the Bank’s 29 September reasons put the war and global energy prices first [1]. The Treasury Secretary sits on the Board and votes [7]; the Review kept the seat, calling a voting Treasury Secretary unusual among peers but saying no Secretary had been directed in recent decades to argue the Treasurer’s position, and the Bank says the Secretary’s independence on the Board ‘was made explicit by legislation’ [30]. The March and May Minutes do not use the word ‘fiscal’ or discuss Australian fiscal policy as a response to inflation [5][6]. The other side: the Governor says ‘I’m not going to tell the government what to do with fiscal policy. That’s not my business’, and that fiscal policy is ‘not a very nimble way to address inflation’, though governments spending heavily against capacity limits ‘do need to think about’ ways to constrain demand [2][3]. The IMF’s July update says fiscal policy ‘should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls’ [14]. **Question:** did the Board discuss on 29 September what fiscal measures would reduce the rises it judged necessary, and has the Bank put a view to the government in 2026? **Checkable:** the Minutes, 13 October, 11.30 am [49]; Supplementary Budget Estimates, 28 and 29 October (the Bank’s attendance is not yet posted) [49].","r":[2,3,4,1,7,30,5,6,14,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G2. The war’s share.** The Bank puts higher fuel prices at 0.8 percentage points of March’s headline inflation of 4.6 per cent [10]. It puts the war’s indirect cost effect, excluding the direct effect of retail fuel prices, at ‘a bit more than 0.1 percentage points’ of June-quarter trimmed mean inflation, and says elevated underlying inflation (3.6 per cent) reflects capacity pressures ‘along with’ the conflict’s higher input costs [9]. Those figures are the Bank’s own and are published. THE RORT has not found in the sources it read a Bank figure for the direct fuel contribution to June-quarter headline inflation, or a split of the 2026 rises between war pass-through and domestic capacity [9][11]. **Question:** will the next Statement on Monetary Policy publish both? **Checkable:** the next Statement (its date is not in THE RORT’s sources); the 3 November media conference [49].","r":[10,9,11,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G3. What the rises cannot do.** On 5 May the Governor said the rises ‘will have no impact’ on the oil-driven inflation, and that they ‘are not going to do anything for inflation in the next six months. That’s done and dusted’ [3]. The other side, in the same remarks: their job is to contain domestic pressure after the oil effect eases, and the oil shock is not the sole reason, because ‘we had an inflation problem before this’ [3]. On 29 September the Board’s stated mechanism is to keep aggregate demand subdued ‘for a period’ [1]. **Question:** which part of the inflation above target does the Board expect the 29 September rise to reduce, by how much, and by when? **Checkable:** answer; the next Statement on Monetary Policy; the 3 November media conference [49].","r":[3,1,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G4. The estimate not published.** The Bank’s cross-model estimate is that a 100 basis point rise has its peak effect after one to two years, lowering the level of GDP by ¼ to 1 per cent and year-ended inflation by ⅛ to ½ of a percentage point [12]. Its main model, MARTIN, has (in a 2019 paper) a 100 basis point rise lasting four quarters raising unemployment by 0.3 points [13]. THE RORT found no Bank estimate of what the 2026 rises do to unemployment or inflation in the May and August Statements [11]. The other side: the Bank stresses that ‘the entire future path of interest rates matters’ [12], and the August Statement says the process ‘will take some time, reflecting the normal lags’ [11]. **Question:** will the Bank publish an estimate of what the 2026 rises do to unemployment and inflation? **Checkable:** yes or no; the next Statement on Monetary Policy; the 3 November media conference [49].","r":[12,13,11,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G5. The IMF’s condition.** The IMF says central banks may look through negative supply shocks only while expectations are anchored and the stance is ‘already properly calibrated’ [14]. The war began at the end of February, 25 days after the Bank’s first 2026 rise decision on 3 February [15]. In March the Board’s majority judged conditions ‘not sufficiently restrictive’ and warned that rising expectations would ‘ultimately require significantly more contractionary monetary policy’, while conceding that the war’s effect on demand was uncertain because Australia is a net energy exporter with healthy household balance sheets [5]. **Question:** was the stance properly calibrated when the war began? **Checkable:** answer; the Minutes, 13 October [49].","r":[14,15,5,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G6. Wages and prices.** On 22 September Board member Iain Ross said, in his own name and not the Board’s, that there is ‘no evidence of the emergence of a wage-price spiral’ now, because the 1970s mechanisms are gone and enterprise agreements lock wages until expiry [18]. The Bank’s stated mechanism on 29 September is to keep demand subdued ‘for a period’ [1]. The other side: the May Minutes say policy could not ‘alter the near-term trajectory of inflation’, but could limit the risk of a broader, sustained lift by bringing demand into line with supply and anchoring expectations [6]. **Question:** did the Board judge on 29 September that wage and price dynamics justified the rise, and on what evidence? Did Mr Ross attend? **Checkable:** the Minutes, 13 October; attendance is listed, as it was for March and May, when all nine members attended [5][6][49].","r":[18,1,6,5,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G7. Who bears it.** The 29 September statement records falling house prices and a noticeable drop in new housing loans and, in the next breath, strong growth in business investment and business debt [1]. That is a juxtaposition of the Bank’s own sentences, not a Bank finding on who bears the burden. The March Financial Stability Review says a higher cash rate reaches small businesses faster than large corporates, because many small firms borrow at variable rates secured on a home, while larger firms issue fixed-rate debt or hedge [19]. **Question:** does the Bank estimate how the 2026 tightening is shared between households and businesses, and between small and large firms, and will it publish that? **Checkable:** yes or no; the next Financial Stability Review (its date is not in THE RORT’s sources).","r":[1,19]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G8. Profits.** None of the six 2026 decision statements, the 11 August media conference transcript or the August Statement’s Outlook chapter contains ‘profit’ or ‘markup’ [1][8][22]. That is a scoped absence: the other Minutes, other chapters, speeches and research were not searched for it; the March and May Minutes were, and they do not discuss corporate profits or margins arising from the war [5][6]. The other side: Bank staff research (a staff article, not a Board view) finds that from 2023 to early 2026 import prices and business owner returns ‘moderated significantly’ as drivers of consumer price growth, in a window that ends before the war [20]; and a May Bulletin by Bank staff judges that margins had ‘only a modest impact’ and warns against ‘margins drove inflation’ narratives, while finding that the unwinding of margin squeezes ‘accentuat[ed] the pick-up’ in late 2025 [21]. **Question:** does the Board weigh firms’ margins and exporters’ war revenues when it sets the rate? **Checkable:** the 3 November and 8 December statements and media conferences [49].","r":[1,8,22,5,6,20,21,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G9. Unemployment.** On 22 September the Governor said ‘I think between 4.5 and 5 will probably take enough heat out of the labor market that it’ll ease pressure on inflation’. In the same answer she said 4.5 per cent ‘at the moment’ is ‘a bit tight’, that ‘having a job is really important’ and that ‘high unemployment is not great’ [17]. Unemployment was 4.6 per cent in August. Over the year the number of unemployed people rose by 80,000 to 722,900, while employment rose by 238,100 to 14,836,600. Youth (15 to 24) unemployment was 10.8 per cent, more than double the national rate [16]. The Bank forecasts unemployment rising from 4.4 per cent in June 2026 to 4.8 per cent by the end of 2028 [8]. **Question:** what unemployment rate does the Board judge consistent with full employment under section 9B of the Act, and does it weigh the youth rate? **Checkable:** answer; the Minutes, 13 October; the next Statement on Monetary Policy [31][49].","r":[17,16,8,31,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G10. The instrument as a living cost.** On 11 August the Governor said mortgage holders who see their repayments rise are ‘conflating’ cost of living with inflation, adding ‘But I get why people think th[at]’ [22]. The ABS found that in the June quarter employee households had the largest quarterly rise in living costs (1.5 per cent), driven by an 8.2 per cent rise in mortgage interest charges, which the ABS attributes to banks passing on the February, March and May rises [23]. The Bank’s objective in law includes ‘the economic prosperity and welfare of the people of Australia’ [31]. **Question:** does the Board count that cost under that objective? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[22,23,31]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b10","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G11. Deposits by product.** On the Bank’s tables, the average rate paid on all household deposits rose from 2.8 to 3.5 per cent between December 2025 and July 2026, and the average rate charged to owner-occupiers on outstanding variable loans rose from 5.5 to 6.2 per cent: 0.7 points each. At the one-decimal precision published, the gap did not measurably widen, and that compares one loan type with deposits; it is not a bank margin [25]. But advertised transaction accounts paid 0.00 per cent in every month from November 2025 to August 2026, bank cash management accounts rose only 0.30 points and one-month term deposits 0.20 points [25]. Balances held in each product are not published. **Question:** will the Bank publish how much is held in each product, so the public can see how many savers got little or none of the rise? **Checkable:** yes or no.","r":[25]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b11","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G12. Reserves.** The Bank pays interest on the reserves banks hold with it. Its audited accounts show $12,603 million in 2022/23, $14,651 million in 2023/24 and $9,674 million in 2024/25, which THE RORT’s sum makes about $36.9 billion over the three years. The payment goes to all holders of these accounts, and the Bank does not publish it by institution [27]. The other side: the Bank attributes the surge in these balances to its COVID package, naming the Term Funding Facility and the bond purchase program [26]. The Bank’s review of the facility says banks passed the lower funding costs through in full, so fixed-rate borrowers were ‘the ultimate beneficiaries’ (the Bank’s claim) [28]. The Bank’s accounts also record losses and negative equity since 2021/22, and in July 2022 the Board rejected a government capital injection and chose to rebuild capital from retained earnings [54]. Since May 2025 the Board no longer announces the rate with its decisions, and the 29 September statement does not state it [26]. **Question:** what rate is in force from 30 September, where is it published, and what did the interest cost in 2025/26? **Checkable:** answer; the 2026 Annual Report, which was not published on 29 September [27].","r":[27,26,28,54]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b12","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G13. The Term Funding Facility.** The Bank’s own review says about $4 billion of the facility’s cost came from the Board’s decision in early September 2020 to extend it, when banks had taken up only 60 per cent of their initial allowances, and that this suggested banks did not need the funding to meet borrower demand [28]. The other side, from the same review: during the drawdown the funding was about 60 basis points cheaper than bonds for the major banks and cut their average cost of funds by about 5 basis points; between February 2020 and February 2022 the cash rate target fell 65 basis points, the major banks’ funding costs 84 and overall mortgage rates 97; and Bank staff estimate its indirect effects cut mortgage-backed securities yields by about 50 basis points, with the review’s caveat that the facility’s share of lower funding costs is ‘hard to identify’ (a caveat about the wholesale funding effect, not the lending-rate figures) [28]. The review also says banks passed the lower funding costs through in full, so fixed-rate borrowers were ‘the ultimate beneficiaries’ (the Bank’s claim) [28]. **Question:** who recommended the extension, and will the Bank support an external review of how the benefits of its pandemic tools divided between bank margins and borrowers? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[28]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b13","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G14. Votes by name.** The March rise passed by five votes to four and the May rise by eight to one; the 29 September rise was unanimous [1][52]. The tally is published at 2.30 pm on decision day but is not attributed to members [7], and the Minutes, published two weeks after each meeting, attribute no votes [5][6][49]. **Question:** will the Board attribute votes to members? **Checkable:** yes or no; the Minutes, 13 October.","r":[1,52,7,5,6,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b14","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G15. Interests.** Only the Governor’s and the Deputy Governor’s declarations of material personal interests are published, and voluntarily. Every member also gives the Treasurer a statement of interests each year, which is confidential [29]. The Reserve Bank Act lets a member with a disclosed material personal interest in a monetary policy matter be present and vote, provided the interest was disclosed in writing to the Treasurer within the previous 12 months and has not substantially changed [31]. The other side, the Board’s Code of Conduct: it bars members and their associated entities from foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives, active trading and any transaction in the blackout period, bars work for a bank, and requires members to advise the Governor of any material interest in a bank or other financial entity [29]. **Question:** in 2026, how many members voted on a monetary policy decision after disclosing a relevant interest to the Treasurer (a number, not names), and will all nine declarations be published? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[29,31]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b15","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G16. After office.** The Board’s Code of Conduct as published has no cooling-off period for work after leaving; its only post-term duty is confidentiality [29]. The other side: it does bar members from paid or unpaid work for a bank while they serve [29]. THE RORT has not read the Bank’s staff code. **Question:** does any cooling-off rule apply to a Governor or Deputy Governor who joins a bank or other financial firm after leaving? **Checkable:** answer, from the staff code or the Bank.","r":[29]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s1-b16","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**G17. Outside advice.** The external Expert Advisory Group first met on 3 June 2026, and only that meeting is listed. The Bank’s progress report says 41 of the Review’s 51 recommendations had been addressed by December 2025 [30]. **Question:** has the Group met since, and did the Board have its advice before 29 September? **Checkable:** the Group’s meetings page [30].","r":[30]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T1. Supply-shock tools now.** The Budget says fiscal policy is better suited than monetary policy to respond to supply shocks such as the oil shock [4]. The fuel excise cut ended at midnight on 2 August 2026 [40]. The Bank’s 29 September reasons put the war and energy prices first [1]. The other side: the IMF’s July update says fiscal policy ‘should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls’ [14]. **Question:** what fiscal measure is the government using against the oil shock now? **Checkable:** the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (its date is not in THE RORT’s sources); Supplementary Budget Estimates, 28 and 29 October [49].","r":[4,40,1,14,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T2. The roll-off.** The ABC reported on 30 March that the Treasurer expected the fuel excise cut to lower headline inflation by half a point through the year to June 2026; that is his claim, not checked against any ABS decomposition. Economists warned, as SBS reported, that the cut could add to inflation through demand [41]. The ABS put July’s 7.5 per cent rise in automotive fuel down to world oil prices and the partial unwinding of the excise relief, and the Bank had itself forecast that the roll-off would lift September-quarter headline inflation [24][8]. **Question:** has Treasury estimated the roll-off’s effect on September-quarter CPI, and will it publish the estimate? **Checkable:** 28 October, when the September-quarter CPI is released at 11.30 am AEDT [49].","r":[41,24,8,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T3. The war framing.** On 28 September the Treasurer said inflation is ‘made much worse by the war’ [34] and, as the ABC quoted him, that a big driver ‘comes from the Middle East’ [34][36]. After the decision, the ABC’s business live blog reported him saying workers ‘didn’t choose this war, but they are paying a hefty price for it’ [35]. Set beside that: Treasury’s Final Budget Outcome records June-quarter headline inflation of 3.9 per cent, ‘materially lower’ than the Budget’s 5 per cent forecast, and calls the pass-through of broader Middle East cost pressures to consumer prices ‘subdued’ [42]; the Bank puts the war’s indirect effect at a bit more than 0.1 points of June-quarter trimmed mean inflation [9]. The Bank also puts higher fuel prices at 0.8 points of March’s 4.6 per cent [10]. **Question:** what share of current inflation does Treasury attribute to the war? **Checkable:** answer; Supplementary Budget Estimates [49].","r":[34,36,35,42,9,10,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T4. ‘Our part’, in numbers.** The Treasurer says ‘we accept our part’ [34]. The government says its Budget is ‘helping to take pressure off inflation’, with real payments growth averaging 1.5 per cent over eight years and payments falling from 26.8 to 26.2 per cent of GDP by 2029-30; that is the government’s claim, and the Budget gives no fiscal impulse figure [39]. The New Daily summarised market economists’ view of the 2026-27 settings as ‘neutral to mildly expansionary’; it reported NAB’s Sally Auld saying ‘neutral’ and CBA economists saying the Budget ‘does little to help in the fight against inflation’ [39]. **Question:** what is Treasury’s estimate of the 2026-27 fiscal impulse? **Checkable:** Supplementary Budget Estimates, 28 and 29 October [49].","r":[34,39,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T5. ‘4 in every 5 dollars’.** On 28 September the Treasurer said ‘4 in every 5 dollars of demand came from private demand’, and that spending growth averages 2 per cent a year against 4.1 per cent under the Coalition (2.6 per cent excluding COVID) [34]. The Bank’s August Statement records public demand growing 3.6 per cent over the year to June 2026 against household consumption of 1.8 per cent [8]. Those are growth rates, not shares of demand. The ABC reports that government spending rose from 26.6 to 26.9 per cent of GDP in 2025-26, which it attributes largely to weaker growth [36]. **Question:** over what period and on what measure is the four in five, and will Treasury publish the calculation? **Checkable:** answer; Supplementary Budget Estimates [49].","r":[34,8,36,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T6. Profit-side levers.** APRA counts bank profit after tax of $42.5 billion in the year to June 2026, up 7.5 per cent. In the March and June quarters, which contained the rises, profit was $20.33 billion against $20.06 billion a year earlier (up 1.4 per cent), and the March quarter bad-debt charge was the highest since at least 2021 [43]. A Major Bank Levy already exists: 0.06 per cent a year on certain liabilities of banks with over $100 billion in liabilities. It is a levy on liabilities, not on profits [44]. The Parliamentary Budget Office assumed 75 per cent of any increase in the levy would be passed on to customers through fees, mortgage rates or lower savings rates [44]. It costed the Greens’ 2025 ‘Big corporations tax (banks)’, a higher Major Bank Levy plus a levy recouping Term Funding Facility benefits, at about $35.1 billion over the forward estimates; that is a 2025 costing of a party policy, and THE RORT found no 2026 proposal for a bank windfall tax or a higher levy [44]. **Question:** has the government considered in 2026 a higher levy or a levy on bank profits, and does it rule one out? **Checkable:** answer; the House Economics Committee hearing with the four major banks, 12 November; Supplementary Budget Estimates [49].","r":[43,44,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T7. The gas levy modelling.** The ABC reported on 20 March that a document from the Prime Minister’s department asked Treasury to model ‘new levy options’ on windfall gas and thermal coal profits [45]. On 18 June the Treasurer said, ‘When it comes to arrangements around gas taxes, that’s not something that we’ve been working on’ (ABC 7.30, as excerpted in a transcript dated 20 July) [46]. The other side: Labor senators on the Senate committee recommended a Treasury or Productivity Commission evaluation of the gas tax proposals after the crisis passes and once gas reservation is designed, to avoid ‘damaging vital regional relationships or undermining Australia’s energy and national security’ [47]. **Question:** did Treasury complete that modelling, and will the Treasurer publish it? Has the evaluation Labor’s senators recommended been commissioned? **Checkable:** answer; Supplementary Budget Estimates [49].","r":[45,46,47,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T8. Company tax and PRRT from the war.** Treasury officials told the Senate committee, as quoted in the Greens’ additional comments, that higher prices ‘would also directly translate through to higher corporate tax paid’ [47]. The committee found that a lack of ‘timely, transparent entity-level data’ makes it difficult to understand revenue, profits and Petroleum Resource Rent Tax [47]. **Question:** how much extra company tax and PRRT has been received from LNG exporters since the conflict began? **Checkable:** answer; Supplementary Budget Estimates [49].","r":[47,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T9. The override.** The Reserve Bank Review recommended removing the Treasurer’s power to override the Bank, and the Bank’s own progress report records that the government did not implement that; section 11 survived the 2024 reforms, with the override running through the Governor-General in Council and the order tabled in Parliament [30]. The Treasurer had first accepted the recommendation, the ABC reported [32]. The other side, as the ABC reported in February 2024: former governors and treasurers of both parties (Macfarlane, Fraser, Costello, Keating) argued to keep it as a democratic check, and the reviewer Gordon de Brouwer said it had never been used (an ABC paraphrase) [32]. **Question:** why was it kept? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[30,32]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b9","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T10. Appointments.** Four of the six first external members of the Monetary Policy Board (Hewson, Harper, Ross and Watkins) were carried over from the old Reserve Bank Board after ‘consultation’, not appointed through the new open process; only Baker and Fry-McKibbin were new [33]. External members are chosen on the advice of a panel that includes two of the Board’s own voters, the Governor and the Treasury Secretary, plus one outsider. The other side: that is by design, because the Review recommended it [33]. Bruce Preston, a member since 1 March 2026, was appointed on the advice of a panel of the Treasury Secretary, the Governor and Martin Parkinson; the shortlist drew on the 2024 expression-of-interest process and the Opposition was consulted [55]. Carolyn Hewson’s term is the next to expire, on 28 February 2027 [7]. **Question:** why were four members carried over, and will the next appointment follow the open process? **Checkable:** 28 February 2027 [7].","r":[33,55,7]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b10","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T11. Declarations.** Every member’s annual statement of interests goes to the Treasurer in confidence, and only the Governor’s and the Deputy Governor’s declarations are published [29]. Section 7D of the Act lets a member vote on a matter in which they have a disclosed material personal interest [31]. The other side: the Code of Conduct’s safeguards on trading, blackout periods, derivatives and work for a bank [29]. **Question:** will the Treasurer publish the statements, or a count of the disclosures under which members have voted? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[29,31]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b11","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T12. Electricity relief.** The Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief Fund extension paid relief from 1 July 2024 to 31 December 2025; the agreement’s formal end date is 31 December 2026, but nothing THE RORT found says relief is paid in 2026 [50]. The ABS attributes electricity’s 6.1 per cent annual rise to July 2026 ‘largely’ to the end of Commonwealth and state rebates [24]. **Question:** is any Commonwealth electricity relief being paid in 2026? **Checkable:** answer; 31 December 2026, the agreement’s formal end [50]; Supplementary Budget Estimates [49].","r":[50,24,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b12","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T13. Banks and unfair pricing.** From 1 July 2026 excessive grocery pricing by ‘very large retailers’ (over $30 billion in revenue, currently Coles and Woolworths) is prohibited, tested as ‘significantly excessive’ against cost plus a reasonable margin; no enforcement outcome has been checked [51]. The Unfair Trading Practices Bill, passed on 2 July 2026, bans subscription traps, undisclosed checkout fees and manipulative online design from 1 July 2027; for financial services the government is only exploring ‘further alignment’ with ASIC and the states, so the ban does not yet squarely cover banks [51]. **Question:** will an excessive-pricing or unfair-trading test apply to banking products, and when? **Checkable:** answer; 1 July 2027 [51].","r":[51]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s2-b13","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**T14. Unemployment.** The Treasurer says ‘we’re not for higher unemployment’ and that the government recognises the Bank’s independence [34]. The Bank forecasts unemployment rising to 4.8 per cent by the end of 2028 [8], and the Governor said on 22 September, ‘I think between 4.5 and 5 will probably take enough heat out of the labor market that it’ll ease pressure on inflation’, while also saying ‘high unemployment is not great’ [17]. **Question:** does the government accept that path, and if not, what will it do? **Checkable:** the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook; Supplementary Budget Estimates [49].","r":[34,8,17,49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**P1. The levy study.** The ABC reported on 10 May that the Prime Minister ‘killed off the move, concerned it could upset the trading partners Australia is relying on for fuel’; that is the reporter’s characterisation, not a government quote [45]. The Prime Minister’s own reasons, as quoted in the ABC’s federal politics live blog on 29 April: ‘The middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them’ [46]. **Question:** is the ABC’s account accurate, and on what advice was the decision made? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[45,46]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**P2. Reconsidering after the conflict.** The Senate Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas Resources, in its report of 7 May, could not agree a set of recommendations and invited the government to reconsider the issue ‘following the resolution of the current conflict in Iran’ [47]. The Prime Minister, as reported by SBS on 24 April, said gas companies ‘pay around about $22 billion’ and that ‘you need to acknowledge the tens of billions of dollars of investment that occurs in order to have that gas extracted’ [46]. **Question:** when, and on what test, will the government reconsider? **Checkable:** answer; any formal government response to the committee’s 7 May report (THE RORT has found none).","r":[47,46]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**P3. ‘Look at measures’.** On 29 September, before the decision, the Prime Minister said: ‘We’ll continue to look at measures, but we’ll continue also to bear in mind that any measure we don’t want to have a further impact on inflation. And to bear in mind the fiscal position that that represents’ [37]. **Question:** which measures are under consideration? **Checkable:** answer; the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.","r":[37]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**P4. Two wars.** The Prime Minister said: ‘We’ve had two wars, to be fair, that have impacted on the price of fuel’ [37]. On the Bank’s split, higher fuel prices were 0.8 points of March’s 4.6 per cent [10], and the government’s own Final Budget Outcome calls the pass-through of broader Middle East cost pressures to consumer prices ‘subdued’ [42]. **Question:** what else, in the government’s view, is keeping inflation above target? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[37,10,42]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**O1. ‘An increased tax take’.** Coalition senators on the Senate committee recommended ‘no arbitrary taxation such as a windfall levy on gas exports’ and said Australia ‘needs an increased tax take, not an increased tax rate’. They cited disregarded evidence, undisclosed conflicts of interest from fossil fuel activism, rushed reporting (24 hours to respond to the Chair’s draft) and the global energy crisis [47]. **Question:** what measure would raise the take from LNG exporters, and by how much? **Checkable:** answer; a Parliamentary Budget Office costing.","r":[47]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**O2. The House vote.** On 2 June the House of Representatives negatived, 9 votes to 71, Elizabeth Watson-Brown’s second-reading amendment calling for ‘a 25 per cent gas export tax’. No Coalition member appears on either list, and there is no party count of the 71; the government’s members voted it down and the Coalition did not vote [48]. Coalition senators’ stated position on a gas export levy is at O1 [47]. **Question:** why did the Coalition not vote? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[48,47]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**O3. ‘The 16th time’.** The Shadow Treasurer’s release says the Bank was ‘forced to raise interest rates’ for ‘the 16th time under the Albanese Labor government’ [38]. The count is the Opposition’s claim; THE RORT has not recomputed it. Yahoo Finance’s live blog noted that the hiking cycle ‘actually commenced under Scott Morrison’ [38]. **Question:** how is the count made? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[38]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**O4. ‘We’d be in surplus’.** On 28 September, as reported in the ABC’s federal politics live blog, the Opposition Leader, Angus Taylor, said: ‘If the government had just offset their extra spends since they’ve come to government, we’d be in surplus right now’. The claim is not costed [38]. The government’s other side: it ran underlying cash surpluses of $22.1 billion in 2022-23 and $15.8 billion in 2023-24 [53]. Since then the budget has been in deficit: $10.0 billion in 2024-25 and $22.3 billion in 2025-26 [42], and the 2026-27 Budget forecasts a deficit of $31.5 billion [4]. **Question:** is there a costing? **Checkable:** answer; a Parliamentary Budget Office costing.","r":[38,53,42,4]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**O5. Which spending.** The Opposition blames the government’s ‘spending addiction’ and ‘active inflation agenda’ [38]. **Question:** which specific spending would it cut, and by how much would that lower inflation? **Checkable:** answer.","r":[38]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"These are the dates on which the public record can settle the questions. The graphic above shows them in order. Dates marked ‘on precedent’ follow the Bank’s habit of publishing Minutes two weeks after each meeting; verify each on the day [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**8 October 2026.** The desk next reviews answers. Any of the forty, if answered."},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**13 October.** Minutes of the 29 September meeting, 11.30 am: G1, G5, G6, G9, G14 [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**28 October.** ABS September-quarter CPI, 11.30 am AEDT, and Supplementary Budget Estimates (Economics), day 1: T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, T12, T14 and G1 [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**29 October.** Supplementary Budget Estimates, day 2: the same questions, if not reached on 28 October [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**3 November.** Board decision, 2.30 pm, and the Governor’s media conference: G2, G3, G4, G8 [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**12 November.** House Economics Committee, the review of the four major banks: T6 [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**17 November (on precedent).** Minutes of the 3 November meeting: the 13 October questions, if still open [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**8 December.** The last Board decision of 2026, 2.30 pm: G8 [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**22 December (on precedent).** Minutes of the 8 December meeting: the 13 October questions, if still open [49].","r":[49]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b10","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**31 December.** The formal end of the Energy Bill Relief extension agreement: T12 [50].","r":[50]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b11","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**28 February 2027.** Carolyn Hewson’s term on the Board ends: T10 [7].","r":[7]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b12","s":5,"k":"p","t":"**1 July 2027.** The Unfair Trading Practices ban starts: T13 [51].","r":[51]},{"a":45,"at":"at-s5-b13","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Each question will later gain its own dated update, with the answer, or with ‘No answer had been published by’ the date. Until then all forty are open."},{"a":46,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"After the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate by 25 basis points on 29 September, NAB lifted its variable home loan rates by 0.25 points from 9 October, the same as CBA, Westpac and ANZ.","r":[1,9]},{"a":46,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Most of NAB's fixed rate rises were larger, such as 0.35 to 0.47 for owner-occupier principal and interest. But fixed rates follow swap rates, not the cash rate.","r":[4,11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"NAB's credit card purchase rates rise by 0.50 to 1.50 points from each customer's first statement after 1 October.","r":[5]},{"a":46,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"As at 4 October 2026 NAB had not moved headline savings rates; on 8 October its savings page announced a rise of up to 0.25 from 9 October.","r":[7,8,66]},{"a":46,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 30 September NAB announced that its variable home loan rates will rise by 0.25 per cent a year from Friday 9 October, after the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.60 per cent on 29 September [1][2]. NAB’s release and customer notice state a 0.25 percentage point rise for its variable home loans. Neither states a larger rise for any home loan [1].","r":[1,2]},{"a":46,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Yahoo Finance reported on 2 October that NAB’s increases were “well above the standard 0.25 hike” [3]. The increases in that report are NAB’s fixed rates, not its variable home loan rates. Between 14 September and 2 October NAB raised its owner-occupier principal-and-interest fixed rates by 0.35 to 0.47 percentage points, and investor fixed rates by 0.30 to 0.45, in two steps. Owner-occupier interest-only fixed rates rose 0.15 to 0.25 [4]. From each customer’s first statement after 1 October its credit card purchase rates rise by 0.50 to 1.50 points, under changes that were public for its Rewards and frequent flyer cards by 28 July, two months before the September decision [5][6]. As at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October its headline savings rates had not moved [7]. In each of the three earlier rises this year its savings rise took effect on its home loan day, ten days after the decision; this time that day is 9 October [8][1]. On 8 October NAB’s savings page announced a rise of up to 0.25 from that day [66].","r":[3,4,5,6,7,8,1,66]},{"a":46,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article answers one question: is NAB taking more than the Reserve Bank’s 0.25, and is that a money grab? It sets out each NAB rate that moved and each that did not, tests the fixed rises against swap rates and government bond yields, sets NAB beside the other lenders, gives the strongest fair case on each side, and quotes NAB’s own words."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On variable home loans NAB is not taking more. Its rise is 0.25 points, the same size and on the same day, 9 October, as CBA, Westpac and ANZ [1][9]. Every lender with a figure on Savings.com.au’s tracker (44) shows 25 basis points; 28 more were still listed as pending on 2 October [10].","r":[1,9,10]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On fixed rates for new loans, most of NAB’s rises were larger than 0.25 (owner-occupier principal and interest 0.35 to 0.47, investor 0.30 to 0.45); owner-occupier interest-only rose 0.15 to 0.25 [4]. Setting them beside the 0.25 cash rate move compares different benchmarks: the Reserve Bank says new fixed mortgage rates follow “tenor-matched swap rates, which they typically reference” [11]. From NAB’s own repricing on 22 July, its owner-occupier fixed rises came to between about 8 basis points less and 11 basis points more than the rise in swap rates of the same term, depending on the term and on whether the 1 October swap figures are counted [12]. Against government bond yields, from start dates in mid-July to mid-August, NAB’s rises exceeded the yield rise by roughly 0 to 11 basis points [13]. From other start dates the gap is wider: across start dates from 21 July to 31 August, the swap measure runs from about 14 basis points under to 23 over [12]. NAB’s second step, on 2 October, ran ahead of both benchmarks over the days between its two moves, from 23 September [12]. Between 13 August and 16 September those benchmarks rose; NAB’s one- and two-year rates on its page stamped 14 September were the same as after its 22 July cut [12][13][4][14].","r":[4,11,12,13,14]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On credit cards NAB’s purchase rates rise by up to 1.50 points from each customer’s first statement after 1 October, under changes that were public for its Rewards and frequent flyer cards by 28 July, two months before the September decision [5][6]. THE RORT ran no cost test on card rates.","r":[5,6]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On savings NAB had not moved as at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October. Its headline savings rates were the same then as on 17 September [7][8]. In each of the three earlier rises this year, NAB’s savings rise took effect on the same day as its home loan rise, ten days after the Reserve Bank’s decision; this time that day is 9 October [8][1]. Whether NAB will move by then is not known.","r":[7,8,1]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"So does the evidence show a money grab? Not on variable home loans, where the rise is exactly the Reserve Bank’s. Not on fixed home loans either, on the tests THE RORT could run, though those tests do not show pure cost pass-through, and the size of normal noise in them has not been measured. The open point is savers. THE RORT will re-read NAB’s pages on 9 October. The record follows."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. The savings paragraph above is as at 4 October. On 8 October NAB’s savings page announced a rise of up to 0.25 from 9 October, with the Reward Saver total rising 0.25 to 5.25 per cent, the same size as the Reserve Bank’s rise [66]. THE RORT will re-read NAB’s pages on 9 October to record whether the new rates are in force.","r":[66]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"NAB’s release of 30 September says: “NAB will increase its variable home loan interest rates by 0.25% p.a.” and “The new rates will take effect from October 9.” Its notes add: “This change applies to NAB standard variable home loan rates.” [1] NAB’s indicator rate sheet, effective 2 October, gives the label “Standard Variable Rate” to one row, its Tailored variable owner-occupier principal and interest indicator rate of 8.77 per cent [15]. None of the NAB pages THE RORT read says in terms which other variable home loans move, or whether new and existing borrowers are treated alike; that is question 8 below.","r":[1,15]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"0.25","t":"NAB’s variable home loan rise from 9 October 2026, the same as the Reserve Bank’s rise in the cash rate. Neither NAB’s release nor its customer notice states a larger rise for any home loan.","src":"NAB release and customer notice, 30 September 2026"},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"NAB moved its fixed rates twice. An archived copy of NAB’s fixed-rate page from 15 September 2026 still showed the old rates, stamped “as at 14 September 2026”. An archived copy from 25 September showed rates 0.15 higher, stamped “as at 23 September 2026” [4]. The rise was exactly 0.15 on all 80 fixed rates on the page: owner-occupier and investor loans, principal and interest and interest only, one to five years, in four loan to value bands [4]. Savings.com.au reported it on 17 September [16]. NAB has not stated the date it took effect. It came before the Reserve Bank’s decision of 29 September.","r":[4,16]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The second step took effect on Friday 2 October; NAB’s page says its information and rates “are correct as at 2 October 2026” [4]. For owner-occupiers paying principal and interest with a loan to value ratio of 80 per cent or less, it added 0.20 points at one year, 0.32 at two years, 0.28 at three and four years and 0.30 at five years [4]. It came three days after the Reserve Bank’s decision and one week before NAB’s variable rise [4][17].","r":[4,17]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Those owner-occupier rates went from 6.44, 6.34, 6.49, 6.49 and 6.49 per cent (one to five years) on the page stamped 14 September, to 6.59, 6.49, 6.64, 6.64 and 6.64 on the page stamped 23 September, to 6.79, 6.81, 6.92, 6.92 and 6.94 from 2 October [4]. NAB’s lowest two-year rate rose 0.47 points, from 6.34 to 6.81 per cent, which Canstar’s Sally Tindall put as “0.47 in just over two weeks” [4][3]. Rates for loans above 80 per cent of the property’s value sit 0.10 higher and moved by the same amounts [4].","r":[4,3]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Across products, between 14 September and 2 October NAB raised its owner-occupier principal-and-interest fixed rates by 0.35 to 0.47 percentage points, and investor fixed rates by 0.30 to 0.45, in two steps. Owner-occupier interest-only fixed rates rose 0.15 to 0.25. The RBA’s cash rate rose 0.25 [4]. The interest-only line rose least. On 14 September NAB’s owner-occupier interest-only rates sat 0.15 to 0.20 points above its investor interest-only rates; after 2 October the two are equal, at 6.94, 6.99, 7.07, 7.07 and 7.09 per cent [4].","r":[4]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The 0.47 has a history. On 22 July NAB cut its one-year owner-occupier fixed rate by 0.05 points, from 6.49 to 6.44 per cent, and its two-year rate by 0.20, from 6.54 to 6.34 [14]. The same day it cut its investor fixed rates, principal and interest and interest only, by 0.15 points across the board, on Savings.com.au’s report [14]. At 6.81 per cent the two-year owner-occupier rate is now 0.27 above its pre-cut 6.54 per cent, while the two-year government bond yield rose about 40 basis points from 21 July (4.539) to 30 September (4.942) [14][13]. On 14 September NAB’s page showed 6.49 per cent at three, four and five years; no source THE RORT read shows those three rates on 22 July [4][14].","r":[14,13,4]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"One kind of NAB variable rate does rise by more than 0.25: its credit card rates. Its page “Credit card changes from 1 October 2026” says “The variable purchase rate will increase from 20.99% p.a. to 22.49% p.a.” on its Low Fee, frequent flyer and Rewards cards, and from 13.49 to 13.99 per cent on its Low Rate Card; cash advance rates rise from 21.74 to 22.99 per cent [5]. The section on cards below sets out when those changes became public and what other banks did.","r":[5]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT found no NAB statement of a change to its business, overdraft or personal loan variable rates after the decision. NAB’s business indicator rates are stamped effective 28 September and show no change [18]. NAB published separate business-loan releases for two of its three 2025 cuts; its interest-rates news index shows none for 2026, including the September rise [19][18]. Whether those rates will move is not known.","r":[18,19]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Ubank has made its own announcement. Ubank, whose products are issued by “Ubank, part of National Australia Bank Limited”, says on its home loan pages: “We’ll be increasing our Neat and Flex standard variable home loan rates by 0.25% p.a. effective from 8 October 2026.” On the morning of 30 September the same banner had said it was “currently reviewing the recent decision from the RBA” [20].","r":[20]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The fixed rates that rose are NAB’s advertised rates for new loans. NAB’s offer box says “This offer is for new owner occupier ... principal and interest home loans”, and its rate page says the rates shown are “NAB’s current fixed and variable home loan interest rates for new loans” [4][21].","r":[4,21]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Borrowers already part-way through a fixed term are not affected. NAB’s general terms say: “Any rise in interest rates won’t be passed onto you while your rate is fixed” [22].","r":[22]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"When a fixed term ends, the loan rolls onto a variable rate unless the borrower re-fixes: “When your fixed rate period ends, your home loan will automatically roll onto a variable rate, unless you arrange to re-fix your loan before your fixed rate expires.” NAB says it sends a reminder letter about a month before, with the new rate [22]. A borrower who re-fixes pays, in the words of NAB’s terms, “our applicable advertised fixed indicator rate that’s published on the day the fixed rate period begins”, after which NAB will “apply any applicable margins outlined in your Offer Letter” [22]. None of the NAB pages THE RORT read defines that indicator rate or says whether it equals the new-loan rates on its fixed-rate page; that is question 2 below. NAB’s Rate Lock is not available when “Rolling from an existing fixed rate term on to a new fixed rate term” [22]. The terms quoted are the edition on NAB’s site on 4 October, dated 2024 [22].","r":[22]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Few new borrowers fix. Australian Broker reported on 17 September that “CBA’s full-year results show just 7% of new lending in the six months to June 2026 went to fixed-rate products” [23]. That is one bank’s new lending over six months, a different measure from the Reserve Bank’s market-wide figure for new and outstanding mortgages quoted in THE RORT’s The savers’ share. THE RORT has not reconciled the two, and neither counts the households paying NAB’s new fixed rates.","r":[23]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"An example, on THE RORT’s arithmetic. It is one hypothetical loan, not a household’s budget: a new $600,000 owner-occupier loan over 30 years, principal and interest, fixed for two years at NAB’s lowest two-year rate."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"At 6.34 per cent, the rate on NAB’s page stamped 14 September, the monthly repayment is $3,729.50. At 6.49 per cent, after the first step, it is $3,788.46. At 6.81 per cent, from 2 October, it is $3,915.55: $186.05 a month more than at 6.34 per cent [4].","r":[4]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Had NAB’s two-year rate risen by the Reserve Bank’s 0.25 alone, from 6.34 to 6.59 per cent, the repayment would be $3,827.99; at 6.81 per cent it is $87.56 a month more than that. Measured instead from NAB’s two-year rate before its July cut, 6.54 per cent, the repayment would have been $3,808.21, and the rise from there to 6.81 per cent is $107.34 a month [14].","r":[14]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Method: the standard repayment formula for a loan repaid in equal monthly instalments, at one-twelfth of the annual rate, over 360 payments, rounded to the cent. NAB says its fixed rates “won’t change during the fixed term”, so each repayment holds for the two years [4]. Canstar’s figures in THE RORT’s Who pays for the rises are for a different loan, a variable one with 25 years left.","r":[4]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"NAB says its variable rates “change due to the many factors that impact our cost of funds. One of those factors is the official cash rate, which is set by the RBA.” [24] A fixed rate locks in a price for one to five years. The Reserve Bank’s May 2026 Bulletin says new fixed mortgage rates declined through most of 2025 and began to increase around the end of 2025, “following movements in tenor-matched swap rates, which they typically reference” [11]. THE RORT also uses government bond yields of the same term, as a proxy. Comparing NAB’s fixed rises with the 0.25 cash rate move compares different benchmarks.","r":[24,11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Those market rates rose before the Reserve Bank moved. Between 13 August and 30 September, the two-year yield rose 41 basis points while the cash rate stayed at 4.35 per cent until 30 September, as markets moved toward a September hike and amid a global bond sell-off [13][25]. On 30 September the ABC reported that “The Australian government’s long-term borrowing rate has risen to its highest level in 15 years” and that “The US government’s 10-year bond yield has jumped to its highest level since the global financial crisis” [25]. The Reserve Bank’s statement of 29 September said “global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts” [2].","r":[13,25,2]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"What markets expected moved too. The RBA’s August Statement said markets were pricing about a 50 per cent chance of a rate rise by year end; its data cut-off was 5 August [26]. On 17 September Savings.com.au reported markets pricing “a 76% chance” of a September rise [16]. NAB’s own economists had moved on 27 August to expect one: “NAB now expects the RBA to increase the cash rate by 25bp in September to 4.6%.” [65] Westpac’s chief economist, Luci Ellis, called it “quite the turnaround from the 11 August meeting, where an extended period on hold looked to be the base case” [25].","r":[26,16,65,25]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"After the decision, the odds of another rise fell. On 30 September the ABC reported that “money markets predict only a 20% chance of a November hike” [25]. As at 1 October 2026, Westpac and ANZ forecast a November hike and CBA and NAB a hold (MPA) [27]. NAB lifted its fixed rates again on 2 October. Canstar’s Tindall read the move as “suggesting the bank is now factoring in yet another rate hike in the months ahead” [3]. A fixed rate for one to five years prices the path of rates over those years, not one meeting, so neither the market odds nor the forecasts settle what a five-year rate should be.","r":[25,27,3]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"NAB’s own stated reason, given to the ABC on 2 October: “Fixed home loan rates are influenced by a range of factors, including wholesale funding costs and market conditions. Like other lenders, NAB regularly reviews its pricing and adjusts rates when required.” [28] NAB’s interest-rates news index carries no fixed-rate release between 1 September and 4 October [19].","r":[28,19]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT tested NAB’s owner-occupier fixed rises against two benchmarks: swap rates of the same term, which the Reserve Bank says fixed rates reference, and Commonwealth government bond yields from the Reserve Bank’s own tables, as a proxy [11][13][12]. Neither is what NAB itself pays for funds. Both are market rates at one time of day, and NAB has not said which day it priced on. The four- and five-year swap rates are published daily by BlueGamma; the one- to three-year figures are THE RORT’s estimates, interpolated between the published six-month and four-year rates [12]. Changes in the constructed one- to three-year rates match published series within about 3 basis points over windows of several weeks, but can miss by up to 7 basis points over a single week [12]. BlueGamma’s six-month series is identical to the ASX BBSW six-month fixing on every day checked (18 September to 1 October), so its dates are correct. The four- and five-year series carry the same 17:00 Sydney timestamps, but their date alignment was not tested directly [12].","r":[11,13,12]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Over the whole period, the answer depends on the start date. From NAB’s 22 July repricing, NAB’s owner-occupier fixed rises minus the moves in matched-term swap rates come to between 8 basis points under and 5 over, by term, if the 1 October swap level is counted, and between 1 and 11 basis points over if the window ends on 30 September. Across start dates from 21 July to 31 August the figure ranges from about 14 basis points under to 23 over, so the answer depends heavily on the start date [12]. NAB’s three- to five-year rates on 22 July are worked back from later pages, not shown in any source.","r":[12]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Against government bond yields the picture is similar. Measured from mid-July to mid-August start dates, NAB’s cumulative fixed rises exceeded the rise in matched-term government bond yields by roughly 0 to 11 basis points, depending on term and start date [13]. Ending both series on 30 September, the swap benchmark gives results close to the bond benchmark: at five years, 7 basis points over against 8, from 22 July. Counting the uncorroborated 1 October swap jump turns the three- to five-year result negative [12][13]. On 1 October BlueGamma’s five-year swap rate rose 13 basis points in a day, to 5.36 per cent. THE RORT found no independent source to confirm that move, and no swap data at all for 2 October, the day NAB’s rise took effect [12].","r":[13,12]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Step by step, NAB lagged and then moved ahead. Between 13 August and 16 September matched swap rates rose about 27 to 51 basis points, and two-, three- and five-year government bond yields 46 to 49 [12][13]. NAB’s one- and two-year rates on its page stamped 14 September were the same as after its 22 July cut; whether any of its rates moved between those dates is not on the record [4][14]. Over 14 to 23 September, a window that spans the 15 September peak, matched swaps were net 5 basis points down to 5 up, while NAB added 0.15 on every term [12][4].","r":[12,13,4,14]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Then the second step. Between NAB’s two moves, yields ended lower (30 September was 2 to 7 basis points below 16 September), but they did not fall steadily: the two-year traded above its 16 September level on 24, 25 and 28 September (5.029, 5.018, 5.057 against 5.000) before falling on 29 and 30 September [13]. Measured from 23 September, the date on NAB’s page after its first step, to the day before NAB acted (swap rates to 1 October, bond yields to 30 September, the last day in the Reserve Bank’s table), NAB’s second step ran ahead of matched swap rates by about 15 to 25 basis points and of government bond yields by about 28 to 33 [12][13]. On 1 October the four- and five-year swap rates (5.33, 5.36) were within 3 basis points of their 15 September peak (5.36, 5.38), and the constructed two-year was about 4 basis points above its 15 September level [12]. Whether NAB priced off mid-September levels is not known.","r":[13,12]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Bond yields after 30 September come from a different source. On Trading Economics’ quotes the three-year yield was about 4.98 on 1 October and 4.88 on 2 October. Against the RBA’s 4.922 on 30 September, pricing off the 1 October close would make NAB’s second rise look about 6 basis points smaller against funding, and pricing off the 2 October close about 4 basis points larger; the sources differ, so these are indicative only [29][13]. Trading Economics’ figures for 2 October are internally inconsistent for the two-year (4.83 in its summary, 4.92 in its quote table) [29].","r":[29,13]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Another view is the gap between NAB’s fixed rate and the government bond yield of the same term. It is not NAB’s profit margin: a government bond yield is what the Commonwealth pays to borrow, not what NAB pays. NAB’s two-year rate sat 181 basis points above the two-year yield on 13 August, if NAB’s rates were unchanged from 22 July to 17 September; 134 on 16 September, at the rates on NAB’s page stamped 14 September; and 187 after 2 October, at 30 September yields [4][13]. At three and five years the gaps after 2 October are 200 and 196, against 198.5 and 191 on 13 August on the same condition [13].","r":[4,13]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"By product, on THE RORT’s arithmetic from the Reserve Bank’s zero-coupon yields for 13 August to 30 September (one year up 34 basis points, two years 40, three years 41, five years 39) [13]: owner-occupier principal-and-interest rates rose 1, 7, 2 and 6 basis points more than those yields at one, two, three and five years; investor rates rose 4 basis points less, 5 more, 3 less and 1 more; owner-occupier interest-only rates rose 19, 15, 23 and 19 basis points less. All three rest on NAB’s rates being unchanged from 13 August to 14 September, and 13 August was a low point for yields, which makes NAB’s rises look smaller against them on this start date. Against swap rates, NAB’s investor two-year rate rose 3 to 4 basis points more than the matched swap rate from a 22 July or 13 August start [12][14]. From the two-year rate’s level before the July cut, NAB’s rise is 0.27 against about 0.40 in the two-year yield: about 13 basis points less [14][13].","r":[13,12,14]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Whether any of these gaps is bigger than the normal noise in such a test has not been measured. THE RORT’s reading of the figures is in the verdict below."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"On variable rates the market moved together. CBA, Westpac, ANZ and NAB each announced 0.25 from 9 October, and Macquarie 0.25 from 15 October [9]. Finder’s tracker, updated 30 September, listed 46 lenders, all at 25 basis points [10]. Among the lenders THE RORT checked, one went below: Granite will pass on only part of the rise to new loans (Australian Broker, 2 October); the effective date of the rate change was not stated [10]. Another went above, on a product no longer sold: Bendigo’s Home Equity Line of Credit, up 0.50 [10].","r":[9,10]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"On fixed rates NAB was not alone and not the biggest mover. Westpac lifted its lowest owner-occupier fixed rates by up to 0.45 points on 18 September, and CBA by up to 0.48 on 22 September, each in a single step [30][31]. NAB’s largest cumulative rise across its two moves (0.47, two-year) is just below CBA’s largest single rise (up to 0.48) and just above Westpac’s (up to 0.45), per Canstar figures quoted by Yahoo Finance [3]. ANZ raised by up to 0.20, with its two-year rate up 0.20 to 6.49 per cent [23].","r":[30,31,3,23]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"It was a market-wide move. By 24 September Canstar counted 18 lenders that had raised at least one fixed term in September [32]. In the week to 29 September thirteen lenders lifted 312 fixed home loan rates by an average of 0.26 points, Australian Broker reported, in what Canstar’s Sally Tindall described as a sharp reversal [33].","r":[32,33]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Macquarie raised its fixed rates twice in September, by up to 0.30 in a rise media reports date to 8 September and up to 0.20 in a rise reported on 24 September [34][32]. Those rises mostly reversed cuts it made on 5 June, when Canstar reported cuts of 0.25 to 0.50 points across its one- to five-year rates. Its rates on 3 October were 0.05 points above its pre-June levels at one and two years, level at three and four years and 0.10 below at five [34].","r":[34,32]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Where the big four and Macquarie stood on 3 October, lowest owner-occupier principal-and-interest fixed rates, one to five years, from each bank’s own page or open-banking product data (their bases differ, as the reference notes): NAB 6.79, 6.81, 6.92, 6.92 and 6.94 per cent; CBA 6.78, 6.82, 6.89, 6.89 and 6.94; Westpac 6.74, 6.74, 6.94, 7.09 and 7.14; ANZ 6.49, 6.49, 6.64, 6.64 and 6.69; Macquarie 6.49, 6.59, 6.59, 6.64 and 6.64 [35][34]. After its second step NAB sits at about CBA’s levels: 0.01 above at one year, 0.01 below at two, 0.03 above at three and four, and level at five. On those figures, whose bases differ, NAB’s 6.79 per cent was the highest one-year rate of the big four on 3 October, 0.01 above CBA’s package rate [35].","r":[35,34]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"As at 3 October NAB was the only big four bank to have moved its fixed rates after the decision; CBA’s, Westpac’s and ANZ’s own product data still showed their pre-decision levels [17][35]. Yahoo Finance reported that NAB was “the only big four bank to have raised its rates twice in just over two weeks” [3].","r":[17,35,3]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Nightly (24 September) reports sector-wide margin pressure; the same piece reports brokers rate CBA and NAB the least competitive majors on home loan pricing [36].","r":[36]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"As at 14:23 AEDT on Sunday 4 October 2026, NAB’s savings page, deposit rate schedule (effective 28 September), term deposit pages, newsroom and interest-rates news index showed no savings or term deposit rate change after the RBA’s 29 September decision [7][37][19].","r":[7,37,19]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Its headline rates: the Reward Saver pays “a total of 5.00% p.a.”, made of “an ongoing 0.01% p.a. variable base rate” and a 4.99 per cent bonus paid in months when the customer qualifies; the iSaver pays “an introductory rate of 5.25% p.a for the first 4 months, then a standard variable rate of 1.65% p.a” [7]. NAB’s headline savings rates (Reward Saver 5.00%, iSaver 5.25% introductory then 1.65%) were the same at 12:41 AEST on 3 October as on 17 September, after the RBA’s 0.25 rise and NAB’s announced 0.25 home loan rise [7][8]. They were the same again at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October [7]. Archived copies show the same figures on 22 and 27 May, 11 July and 10 August; changes between those copies cannot be ruled out [8].","r":[7,8]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Reward Saver’s 5.00 per cent total is above the 4.60 per cent cash rate, but all of it except 0.01 points is the conditional bonus [7][2]. The ACCC found in 2023 that on average 71 per cent of bonus interest accounts did not receive bonus interest in any given month; that is a 2023 finding across the market, not a figure for NAB in 2026 [38].","r":[7,2,38]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"NAB raised savings rates after each of the three earlier rises this year: the Reward Saver by 0.25 points from 13 February and from 27 March, and by 0.35 from 15 May, to 5.00 per cent [8]. Each time, the savings rise took effect on the same day as NAB’s home loan rise, ten days after the Reserve Bank’s decision [8]. This time the home loan rise takes effect on Friday 9 October, the tenth day; 4 October is the fifth [1]. NAB’s own news item on the February savings rise is dated 13 February, the day the rise took effect; no earlier NAB notice was found. In March NAB’s savings notice came between 2 and 10 days after the decision (Canstar still reported silence on 18 March; the rise took effect 27 March); in May between 6 and 10 days after (Canstar reported “under review” on 11 May; the rise took effect 15 May) [8][39]. Whether NAB will change its savings rates by 9 October, or at all, is not known; its release says only that “NAB also regularly reviews its savings and deposit rates” [1].","r":[8,1,39]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Across the four 2026 rises the cash rate is up 1.00 point; as at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October, five days after the fourth decision, NAB’s Reward Saver bonus rate is up 0.85, all of it from the first three rises, which totalled 0.75; its unconditional base rate is unchanged at 0.01%, and the iSaver standard rate is up 0.40 [8][40]. The bonus rate’s starting level, 4.14 per cent, is worked back from NAB’s February notice [8].","r":[8,40]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"On term deposits NAB moved before the decision, in both directions. Between NAB’s 31 August and 28 September rate schedules, NAB raised its 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 month term deposit rates by 0.05 to 0.15 points (12 months 5.15% to 5.30%), cut its 9 month rate from 5.00% to 3.80%, and left 30 day to 6 month and 24 to 60 month rates unchanged [37]. NAB cut its 9-month term deposit from 5.00% to 3.70% in the first half of September and set it at 3.80% in its 28 September schedule, both before the RBA decision [37]. Whether the 12-month rate of 5.30 per cent took effect on 21 or 28 September is not on the record [37].","r":[37]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Other banks’ savers, as at 4 October. Westpac announced on 30 September that its Westpac Life rate with bonus interest rises 0.25 points to 5.25 per cent from 9 October [41]. CBA announced on 2 October “a variety of increases across select savings products, effective 9 October 2026”, including its NetBank Saver standard rate from 2.10 to 2.30 per cent for new and existing customers and its GoalSaver rate with bonus from 5.00 to 5.25 per cent [42]. Macquarie told savers on the day of the decision, 29 September (NewsWire report), that its savings rates rise from 15 October [43][44]. ANZ’s own pages and product data showed no savings rate change; Yahoo Finance reported on 1 October that ANZ will raise the bonus rate on its Plus Growth Saver by 0.25 from 9 October, which THE RORT did not find on ANZ’s own pages [45][43]. Ubank says: “From 6 October 2026, our Everyday Bonus Rate will increase to 5.35% p.a. Customers receiving our Welcome Bonus Rate will earn 6.10% p.a. from that date.” Both are bonus rates with conditions [20].","r":[41,42,43,44,45,20]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b7","s":7,"k":"p","t":"On 30 September, the day the big four announced their home loan rises, Canstar reported: “CBA, NAB and ANZ have not yet announced any increases to their savings rates.” CBA has since announced; as at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October NAB had not [46][42][7].","r":[46,42,7]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b8","s":7,"k":"p","t":"None of the five banks’ 12-month term deposit rates had changed since the 29 September decision on their pages as at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October. NAB, CBA and ANZ carry rate dates or stamps before 29 September, Westpac’s 12-month special dates from 21 September, and Macquarie’s page (undated) shows 5.35% for 12 months [47][37].","r":[47,37]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b9","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The first paragraph of this section now gives the year of the check, 4 October 2026; nothing else changed. The savings position above is as at 14:23 AEDT on that date, and THE RORT's re-read of NAB's pages is due on 9 October 2026."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s7-b10","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. THE RORT re-read NAB’s pages at 14:32 AEDT on 8 October [66]. NAB’s savings accounts page now carries an “Our RBA savings update”: “NAB will increase personal savings rates by up to 0.25% p.a., effective Friday 9 October 2026.” The Reward Saver total rate rises 0.25 to 5.25 per cent (base 0.01, bonus up 0.25 to 5.24); the iSaver total introductory rate rises 0.25 to 5.50 per cent (standard variable rate up 0.20 to 1.85, fixed bonus margin up 0.05 to 3.65). Like the rises of 13 February, 27 March and 15 May, it takes effect on NAB’s home loan day, 9 October. The date NAB first published the notice is not known: it was not in the page read at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October [7]. NAB’s deposit indicator rates (prepared 2 October, effective 5 October) and term deposit indicator rates (effective 5 October) still show the earlier figures: Reward Saver 5.00 per cent, iSaver introductory 5.25, 9 month term deposit 3.80 and 12 month 5.30. NAB’s newsroom (newest item 7 October) and interest-rates news index (newest item 30 September) list nothing on savings or deposit rates after 29 September [66]. Everything above this note is as at 4 October. THE RORT will re-read the pages on 9 October to record whether the new rates are in force.","r":[66,7]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"NAB’s group net interest margin rose from 1.70% (half to March 2025) to 1.81% (half to March 2026) and was 1.79% in the June 2026 quarter. NAB’s own investor slides say the ‘benefit of rising rates’ shows up in its replicating portfolios and forecast a tailwind of about 5 basis points for the second half of FY26, while its lending margin was squeezed by competition. Cash earnings excluding a one-off software charge were up 0.1% on a year earlier in the March 2026 half. In the June 2026 quarter they were up 4% on a year earlier and 2% on the March half’s quarterly average, a rise NAB put mainly down to lower credit impairment charges. Full-year FY25 cash earnings fell 0.2% and statutory profit fell 2.9% [48][49].","r":[48,49]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The slide, in NAB’s 2026 half-year investor presentation and repeated in its August 2026 Debt Investor Update, reads: “Benefit of rising rates largely reflected in replicating portfolios”. Under “Key 2H26 considerations” it lists “Deposit and capital replicating portfolios tailwind of ~5bps”, with the footnote “Based on market implied 3 and 5 year swap rates trajectory as of 31 March 2026 and stable balances” [49]. That is NAB’s forward estimate as at 31 March 2026 for the half to 30 September 2026, made before the May and September rises. It is not an outcome, and it is not a statement about the September rise.","r":[49]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"A replicating portfolio is the kind of hedge the Reserve Bank describes as a way to “transform the fixed (or zero) interest rate payments on banks’ liabilities into floating rate payments” [11]. THE RORT’s The savers’ share sets out how that works for deposits that pay little.","r":[11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b3","s":8,"k":"p","t":"NAB’s own margin bridge for the March 2026 half shows its lending margin cut the group margin by 4 basis points (Australian home lending 2, Australian business lending 2), while replicating portfolios added 3, deposits 1, liquid assets 1 and Markets and Treasury 2 [49]. That is THE RORT’s reading of NAB’s chart. On NAB’s record to 30 June 2026 the group margin is steady to slightly wider, but the lending margin itself narrowed; the widening came from replicating portfolios, deposits and Markets and Treasury [48][49]. NAB’s own account of the half: “Excluding a 2 bps increase from M&T and a 1 bp benefit from liquid assets, NIM was stable reflecting higher earnings from the deposit replicating portfolio combined with lower deposit cost and deposit mix benefits, offset by lending competition.” [48]","r":[49,48]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b4","s":8,"k":"p","t":"NAB named lending competition as the drag on its margin in the December 2025 quarter, the March 2026 half and the June 2026 quarter [48]. Of the results NAB has reported from the March 2025 half to the June 2026 quarter, the June 2026 quarter is the only one in which the group margin fell [48]. NAB said that excluding Markets and Treasury its margin rose 2 basis points in the June quarter, “mainly reflecting higher earnings on deposit and capital replicating portfolios partially offset by lending competition and small deposit impacts” [48].","r":[48]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b5","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Across the industry, Australian banks’ industry profit after tax rose 7.5% in the year to June 2026 (APRA) [50].","r":[50]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b6","s":8,"k":"p","t":"None of this can yet show the September rise. No NAB or APRA margin or profit figure we have read covers any period after 30 June 2026. NAB’s FY26 result on 5 November covers the year to 30 September and so cannot show the effect of the September 2026 rate rise on its loan and deposit pricing; the March 2027 half, reported on 5 May 2027, is the first full half that can [51]. NAB’s calendar says its dates “are subject to change” [51].","r":[51]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s8-b7","s":8,"k":"p","t":"In its 2019-20 home loan price inquiry, the ACCC’s interim report, provided to the Treasurer on 30 March 2020, found that “All of the banks aimed to at least partly recover their anticipated profit reductions through their headline rate decisions”, and that “in mid-2018 to early 2019, each of the big four banks increased headline variable rates when there was no change in the cash rate” [52]. That is a finding about 2018 and 2019, not about 2026.","r":[52]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s9-b0","s":9,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s May 2026 Bulletin, on data to March 2026, before the May and September rises, carries lines that cut both ways [11].","r":[11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s9-b1","s":9,"k":"p","t":"For the banks: “Banks fully passed through cash rate reductions to lending rates on new variable-rate housing loans in 2025 and have increased lending rates broadly in line with the cash rate in early 2026.” “Spreads between lending rates and the cash rate have remained at their narrowest levels in almost two decades”. Banks’ net interest margins “stabilised in 2025 around historical lows” [11].","r":[11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s9-b2","s":9,"k":"p","t":"Against them: “the spread between banks’ lending rates and funding costs has widened, though it remains narrower than pre-pandemic levels”, and, in its conclusion, “the estimated spread between lending rates and funding costs has risen from low levels. By contrast, banks’ NIMs remain around historical lows.” [11] Its table puts the major banks’ total funding costs at 3.76 per cent in March 2026, down 47 basis points since January 2025, while the cash rate fell 25; lower hedging costs account for 15 of the 47 [11]. The Bank cautions that “actual funding costs may vary from our estimates”, and that this “may indicate that we have over-estimated the recent decline in hedging costs” [11].","r":[11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s9-b3","s":9,"k":"p","t":"On deposits: “Deposit costs declined by less than the decline in the cash rate over 2025 and rose by less than the cash rate as it was increased in early 2026.” “On average, at-call deposit rates have adjusted by less than the cash rate.” [11] The Bulletin adds that “some banks have said that stronger competition for deposits has weighed on profitability”, but that “there has been little evidence of this at the aggregate level” [11]. THE RORT reads the deposit lines as a lag that has run in both directions, which cuts against a simple claim that money only moves one way; that is THE RORT’s inference, not the Bank’s.","r":[11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s10-b0","s":10,"k":"p","t":"From 1 October, the variable purchase rate on six of NAB’s card headings, covering its Low Fee, frequent flyer and Rewards cards, rises from 20.99 to 22.49 per cent; on the Low Rate Card from 13.49 to 13.99; and the cash advance rate from 21.74 to 22.99 per cent on those cards and the Low Rate Platinum [5]. NAB says: “Any change to your interest rates will apply from the opening date of your next statement after 1 October 2026.” [5] The Rewards Signature card’s $35 monthly fee becomes $395 a year [5].","r":[5]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s10-b1","s":10,"k":"p","t":"NAB’s purchase-rate rises on its Rewards and frequent flyer cards, and its cash advance rises, were public by 28 July 2026, 65 days before 1 October. Its Low Fee and Low Rate purchase-rate rises were not on NAB’s card-updates page on 10 August and were there by 29 September. NAB says rate changes apply from each customer’s first statement opening after 1 October [6][53][5]. The first public trace THE RORT found is a forum post of 28 July that pastes NAB’s wording; NAB’s own first announcement date is not verified [6]. Canstar reported the Rewards and frequent flyer card changes on 30 July [53]. The Rewards and frequent flyer card rises were public two months before the RBA’s 29 September decision. All of NAB’s 1 October purchase-rate rises, including Low Fee and Low Rate, were on NAB’s page in an archived copy taken at 11:12 AEST on 29 September [53].","r":[6,53,5]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s10-b2","s":10,"k":"p","t":"NAB’s archived pages show no change to these purchase rates between the February 2024 rise (Rewards, frequent flyer and Low Rate cards) or the September 2024 rise (Low Fee Card, per savings.com.au) and 1 October 2026: about 32 and 25 months respectively. Changes between archived copies cannot be ruled out [54]. The February 2024 rise, of 1 percentage point to 20.99 and 13.49 per cent, came in mid-February 2024: NAB’s page was stamped ‘Correct as at 13 February 2024’ and AAP, dated 14 February 2024, reported the rise as effective that day [54]. Savings.com.au reported on 13 September 2024 that NAB was raising its Low Fee Card purchase rate to 20.99 per cent, “a jump of 125 basis points on the old rate” [54].","r":[54]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s10-b3","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Since February 2024 the cash rate has been cut three times and raised four times, a net rise of 0.25 points; since 13 September 2024 it went from 4.35 to 3.60 per cent and back up to 4.60 [40]. NAB’s card rises of 1.50 and 0.50 points are larger than that net change and than any single cash rate move in the period, each of which was 0.25. NAB’s card-updates page does not mention card surcharges or interchange fees [5].","r":[40,5]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s10-b4","s":10,"k":"p","t":"Other banks’ card rates, as their own pages show them: ANZ says that “As of 28 September 2026, the standard Annual Percentage Interest Rate on Purchases, Cash Advances and standard Balance Transfers increased”, to 22.49 per cent for purchases; its Low Rate card “has not changed and remains at 13.74% p.a.” [55] Westpac’s Altitude cards are at 23.98% p.a. on Westpac’s own rates page (Finder and Canstar report 23.99, and the old 20.99 rate is from Finder), from 30 September [55]. CBA’s page shows 20.99 per cent on its Low Fee, Smart and Ultimate cards, and a personalised Low Rate range: “From 10 December 2024, interest rates offered on approval vary from 10.99% p.a. to 15.99% p.a.” [55] Canstar wrote of NAB’s rewards card changes, which include fees and earn rates, that “These changes are being made as a result of the RBA’s surcharge ban and corresponding cut to the cap on interchange fees that help fund rewards programs”; that is Canstar’s account, and NAB’s page mentions neither. Canstar reported that Westpac says its own changes, to card insurance, are not directly related to the interchange fee cap [53][5]. Finder, reporting Westpac’s and St.George’s card changes on 24 August, wrote that they “come ahead of the 1 October 2026 ban on card surcharges” [55]. NAB’s page heads its changes “Credit card changes from 1 October 2026”, and its rate changes apply from each customer’s first statement after that date [5].","r":[55,53,5]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s10-b5","s":10,"k":"p","t":"The Reserve Bank’s table of indicator card rates, F5, which showed 20.99 and 13.49 per cent through August, is an indicator across large lenders, not NAB’s own rate. F5’s latest figures are for 31 August 2026, before any of the big-bank card rises. ANZ’s 28 September rise, and possibly Westpac’s from 30 September, fall within the 30 September observation; NAB’s 1 October rise cannot appear before the 31 October observation [56].","r":[56]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s10-b6","s":10,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT ran no cost test on card rates and draws no conclusion on whether NAB’s card rises are fair. NAB’s page says: “Most changes require us to give you at least 30 days’ notice, which we have done.” When the Low Fee and Low Rate cardholders were told is question 7 below [5]. The archived copies do not show when NAB told those cardholders: 10 August is 52 days before 1 October, and NAB may have written to them directly. THE RORT does not suggest that NAB gave less notice than its page states.","r":[5]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s11-b0","s":11,"k":"p","t":"We found no provision in the Competition and Consumer Act, the ASIC Act or the National Credit Code that ties a lender’s rate to the cash rate, and the ACCC says the cash rate is not a regulated rate [57][38]. In the ACCC’s words, the cash rate is not “a regulated rate that banks must receive from borrowers or pay to depositors” [38]. THE RORT did not search the Banking Act, the Reserve Bank Act or state law.","r":[57,38]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s11-b1","s":11,"k":"p","t":"Price gouging is not a general offence. In December 2025, before the supermarket ban took effect, The Conversation wrote that price gouging, “setting prices at a level far higher than people think is reasonable”, “isn’t currently illegal for businesses in Australia” [58]. The only Commonwealth ban on excessive prices covers very large supermarkets, from 1 July 2026. Banks are outside it [58]. The Northern Territory used its Price Exploitation Prevention Act, a 1949 law, for fuel in March 2026, with power in “the most extreme cases” to “overrule and set the price” [59]. The Parliament’s page for a Greens excessive-pricing bill records its second reading negatived on 9 October 2024 and on 5 February 2026; the Greens said of the 2024 vote that Labor had voted down “a Greens Bill that would have made price gouging illegal” [60].","r":[58,59,60]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s11-b2","s":11,"k":"p","t":"Bank pricing falls under the ASIC Act rather than most of the Australian Consumer Law: section 131A of the Competition and Consumer Act takes financial services out of most of the consumer law [57]. The ASIC Act bans conduct that is “in all the circumstances, unconscionable” (section 12CB) and misleading or deceptive conduct (section 12DA) [57]. It treats as possibly unfair a term that lets one party “vary the upfront price payable under the contract without the right of another party to terminate the contract”, but a term that “sets the upfront price” is excluded from that review [57]. Whether a variable-rate clause counts as an upfront price was not tested.","r":[57]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s11-b3","s":11,"k":"p","t":"Misuse of market power is narrower than a price test. Section 46 of the Competition and Consumer Act says: “A corporation that has a substantial degree of power in a market must not engage in conduct that has the purpose, or has or is likely to have the effect, of substantially lessening competition in” a market [57]. THE RORT did not search for any case applying section 46, section 12CB or the consumer law to bank rate setting.","r":[57]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s11-b4","s":11,"k":"p","t":"Government has levers short of a price cap. The Treasurer can direct the ACCC to hold a price inquiry (s95H) or to monitor a business’s prices, costs and profits (s95ZF). Treasurers directed bank-pricing inquiries in 2017, 2019 and 2023; we found no s95ZF monitoring direction aimed at a bank [57][61]. Treasury said on 1 April 2026 that it is “considering whether further steps are appropriate in the financial services sector” [62]. A ban on unfair trading practices passed Parliament on 2 July 2026 and starts on 1 July 2027; whether it reaches financial services was not checked [62].","r":[57,61,62]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s11-b5","s":11,"k":"p","t":"The rules govern notice, not size. The National Credit Code requires written notice of a rate change “not later than the day on which a change in the annual percentage rate or rates payable under a credit contract takes effect” (section 64) [57]. The Credit Code requires 20 days’ written notice of a change in repayments, but where the contract sets repayments by a formula, only a change to the formula itself triggers that notice. Canstar reports NAB gives at least 30 days’ notice of new repayments [57][63]. The Banking Code’s paragraph 35 reads in full: “If we change an interest rate, we will tell you as soon as reasonably possible, but no later than the date of the change, unless we are not able to because the interest rate is calculated according to a money market or some other external reference rate, or a rate otherwise designated as a variable or floating rate.” None of the Code’s eight passages on interest rates limits the size of a rise [64].","r":[57,63,64]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s11-b6","s":11,"k":"p","t":"On what THE RORT found, no law ties NAB’s rises to the cash rate, and no Commonwealth price-gouging ban reaches banks. What constrains bank pricing is competition, disclosure and notice, and the Treasurer’s power to order an inquiry. Whether NAB met its notice and disclosure duties on these changes was not tested. THE RORT does not suggest that NAB has breached any of these laws."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b0","s":12,"k":"p","t":"The case that NAB is taking more than it needs to, at its strongest:"},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b1","s":12,"k":"p","t":"The timing of the second step. NAB’s 2 October rise of up to 0.32 came after government bond yields had ended, on 30 September, 2 to 7 basis points below their 16 September level, though the two-year traded above that level on 24, 25 and 28 September; and it ran ahead of matched swap rates by about 15 to 25 basis points over its own window [13][12]. It came after money markets had cut the odds of a November rise to about 20 per cent, and with NAB’s own economists forecasting a hold [25][27].","r":[13,12,25,27]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b2","s":12,"k":"p","t":"NAB stood out among the majors. As at 3 October it was the only big four bank to have moved fixed rates after the decision; Yahoo Finance reported it was the only one to have raised them twice in just over two weeks; and, on figures whose bases differ, its one-year rate was the highest of the four, by 0.01 [35][3]. The Nightly (24 September) reports that brokers rate CBA and NAB the least competitive majors on home loan pricing (the same piece reports sector-wide margin pressure) [36].","r":[35,3,36]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b3","s":12,"k":"p","t":"NAB tells investors rising rates help it. Its slides say the “Benefit of rising rates” is “largely reflected in replicating portfolios”, with a tailwind of about 5 basis points forecast for the half to September, as estimated at 31 March [49]. The Reserve Bank, on data to March 2026, concludes that “the estimated spread between lending rates and funding costs has risen from low levels. By contrast, banks’ NIMs remain around historical lows.” Its table attributes 15 of the 47 basis point fall in the major banks’ funding costs since January 2025 to lower hedging costs [11].","r":[49,11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b4","s":12,"k":"p","t":"Savers wait. NAB has announced its borrowers’ 0.25, effective 9 October, but as at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October its savings page and interest-rates news index showed no change to its savings rates [1][7][19]. In each earlier rise this year its savings rise took effect on its home loan day, ten days after the decision; this time that day is 9 October, and NAB has not said publicly what it will do [8].","r":[1,7,19,8]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b5","s":12,"k":"p","t":"The past. The ACCC found in 2020 that each of the big four raised headline variable rates in mid-2018 to early 2019 when the cash rate had not changed; that is a finding about that period, not this one [52].","r":[52]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b6","s":12,"k":"p","t":"The case that NAB is not, at its strongest:"},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b7","s":12,"k":"p","t":"The variable rise is exactly 0.25, on the same day as CBA, Westpac and ANZ, and every lender with a published figure on the trackers moved by the same amount [1][9][10].","r":[1,9,10]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b8","s":12,"k":"p","t":"Over the whole period the fixed rises differ from the market benchmarks in both directions, and fall below them on some products and start dates: from NAB’s 22 July repricing, owner-occupier rises between 8 basis points under and 11 over swap rates; from the two-year rate’s pre-cut level, about 13 basis points under the bond yield; investor rates from 4 under to 5 over; owner-occupier interest-only rates 15 to 23 under [12][13]. Between 13 August and 16 September swap rates and bond yields rose, and NAB’s one- and two-year rates on its page stamped 14 September were the same as after its 22 July cut [12][13][4][14].","r":[12,13,4,14]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b9","s":12,"k":"p","t":"A fixed rate prices the path of rates over one to five years, not the next meeting, so neither the November odds nor the forecasts settle what a fixed rate should be; NAB says its fixed rates are influenced by a range of factors, including “wholesale funding costs and market conditions” [28].","r":[28]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b10","s":12,"k":"p","t":"NAB was not the biggest mover. CBA’s single rise of up to 0.48 and Westpac’s of up to 0.45 came before NAB’s second step, 18 lenders moved in September, and NAB’s rates now sit at about CBA’s [30][31][32][35].","r":[30,31,32,35]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b11","s":12,"k":"p","t":"NAB’s own margin record shows its lending margin narrowing, with the group margin held up by deposits, replicating portfolios and Markets and Treasury, and lending competition named as the drag in each period from December 2025 to June 2026 [49][48]. The Reserve Bank says banks’ margins “stabilised in 2025 around historical lows” [11].","r":[49,48,11]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b12","s":12,"k":"p","t":"Savers may yet be paid. In each earlier rise this year NAB’s savings rise took effect with its home loan rise, ten days after the decision, and this time that day is 9 October; in May its Reward Saver rose 0.35 against the Reserve Bank’s 0.25 [8]. NAB’s own Ubank has announced higher bonus savings rates, of 5.35 and 6.10 per cent, from 6 October [20].","r":[8,20]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s12-b13","s":12,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. The two savers paragraphs above (“Savers wait”, “Savers may yet be paid”) are as at 4 October. On 8 October NAB’s savings page announced a rise of up to 0.25 from 9 October, with the Reward Saver total rising 0.25 to 5.25 per cent, the same size as the Reserve Bank’s rise [66]. The detail is in “Savers: what NAB has and has not moved”.","r":[66]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s13-b0","s":13,"k":"p","t":"Variable home loans: a pass-through of exactly the Reserve Bank’s 0.25. The evidence shows no money grab."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s13-b1","s":13,"k":"p","t":"Fixed home loans: most of NAB’s fixed rises for new loans were larger than 0.25 (owner-occupier principal and interest 0.35 to 0.47, investor 0.30 to 0.45); owner-occupier interest-only rose 0.15 to 0.25. Setting them beside the cash rate compares different benchmarks: the Reserve Bank says new fixed rates have followed tenor-matched swap rates, which they typically reference, and THE RORT also uses government bond yields as a proxy. Over the whole period NAB’s owner-occupier rises came to between about 14 basis points under and 23 over the rise in matched swap rates, depending on the start date chosen, and between 8 under and 11 over from NAB’s own July repricing; against government bond yields, from mid-July to mid-August start dates, about 0 to 11 over. THE RORT reads the arithmetic as NAB catching up, in two steps, with the rise in those market rates between 13 August and 16 September: NAB’s one- and two-year rates on its page stamped 14 September were the same as after its 22 July cut, and by 1 October the four- and five-year swap rates were within 3 basis points of their 15 September peak. That is THE RORT’s reading of endpoint figures, not a finding about NAB’s motive, which NAB has not given. Over its own window, from 23 September, the second step ran ahead of matched swap rates by about 15 to 25 basis points and of government bond yields by about 28 to 33; whether NAB priced off mid-September levels is not known. On these tests the evidence does not show a money grab on fixed loans. It does not show pure cost pass-through either: the noise band in this test is unmeasured, and NAB’s pricing day is unknown."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s13-b2","s":13,"k":"p","t":"Credit cards: the rises are large; they were public for NAB’s Rewards and frequent flyer cards two months before the September decision. ANZ and Westpac also raised card purchase rates around the same date, Westpac by more, on Finder’s figure for its old rate; CBA’s card fees page, and its key facts sheet stamped “Correct as at 29 September 2026”, show 20.99 per cent on its Low Fee, Smart and Ultimate cards. Canstar linked NAB’s rewards card changes, which include fees and earn rates, to the Reserve Bank’s surcharge ban and cut to the interchange cap; NAB’s page mentions neither. THE RORT ran no cost test and draws no conclusion."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s13-b3","s":13,"k":"p","t":"Savers: the open point. As at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October NAB had not changed its headline savings rates, while CBA, Westpac and Macquarie had announced rises, and so had NAB’s own Ubank, from 6 October. In each earlier rise this year NAB’s savings rise took effect on its home loan day; this time that day is 9 October, and NAB has not said publicly what it will do. THE RORT will re-read NAB’s pages on 9 October and record what it finds."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s13-b4","s":13,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. Savers were the open point as at 4 October. On 8 October NAB’s savings page announced a rise of up to 0.25 from 9 October [66]; the home loan verdicts above are unchanged. THE RORT will re-read NAB’s pages on 9 October to record whether the new rates are in force.","r":[66]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s14-b0","s":14,"k":"p","t":"The dates. 6 October: Ubank’s savings rise takes effect [20]. 8 October: Ubank’s variable home loan rise [20]. 9 October: NAB’s variable rise takes effect, and THE RORT re-reads NAB’s savings, term deposit and fixed-rate pages [1]. 5 November: NAB’s results for the year to 30 September, which cannot show the effect of the September rise on its loan and deposit pricing. 10 December: NAB’s annual general meeting. 5 May 2027: NAB’s results for the half to March 2027, the first full half that can [51]. The Reserve Bank’s next decision is on THE RORT’s watch in Four rises in 2026.","r":[20,1,51]},{"a":46,"at":"at-s14-b1","s":14,"k":"p","t":"On 2 October THE RORT sent NAB questions for another article in this series, not yet published, including its decision on savings and term deposits, and asked for a reply by Thursday 8 October. The new questions below had not been sent when this article was published on 4 October. The date and time they are sent will be recorded here. They ask for a reply by 5 pm AEDT on Monday 12 October 2026, and any reply will be added in full where it is short, or quoted fairly with a link to the full text, as a dated update, whenever it arrives."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s14-b2","s":14,"k":"p","t":"The questions: 1. On what date NAB’s first fixed-rate rise took effect. 2. Whether a customer who re-fixes pays the same rate as a new customer, and on which loan to value band. 3. Which funding benchmark, and which pricing date, the 2 October rise reflects, given THE RORT’s figures that, measured from 23 September, it ran ahead of matched swap rates by about 15 to 25 basis points and of government bond yields by about 28 to 33. 4. Whether NAB will change any savings or term deposit rate after the 29 September rise, and from when (NAB was also asked this on 2 October); and what share of its Reward Saver accounts earned the bonus rate in recent months, given that all of the 5.00 per cent except the 0.01 base rate is a conditional bonus, that across the four 2026 rises the cash rate is up 1.00 point while, as at 14:23 AEDT on 4 October, five days after the fourth decision, its bonus rate is up 0.85 (all of it from the first three rises, which totalled 0.75), its base rate is unchanged and its iSaver standard rate is up 0.40, and the ACCC’s 2023 market-wide finding on bonus interest. 5. The dates of its September term deposit changes. 6. Whether its 31 March estimate of a replicating-portfolio tailwind still stands, and what it expects the 2026 rises to do to its margin in FY27; and whether THE RORT’s reading of its March 2026 half margin bridge is correct. 7. When it told each group of cardholders of the 1 October changes, and whether any part of them is linked to the cash rate or to the Reserve Bank’s card surcharge and interchange changes, given that the 1.50 and 0.50 point rises are larger than any cash rate move since February 2024. 8. Which variable home loans the 0.25 rise covers, whether new and existing customers are treated alike, and whether any business, overdraft or personal loan variable rate will change. 9. Whether NAB wishes to respond to The Nightly’s report of a broker survey rating it among the least competitive majors, and to Canstar’s reading that its fixed rises suggest it is factoring in a further rate rise, set beside its own economists’ forecast of a hold and the market odds of about 20 per cent for a November rise. 10. Whether NAB wishes to respond to THE RORT’s report that as at 3 October it was the only big four bank to have moved fixed rates after the decision and, on figures whose bases differ, had the highest one-year rate of the four, by 0.01; to Yahoo Finance’s report that it was the only one to have raised them twice in just over two weeks; and to THE RORT’s arithmetic on repayments and on the gap between its two-year rate and the two-year bond yield. 11. Whether NAB wishes to respond to the ACCC’s 2020 finding on the big four’s variable rate rises in mid-2018 to early 2019, which this article recalls as a finding about that period. If NAB believes any statement of fact here is wrong, THE RORT will correct it with a dated note."},{"a":46,"at":"at-s14-b4","s":14,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [19] is NAB’s interest-rates news index, a listing page. It remains the source for what that index did and did not list when read on 3 and 4 October. NAB’s 27 August forecast of a September rise, quoted in “Why fixed rates need a different test”, is now cited to NAB’s own note, reference [65].","r":[19,65]},{"a":47,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Two companies control **90.6** per cent of Australia’s metropolitan newspaper circulation: News Corp Australia 64.2 per cent and Nine Entertainment 26.4 per cent.","r":[1]},{"a":47,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"News Corp also holds a majority stake in REA Group, which runs realestate.com.au, while its papers cover housing affordability and negative gearing.","r":[4]},{"a":47,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Kerry Stokes’ Seven Group owns Perth’s only major daily and also WesTrac, a Caterpillar mining equipment dealer, and a 30 per cent stake in Beach Energy.","r":[14,24]},{"a":47,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The ‘two out of three’ rule, legislated in 2006, helped build this concentration. In 2017 Parliament repealed it, loosening the limits further rather than restoring them.","r":[21,23,17]},{"a":47,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Here is a number worth sitting with: 90.6."},{"a":47,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"That is the percentage of Australia’s metropolitan newspaper circulation controlled by just two companies. News Corp Australia accounts for 64.2 per cent. Nine Entertainment accounts for a further 26.4 per cent."},{"a":47,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Not 90.6 per cent owned by the same political party. Not 90.6 per cent funded by the same advertiser. Ninety point six per cent owned by two corporations, one controlled by a family trust whose patriarch has spent the better part of sixty years using his papers to pursue his political and commercial interests."},{"a":47,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"That is not a media market. That is a cartel with a printing press."},{"a":47,"at":"at-lede-4","k":"f","x":"95%","t":"of daily newspaper revenue is controlled by the top four media companies, along with over 75% of free-to-air television revenue and about 70% of radio revenue.","src":"Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022"},{"a":47,"at":"at-lede-5","k":"p","t":"And yet, in public conversations about why Australians feel unrepresented or manipulated, the ownership of the institutions telling us what to think rarely comes up. At least not in those institutions."},{"a":47,"at":"at-lede-6","k":"p","t":"That is the point of The Rort. This is our first article. It will be one of the longest things we publish, because it needs to be said once, properly, so we can reference it forever after."},{"a":47,"at":"at-lede-7","k":"p","t":"Let’s walk through who owns Australian media, what else they own, and what that means for every story they choose to run, or choose not to."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s commercial media landscape is controlled by three corporate groups and one foreign-owned network. Between them, they account for the overwhelming majority of what Australians read, watch, and hear on any given day."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That table is doing a lot of work. Notice the column labelled ‘Other Corporate Interests’. That is where the story really is."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"News Corp Australia is wholly owned by News Corp (NASDAQ: NWSA). The Murdoch Family Trust controls approximately 40 per cent of News Corp’s voting shares (enough for effective control) despite the family owning a much smaller portion of total equity. This structure is designed to maintain dynastic control of a public company without the associated accountability."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In Australia, News Corp owns: The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, The Courier-Mail, The Advertiser, The NT News, The Mercury, 49 regional newspapers, Sky News Australia, a 65 per cent stake in Foxtel, Fox Sports, and a majority stake in REA Group, which runs realestate.com.au, Australia’s dominant property listings platform."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**The property conflict in plain sight.** REA Group is critical to understanding News Corp’s structural conflicts. News Corp’s Australian papers are among the country’s most-read sources of property news, covering housing affordability, negative gearing, developer behaviour, and real estate markets. They are also the majority owner of the platform that profits every time a property is listed for sale."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The incentive structure is obvious. You do not need to allege direct editorial interference to understand why this is a problem. The incentive itself is the problem."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**The political record.** The political activities of News Corp Australia are the most extensively documented of any Australian media organisation. The following are all matters of verified public record:"},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Australian has endorsed the Liberal Party at each of the past five federal elections. Not one of News Corp’s four major metropolitan daily papers has endorsed the Labor Party since at least 2010."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On 5 August 2013, the first day of the federal election campaign, The Daily Telegraph published a front page dominated by the headline: ‘KICK THIS MOB OUT’. This was explicitly an instruction to readers on how to vote, published as a front page in a newspaper."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wrote in his 2020 memoir *A Bigger Picture*: ‘I wasn’t going to run my government in partnership with Rupert or Lachlan Murdoch or their editors, and I knew they’d resent that.’"},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd launched a parliamentary petition calling News Corp ‘a cancer on our democracy’. It attracted 501,876 signatures, the most in Australian parliamentary history at that time."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The resulting Senate inquiry, reporting in December 2021, called News Corp ‘Australia’s clearest example of a troubling media monopoly’."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b10","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Academic research published in the peer-reviewed *International Journal of Communication* analysed 1,613 News Corp articles and Sky News videos over 13 weeks during the 2023 Voice to Parliament Referendum. It found 68 per cent of all argument content was pro-No. The paper concluded News Corp did not merely report on the campaign. It functioned as a political advocacy organisation on behalf of the No side."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s1-b11","s":1,"k":"q","t":"News Corp has no influence with the public but an acute influence with politicians.","x":"Kim Williams","src":"former CEO of News Corp Australia"},{"a":47,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Nine Entertainment is publicly listed on the ASX, which makes it structurally different from family-controlled News Corp. Its largest single shareholder is Birketu Pty Ltd (the private vehicle of Bruce Gordon, owner of the WIN regional television network) with approximately 20 per cent of shares."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Nine owns Channel Nine and its digital channels, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, Brisbane Times, WA Today, and Stan. Its radio stations (2GB, 3AW, 4BC, and 6PR) were sold to the Laundy family in January 2026."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The 2018 merger of Nine with Fairfax Media, which had owned the SMH and The Age for over 150 years, was a watershed moment for Australian journalism. Two of the country’s most significant mastheads became subsidiaries of a commercial television network."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**The property conflict.** Domain Group, Nine’s property listings platform, was sold to US firm CoStar for A$3 billion in 2025. Before that sale, Nine’s journalists at the SMH and The Age were covering Australia’s housing affordability crisis while their parent company collected fees on every property listing. The AFR, which covers banking, the ASX, superannuation, and corporate regulation, is simultaneously reliant on advertising from the very financial institutions it covers."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**The talkback political machine.** Nine’s radio stations, 2GB in Sydney and 3AW in Melbourne, were central to Australia’s political media ecosystem before their sale. Alan Jones, the former 2GB host, had documented direct access to multiple prime ministers and used his program explicitly to campaign on policy outcomes. Talkback radio in Australia is not background noise. It shapes policy debates and commands loyal audiences of older, high-turnout voters."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"f","x":"98%","t":"Percentage of Australians reachable via Seven Network + Sky News (33% stake)","src":"Kerry Stokes' Media Reach"},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The third major player is the least discussed in national conversation. Possibly because the only major daily newspaper in Perth is owned by the person we are about to describe."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Kerry Stokes AC is worth approximately A$12.69 billion, making him Australia’s tenth richest person as of May 2025. He controls his empire through Australian Capital Equity, which holds 61 per cent of the ASX-listed Seven Group Holdings. SGH was the controlling shareholder of Seven West Media until its merger with Southern Cross Media in January 2026, creating a combined television, radio, and digital group."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**What Stokes owns beyond television.** This is where the story gets important. Seven Group Holdings is not primarily a media company. Its major assets beyond media include: WesTrac, one of the world’s largest Caterpillar heavy equipment dealers, supplying mining machinery to iron ore, coal, lithium, and nickel operations across WA and NSW. Beach Energy, where SGH holds a 30 per cent stake in an oil and gas producer operating in the Cooper Basin, Otway Basin, and Perth Basin. Coates Hire, Australia’s largest equipment hire company. Boral, where it holds a 20 per cent stake in a major building materials manufacturer."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Read that list again. A company that sells Caterpillar equipment to mines, holds a 30 per cent stake in an oil and gas producer, and owns the country’s largest equipment hire business. It also owns the only major daily newspaper in Perth and a national television network reaching 98 per cent of Australians."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**The cases that prove the point.** In 2023, Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries formally complained to the federal Communications Minister that The West Australian was publishing what Fortescue’s CEO described as ‘biased, inflammatory and inaccurate’ coverage driven by ‘fossil fuel interests’ within Seven West Media’s ownership structure."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In 2019, when federal police raided the ABC’s Sydney offices (one of the most significant press freedom events in Australian history) almost every major newspaper ran it on the front page. The West Australian ran a short item on page six. Seven West Media was the only major news organisation not represented at the subsequent Perth press freedom rally."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Current and former West Australian journalists have reported a longstanding newsroom culture: photographs showing Komatsu trucks (Caterpillar’s main competitor) do not appear in the paper. WesTrac sells Caterpillar machinery."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The concentration of Australian media ownership did not come from the market alone. Parliament set the ownership rules, and in our reading the changes it made in 2006 and 2017, set out below, loosened the limits rather than restoring them."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Australia’s cross-media ownership laws were designed to prevent one company from owning multiple types of media (television, radio, newspapers) in the same market. In October 2006, the Howard government passed the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Act, which received Royal Assent on 4 November 2006. [21] The new ‘two out of three’ rule allowed companies to own two out of three media types in a single market. It also removed the media-specific limits on foreign ownership; foreign investment in media stayed subject to the Treasurer's approval under general foreign investment policy. [21,22]","r":[21]},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The changes came through."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In the years since, no government, Labor or Coalition, has reversed the architecture that produced the current concentration. The one major revisit loosened it further: in 2017 the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Act repealed the ‘two out of three’ rule itself, along with the 75 per cent audience reach rule for commercial television. [23] The Senate inquiry triggered by half a million Australians’ signatures recommended action. Nothing happened.","r":[23]},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"When politicians fear the consequences of crossing organisations that could expose or embarrass them, they don’t act. That, in the words of former News Corp CEO Kim Williams, is exactly how the influence operates."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Rupert Murdoch had lobbied directly for exactly these changes and that his papers had given consistent editorial support to the Howard government. We could not find a reliable source for either statement, so both have been removed."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Act was passed in 2007. Parliament passed it in October 2006 and it received Royal Assent on 4 November 2006 [21]; the paragraph now says so.","r":[21]},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026 (second). This section said every government since had failed to reverse or even meaningfully revisit the media ownership rules. In 2017 the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) Act repealed the ‘two out of three’ rule and the 75 per cent audience reach rule [23]; the paragraph now says so. It also said foreign ownership limits were scrapped entirely. The 2006 Act removed the media-specific foreign ownership limits, but foreign investment in media remained subject to the Treasurer's approval under general foreign investment policy [22].","r":[23,22]},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. Reference [24], the ACMA media control page, has been removed because the page does not describe the 2017 repeal, and the 7 October (second) correction above no longer cites it. The repeal of the two out of three rule and the 75 per cent audience reach rule is cited to the 2017 Act itself [23], in the paragraph above and in that correction. Nothing in the text has changed.","r":[24,23]},{"a":47,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The opening paragraph of this section said the concentration was the result of deliberate regulatory changes, lobbied for by the people who benefited from them and implemented by politicians those people supported. No source we hold carries that, and the lobbying claim was already withdrawn on 7 October, so the paragraph now states only what the laws below show and labels the conclusion as this outlet’s reading. Separately, the Beach Energy stake in this article, given as 28.6 per cent and as the ‘single largest’ holding, now reads 30 per cent in the brief, the table, the chart, the passage on Stokes’ other assets and the notes, as Seven Group states on its own Beach Energy page [24]; the Michael West profile [14] is no longer cited for the figure, and the ‘largest’ wording is removed because we have no source for it. This is the new reference [24], not the ACMA page removed earlier.","r":[24,14]},{"a":47,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has no advertising. It answers to no proprietor. Its editorial independence is enshrined in legislation. This is precisely why it has been under sustained attack for decades."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Coalition government cut ABC funding repeatedly between 2013 and 2022. In 2019, federal police raided the ABC’s Sydney offices searching for the source of the Afghan Files, a report on alleged war crimes by Australian Defence Force soldiers. The raids were internationally condemned. Charges were ultimately not laid."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A government review completed in December 2024 explicitly acknowledged the need to protect the ABC and SBS from ‘funding cuts and political interference’. A formal admission that political interference has historically occurred."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The attacks on the ABC’s funding and independence are not driven by a desire for better journalism. They are driven by the commercial and political interests of the people making them. News Corp papers have run consistent campaigns framing the ABC as institutionally biased, a characterisation that serves News Corp’s commercial interest in reducing publicly-funded competition."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Outside the oligopoly, a small number of independent outlets are doing the journalism the mainstream media won’t."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**Michael West Media.** Investigative journalism focused on corporate accountability, tax avoidance, and the revolving door between government and industry. Reader-funded. No corporate ownership."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**Punter’s Politics.** Grassroots independent media exposing corporate capture and gas lobby influence. One of the most important independent voices currently operating in Australia."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Juice Media.** Satirical but surgically accurate. Honest Government Ads has developed a global audience by saying plainly what the mainstream press dresses up in euphemism."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**Crikey (Private Media).** Subscription digital publication with a strong tradition of holding the media itself to account. Owned by Eric Beecher; editorially independent."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**Independent Australia.** Reader-funded investigative journalism covering politics and corruption from a perspective corporate media structurally cannot."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Guardian Australia.** Owned by the Scott Trust, a charitable structure that uses Guardian profits to fund journalism. Editorially independent of corporate or government interests."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**The Conversation.** Nonprofit academic analysis. Expert-sourced. No advertising. One of the most reliably evidence-based news analysis platforms in the country."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"We are not the first to write about Australian media concentration. Academics, Senate committees, former prime ministers, and independent journalists have documented this landscape in detail. The research is there for anyone who looks."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The problem is distribution. The outlets most capable of reaching mass audiences are the ones with the most to lose from mass audiences understanding this."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Rort is an aggregator and a watchdog. We feature the independent voices already doing this work. We provide context for stories the mainstream press under-covers or ignores. We ask, consistently, the one question that the concentrated Australian media has a structural interest in not asking:"},{"a":47,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"*Who benefits?*"},{"a":47,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"That question applies to every budget announcement, every regulatory decision, every policy debate that somehow always seems to resolve in favour of the same industries whose executives sit on the boards of the companies that covered it."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"This is not about left versus right. It is not about Labor versus Liberal. It is about a media environment so structurally compromised that Australians cannot get a straight account of what is being done in their name, with their money, to their country."},{"a":47,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Rort is not neutral on this. A watchdog that is neutral about the rort is not a watchdog. It is furniture."},{"a":48,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Kerry Stokes’ Seven Group sells Caterpillar mining equipment through WesTrac and holds a 30 per cent stake in Beach Energy. He also controls Perth’s only major daily, The West Australian.","r":[2,6,8,19]},{"a":48,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Media is the minority business: Seven Group’s revenue was A$10.74 billion in FY2025, with WesTrac alone contributing A$639 million in EBIT.","r":[3]},{"a":48,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In February 2023 Fortescue’s Mark Hutchinson complained to the Communications Minister of ‘the misuse of the West Australian newspaper to pursue commercial interests’, after Fortescue ended a WesTrac supply arrangement.","r":[9]},{"a":48,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"ACE, the private company exempt from lodging accounts with ASIC, funded Ben Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation case and was ordered to pay A$13,270,950 in costs.","r":[12,2]},{"a":48,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"At an annual dinner in Perth in 2022, the city’s mayor stood up to introduce the evening’s host and uttered what may be the most honest thing ever said publicly about Australian media power. ‘The man who really runs the state,’ said Mayor Basil Zempilas. He was introducing Kerry Stokes. The room that night included then-WA Premier Mark McGowan. The following year’s gathering reportedly prompted the Australian Financial Review to headline its coverage: ‘Stokes gathers oligarchs to kiss the ring.’ That is the ecosystem The Rort exists to document. Not the journalism that happens. The journalism that doesn’t."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Kerry Stokes AC is Australia’s tenth richest person, with a net worth of approximately A$12.69 billion as of May 2025. He was born John Patrick Alford in Melbourne, adopted as an infant, dropped out of school at 14, and built a fortune through property development, media acquisitions, and industrial diversification."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"He controls his empire through a network of private companies. The key vehicle is Australian Capital Equity (ACE), which holds a controlling stake in the ASX-listed Seven Group Holdings (SGH). SGH in turn was the controlling shareholder of Seven West Media, now merged with Southern Cross Media Group as of January 2026."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Understanding Stokes requires understanding what SGH actually is. Because most Australians, if they think of Stokes at all, think of Channel Seven. SGH is not primarily a television company."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In the financial year 2025, Seven Group Holdings generated total revenue of **A$10.74 billion**. Of that, WesTrac, the Caterpillar equipment division, contributed A$639 million in EBIT alone. Management has guided FY2026 underlying profit above A$1.2 billion. Media is a minority of this business by revenue and earnings."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**WesTrac.** The sole authorised Caterpillar equipment dealer in Western Australia, New South Wales, and the ACT. It supplies Caterpillar mining trucks, excavators, draglines, and underground longwall equipment to BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue Metals, Roy Hill, and CIMIC. WesTrac holds approximately 90 per cent of the Caterpillar market in the Pilbara, the iron ore heartland of Australia. Its order book swelled 20 per cent in 2025."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Beach Energy.** SGH holds a 30 per cent stake in this oil and gas producer operating in the Cooper Basin, the Otway Basin, and the Perth Basin. Beach Energy NPAT rose 32 per cent in FY2025."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Coates Hire.** Australia’s largest equipment hire company, wholly owned by SGH."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Boral.** SGH acquired majority control of this major building materials company (concrete, asphalt) for A$4.4 billion, reaching majority control by 2024–2025. EBIT increased 26 per cent in FY2025."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Cattle.** Stokes privately owns more than one million hectares of pastoral land in Western Australia, including Napier Downs station in the Kimberley stocked with 20,000 head of cattle."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A company that sells equipment to iron ore mines, holds a 30% stake in an oil and gas producer, and owns the country’s largest equipment hire business also controls the only major daily newspaper in a city of two million people and a television network that reaches 98% of Australians."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The following is not a list of alleged conspiracies. It is a list of disclosed corporate relationships that create editorial conflicts of interest, conflicts that readers of The West Australian and viewers of Channel Seven have never been clearly informed about."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**WesTrac versus anyone threatening the mining industry.** WesTrac is the sole Caterpillar dealer in WA’s Pilbara, the region that produces the iron ore underpinning Australia’s trade surplus. Its order book and revenue depend on the continued expansion of mining operations, weak environmental regulation of the sector, and opposition to policies that would reduce mining activity or impose windfall profit taxes. The West Australian covers all of these policy areas. It is the only major daily newspaper in a state where these are the dominant political and economic issues."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**Beach Energy versus climate and gas policy.** SGH holds a 30 per cent stake in Beach Energy, an oil and gas producer. Beach Energy’s profitability depends on favourable gas prices, continued gas exploration and production approvals, and opposition to policies that would accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. When Seven Network’s news coverage or The West Australian covers gas policy, LNG export restrictions, the extension of gas field licences, or climate targets, it is covering territory with a direct line to Beach Energy’s bottom line."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In February 2023, the conflict between Stokes’ media and energy interests and the businesses they cover became a matter of formal public record."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries (the green energy arm of his Fortescue Metals Group) had ended a long-standing equipment supply arrangement with WesTrac. Fortescue was shifting toward green hydrogen and electrification of its mining fleet. WesTrac sells fossil-fuel-powered Caterpillar equipment."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"What followed, Fortescue alleged, was coordinated negative coverage in The West Australian targeting Fortescue’s green energy operations."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Fortescue’s CEO, Mark Hutchinson, formally complained to federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland. In a letter to the Minister, Hutchinson described what he called ‘the misuse of the West Australian newspaper to pursue commercial interests’."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The West’s coverage has gone far beyond fair scrutiny and is clearly driven by fossil fuel interests with the aim of damaging Fortescue’s green energy mission.","x":"Mark Hutchinson","src":"CEO, Fortescue Future Industries"},{"a":48,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The complaint pointed to a fundamental problem: Perth has no alternative major daily newspaper. If The West Australian is systematically covering Fortescue in a way shaped by its owner’s commercial interests, there is no competing masthead to provide balance or a different account."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Ben Roberts-Smith was, for a period, one of the most celebrated figures in Australian public life: a Victoria Cross recipient, former SAS soldier, and widely described as the country’s most decorated living soldier. Kerry Stokes employed him at Seven Queensland from 2015."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Starting in 2018, journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald published a series of articles alleging Roberts-Smith had committed war crimes during his deployments to Afghanistan, including the unlawful killing of unarmed civilians and prisoners."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Roberts-Smith launched defamation proceedings against the three newspapers in January 2019. Kerry Stokes chose to fund the case. Seven Network and his private company ACE entered into loan agreements with Roberts-Smith that included terms giving their lawyers ‘oversight and management’ of the defamation proceedings."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In June 2023, after a 110-day hearing, Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko dismissed Roberts-Smith’s defamation case, finding the war crimes allegations, including murder, had been proven on the balance of probabilities. ACE alone was ordered to pay **A$13,270,950** to the media respondents. Total legal costs for all parties were estimated at well above A$25 million."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"f","x":"A$13.27M","t":"in costs ordered against ACE alone. Stokes used his private company to bankroll a defamation case against a commercial rival, with his lawyers given direct oversight of the litigation.","src":"Federal Court of Australia"},{"a":48,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The case reveals how Stokes operates: he used his private company to bankroll a defamation case against newspapers owned by a commercial rival (Nine Entertainment) with his lawyers having direct oversight of the litigation. The case involved allegations of war crimes, a matter of profound public interest."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"When the Afghan Files, which first exposed potential war crimes by Australian soldiers, triggered federal police raids on the ABC in 2019, Stokes’ The West Australian ran a short story on page six. Seven West Media was the only major news organisation not at the subsequent Perth press freedom rally."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"As Michael West Media has documented in detail, Stokes controls his vast business empire through what it terms ‘Dark Companies’: private holding structures that are exempt from normal ASIC financial disclosure requirements under a grandfathering provision in the First Corporate Law Simplification Act 1995."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Under this provision, large private companies incorporated before 1995 and meeting certain criteria are not required to lodge financial accounts with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Their revenue, profits, liabilities, and financial arrangements are not publicly available."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Australian Capital Equity, the private company through which Stokes controls SGH and which funded Roberts-Smith’s legal case, is one of these Dark Companies. The full extent of its financial interests, loan arrangements, and commercial relationships is not publicly known."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In a functioning democracy, the owner of the only major newspaper in a city of two million people, and a television network reaching 98 per cent of the population, should have transparent finances. In Australia, the law created in 1995 means he doesn’t have to."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Perth’s mayor said it plainly in 2022. Western Australia is Australia’s most resource-dependent state economy. Iron ore, liquefied natural gas, lithium, gold, and nickel drive its budget and employment. The decisions made in Canberra and in Perth about mining approvals, royalties, environmental regulation, and energy transition policy are among the most consequential in the country."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"In that state, there is one major daily newspaper. Its owner holds a 30% stake in a gas producer, runs the dominant Caterpillar dealership supplying the iron ore industry, and controls a satellite network through which Sky News reaches regional communities often without alternative broadcast news sources."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"When WA politicians consider environmental regulation of the Pilbara, or gas royalty reform, or a windfall resources tax, they do so knowing that the only major newspaper in their city is owned by a man with direct financial interests in the outcome of those decisions."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The subtitle of this article and the second paragraph of this section said Seven Group Holdings held the largest stake in an oil and gas company, and the largest single stake in a gas producer. We have no source for “largest”: Seven Group states only that it holds a 30% interest in Beach Energy on its own Beach Energy page, so both lines now say a 30% stake."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Kerry Stokes is, by most accounts, a self-made man. His personal story (adopted from an orphanage, left school at 14, built a fortune from nothing) is genuine and remarkable. This article is not about him personally."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"It is about a structural arrangement in which one of the most consequential industrial conglomerates in Australia, with direct financial interests in mining equipment, oil and gas, and construction, also controls the primary source of news for the state most dependent on those industries."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The residents of Perth are not told this clearly when they pick up The West Australian. Viewers of Channel Seven are not informed during the news bulletin."},{"a":48,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Kerry Stokes does not just own your news. He owns the machines that dig the mines your news is afraid to scrutinise."},{"a":49,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"News Corp holds 62 per cent of REA Group, whose realestate.com.au earns from property listings, while News Corp’s papers cover the housing policy that shapes that market.","r":[16]},{"a":49,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"REA entered the mortgage market in 2016 and in October 2024 bought a 19.9 per cent stake in Athena Home Loans.","r":[4]},{"a":49,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Nine held a 60.1 per cent stake in Domain while its SMH and The Age covered housing, until a sale to CoStar completed in August 2025.","r":[11,6]},{"a":49,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Negative gearing and the capital gains discount will cost an estimated A$181.2 billion over the decade to 2034-35; on a separate PBO analysis, 67 per cent goes to the top 20 per cent of earners.","r":[9,14,10]},{"a":49,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Sydney is the second most expensive housing market in the world. Not by a little. By a median multiple of 13.8, meaning the median house costs nearly 14 times the median annual household income. Only Hong Kong is worse. Only 10 per cent of Sydney median income households can currently afford to buy a home. Three years ago it was 43 per cent. National rents rose 55 per cent since the start of 2020, adding nearly A$12,000 to the annual cost of renting the median property, according to a report published by REA Group itself. REA Group. The same company that publishes that report also owns realestate.com.au, the platform that profits from every listing in that overheated market. And it is majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia has a median price-to-income ratio of 8.2, placing it in the ‘Severely Unaffordable’ category according to Demographia International Housing Affordability. Four major Australian cities (Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane) are rated ‘Impossibly Unaffordable’ with median multiples above 9."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Sydney’s median house price reached approximately A$1.75 million by late 2025, in a city where the median household income is approximately A$126,000. A household needs to earn around A$280,000 a year to afford the median Sydney home."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Home values surged approximately 47 per cent since March 2020, adding roughly A$280,000 to the median dwelling value. The cost of servicing a new mortgage now sits at 45 per cent of household income, well above the 30 per cent ‘housing stress’ threshold."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$181.2B","t":"in revenue forgone over the decade to 2034-35 through negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.","src":"Updated Parliamentary Budget Office figures, reported by The Nightly [14]"},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A separate PBO analysis, released by Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, costed the two concessions for residential property investors at A$165 billion over the decade to 2033-34 and found that 67 per cent of the benefit goes to the top 20 per cent of income earners. [10] Another PBO analysis, commissioned by the Greens-led Senate committee on the capital gains tax discount, found the richest 1 per cent of income earners get 59 per cent of the benefit of that discount alone. [15]","r":[10,15]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That last figure is worth reading again. Australia will forgo an estimated A$181.2 billion in revenue over the decade to 2034-35 to subsidise property investment, on updated Parliamentary Budget Office figures. [14] Most of that subsidy flows to the wealthiest Australians. And the media companies best placed to campaign against this arrangement are the ones whose platforms profit from the property market it inflates.","r":[14]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said negative gearing and the capital gains discount cost A$21.8 billion a year, of which the richest 1 per cent received A$12.9 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Office costing this article cites does not give a A$21.8 billion annual figure; it puts the cost at A$181.2 billion over the decade to 2034-35. The section now uses that figure, and the A$12.9 billion figure, which was derived from the A$21.8 billion one, has been removed."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026 (second). The fact box and the paragraph after it applied the 59 per cent share to the A$181.2 billion figure. The share comes from a separate PBO analysis, released by Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, which costed the two concessions at A$165 billion over a decade. Both now say which analysis each figure comes from. A further check showed the 59 per cent share is not from that A$165 billion analysis either: it is from another PBO analysis, commissioned by the Greens-led Senate committee on the capital gains tax discount, and covers that discount alone [15]. The A$165 billion analysis found 56 per cent of the two concessions goes to the top 10 per cent of earners [10]. The paragraph now gives each figure with its own source, and the A$181.2 billion estimate is also cited to The Nightly's report of the updated PBO figures [14].","r":[15,10,14]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The A$181.2 billion ten-year estimate is now cited to The Nightly's report of updated Parliamentary Budget Office figures [14]. The PBO's July 2024 release [9], which this article previously gave as the source, publishes annual estimates rather than that total, and its reference now says so.","r":[14,9]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section and the summary said the A$165 billion analysis found 56 per cent of the benefit goes to the top 10 per cent of earners. The source [10] gives 67 per cent to the top 20 per cent and no top 10 per cent share; both now give that figure.","r":[10]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"REA Group was founded in 1995 and listed on the ASX. News Corp holds a controlling stake in it, a 62.0 per cent interest at 30 June 2026. REA’s market capitalisation reached approximately A$30 to A$35 billion in 2024."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"realestate.com.au now claims average traffic of 11.9 million viewers per month and approximately **85 per cent market share** in residential property listings, roughly four times the size of its nearest rival, Domain. No other platform comes close. REA is the Australian property market’s tollgate."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In 2016, REA Group entered the mortgage market through a partnership with National Australia Bank. In 2017, it purchased mortgage brokerages, allowing it to earn fees when users of realestate.com.au took out home loans through its platform. The site was redesigned to embed a mortgage portal, directing 11.9 million monthly users toward lending through REA’s own channels."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In October 2024, REA Group went further: it purchased a 19.9 per cent stake in Athena Home Loans, a digital non-bank lender. REA now profits directly from mortgages offered through Mortgage Choice, its mortgage broking brand, to users who found their property on realestate.com.au."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"q","t":"News Corp, a foreign-owned media company, now has a direct stake in framing the Australian housing narrative and influencing policy, while profiting through its property platform from listings, data, and its own mortgages.","x":"The Conversation","src":"February 2026"},{"a":49,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Consider what News Corp now earns from a single Australian trying to buy a home. When they search for properties: REA Group listing fees. When they read about housing policy: advertising revenue from News Corp papers. When they apply for a mortgage through realestate.com.au: Mortgage Choice brokerage fees. When they provide their financial data to access REA’s tools: data monetisation."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section and the summary said News Corp owned approximately 61 per cent of REA Group, which we could not source. News Corp’s annual report for the year to 30 June 2026 gives a 62.0 per cent interest in REA Group [16], so the section, the summary, the chart and the key facts now say 62 per cent, and the claim about when the stake was acquired is removed because we have no source for it. The section also did not say that Mortgage Choice belongs to REA. The same report describes mortgage broking as REA Group’s business under its Mortgage Choice brand [16], and the paragraph and the chart now say so.","r":[16]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Nine Entertainment’s relationship with the property market was structurally identical to News Corp’s, though it has now been partially resolved by the sale of Domain."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"When Nine merged with Fairfax Media in 2018 it inherited Domain Group, Fairfax’s property listings platform and realestate.com.au’s main competitor. For seven years, Nine’s journalists at the SMH and The Age investigated and reported on the housing affordability crisis, negative gearing, developer accountability, and property policy reform, while their employer collected listing fees on every property advertised on Domain.com.au."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In May 2025, Nine announced it had agreed to sell its 60.1 per cent stake in Domain to American property data company CoStar Group, in a deal valuing Domain at A$3 billion. Nine received approximately A$1.4 billion for its stake. The transaction completed in August 2025."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On its face, this resolves the most acute conflict. But for the seven years that Nine owned both the SMH, The Age, and Domain simultaneously, how did that ownership shape coverage? Were stories about reforming negative gearing, which would reduce transaction volumes and therefore Domain’s revenue, treated with the same editorial freedom as stories that didn’t threaten the parent company’s balance sheet?"},{"a":49,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Consider some of the stories about housing policy that received persistent, prominent coverage in News Corp publications. Coverage framing housing undersupply as the primary cause of the crisis, while rarely examining the role of negative gearing. Extensive promotion of first home buyer grants and deposit schemes, which multiple economists have documented as primarily inflating prices. Coverage of foreign buyers as a primary driver of unaffordability, while economists consistently find this is not a major factor."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"And consider what received less sustained treatment. The estimated A$181.2 billion ten-year cost of negative gearing and the capital gains discount [14], and specifically who benefits. The structural conflict between News Corp owning realestate.com.au and covering housing affordability. REA Group’s expansion into mortgage broking and lending; a February 2026 Conversation article described this as having ‘until now, escaped attention’.","r":[14]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"None of this proves editorial interference. What it shows is that the topics most inconvenient to the owners’ financial interests consistently received less sustained investigative coverage than the topics that did not threaten those interests. That is how structural conflict of interest works."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section described a A$21.8 billion annual cost of negative gearing and the capital gains discount. It now gives the Parliamentary Budget Office’s estimate of A$181.2 billion over the decade to 2034-35, the figure in the source this article cites."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The A$181.2 billion ten-year estimate is now cited to The Nightly's report of updated Parliamentary Budget Office figures [14]. The PBO's July 2024 release [9], which this article previously gave as the source, publishes annual estimates rather than that total, and its reference now says so.","r":[14,9]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The single most discussed housing reform in Australia over the past decade has been negative gearing: the tax concession that allows property investors to write off losses on their rental properties against their overall income."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Multiple independent economists, the IMF, the Grattan Institute, and the Parliamentary Budget Office have found that negative gearing contributes to housing unaffordability by incentivising speculative property investment, inflating prices, and removing properties from the stock available to owner-occupiers."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Labor took a policy to the 2019 federal election to limit negative gearing. It lost. After that loss, and after a second defeat in 2022, Labor quietly dropped the policy."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"What role did Australia’s property-platform-owning media conglomerates play in framing the debate around negative gearing reform? News Corp’s papers, whose parent company controls Australia’s dominant property listings platform, were not advocates for reform. Nine’s papers, whose parent company held a 60 per cent stake in Domain, were not leading the charge either."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The negative gearing and capital gains discount subsidy, an estimated A$181.2 billion over the decade to 2034-35 [14], overwhelmingly benefits the property investors who generate the transactions that power both REA and Domain. The outcome of the 2019 and 2022 elections ensured negative gearing survived. Australian housing affordability continued its record deterioration. REA Group’s revenue continued growing.","r":[14]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section put the negative gearing and capital gains discount subsidy at A$21.8 billion annually. It now gives the Parliamentary Budget Office’s estimate of A$181.2 billion over the decade to 2034-35, the figure in the source this article cites."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The A$181.2 billion ten-year estimate is now cited to The Nightly's report of updated Parliamentary Budget Office figures [14]. The PBO's July 2024 release [9], which this article previously gave as the source, publishes annual estimates rather than that total, and its reference now says so.","r":[14,9]},{"a":49,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"realestate.com.au embeds financial profiling tools throughout its platform. Users searching for properties routinely enter their income, savings, desired loan size, current rental costs, and financial situation into calculators and profile tools. As the platform with approximately 85 per cent market share in residential searches, it captures this data from the overwhelming majority of Australians actively looking to buy or rent."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This financial data (11.9 million monthly users worth) is an extraordinarily valuable asset. It can be used to target mortgage products, to inform REA’s own lending services through Mortgage Choice and Athena, to sell to advertisers, and to inform News Corp’s own data partnerships."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Australians using realestate.com.au to search for somewhere to live are, knowingly or not, providing their financial profile to a Murdoch-controlled company that also publishes the news they read about housing policy. No disclosure is made to users about how their financial data may interact with the editorial decisions of News Corp’s journalism properties."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Australia is in the middle of a housing affordability crisis that is genuinely damaging millions of lives. Young Australians are locked out of home ownership. Renters face costs consuming a third of their income. The gap between the housing haves and have-nots is widening at a pace not seen since Federation."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The media organisations best placed to investigate the structural causes of this crisis (negative gearing, investor tax subsidies, the failure of successive governments to reform the tax treatment of property) are the ones with the most to gain from the market conditions that created the crisis."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"News Corp controls both the newspapers that cover housing policy and the platform that earns listing fees, mortgage fees, and data revenue from the market those policies shape. Nine Entertainment covered the housing crisis for seven years while holding a sixty per cent stake in the second-largest property listings platform."},{"a":49,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"This is the rort. Not a conspiracy. A structural arrangement in which the financial interests of media owners are so deeply entangled with the housing market that independent coverage of that market is, at minimum, compromised."},{"a":50,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"News Corp’s Sky News broadcasts free-to-air on regional spectrum as Sky News Regional, under an agreement with Network 10 renewed in July 2025.","r":[2]},{"a":50,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"More than three million regional Australians watched Sky News Regional in 2024, and its average audience grew 23 per cent year-on-year.","r":[2,3]},{"a":50,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Sky News Regional launched on 1 August 2021, the day YouTube suspended Sky News Australia for a week over COVID-19 misinformation.","r":[4,1]},{"a":50,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"In June 2022 the Institute for Strategic Dialogue called it a key ‘content hub’ for climate deniers. It is to be rebranded News24 as the Sky brand licence expires.","r":[6,9]},{"a":50,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"If you live in Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane, Sky News Australia costs you money. It sits behind the Foxtel paywall, a subscription channel that, in primetime, runs opinions from Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin, Chris Kenny, and Paul Murray. If you live in regional New South Wales, Victoria, or Queensland (in Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, Ballarat, Toowoomba, or hundreds of smaller communities) Sky News Australia is on your television right now, for free, on Channel 56. In many of these areas, it is the only commercial 24-hour news channel on free-to-air television; the other free 24-hour news channel is the ABC's. In 2024, more than three million Australians in regional areas watched Sky News Regional. The channel’s average audience grew 23 per cent year-on-year."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Sky News Australia launched on 19 February 1996 as a joint venture between British Sky Broadcasting, Seven Network, and Nine Entertainment, each holding a 33 per cent stake. For its first two decades it operated as a relatively conventional rolling news service."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In December 2016, News Corp Australia acquired the channel outright. What followed was a significant editorial transformation. The daytime programming retains a broadly conventional news format. But from 5pm, the channel switches to what it describes as ‘opinion programming’: a primetime lineup built around commentators who have, between them, promoted climate change denial, COVID vaccine misinformation, conspiracy theories, and far-right content."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"**Andrew Bolt.** Australia’s most prominent climate science denier, who has had a racial discrimination finding upheld against him under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. **Peta Credlin.** Former chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who promoted false claims about the Uluru Statement during the 2023 Voice Referendum; claims debunked by RMIT FactLab. **Chris Kenny.** Former adviser to Liberal minister Alexander Downer. **Paul Murray.** Host of Paul Murray Live, now in its fifteenth year."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"These are not news programs. They are opinion programs. Sky News Australia’s own press releases describe them as ‘opinion’. The distinction matters enormously when we discuss how this content reaches regional Australians, because they may not be making that distinction themselves."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This article said that in many regional areas Sky News Regional is the only dedicated 24-hour news channel on free-to-air television, and \"not one of several news options\". That was wrong: the ABC's 24-hour News channel is also free-to-air across regional Australia. Sky News Regional is the only commercial one. The opening and this section now say so. The opening also said access to Sky News behind the Foxtel paywall costs \"$25 a month minimum\"; we could not find a reliable source for that figure, and Foxtel prices and packages have changed, so it has been removed."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Sky News Regional, the free-to-air version, launched on 1 August 2021. The timing was remarkable: it launched on exactly the same day that YouTube suspended Sky News Australia’s channel for one week for posting COVID-19 misinformation."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"While Sky News was being sanctioned by a global technology platform for content it described as posing a ‘serious risk of egregious harm’, it was simultaneously rolling out a free broadcast service to millions of regional Australians with no subscription barrier, no parental controls, and no competing alternative on the same spectrum."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In July 2025, Sky News and Network 10 signed a new multi-year agreement to continue the service. The channel now broadcasts free on Channel 56 across regional Victoria, southern NSW, and Queensland, and Channel 53 in northern NSW and the Gold Coast."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In Sydney, a viewer dissatisfied with Sky News can choose from multiple free-to-air news services, paid streaming platforms, and a wide range of digital outlets. The ABC’s services are strong, local newspapers still operate, and internet access to national and international journalism is generally reliable."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In many regional and rural communities, the media ecosystem is thinner. Local newspapers have been hollowed out over two decades of consolidation. Regional television newsrooms have been gutted. Internet access, particularly in more remote areas, is slower and more expensive."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Into this information gap, Sky News Regional has positioned itself as ‘an essential news service for regional Australians’, the words of Sky News Australia Chief Executive Paul Whittaker. The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, carrying a primetime lineup of News Corp opinion programming to communities that, in many cases, have no comparable free alternative."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**COVID misinformation.** On 1 August 2021, YouTube suspended Sky News Australia for one week for posting videos that violated its COVID-19 misinformation policies. YouTube said the content posed a ‘serious risk of egregious harm in contradiction with local and global health authority guidance’. Multiple Sky segments questioned the existence of the pandemic and promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as treatments."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**Climate misinformation: a global hub.** In June 2022, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a British thinktank focused on disinformation research, found that Sky News Australia was a key ‘content hub’ for climate science deniers and delayers globally. The ISD described Sky News Australia as having a ‘disproportionate contribution to global climate misinformation’."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"One example cited: a tweet from Canadian climate denier Patrick Moore promoting a Sky News segment (in which then-host Alan Jones described youth climate activists as ‘selfish, badly educated virtue-signalling little turds’) was retweeted 16,000 times. Sky News content was functioning as source material for international climate denial networks."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**Far-right platforming.** In August 2018, Sky News Australia gave a platform to Blair Cottrell, the leader of United Patriots Front (a far-right neo-Nazi organisation), in a one-to-one discussion about immigration. In December 2020, host Rowan Dean promoted the Great Reset conspiracy theory. In February 2021, American far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones used Sky News segments to support his claims."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"There is a profound irony at the heart of the Sky News Regional model. The audiences most exposed to its content are the audiences with the least capacity to contextualise or counterbalance it."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Regional Australians generally have lower digital literacy rates, higher rates of internet access poverty, lower media plurality, and, crucially, greater reliance on free-to-air television as their primary news source. They are also, as a cohort, more likely to vote in closely contested regional electorates that determine federal election outcomes."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A Sydney viewer who encounters a Bolt segment on climate change has immediate access to counterpoint: the ABC, the Guardian, SMH, The Age, SBS News. A viewer in Griffith, Tamworth, Ballarat, or Bundaberg, watching the same segment on their free-to-air television, may not have that context. They may be watching because it is the only news channel available."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The geographic overlap between Sky News Regional’s broadcast footprint and Australia’s most marginal regional electorates is not a coincidence of map-reading."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In February 2026, News Corp Australia announced that Sky News Australia would be rebranded as ‘News24’ by the end of the year. The reason: the brand licensing agreement with Sky Limited (the UK company that originally owned the Sky News name) is expiring and will not be renewed."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The reason Sky Limited will not renew is instructive. Sky News in the United Kingdom is owned by Comcast and operates under British broadcasting regulations that require impartial news coverage. Sky News Australia, since its acquisition by News Corp, has increasingly broadcast conservative opinion content. The editorial directions have diverged so far that the UK parent no longer wants its brand on the Australian product."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Read that again. The UK company that originally launched Sky News, a company that must meet legally enforceable impartiality standards under British broadcasting law, has decided it no longer wants to be associated with what Sky News Australia has become."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The rebrand to News24 will do nothing to change the content. It will simply give a News Corp opinion channel a name that sounds more like a news service."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Sky News Australia is, in Australian cities, an expensive opinion channel for politically engaged conservatives. That is a legitimate product in a media market. People are entitled to pay for content that reflects their views."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Sky News Regional is something different. It is a free-to-air channel, broadcasting on public spectrum to communities with limited media alternatives as their primary dedicated news service, that has been found by independent researchers to be a global hub for climate misinformation and by the world’s largest video platform to be distributing content posing a risk of real-world public health harm."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The UK company whose name it carries has decided it no longer wants its brand associated with the Australian product’s editorial direction. It will soon be rebranded as News24, a name designed to sound like news, worn by a product that its own heritage organisation considers too far from journalism to share a name with."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Three million regional Australians will keep watching it. Most of them will not know any of this."},{"a":50,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"That is the regional capture. And that is The Rort’s job to say plainly."},{"a":51,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Former ministers can lobby on matters they handled after just 18 months, and the rule does not cover media roles or board seats. The Centre for Public Integrity recommends five years.","r":[10]},{"a":51,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Helen Coonan, the Communications Minister behind the 2006 media ownership law, later became a regular presenter on News Corp’s Sky News Australia.","r":[1]},{"a":51,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Peter Tonagh went from CEO of News Corp Australia, Foxtel and REA Group to the ABC Board, then the Nine board.","r":[7]},{"a":51,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Hugh Marks hosted a $10,000-a-head Liberal Party fundraiser while Nine’s CEO, and was appointed ABC Managing Director in December 2024.","r":[9,8]},{"a":51,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"There is a door in Australian public life. It is not a metaphor. It is a documented, traceable, legal arrangement. A politician or senior official spends years, sometimes decades, accumulating knowledge of media regulation, communications policy, and government decision-making. Then they leave public office. Then, after a period that Australian law currently sets at just 18 months for former ministers, that door opens. On the other side are the corporate boardrooms, broadcasting studios, and lobbying firms of the industry they once regulated."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Helen Coonan served as Australia’s Minister for Communications from 2004 to 2007 under the Howard government. In that role, she was personally responsible for the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2006, the legislation that fundamentally restructured Australia’s media ownership landscape."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The law she introduced replaced the previous ownership restrictions with a ‘two out of three’ rule, allowing companies to own two of the three regulated media types in any single market. It also removed the media-specific foreign ownership limits, though foreign investment in media still needed the Treasurer's approval under general foreign investment policy [13]. This was the architecture that enabled the current concentration of Australian media ownership.","r":[13]},{"a":51,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"After leaving the Senate in 2011, Coonan became a regular presenter on Sky News Australia, the channel owned by News Corp. She also became Chair of GRACosway (a lobbying company), Executive Chair of Crown Resorts, and Chair of the Minerals Council of Australia."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Helen Coonan implemented the media ownership law changes that benefited Rupert Murdoch. Afterwards, she became a regular presenter on Murdoch’s Sky News Australia and took multiple corporate roles that depended on her political connections and regulatory knowledge."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the 2006 law scrapped foreign ownership limits entirely. It removed the media-specific foreign ownership limits, but foreign investment in media remained subject to the Treasurer's approval under general foreign investment policy [13]. The paragraph and the timeline now say so.","r":[13]},{"a":51,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said Rupert Murdoch lobbied for the 2006 media ownership changes. We could not find a reliable source for that statement, so it has been removed, as it was from Who owns Australian media on 7 October."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Stephen Conroy served as Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy from 2007 to 2013, responsible for the NBN rollout, the digital television switchover, and media reform legislation."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In February 2010, he was reported to have spent time on holiday with Kerry Stokes, owner of Seven West Media, in the weeks before announcing a A$250 million licence fee rebate for free-to-air television stations."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"After resigning from the Senate in 2016, Conroy became Executive Director of Responsible Wagering Australia (the bookmakers’ lobby), Chair of TG Public Affairs (a lobbying firm), a regular Sky News Australia commentator, and a Foxtel board director from 2025."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Conroy’s appointment to the Foxtel board is particularly notable given that as minister he had direct responsibility for the anti-siphoning regime. He has agreed to recuse himself from A-League broadcast negotiations involving Foxtel due to his role as chair of the Australian Professional Leagues."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Peta Credlin served as Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott from 2013 to 2015, arguably the most powerful unelected position in the country during that period. Abbott was removed by Malcolm Turnbull in September 2015. By May 2016, within months, Credlin had become a Sky News Australia contributor. She now hosts a nightly primetime opinion program."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wrote that News Corp’s decision to employ Credlin at Sky News was ‘consciously giving a powerful platform to a vindictive, vengeful enemy of my government’."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Consciously giving a powerful platform to a vindictive, vengeful enemy of my government.","x":"Malcolm Turnbull","src":"on News Corp hiring his former chief of staff"},{"a":51,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"During the 2023 Voice to Parliament Referendum, Credlin used her Sky News platform to promote a claim that the Uluru Statement from the Heart was not one page but actually twenty-six pages. This claim was fact-checked and debunked by RMIT FactLab. Peer-reviewed research found that Sky News Australia’s Voice coverage constituted political advocacy rather than journalism."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Credlin is also married to Brian Loughnane, the former Federal Director of the Liberal Party of Australia. She is, in the most literal sense, a political operative embedded in a media platform."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Peter Tonagh served as CEO of News Corp Australia, CEO of Foxtel, and CEO of REA Group, all major entities in the News Corp stable."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In 2021, he was appointed to the ABC Board, the body responsible for overseeing Australia’s public broadcaster, whose independence from commercial media interests is central to its statutory purpose."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"He left the ABC Board in late 2024, approximately 18 months before the end of his scheduled term. A week after his departure was reported, his appointment to the Nine Entertainment board was announced. Nine’s chair described his qualifications in terms of his ‘stints as CEO at News Corp, Foxtel and REA Group’."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The sequence is: News Corp, Foxtel, REA Group (News Corp), ABC Board, Nine Entertainment board. The commercial media ecosystem’s senior executives are circulating through the public broadcaster’s governance."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Hugh Marks was Chief Executive Officer of Nine Entertainment from 2015 to 2020. During that period he oversaw the Nine/Fairfax merger, the largest media transaction in Australia in thirty years."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In 2018, while serving as CEO of Nine, Marks hosted a A$10,000-a-head fundraising dinner for the Liberal Party. The guests of honour were then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher. Journalists at the SMH, The Age, and the AFR were, according to The Conversation, shocked by the dinner. Marks subsequently admitted it was a mistake."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In December 2024, he was appointed Managing Director of the ABC, effective from March 2025, for a five-year term. As Managing Director, he is also ex officio editor-in-chief of the ABC. The ABC chair who appointed him is Kim Williams, himself a former CEO of News Limited (later renamed News Corp Australia)."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The CEO of Nine who hosted a $10,000-a-head Liberal Party fundraiser while running Australia’s largest commercial media company now serves as the editor-in-chief of the public broadcaster his company competed against. He was appointed by a chair who is a former News Corp CEO."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Under current Australian law, former Commonwealth ministers must not engage in lobbying activities related to matters they had ‘official dealings’ with for 18 months after leaving office. This period is reduced to 12 months for former ministerial advisers. Members of Parliament who are not ministers are not covered by the restriction at all."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Centre for Public Integrity found: Around 40 per cent of registered third-party lobbyists previously held political roles. The 18-month restriction applies only to matters with which the former minister had ‘official dealings’, a narrow definition. Australia lacks enforceable lobbying legislation. The Lobbying Code of Conduct is not law; it is a voluntary code with minimal sanctions."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Unlike Canada, the United Kingdom, and most comparable democracies, Australia does not require detailed disclosure of lobbying meetings or ministerial diary publications."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The post-employment restriction applies to lobbying activity, but not to media appearances, board appointments, or commentary roles. Former ministers can appear on the channels of companies they regulated within days of leaving office, legally. The Centre recommends extending the cooling-off period to five years."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The structural problem is not that individuals are corrupt. It is that the system creates incentives, relationships, and dependencies that systematically align the interests of regulators with the interests of the regulated, both prospectively and retrospectively."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The minister who changed Australia’s media ownership laws in ways that benefited News Corp became a regular presenter on News Corp’s television channel. The minister who oversaw the regulatory framework governing Foxtel for six years is now a Foxtel board director. The prime minister’s chief political operative became a nightly primetime opinion host on News Corp’s broadcast platform within months of leaving office. A former CEO of News Corp and Foxtel served on the ABC Board before moving to the Nine board. A commercial media CEO who hosted a political fundraiser now runs the ABC."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"None of this required a conspiracy. It required a system in which political power and media power routinely exchange people, and in which the laws governing that exchange are deliberately insufficient to prevent it."},{"a":51,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The mainstream media rarely covers this system in depth. This is not surprising. The mainstream media is the system."},{"a":52,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"In October 2020, **501,876** Australians signed Kevin Rudd’s petition for a royal commission into News Corp, the largest electronic petition ever presented to Parliament.","r":[1]},{"a":52,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"A Senate inquiry report tabled on 9 December 2021 called News Corp ‘Australia’s clearest example of a troubling media monopoly’ and recommended a judicial inquiry with royal commission powers.","r":[2,3]},{"a":52,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In August 2024 the government ‘noted’ every recommendation, saying that given the passage of time a substantive response was ‘no longer appropriate’.","r":[14]},{"a":52,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"As of March 2026 no judicial inquiry has been held. Earlier reform pushes, from the Norris Report in 1981 to Conroy’s 2013 bills, went the same way.","r":[14,7]},{"a":52,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"501,876. That is the number of Australians who signed Kevin Rudd’s parliamentary petition calling for a royal commission into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia. It is the largest electronic petition ever presented to the Australian Parliament. The parliamentary website crashed under the volume of signatures. For comparison: the previous record was 404,538 signatures on a 2019 petition calling on the government to declare a climate emergency. Rudd’s petition beat that by nearly 100,000 people. Half a million Australians. One petition. One clear demand. That was October 2020. It is now March 2026. No royal commission has been held. No judicial inquiry has been conducted. No meaningful reform of media ownership laws has occurred."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Kevin Rudd launched the petition on 12 October 2020. It called on the Australian Parliament to establish a royal commission into ‘the abuse of media monopoly in Australia in particular by the Murdoch media’."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Rudd described News Corp as ‘a cancer, an arrogant cancer on our democracy’. His petition was supported by former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a bipartisan endorsement that reflected how deep the frustration with News Corp’s conduct had run across political lines."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"q","t":"A cancer, an arrogant cancer on our democracy.","x":"Kevin Rudd","src":"on News Corp"},{"a":52,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The petition did not call for the closure of News Corp, the regulation of its content, or any restriction on its right to hold political opinions. It called for a transparent, independent examination of whether the company’s concentration of market power was compatible with a functioning democracy."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"501,876 Australians agreed it should be examined."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The petition’s success triggered a Senate inquiry. In November 2020, the Senate referred an inquiry into media diversity, independence, and reliability to the Environment and Communications References Committee. The inquiry ran throughout 2021."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The committee’s report, tabled on 9 December 2021, was unequivocal. The regulatory environment was ‘weak, fragmented, and inconsistent’ and ‘not fit-for-purpose’. Evidence was ‘overwhelmingly critical of News Corp’s influence’. News Corp was described as ‘Australia’s clearest example of a troubling media monopoly’."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The committee’s primary recommendation was the establishment of a judicial inquiry, with the powers of a royal commission, into media diversity, ownership, and regulation. This was exactly what Rudd’s petition had called for."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Two Coalition senators issued dissenting views. Senator Andrew Bragg called the recommendations ‘reckless’. Rudd’s response: ‘A profound disappointment that Liberal and National senators decided again to jump into bed with Murdoch against the Australian people and against our democracy.’"},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**December 9, 2021.** Senate inquiry report tabled. Recommends judicial inquiry with royal commission powers."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**May 21, 2022.** Federal election. Labor wins under Anthony Albanese. Before the election, Albanese had explicitly committed that Labor would not hold a royal commission into News Corp."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**June 2022.** A formal letter on media diversity was sent to Communications Minister Michelle Rowland. After over a year and repeated reminders, no response was received."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**August 25, 2022.** Albanese, Deputy PM Richard Marles, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are reported to have met with Lachlan Murdoch at News Corp’s Sydney offices, three months after winning. All three refuse to confirm or say what was discussed."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**August 2024.** The Australian Government finally publishes its formal response to the Senate inquiry. Every recommendation (the judicial inquiry, the royal commission powers, the ABC funding protections, the media regulation reform, the independent trust for journalism, every single one) receives the identical response: ‘The Government notes this recommendation. However, given the passage of time since this report was tabled, a substantive Government response is no longer appropriate.’ Two and a half years of silence, followed by a six-page document saying it was too late to respond. [14]","r":[14]},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**May 3, 2025.** Federal election. Labor wins a landslide second term."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"**March 2026.** No judicial inquiry has been held. The Senate committee’s recommendations have not been implemented. The situation remains unchanged."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This timeline listed the August 2024 government response before the August and June 2022 entries. The entries are now in date order; their wording is unchanged."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**1981.** The Norris Report (Victoria) recommended an independent statutory authority to scrutinise newspaper acquisitions. Met ‘indignant opposition from newspaper companies’. Went nowhere."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**1992.** House of Representatives Select Committee on the Print Media examined concentration issues. No meaningful reform."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**2011.** The Finkelstein Review recommended a statutory News Media Council with powers across all news outlets. News Corp attacked it vigorously. Reform abandoned after the government could not secure Senate support."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**2013.** Communications Minister Stephen Conroy introduced six media reform bills. Only two of the least controversial passed."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"**2020–2021.** Kevin Rudd’s petition and the resulting Senate inquiry. Report tabled December 2021. Judicial inquiry recommended. Not implemented."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Five inquiries. Forty years. Each one finding the same thing. Each one recommending some version of the same remedies. Each one going nowhere."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The question is not why News Corp opposes accountability; that is self-evident. The question is why successive governments, of both parties, have consistently failed to act when handed clear evidence and clear public support for reform."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Professor Sally Young of the University of Melbourne: ‘It’s a sad thing that many Australian politicians fear the wrath of that media organization. And it’s a realistic fear to have.’"},{"a":52,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A realistic fear. Not irrational. Not paranoid. A realistic assessment that News Corp has the power, and the demonstrated willingness, to damage politicians who challenge it."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull documented this: News Corp worked to destroy his government when he refused to partner with the Murdochs. His government was indeed destroyed, via a leadership coup that Turnbull said had ‘strong support within News Corp’, a fact Rupert Murdoch later admitted to him directly."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Kim Williams, former CEO of News Limited, put it plainly: ‘News Corp has no influence with the public but an acute influence with politicians.’ The influence works not by persuading voters, but by making politicians fear the organisation."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"q","t":"News Corp has no influence with the public but an acute influence with politicians.","x":"Kim Williams","src":"former CEO of News Limited"},{"a":52,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In August 2022, three months after winning office, Albanese, Marles, and Wong are reported to have met with Lachlan Murdoch at News Corp’s Sydney headquarters. The Communications Minister was not there. No disclosure was made. When asked to confirm or describe what was discussed, all three refused."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A government that had won an election partly on promises of transparency declined to tell Australians what was discussed when its three most senior ministers met with the owner of the country’s most powerful media company."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In May 2023, Albanese met again with News Corp executives to try to persuade them to support the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The meeting was, in effect, a prime minister seeking the permission of a media company to proceed with a constitutional referendum."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"News Corp campaigned against the Voice. The referendum failed. The pattern of accommodation did not prevent News Corp from campaigning against the government’s major policy initiatives. It only ensured the government could not say it had not tried."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**1. Media ownership law reform:** restoring meaningful cross-media ownership restrictions, reducing concentration. This requires legislation that the major parties have consistently refused to pass."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**2. An independent judicial inquiry:** with the power to compel witnesses, examine financial relationships, review editorial practices, and make enforceable recommendations."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**3. A single platform-neutral media regulator:** with oversight over News Corp, Nine, Sky News, and digital platforms under the same standards."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**4. Real-time political transparency:** disclosure of meetings between senior ministers and major media proprietors."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"**5. Extended post-employment restrictions:** five-year cooling-off periods for former ministers, as recommended by the Centre for Public Integrity."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"None of these are radical proposals. Most have been recommended by parliamentary inquiries. Most exist in comparable democracies. None has been implemented in Australia."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"This series, six articles covering media ownership, mining interests, property conflicts, Sky News, the revolving door, and the failure of accountability, has told one story. A story about a democracy in which the institutions that should hold power accountable are substantially owned, influenced, and in some cases staffed by the very power they are supposed to scrutinise."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"501,876 Australians signed a petition. A Senate committee agreed with them. A report was written. Recommendations were made. And nothing happened."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The inaction is not a mystery. It is a consequence of the system this series has described. Politicians fear News Corp. Labor governments accommodate Murdoch. The revolving door ensures that the people who make media policy and the people who profit from media policy share networks, relationships, and ambitions."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"But 501,876 is also the beginning of something. It is evidence that the appetite for accountability exists. It is evidence that when Australians are given a direct mechanism to say ‘this is wrong, investigate it’, they will use it in numbers that crash parliamentary servers."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The problem is not public will. The problem is that the people who would need to act on that will are the same people who sit across the table from Murdoch without disclosing what is said."},{"a":52,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Rort is not a parliamentary petition. It cannot compel royal commissions. What it can do is document, consistently, accurately, and with sources, the structural arrangements this series has described. And it can make sure that when the next inquiry fails to produce action, there is at least a record of why, and who benefited from the inaction."},{"a":53,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The News Bargaining Incentive charges big platforms that do not pay for news, but Treasury’s stated intent was that government would collect no revenue: enough deals offset the charge to zero.","r":[1]},{"a":53,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"By Royal Assent on 26 August 2026 the rate had risen from 2.25 per cent to 2.75 per cent of Australian digital advertising revenue above A$250 million.","r":[5,1]},{"a":53,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"After News Corp and Nine warned of cuts to larger newsrooms, settings were relaxed, yet reporting on the government’s position had the looser levy expected to ‘still raise a similar amount’.","r":[7,3]},{"a":53,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"AI services remain outside the law, and Meta says it is not the platforms’ role “to pay to rescue public-interest journalism”.","r":[9,14]},{"a":53,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The media ownership series closed in March 2026. Five months later, the piece of media policy that actually became law was not a reform of who owns a masthead, but a charge on the platforms that carry, or refuse to carry, Australian news. The News Bargaining Incentive was announced on 12 December 2024, built to close a specific gap: the 2021 News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code produced more than 30 commercial deals between Google, Meta and Australian news businesses, but it could only ever reach a platform that carried news on its service at all. A platform that withdrew news entirely sat outside it."},{"a":53,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The new scheme was designed, on paper, to collect nothing. Treasury's own November 2025 consultation paper states plainly that the intention of the incentive is that the government will collect no revenue from it: a platform that struck enough deals with news businesses could offset its charge down to zero. What moved, repeatedly, over the following nine months, was the price of not doing that: the charge rate, the number of deals required to reach a full offset, and how much of the bill any single deal could wipe out."},{"a":53,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"By Royal Assent on 26 August 2026, the rate had risen twice and the offset had been made harder to reach in full. Before assent, the government's own framing had already shifted too, from an incentive built to raise nothing to one it said would still raise a similar amount to the design it replaced. This is the postscript the series did not have when it closed: not who owns the news, but what a government charges a platform for not paying for it, and what has, and has not, happened since the charge became law."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australia already had a mechanism for this problem, and its limits were well understood before the new scheme was drafted. The News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code commenced on 3 March 2021. It produced deals: the code's own 2022 review counted more than 30 commercial agreements between Google, Meta and Australian news businesses. Treasury's November 2025 consultation paper puts the reported total annual value of those deals, historically, at $200 million to $250 million a year, of which Meta's own deals were estimated at around $70 million. Treasury notes the figure could not be verified because of strict non-disclosure clauses in the deals themselves, and that it had not received anything to indicate the estimate was inaccurate."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That figure describes what the 2021 code delivered while platforms were still striking deals under it. It is not a projection of what the News Bargaining Incentive itself will raise, and this desk does not use it as one."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"3 March 2021","t":"When the 2021 code commenced. It could apply only to a digital platform that carried news on its service; a platform that withdrew news entirely sat outside its reach entirely, which is the specific gap the incentive was built to close.","src":"Treasury, News Bargaining Incentive: Consultation paper, November 2025 [1]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Against that backdrop, the incentive's own stated aim was narrow and, on its face, modest. Treasury's consultation paper is explicit about what the scheme was meant to achieve for the public purse."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"f","x":"$0","t":"The government's stated collection target for the scheme as designed. Treasury's November 2025 consultation paper states: \"The intention of the News Bargaining Incentive (the incentive) is that the Government will collect no revenue from it.\" A platform that does enough of the right deals owes nothing.","src":"Treasury, November 2025 [1]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Treasury's initial modelling, published in the November 2025 consultation paper, proposed a $250 million Australian-revenue threshold and, contingent on a 150 per cent deduction rate, an incentive rate of 2.25 per cent, set so as to \"incentivise deals equivalent to 1.5 per cent of revenue\". At exposure-draft stage, across three bills, the charge (referred to throughout as the \"NMI\") was set at that same 2.25 per cent, imposed on a service group's consolidated revenue attributable to Australia where that revenue exceeded $250 million and the group ran a \"significant\" social media service (more than 5 million average monthly active Australian users) or search service (more than 10 million)."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"By the time the bill reached Parliament, both the rate and the base had moved. As introduced on 13 August 2026, the design was reported as \"Finalized\" at 2.5 per cent of Australian digital advertising revenue only, a considerably narrower base than the exposure draft's broad consolidated-revenue test. The final Act keeps that narrower base: the threshold as enacted is total relevant Australian digital advertising revenue exceeding A$250 million for a group's 12-month financial reporting period, not the broader consolidated-revenue figure the exposure draft had used."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The rate rose again after introduction, and this is where the record gets thin. In the Senate on 20 August 2026, Coalition Senator Sarah Henderson said the original 2.5 per cent design had been raised to 2.75 per cent by a House amendment the previous day, on or about 19 August 2026, which the Coalition agreed to. This desk tried to open Parliament's own Bills Digest, the bill's status page, and Hansard for the House debate on 18 and 19 August directly; all three routes returned access errors. Neither the amendment's mover nor any recorded vote count could be confirmed from a primary source. What is confirmed, from Henderson's own account and corroborated independently by a KPMG tax alert published after assent, is the rate itself."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"2.75%","t":"The incentive rate at Royal Assent: total relevant Australian digital advertising revenue exceeding A$250 million for a group's 12-month financial reporting period, applying from the 2025-26 financial year onward.","src":"KPMG, September 2026 [5]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A third setting moved alongside the rate. The exposure draft's uplift multiplier, for deals with small or medium news businesses, was 170 per cent (150 per cent for other groups); by the time the bill was introduced it had already reached 200 per cent for small and medium businesses, and the final Act keeps it there, at 200 per cent against 150 per cent for larger groups. Two figures, across three dates: the uplift moved from 170 per cent at design stage to 200 per cent as introduced, and stayed at 200 per cent through to the Act."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The final legislative package grew from three bills at exposure draft to five as introduced: the News Media Bargaining Charge Bill 2026, the News Media Bargaining (Administration) Bill 2026, the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media Bargaining) (Consequential) Bill 2026, the News Journalism Payments Bill 2026, and the News Journalism Payments (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2026. All five passed both Houses on 20 August 2026 and received Royal Assent on 26 August 2026. The Administration Bill commences the day after assent, which puts commencement at 27 August 2026."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Mediaweek reported on 12 August 2026, the day before the bill's introduction, that three settings had been relaxed after News Corp and Nine Entertainment Co warned the original design would cut payments to larger newsrooms: the number of publisher deals required for a full offset, the cap on how much of a platform's liability any single deal could offset, and the revenue look-back period used to calculate liability. As introduced on 13 August 2026, the bill required deals with six publishers; the Act as finally passed required eight."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"25%","t":"The cap, as enacted, on how much of a platform's total levy liability a single publisher deal can offset. It had been cut to 16 per cent at an earlier stage of the bill's life; industry warning that the tighter figure would reduce payments to larger newsrooms saw it restored to a quarter before passage.","src":"Mediaweek, 12 August 2026 [7]; Sarah Henderson, 20 August 2026 [6]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The government's own account of the scheme's purpose, through this whole process, stayed consistent even as the numbers moved under it."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That is Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino, on the record, defending a scheme whose settings his own government was simultaneously renegotiating with the industry it was meant to help. Both things can be true at once: a stated purpose that does not change, and a mechanism that does, three times, in the space of nine months."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The platforms named as caught by the charge are Google (Alphabet), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok (ByteDance), and LinkedIn (Microsoft). The Canberra Times reported on 3 August 2026 that these four platforms were named as caught by the charge, whether or not they carry Australian news."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"One category of service is carved out by name: TheNextWeb reported on 20 August 2026 that AI companies remain excluded from the legislation despite training on and summarising the journalism it is meant to fund. The exposure draft's Explanatory Memorandum excludes AI and large-language-model-only services from the definition of a \"search service\", the category that would otherwise bring a platform into scope."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Services provided solely or primarily by large language models are excluded from the definition of internet search engine service. Accordingly, an artificial intelligence service which solely uses a large language model to provide answers to questions or other information would not satisfy the definition of an internet search engine service.","x":"Exposure Draft Explanatory Memorandum","src":"The Treasury / Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 2025 to 2026 [2]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"Zero","t":"The charge on a service that answers questions using only a large language model, under the exposure draft's drafting. AI companies remain outside the scope of the enacted law despite training on, and summarising, the journalism the scheme is meant to fund, as TheNextWeb reported on 20 August 2026.","src":"Exposure Draft Explanatory Memorandum [2]; TheNextWeb, 20 August 2026 [9]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A charge built around a search engine's user count and a social media platform's active-user threshold was never going to reach a chatbot answering a question directly. In the sources opened on 9 September 2026, none suggested that gap has been revisited since assent."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The scheme's design intent, stated by Treasury in November 2025, was for the government to collect no net revenue from the charge at all. Its introduction-day framing, on 13 August 2026, was consistent with that: the government's stated position was that any revenue collected would be returned in full to the Australian news sector through a new News Journalism Payment Scheme, not retained as general revenue. The distribution formula announced that day weights payments by journalist employment, with a 20 per cent loading for regional journalists and small outlets, 5 per cent directed to the Australian Associated Press, and a further 5 per cent for small publisher grants."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The joint media release announcing the bills' introduction, issued by the Hon Anika Wells MP, Minister for Communications, and Dr Daniel Mulino MP, Assistant Treasurer, named no charge rate, no threshold and no dollar figure. Both ministers have separately put the scheme's purpose in their own words: Mulino, that the arrangements are \"appropriate and consistent with all of our obligations\"; Wells, that the government wants \"new journalists\" and \"innovators in this space\", and an incentive \"for that to continue, not to diminish\"."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"f","x":"5%","t":"The share of any money raised through the scheme directed to the Australian Associated Press. Separately, the May 2026 Budget committed a $15 million top-up to AAP, bringing its total federal funding for 2026-27 to $26 million, and allocated a further $21.4 million to the local news industry more broadly. Both Budget figures are separate from, and much smaller than, any estimate of what the charge itself might raise; this desk did not conflate the two.","src":"Mediaweek, 12 August 2026 [7]; Mumbrella, 13 May 2026 [13]; Mediaweek, 13 May 2026 [12]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"That is the design as stated. The framing shifted before the ink was dry on it. By 3 August 2026, ahead of the bill's introduction, reporting on the government's own position described the revised, looser levy as expected to \"still raise a similar amount\" to the original, tighter design, though no specific dollar figure appeared in that reporting. Communications Minister Anika Wells was quoted in the same coverage on a related point: that \"an important change is the doubling of the distribution loading for smaller and regional publishers.\""},{"a":53,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This desk tried to find a primary document that puts a number on either side of that sentence: what the charge is expected to raise, and what is expected to reach the news sector once deals and offsets are accounted for. The Treasury Ministers' own media release gave no figure. The Exposure Draft Explanatory Memorandum's financial impact material did not resolve it. Budget Paper No. 2 for 2026-27 was retrieved but could not be searched down to the specific measure within the scope of this research. No other primary document surfaced one either. What is confirmed, and what this article rests on instead, is the shape of the shift: a scheme designed to collect nothing, promising in the same breath to return everything it does collect, moving within weeks to a government description of itself as still likely to raise a similar amount regardless of how much its own settings had been loosened."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Meta's formal submission to government, made during the consultation period and quoted in trade press on 4 June 2026, opposed the scheme in direct terms."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"q","t":"It is not the role of digital platforms to pay to rescue public-interest journalism.","x":"Meta, submission to government","src":"B&T, 4 June 2026 [14]"},{"a":53,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Meta's submission went further, arguing that the fact a platform can remove news content from its services at all \"is itself evidence that news has negligible commercial value to our platforms\", and that the charge \"operates as a tax on innovation rather than a targeted response to any identified market failure\". Every one of those quotes is dated 4 June 2026, more than two months before the 19 August House amendment and the 26 August assent. No Meta statement dated after assent was found for this article, so these should be read as Meta's reaction to an earlier draft, not to the law as it now stands. Separately, and reported rather than quoted directly from Meta itself, Meta has argued the charge breaches the Australia-United States free trade agreement."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Not every part of the media industry took Meta's position. On 28 April 2026, eight Australian media organisations, the ABC, News Corp Australasia, Network Ten, Southern Cross Media Group, Australian Community Media, Nine Entertainment Co, SBS, and The Guardian Australia, issued a joint statement endorsing the then-draft legislation. Their statement noted that Meta \"has not engaged since withdrawing from previous deals nearly 18 months prior\", while separately acknowledging \"Google's positive approach\", and called on all platforms to participate."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The pushback did not stay domestic. On 1 September 2026, eight members of the United States House of Representatives, Carol D. Miller, Beth Van Duyne, Aaron Bean, Rudy Yakym III, Randy Feenstra, Claudia Tenney, Scott Fitzgerald, and Darin LaHood, signed a letter to United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer calling for a Section 301 investigation into the scheme. This desk's account of that letter comes from Americans for Tax Reform, a US anti-tax advocacy organisation, which published its own report of the letter on 3 September 2026; the letter itself was not opened for this article, so its exact wording should be treated as unverified."},{"a":53,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"As at 9 September 2026, this desk found no report of any new or renewed commercial deal between a covered platform and an Australian news business since the 26 August 2026 assent, and no report of any covered platform announcing an intention to withdraw news from Australia since assent either. Neither absence is proof that no deal or no withdrawal exists, only that none surfaced in the sources opened for this research, conducted two weeks after the law took effect. A scheme built to be worth nothing to a platform that does enough deals has, so far, produced no confirmed deal for anyone to check."},{"a":54,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Developers are to discharge offset obligations by buying Nature Repair certificates or paying a charge into a pooled restoration fund. The clearing happens now; the restoration comes later.","r":[2]},{"a":54,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The entire Nature Repair Market holds three registered projects, all in New South Wales, and has issued zero certificates.","r":[6]},{"a":54,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The 2023 ban on using certificates as offsets, the price of the Act’s passage, was reversed by an Act that received Royal Assent on 1 December 2025.","r":[5,2]},{"a":54,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The department says the remaining reforms commence on or before 1 December 2026, yet on this article’s reading of Clayton Utz’s timelines, offset-capable supply cannot exist before 2027.","r":[7,1,3]},{"a":54,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Three projects. Zero certificates. That is the entire supply side of the market the Commonwealth is about to wire into national environmental approvals."},{"a":54,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Over the next twelve months the government intends to let developers discharge their obligation to make good destroyed habitat by buying units from this market, or by writing a cheque into a fund. This is the story of a demand switch being flicked on above an empty shelf, and of who profits from the gap."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Here is the market, in full. Three projects, all in New South Wales, registered under the Replanting Method. From them, and from everywhere else in the country, the number of biodiversity certificates ever issued is zero."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That is not a slow opening quarter. It is the whole national inventory of the Nature Repair Market, the Commonwealth scheme built to grow habitat that developers can buy to make good the habitat they clear. The market was legislated, the market opened, and almost nothing arrived."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"3 projects · 0 certificates","t":"The Nature Repair Market has three registered projects, all in NSW under the Replanting Method, and has issued no biodiversity certificates.","src":"Clean Energy Regulator, Biodiversity Market Register"},{"a":54,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Hold those two numbers. In the next twelve months the government intends to make this market a place where the right to destroy threatened habitat can be discharged. Three projects. No certificates. A national demand switch about to be flicked on above it."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 9 September 2026. The Clean Energy Regulator's Biodiversity Market Register now lists two registered projects: Cooplacurripa (NR001014, registered 12 August 2025) and Karinya Downs (NR001018, registered 27 May 2026, a separate New South Wales parcel). Both still show certificate status Not issued. See The Rort's follow-up, 'Two paddocks and a deadline,' for the government's own commencement timeline and the restoration contribution channel."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The Clean Energy Regulator's Biodiversity Market Register, which read 'Last updated 2 October 2026' when we read it on 8 October, now lists three registered projects, not two. The third is the Nortongong Biodiversity Restoration Project (NR001016, New South Wales, registered 2 October 2026, under the same Replanting Native Forest and Woodland Ecosystems 2025 method). All three still show certificate status Not issued. The title, subtitle, image caption and image description, lede, figure, brief, key facts, contents list, graphic, the note on reference [1] and reference [6] now say three. So do the heading of this section (which read 'The entire market is two paddocks in New South Wales'), its first paragraph, its fact box, its paragraph beginning 'Hold those two numbers' and the closing line of 'The switch, and who is standing under it'. The 9 September update above stands as the record of that date. The address of this article still reads 'one project'. That was this article's first count, taken from Clayton Utz's May 2026 alert [1]; the address is unchanged so that existing links keep working. See 'Two paddocks and a deadline' for the timeline.","r":[1,6]},{"a":54,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Nature Repair Act only became law in 2023 because of a concession. Certificates from the new market were expressly barred from being used as environmental offsets. That prohibition was the price of passage: without it the numbers were not there, and the market would not have cleared the Senate."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Environment Protection Reform Act 2025 reverses the concession. It amends the framework so that biodiversity certificates issued under the Nature Repair Act can, in time, be used to offset impacts under national environmental law. The Act passed both Houses in late November 2025 and received Royal Assent on 1 December 2025."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Royal Assent 1 December 2025","t":"The Environment Protection Reform Act 2025 (Cth) received Royal Assent on 1 December 2025, enabling Nature Repair certificates to be used for EPBC offsetting.","src":"MinterEllison, 2026"},{"a":54,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Read those two dates together. The exclusion that got the market passed in 2023 is being removed in 2025, before the market it governs has produced a single tradeable unit. The safeguard is gone. The supply never came."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"This is the switch, and it is a timing switch. Under the proposed ENV method, the one designed to make certificates capable of standing in for a real offset, Clayton Utz's May 2026 alert states that a project cannot even apply for certificates until at least five years after it is registered. Clayton Utz's June 2026 analysis adds that the method itself is expected to be finalised only in late 2026. On that timeline, offset-capable supply cannot exist before 2027."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"5 years, then 2027","t":"Under the proposed ENV method, certificate applications cannot be made until at least five years after registration; the method is expected finalised in late 2026. On this article's reading of those dates, offset-capable supply cannot exist before 2027.","src":"Clayton Utz, May 2026 (5-year rule); Clayton Utz, June 2026 (late 2026 timing)"},{"a":54,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Now the demand side. Australia's first National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) commenced on 1 July 2026. DCCEEW's own pages now state, in the department's own words, that all remaining reforms will commence on or before 1 December 2026, a category that includes the provision lifting the ban on using certificates for offsets. So the year in which developers gain a legal pathway to discharge offset obligations with these certificates arrives before the year in which any real certificate can be issued."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"NEPA 1 July 2026 · ban lifts on or before 1 Dec 2026","t":"The National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) commenced 1 July 2026; DCCEEW's own pages state that all remaining reforms, including the provision allowing certificates to be used for offsets, will commence on or before 1 December 2026, as the department's own committed timeline, not a law firm's estimate.","src":"DCCEEW, 24 August 2026"},{"a":54,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A market with a mandate and no stock does one thing reliably. It makes the few units that do appear expensive, and it sends everyone toward the cheaper door."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The fact box in this section and the matching key fact in the sidebar presented the conclusion that offset-capable supply cannot exist before 2027 as if it were Clayton Utz's. Clayton Utz's alerts give the five-year rule and the late 2026 method timing; the 2027 conclusion is this article's reading of those dates, and both now say so."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"That cheaper door has a name in the drafting. It is the restoration contribution. Instead of finding and delivering a like-for-like offset, a proponent can pay a charge to an independent statutory office, the Restoration Contributions Holder, and let it carry the obligation to restore."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Holder pools money from many projects and spends it on restoration it judges will deliver better outcomes, keeping a public register of what it funds. On paper this is tidy. In sequence it is something else. The clearing is approved and happens now. The payment is made now. The restoration is a future action, funded from a pool, delivered by an office at a time of its choosing, if the ecology cooperates."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"f","x":"Pay, then pool","t":"Under the restoration contribution pathway, a proponent can pay a charge (with the approval holder's consent) to the statutory Restoration Contributions Holder, which pools charges to fund general restoration rather than a direct like-for-like offset.","src":"MinterEllison, 2026"},{"a":54,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Act frames the target as 'net gain', defined as measurable improvement for the affected matter against an agreed baseline. But a baseline is a document, and a cheque clears in days. The gain, if it comes, is counted in decades."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"None of this is a watchdog's inference. It is the assessment of the organisations closest to the reform."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Biodiversity Council, whose members helped design the science these markets rest on, says the Nature Repair Market is not fit for the job now being handed to it. It notes, plainly, that the original Bill only passed because certificates were barred from offsetting, and warns against switching that bar off before the market can supply anything real."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"q","t":"The design of the Nature Repair Market is not fit-for-purpose for offset delivery.","x":"Biodiversity Council Australia, submission","src":"Biodiversity Council, May 2026"},{"a":54,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"It has a phrase for the sequencing: building the plane while flying it. The Environmental Defenders Office, in its submission on the draft Offsets Standard dated 25 May 2026, is blunter about where the framework leads."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Business-as-usual will continue under the guise of compensating for impacts, further entrenching environmental decline.","x":"Environmental Defenders Office, submission","src":"EDO, 25 May 2026"},{"a":54,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Note who is not saying this. The critique of a pay-to-clear pathway belongs to these submissions, in their own words. It is not a line from a corporate law firm's client alert, and we will not dress it up as one. The advocates said it. We are quoting them."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Strip the acronyms away and the mechanism is simple. A 'net gain' promise has been turned into a cheap, near-immediate compliance instrument: a certificate from an empty market, or a cheque into a pooled fund. Either way the habitat can be cleared now. The restoration is deferred for years, and some of it will never land."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Who gains is not a mystery. Property, mining and infrastructure proponents get a faster, cheaper way to clear. First-mover developers, brokers and aggregators holding the first offset-capable certificates get to sell scarcity into a demand the government has legislated into being. Around every compliance market grows an advisory layer that lives off the plumbing: accounting and audit firms, strategy consultancies, forensic and restructuring advisers. We name no particular firm as engaged in this scheme; the point is structural. They do not need the trees to grow. They need the instruments to trade."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Who pays is not a mystery either. The threatened species and ecological communities cleared today against a restoration that is delayed or unproven. And you, the public, who lose the biodiversity, fund the rollout, and stand behind any shortfall in the fund. This is Regulatory Capture without a smoke-filled room: a market designed so the safeguard is optional and the extraction is automatic. The Revolving Door did not need to turn. The rules did the work."},{"a":54,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Three projects. Zero certificates. A national approval system about to accept them as payment. The government led by Anthony Albanese calls it net gain. Read the sequence, and it is a licence to clear now and restore later, with 'later' left undefined."},{"a":55,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"In DCCEEW’s own words, the four National Environmental Standards bind no approval decision until the new tests commence, “on or before 1 December 2026”.","r":[1]},{"a":55,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The market meant to supply offsets by then held two registered projects on 9 September 2026 and three on the register's 2 October update, with zero biodiversity certificates issued.","r":[5,14]},{"a":55,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The ENV method that would turn certificates into offsets is still being developed. The pay-instead channel has an empowered minister but no appointee found and no published charge rate.","r":[6,4,1]},{"a":55,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Approvals keep moving: on 21 August 2026 ministers announced the 100th residential development cleared, covering more than 80,000 homes, without mentioning offsets.","r":[9]},{"a":55,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's own website, in the department's own words, the four National Environmental Standards \"will not apply to assessments and approval decisions until the new approval tests commence.\" The same sentence continues: \"This will happen on or before 1 December 2026.\" That is not this desk's characterisation of the reform. It is DCCEEW's, published on a page last updated 24 August 2026."},{"a":55,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Between now and that date, the market meant to supply the offsets those approval tests will demand held two registered projects and had issued zero biodiversity certificates on 9 September 2026; the register's 2 October update lists three projects, still with none issued. No method yet exists to turn the output of any of these projects into something a developer can buy to offset cleared habitat. The one channel available immediately, a payment to a statutory Restoration Contributions Holder, has had an empowered minister since 24 August 2026 and an advisory committee to support the role, and nothing else: no appointee, no published charge rate."},{"a":55,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"None of this has slowed approvals. On 21 August 2026 two ministers announced the 100th residential development cleared under national environmental law under this government to date, covering more than 80,000 homes. The release does not mention an offset channel. On the record searched for this article, none of the approvals it counts appears to have used one."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"None of the dates in this sequence come from a leaked memo or a freedom of information release. DCCEEW lays the whole staged commencement out on a public page, last updated 24 August 2026, in a single unbroken sequence."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"q","t":"Tranche 1 of the reforms commenced on 20 February 2026. The National Environmental Protection Agency commenced on 1 July 2026. The first 4 National Environment Standards were made on 19 August 2026. All remaining reforms will commence on or before 1 December 2026.","x":"DCCEEW, \"Stronger environmental protection and restoration\" (last updated 24 August 2026)"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Two Acts made this sequence possible. The Environment Protection Reform Act 2025 and the National Environmental Protection Agency Act 2025 both received Royal Assent on 1 December 2025, according to the Federal Register of Legislation's own details pages for each instrument. Read against DCCEEW's \"on or before 1 December 2026\" commitment, the whole reform now runs on almost exactly a one year clock, from assent to full application."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"1 Dec 2025 to on or before 1 Dec 2026","t":"Both founding Acts, the Environment Protection Reform Act 2025 and the National Environmental Protection Agency Act 2025, received Royal Assent on 1 December 2025. All remaining reforms, including full application of the Environmental Offsets Standard, are due on or before 1 December 2026.","src":"Federal Register of Legislation; DCCEEW, 24 August 2026"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The exact wording matters because two other DCCEEW pages say something close but not identical. The standards page, updated 21 August 2026, states the Standards \"will not apply to assessments and approval decisions until the new approval tests start.\" A DCCEEW news article of 24 August 2026 says they \"will not apply to assessments and approval decisions made by the Commonwealth, including the National EPA, yet.\" All three pages agree on the substance and on the date. Only the sentence quoted above, from the reform overview page, matches the wording this desk was asked to check word for word."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"DCCEEW's own material never numbers the 24 August 2026 wave. Its site numbers only the 20 February 2026 wave as \"Tranche 1\"; the 1 July and 24 August waves carry dates, not numbers, in DCCEEW's own pages. A law firm's search snippet titles one article \"Tranche 2\" for the 1 July commencement, but that page returned a blocked response in this research and its framing is reported nowhere in this article as confirmed. This article names each wave by its date rather than importing a number DCCEEW itself does not use."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A note on method. This desk's standard fetch tool timed out on every DCCEEW page attempted for this research; a direct request with a browser user agent succeeded on every one of them, and every DCCEEW page cited in this article was retrieved and read that way before any fact was written down."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This desk's article on the Nature Repair Market, published in July 2026, described a single registered project. That was accurate when written. It has not been accurate since 27 May 2026."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"2 projects · 0 certificates","t":"The Nature Repair Market's Clean Energy Regulator register lists two registered projects, Cooplacurripa and Karinya Downs, and has issued no biodiversity certificates from either.","src":"Clean Energy Regulator, 9 September 2026"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Silva Capital Cooplacurripa Biodiversity Project No.1 / NR001014 / Replanting Native Forest and Woodland Ecosystems 2025 / New South Wales / 12/08/2025 / Registered / Not issued. KARINYA DOWNS WET SCLEROPHYLL FOREST AND RAINFOREST RESTORATION / NR001018 / Replanting Native Forest and Woodland Ecosystems 2025 / New South Wales / 27/05/2026 / Registered / Not issued.","x":"Clean Energy Regulator, Biodiversity Market Register, fetched live 9 September 2026"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Karinya Downs is registered under the same Replanting Native Forest and Woodland Ecosystems 2025 method as Cooplacurripa, on a separate parcel in New South Wales. Both projects carry the same certificate status: Not issued. No third project has been registered since 27 May 2026, on the same register fetched live on 9 September 2026."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"One caution belongs here. The register page's own descriptive text is stamped \"Last updated 28 May 2026,\" more than three months before this check. The register table itself is a live, filterable, paginated list, not a static document, and it returned the same two rows on a fresh fetch today. But the stamp has not moved since Karinya Downs registered, and this article treats the two-project, zero-certificate count as current as of 9 September 2026, not as unchanged since May on the strength of that stamp alone."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. The Clean Energy Regulator's register, which read 'Last updated 2 October 2026' when we read it on 8 October, now lists a third registered project: the Nortongong Biodiversity Restoration Project (NR001016, New South Wales, registered 2 October 2026, under the same Replanting Native Forest and Woodland Ecosystems 2025 method). All three projects still show certificate status Not issued. The two-project count above, and the graphic, are the position on 9 September 2026 and are left as the record of that date. [14]","r":[14]},{"a":55,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Even if a third or fourth project registered tomorrow, nothing currently lets a Nature Repair certificate stand in for a real offset. DCCEEW says so itself, in an article dated 28 May 2026."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"A new method, the Enhancing Native Vegetation (ENV) method, is currently being developed. It is expected to be released later this year.","x":"DCCEEW, \"Nature Repair Market gains momentum\" (28 May 2026)"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Note the words precisely. DCCEEW's own article says the ENV method is expected to be released \"later this year,\" from a page dated 28 May 2026. That is consistent with a claim of finalisation in late 2026, but it is not the same sentence, and this article does not put \"late 2026\" in quotation marks as though DCCEEW said it."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The tense is the tell. Is currently being developed. Is expected to be released. Will be able to be used as offsets. Every verb in DCCEEW's own account sits in the future, more than three months after that article published and less than three months before the Standards are meant to bind decisions."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A developer who cannot buy a certificate that does not exist has one other legislated option: pay the government to restore habitat somewhere else, through a statutory Restoration Contributions Holder."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"In August 2026, the minister was able to appoint the Restoration Contribution Holder. The Restoration Contributions Advisory Committee was also set up to support this role. Other parts of the reforms related to the Holder will start by 1 December.","x":"DCCEEW, \"Stronger environmental protection and restoration\" (last updated 24 August 2026)"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A second DCCEEW page dates the power precisely: the minister's ability to appoint a Restoration Contributions Holder to manage restoration contribution funds is listed among the reforms that commenced on 24 August 2026. No name, appointment date or instrument for an actual Holder appears on DCCEEW's site, the National EPA's site, or Minister Murray Watt's media releases through 7 September 2026, the most recent one published at the time of this check. No charge rate for a restoration contribution has been published anywhere searched for this article."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This is a checked absence, not a proof of absence. This research searched DCCEEW's site, the National EPA's site and Minister Watt's media releases; it did not individually search the Federal Register's notifiable instruments or the Government Notices Gazette by name for a Restoration Contributions Holder appointment. A firmer negative, a positive statement that no one has been appointed, would need that search done directly."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"24 August 2026","t":"The date the minister's power to appoint a Restoration Contributions Holder commenced, alongside an advisory committee already set up to support the role. No appointee, and no published charge rate, has been found.","src":"DCCEEW, 24 August 2026"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Project proponents will be able to: deliver an offset themselves through direct delivery, advanced delivery or the Nature Repair Market; pay for the government to do it via a restoration contribution payment; a combination of both.","x":"DCCEEW, \"Stronger environmental protection and restoration\" (last updated 24 August 2026)"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Two of the three channels above lead back to the same empty market described in the last section. The third leads to an office that exists in name only on the public record: an empowered minister and an advisory committee, and no appointee or published charge rate. The same 24 August 2026 commencement also brought partial application of unacceptable impacts provisions, protection statements and stronger penalties and enforcement. Five threatened species have also been named for pilot protection statements: the regent honeyeater, southern bent-wing bat, pygmy blue-tongue lizard, grand spider orchid and southern right whale."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Even the Standard's own birth date is contested by a day or two. DCCEEW's standards page states the four Standards, including the Environmental Offsets Standard, were made on 19 August 2026."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"f","x":"19 · 20 · 21 August 2026","t":"Three official sources give three different dates for when the Environmental Offsets Standard was made. DCCEEW's own wording says 19 August 2026. Minister Watt's media release says the Standards were made \"today\", 20 August 2026. The Federal Register of Legislation, the legally authoritative record, shows the instrument registered and effective 21 August 2026.","src":"DCCEEW; Minister Murray Watt, 20 August 2026; Federal Register of Legislation"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"q","t":"The Albanese Labor Government has today made Australia's first ever National Environmental Standards","x":"Minister Murray Watt, media release (20 August 2026)"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This article uses the Federal Register's 21 August 2026 as the Standard's legal registration and effective date, for the National Environmental Standard (Environmental Offsets) 2026, instrument F2026L01093, administered by DCCEEW and authorised under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Where \"19 August\" appears elsewhere, it is DCCEEW's own wording, not this desk's."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Standard's own table of contents does not name the three offset channels at all. It sets quality principles instead: feasibility, security, tangible, measurable, additionality, like for like, relevant area and timing, applying regardless of which channel a proponent uses. The three channel structure sits in the amended EPBC Act and in DCCEEW's explanatory material, not in the Standard's own clauses; this article cites DCCEEW's explanation as the source for the three channels, not the Standard's text, because the Standard's clause text did not render on a plain fetch of the Federal Register's single page application."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The demand side of national environmental law has not waited for any of the above."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"q","t":"The Albanese Government is supercharging the supply of new homes for Australians, with over 80,000 new homes now given the green light under national environmental law under this government to date. This week the 100th residential housing development has been granted environmental approval to proceed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).","x":"Ministers Watt and O'Neil, joint media release (21 August 2026)"},{"a":55,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Read that release precisely. It is a cumulative count of EPBC approvals \"under this government to date\", delivered by a departmental housing strike team, not a National EPA output count since NEPA commenced on 1 July 2026. It does not name NEPA as the decision maker, does not mention Western Australia, and does not mention offsets, the Nature Repair Market or restoration contributions once. On the record checked for this article, no NEPA or ministerial decision document states that any approval used an offset channel of any kind."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Nothing has moved since. The National EPA's own news feed carried nothing on offsets, NEPA decisions or restoration contribution figures between 1 September and 9 September 2026; its most recent items were a compliance matter about alleged wildlife trafficking, dated 4 September 2026, and the launch of a stakeholder survey on 31 August 2026, closing 30 September 2026 [10]. Minister Watt's most recent release, 7 September 2026, recapped NEPA's creation and the new Standards in general terms and announced no new figure of any kind.","r":[10]},{"a":55,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [10], which pointed to the National EPA's homepage, now points to the agency's news listing and its stakeholder survey release, and its marker has been added to the paragraph that relies on it.","r":[10]},{"a":55,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Two claims in earlier desk notes did not survive this check, and belong on the record as much as anything that did."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The first was that NEPA had been deciding cases \"since 17 July 2026.\" Every source opened for this article, DCCEEW twice, the National EPA's own site, and Minister Watt's media release of 20 February 2026, states NEPA commenced on 1 July 2026. No separate 17 July date exists anywhere this desk could find. This article uses 1 July 2026."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The second was that NEPA approved a Western Australian residential development in its first week. After roughly a dozen search variations across DCCEEW, the National EPA's own news feed, three law firm client alert sites and general news search, no such decision could be found. It does not appear in the National EPA's own list of its latest news. This desk is dropping the claim rather than publishing something it cannot source to an actual decision notice."},{"a":55,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"A third caution concerns money. Two sources found in this research directly contradict each other on the dollar value of the EPBC Act's new penalties, and neither has been checked against the Act's own penalty provisions, which did not render on a plain fetch of the Federal Register's instrument text. This article publishes no penalty figure until that direct check can be done."},{"a":56,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"An invitation-only, non-competitive federal program sent nearly three-quarters of its A$560 million to seats the government already held. Projects did not apply: they were chosen.","r":[2]},{"a":56,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Marrickville Golf Club, in Anthony Albanese's electorate of Grayndler, was promised A$6.05 million and was the only golf club invited for funding under the scheme.","r":[1]},{"a":56,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"On 9 September 2026 Albanese told the House he had been given an honorary membership of the club about 2012, never declared on his register of interests.","r":[1]},{"a":56,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The itemised works add to A$5.55 million, leaving A$500,000 unexplained. This desk's search found no source naming who built the list, and no court, auditor or inquiry finding the fund or grant unlawful.","r":[3]},{"a":56,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 9 September 2026, Parliament put a five-dollar golf club membership to the Prime Minister on the floor of the House of Representatives. Anthony Albanese told MPs he had been advised he held an honorary membership of Marrickville Golf Club, in his own electorate of Grayndler, granted about 2012 and never declared on his register of interests in the thirty years since he entered Parliament in 1996."},{"a":56,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The club was promised A$6.05 million under an invitation-only federal program that sent nearly three-quarters of its A$560 million to the government's own seats, and it was the only golf club invited for funding under the scheme. In this masthead's terms that is a rort, and this article says so plainly. It says the rest just as plainly: nothing read for this article makes a finding that the fund or the grant was unlawful, and this article does not make one either."},{"a":56,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Anthony Albanese's own account of the membership came in his own words, on the floor of the House. “I have been advised I was given an honorary membership in 2012, fourteen years ago,” he told MPs on 9 September 2026. “If anyone wants to join what is affectionately known as Royal Marrickville, what they need for two years’ membership is $5.” [1]","r":[1]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$5","t":"The cost of two years’ social membership at Marrickville Golf Club, as Albanese stated it in the House. His own membership was an honorary one, granted about 2012, and had never been declared.","src":"ABC News (Jake Evans), 9 September 2026"},{"a":56,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A club spokesperson said the membership “hasn’t been reaffirmed” and “may have been 15 years ago or more”. The register of interests requires members of Parliament to declare memberships where a conflict of interest could foreseeably arise, and Albanese had not declared this one at any point across three decades in the House. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The membership sits beside a grant, and the grant is why the membership matters. Marrickville Golf Club was promised A$6.05 million under the Major and Local Community Infrastructure program, announced in April 2025 during the election campaign, and it was the only golf club invited for funding under the scheme. Shadow Infrastructure Minister Bridget McKenzie asked the government to explain “what process was used to construct the list of projects” and whether “you would have to stock the beer of your local member in order to get a grant”. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Marrickville grant is one line inside a much larger program. The Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program was worth A$560 million in total. It was invitation-only and non-competitive: projects were not invited to apply, they were chosen. Nearly 75 per cent of its funding went to seats the government already held, more than a proportional share of the country’s electorates. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"~75%","t":"Share of the A$560 million Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program that went to electorates already held by the government, an invitation-only, non-competitive scheme.","src":"The Conversation (Michelle Grattan), 9 September 2026"},{"a":56,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Michelle Grattan calls the design “pork barrelling by design”, and concludes that such practices remain “entrenched, whoever is in power”. Crossbenchers have called instead for a merit-based, transparent selection process. Labor itself made the same criticism of the Coalition under Morrison; the criticism did not stop the same design being used again. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"By this masthead’s own standard, that is a rort: an invitation-only fund that sends close to three-quarters of its money to the government’s own electorates is exactly the pattern THE RORT exists to name. Say that plainly, and say the rest of it just as plainly: nothing read for this article makes a finding that the fund or the grant was unlawful, and this article does not make one either. What is documented is a design, named by an independent commentator, not a verdict from any court, auditor or inquiry."},{"a":56,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The grant itself pays for a specific problem: the club’s septic system discharges into the nearby river, and the money is intended to fix that. Regular membership at the club costs A$1,100; the honorary membership Albanese held was not separately priced in the record read for this article, and the social membership open to anyone costs A$5 for two years. Albanese said: “I don’t have a membership...they gave an honorary membership...I don’t play golf.” [2]","r":[2]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The grant’s own value differs slightly between accounts. This article uses the more precise A$6.05 million reported alongside the program list; a separate account of the same program rounds the figure to A$6 million, and this article treats that as rounding, not a second figure. [1][2]","r":[1,2]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The disclosure rule Albanese tripped is not new, and it has already ended one ministerial career. Members of Parliament must declare memberships where a conflict of interest could foreseeably arise; that rule does not distinguish between a A$5 social membership and a A$1,100 one, or between a golf club and a gun club. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$36,000","t":"In 2020, then Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie was challenged, by Labor, then in opposition, over an undisclosed honorary membership of a gun club she had personally awarded a A$36,000 grant.","src":"ABC News (Jake Evans), 9 September 2026"},{"a":56,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"McKenzie resigned, citing a perceived conflict of interest because she was the minister who had signed off on the money. The parallel to Marrickville is exact in one respect: an undisclosed honorary club membership sitting beside a grant to the same club. It is inexact in another: McKenzie personally approved the payment to her own club, and no source read for this article says who selected Marrickville Golf Club for the funding list, or what process was used to construct it. What both cases share is the same plain rule, pressed each time by the opposition of the day: Labor pressed it against McKenzie in 2020; the Coalition presses it against Albanese now, six years apart. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"By the next day’s Question Time, the Opposition had the grant’s own breakdown to work with: A$1 million for stormwater and sewerage works and A$4.55 million for the clubhouse precinct. Those two components add to A$5.55 million; no source read for this article accounts for the remaining A$500,000 of the A$6.05 million total. Liberal frontbencher Tony Pasin asked why only the smaller amount went to the sewerage work the Prime Minister had emphasised, while the larger sum went to a clubhouse he said Labor had used for campaign launches. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Manager of Opposition Business Dan Tehan asked how The Daily Telegraph knew Albanese was a member in 2019, when Albanese says he did not know of it. Albanese’s answer was that the club sat in the electorate of Barton in 2019, not his own seat of Grayndler. Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell asked why he had declared a membership of Royal Sydney Golf Club, acquired as Prime Minister after the 2025 election, but not the Marrickville one. “I knew about one, I didn’t know about the other,” Albanese said. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The government’s stated justification for the works is flood protection: preventing sewerage wastewater spilling into the Cooks River. The same round of election commitments in the seat also funded a women’s health centre and a domestic violence facility, spending that has no connection to the golf club and is not in dispute. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Strip away the golf and what is left is the shape THE RORT keeps finding: public money handed out by invitation rather than won on merit, and handed disproportionately to the side that controls the handing out. The A$560 million program was not a competition anyone could enter. It was a list, and nearly three-quarters of the list went to seats the government already held. Grattan’s judgment is that the practice is “entrenched, whoever is in power”, and the record bears her out: Labor pressed exactly this case against the Coalition in 2020, then used the same non-competitive design in office. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"What is not on the record is as important as what is. No source read for this article names who built the funding list or what process chose Marrickville Golf Club as the only golf club on it. No court, auditor or inquiry has made a finding that the fund or the grant broke any law, and this article makes no such finding. The A$500,000 gap between the A$6.05 million promised and the A$5.55 million the government has itemised is unexplained in the record read here, not alleged to be missing. These are open questions, and they are named as questions. [1][3]","r":[1,3]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"There is a second reason this case matters, and it belongs to a different one. In the same September sitting week that Parliament spent two days on a five-dollar membership, a A$38 billion war windfall booked by the Commonwealth went unexamined by anyone. That comparison, the smallest sum drawing the most scrutiny and the largest sum drawing none, is the subject of a separate case, THE WAR TRADE, where this same membership stands as the small end of a scale that runs to thirty-eight billion. This case stays with the pork barrel: the invitation, the list, and the seats the money went to."},{"a":56,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Since publication, a search of the record for this update found that the Auditor-General, responding to a request from Ben Small MP dated 15 August 2026, has added the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program to the Australian National Audit Office's Annual Audit Work Program for 2026-27 as a potential performance audit topic. That is a topic on a work program, not an audit under way and not a finding. Separately, on 14 September 2026 the Senate referred the program to its Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, whose terms of reference include the processes for identifying, inviting and selecting applicants and the role of the offices of the Prime Minister and other ministers in deciding who was invited; public hearings are listed for 21 and 22 October 2026 and the committee is due to report on 18 November 2026 [5]. Neither has yet made any finding, and the statement above, that no court, auditor or inquiry has made a finding that the fund or the grant broke any law, still stands. The same search found no source naming who built the funding list; that is now a question before the Senate committee. [4] [5]","r":[5,4]},{"a":56,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The ABC reported on 7 October 2026 that the A$6.05 million promise was not the club's first closed grant. Marrickville Golf Club had received five earlier closed, non-competitive federal grants, totalling A$57,860, after local MPs nominated it: A$21,450 in 2019-20 for a toilet and locker room upgrade, A$11,000 in 2021 for its computer system, A$12,650 in 2021-22 for energy-saving lights, and A$3,410 and A$9,350 in 2022 for jubilee trees and a plaque and for benches around the course. Constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey identified the grants in a submission to the inquiry into the scheme. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":57,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The Parklea deed prices failure: $500,000 for an unnatural death in custody. The State publishes the notices it issues, but never what the private operator was charged.","r":[2]},{"a":57,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"For 2023-24 the State listed seven Major Default Notices, five of them unnatural deaths in custody. Not one carries a dollar figure.","r":[10]},{"a":57,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The only published accounting covers the first two years: eight Charge Events worth more than $2.4 million. When Parliament asked for the default notices, they were refused as commercial in confidence.","r":[2,5]},{"a":57,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"MTC Australia hands Parklea back on 30 September 2026 with no consolidated total published. The Inspector's call for an independent cost assessment is still Partially Achieved.","r":[8,4]},{"a":57,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In its 2023-24 annual report, the State published the Parklea notices it had issued, dated from July 2023 to May 2024. Seven Major Default Notices for Charge Events, each recorded as a type and a month. Five of the seven are recorded as an unnatural death in custody. Not one of them carries a dollar figure."},{"a":57,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The deed under which Parklea has been privately run prices failures of that kind. A performance regime of 25 KPIs and four Charge Events sits in Schedule 11 of the contract, and the Inspector of Custodial Services set out the prices in June 2022: $500,000 for an unnatural death in custody, $500,000 for each escape from secure custody, $200,000 for each escape from open custody. No published document puts an amount against any of those seven notices, and the State reviewed and changed the regime in June 2023."},{"a":57,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The publication is not a courtesy. Section 242 of the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act 1999 requires a monitor for each managed correctional centre and requires that monitor's annual report to form part of the department's next annual report. In each of the three years the desk opened, the requirement is met. What it produces on the page is a list of notice types and months. Across those volumes, covering 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, no dollar amount appears against any Parklea notice, and the word abatement does not appear at all."},{"a":57,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"MTC Australia hands Parklea back to the State on 30 September 2026, ending seven and a half years of private operation under a deed running from 1 November 2018. No consolidated total of what the operator was charged has ever been published. The disclosures for 2019-20 to 2021-22 were not opened for this article, and the only penalty accounting the State has published for Parklea covers the first two years of the contract and stops there."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The deed itself is public, after a fashion. Corrective Services NSW keeps a Class 3 contract disclosure register for contracts above $5 million, and under RFT DJ 2017-189 it lists \"Parklea Correctional Complex - Management Deed (PDF, 14.9 MB) - Contract for 1 November 2018 to 1 April 2026, extended to 30 September 2026. Service provider: Management & Training Corporation Pty Ltd (MTC).\" Beside the deed sits a separate PDF of GIPA reasons for redactions. The page was last updated 31 March 2026. The register publishes the term and the provider. It publishes no contract value."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The operator's parent company published an annual figure that the State's register does not carry. A release dated 15 November 2018, describing Broadspectrum, a subsidiary of Ferrovial Services, acting in consortium 50 per cent with MTC, states that \"The seven-year contract, which has the option of a five-year extension, is worth AUD 90 million (over 57 million euro) annually\", and that \"The contract comes into force on 1 April 2019.\" That is roughly AUD 630 million over seven years, on the operator's own numbers rather than the State's. Larger figures circulate without a document behind them, and this desk does not use them."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"What the State bought was a performance regime. The 2022 inspection report describes 25 KPIs and four Charge Events, and records that \"Financial abatements apply to the monthly fees paid to MTC-BRS under the contract subject to MTC-BRS' performance against the KPIs.\" The four Charge Events are unnatural deaths, escapes from custody, major disruption to the operation of the correctional complex, and compliance with release dates. The operator appears in that report as MTC-BRS and in the later disclosures as MTC Australia. The report also records that \"the Commissioner does not need to wait for a Coroner's finding or other police investigations to issue a charge\"."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"$500,000","t":"The charge to the operator for an unnatural death in custody, as the 2022 report states it. That report records that \"While cause of death is subject to determination by the Coroner, the contract states that unnatural causes include homicide, suicide, accident and drug overdose.\" Escapes carry the same price at the top end, under Schedule 11 of the deed: \"Each escape from secure custody results in a charge of $500,000.\" Each escape from open custody is charged at $200,000. For the other two Charge Events, major disruption to the operation of the correctional complex and compliance with release dates, no price has been published."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The money is real enough that the State discussed what to spend it on. The 2022 report records that \"At the time of the inspection there was some discussion that one $500,000 abatement could be redirected by the State to remove some hanging points, with segregation cells a priority.\" It was a discussion, in the report's own hedge, and not a decision. It is also the clearest published sign that a charge under this deed is a live sum of money with somewhere to go."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"q","t":"The performance regime is aligned to a payment framework which includes charge events and financial abatements if the operator has incidents such as escapes from custody, unnatural deaths, erroneous detention or releases or major disruptions to correctional operations. Both charge events and abatements can be substantial and are powerful incentives to deliver quality services.","x":"Corrective Services NSW, answers to supplementary questions, Portfolio Committee No. 4, hearing of 28 September 2018"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"One accounting of what this regime charged the operator has been published. It sits in the Inspector's Parklea report of June 2022, signed by Inspector Fiona Rafter and resting on an inspection carried out in November and December 2020."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"In the first two years of operation, between April 2019 and March 2021, there were eight incidents identified as Charge Events by CSNSW. The combined charge value of these events was more than $2.4 million. This is notable, as if MTC-BRS accrues a Charge Event liability of greater than $2 million (indexed by CPI) in any rolling 12-month period, this amounts to a \"Default Termination Event\" under the contract.","x":"Inspector of Custodial Services, Parklea Correctional Centre report, June 2022"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The caveat belongs in the same breath as the figure. The more than $2.4 million spans two years. The Default Termination Event trigger is a Charge Event liability above $2 million, indexed by CPI, in any rolling 12 month period, which is a different quantity measured over a different window. No document says the threshold was reached. What the passage does establish is that the charges were counted, valued and totalled inside Corrective Services NSW from the first two years of the contract, and that the total was capable of being written down in a single sentence."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The paperwork that produces such a total is documented once, in the same report. In October 2020 an inmate walked through the vehicle gate entry to the minimum security area while it was open to allow vehicle entry, ran through the internal grounds, exited the facility boundary, and was recovered several minutes later within 100 metres of the boundary. Corrective Services NSW issued a written Notice of Major Default determining that a Charge Event had occurred, naming a monetary amount, and requiring a remedy program."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"f","x":"$200,000","t":"The deed's charge for each escape from open custody. The October 2020 notice named a monetary amount. No copy of it has been published, and when Parliament later asked for the default notices as a class, it was refused."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On 7 March 2022 the Legislative Council took evidence on the Corrections portfolio. One question is recorded in the answers taken on notice as \"Question 19 - Financial penalties imposed on private operators (page 32)\". At the hearing the Acting Chair pressed for a scale rather than a schedule."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The question was taken on notice. The written answer begins \"I am advised: The Bed Unavailability KPI's are shown below\", and supplies a formula: 110 Quality Performance Points per day for the first seven days, and 165 points per day thereafter. The question was asked in dollars. The answer came back in points. No total was supplied."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"At the hearing the witness had explained that \"abatements exist within the performance regime on a monthly basis; it is not singular charge events that occur\". A regime that abates monthly produces a monthly number, and twelve of those make a year."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Question 17 asked for the documents instead. Recorded as \"Default Notices (page 31)\", it followed an exchange in which the witness, named in the transcript as Carlo Scasserra, said \"To the extent they are not commercial in confidence, yes, there will be some information that I can provide.\" The written answer supplies none of it: \"I am advised: Copies of the Default Notices cannot be provided due to their commercial-in-confidence nature and the fact they could potentially identify inmates.\""},{"a":57,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Two requests. The notices were refused outright, as commercial in confidence and as potentially identifying inmates. The total was not refused, it was simply never supplied. A total identifies nobody."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"None of this depends on a leak or a freedom of information fight. The obligation to report on a privately managed prison is in the Act. Section 242 of the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act 1999 requires a monitor to be employed for each managed correctional centre, responsible to the Commissioner for assessment and review of the management of the centre by the management company. Subsection (4) provides that \"A monitor must make an annual report in writing to the Commissioner of his or her findings regarding (a) the management of a correctional centre\". Subsection (6) says where that report goes."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The report is to form part of the next annual report of the Department of Justice prepared for the purposes of the Annual Reports (Departments) Act 1985.","x":"Section 242(6), Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act 1999 (NSW)"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This is what the requirement produces on the page. The Department of Communities and Justice Annual Report 2023-24, Volume 1, carries section 4.2.8, headed with the subsection itself, covering Junee, Parklea and Clarence across printed pages 122 to 124. For Parklea it lists four Performance Improvement Notices by type and seven Major Default Notices for Charge Events by type and month, the latter running from July 2023 to May 2024. The report adds that \"MTC Australia Limited was required to submit Cure Plans to remedy the performance issues outlined within the notices (deaths in custody excluded as these are subject to Coronial review).\" No document says what was charged or paid for those notices, and the regime itself was reviewed and changed in between."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"CE - Unnatural death in custody - July 2023; CE - Unlawful detainment - November 2023; CE - Unnatural death in custody - January 2024; CE - Unnatural death in custody - February 2024; CE - Unnatural death in custody - March 2024; CE - Erroneous Release - April 2024; CE - Unnatural death in custody - May 2024.","x":"Department of Communities and Justice Annual Report 2023-24, Volume 1, section 4.2.8, printed page 123"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"q","t":"At the commencement of the contract Parklea was to be the secondary reception centre in the network, with fresh custody inmates to be processed at the Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre. Due to these CSNSW instigated changes, Parklea is now the primary centre for fresh custody remand inmate changes. The increased turnover of inmates, averaging approximately 800 per month (the highest in the State) has caused MTC to face operational challenges ... MTC lost over 120 trained and experienced correctional officers to the State correctional officer recruitment drive.","x":"The same page of the same report, under Overall assessment"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"f","x":"Zero","t":"Dollar amounts anywhere in the Parklea statutory disclosures for 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, and the word abatement appears in none of the three volumes. For the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, CSNSW issued \"a total of eight Performance Improvement Notices (PIN) and four default charge events\", listed by type and month. For 2024-25 there are five improvement notices and one Major Default Notice, \"CE4 July 2024 - Compliance with Release Dates (Erroneous Release)\", and the same page records that \"MTC have completed six years of operations under the current Management Deed.\" That most recent disclosure sits in the Corrective Services NSW annual report rather than the department's, because the branch became its own Public Service Agency with effect from 1 October 2024. DCJ's own 2024-25 Volume 1 contains no instance of Parklea, Junee, Clarence, MTC or Serco."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section and the opening said the 2023-24 report covers the Parklea contract year of 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. The seven Major Default Notices it lists include two dated April 2024 and May 2024, outside that period, so the article no longer states the period. It now says the notices run from July 2023 to May 2024, as the report lists them, and the paragraph above and the key facts no longer call that span a contract year."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The article's hero graphic still labelled the seven notices as 'in the year' and the period as the '2023-24 contract year'. It now reads '2023-24 annual report' and 'Major Default Notices listed', in line with the correction above: the report lists the notices from July 2023 to May 2024, not a contract year."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Inspector has already asked for both an independent assessment and better public reporting. The June 2022 Parklea report carries 41 recommendations, 1 to 40 substantive and 41 procedural, and the first two are these: \"1. The effectiveness (including cost effectiveness) of the new contracts to operate Parklea, Junee and Clarence Correctional Centres be independently assessed. 2. Corrective Services NSW, and the Department of Communities and Justice, increase and improve public reporting of individual prison performance (public and private) under the new performance framework, whether in the Annual Reports or otherwise.\" The Inspector put a scale behind the ask."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"q","t":"These three large centres accommodate almost one quarter of the inmate population and implicate over $230 million annually in fees and costs. We believe it is imperative that the efficiency and value for money or cost effectiveness of these new major performance frameworks be independently reviewed.","x":"Inspector of Custodial Services, Parklea Correctional Centre report, June 2022, executive summary"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The surrounding sentence adds \"This is outside the scope of this report\", which places the assessment outside what that report undertook. On what reaches the public, the same report finds: \"Additionally, despite the large amount of information now being collected and held by CSNSW on public and private prison performance, little data on whether they are meeting performance expectations is routinely publicly available.\" It immediately adds that \"While acknowledging the significant body of work undertaken in establishing and implementing these frameworks, there is room to increase transparency around outcomes.\" The Inspector frames this as transparency, not misconduct, and it should be read that way."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"f","x":"Partially Achieved","t":"The status the Inspector records for both recommendation 1 and recommendation 2 against Corrective Services NSW, in Appendix 2 of the ICS Annual Report 2024-25, pages 84 to 86, against the legend on page 33. Table 9 on page 24 of the same report records that of 36 recommendations, CSNSW supported 28, partially supported 6 and did not support 2. Neither recommendation 1 nor recommendation 2 is among the two it did not support."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The agency agreed with the ask. The Inspector's Clarence report of 2024 records that \"we recommended that the effectiveness (including cost effectiveness) of the contracts to the three facilities be independently assessed. This recommendation was supported by CSNSW.\" That report then narrates what followed: a 12 month Junee extension approved in October 2022, the Junee de-privatisation of November 2023, the Parklea decision of March 2025. It never reports that any independent assessment took place. None has been published, and none is cited in any Inspector's report opened for this article."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Parliament asked earlier and was declined earlier. The 2022 report records that the Legislative Council's Parklea inquiry recommended that a report by CSNSW on the implementation and effectiveness of its performance framework, lessons learned and future improvements be tabled in Parliament by the Minister for Corrections by the end of 2021, and that it cover the effectiveness of the new Parklea contract specifically. \"The Government noted but did not support the former recommendation in its response\", in a government response dated 25 January 2019."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The final inspection report before the handover was furnished to both Houses on 17 August 2026, signed by Sallie McLean, Acting Inspector of Custodial Services, under sections 16(6) and 16(7) of the Inspector of Custodial Services Act 2012. It makes 13 recommendations. Site visits ran from November 2025 to February 2026, and a draft went to agencies in April 2026. It records the timing at footnote 6, citing a Corrective Services NSW letter of 10 June 2026: \"Noting that the transition period between CSNSW and MTC Australia commenced on 30 September 2025, with handover scheduled for 30 September 2026, an inspection fell due during the transition period.\""},{"a":57,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Its lead recommendation concerns clinical handover, not commercial handover: \"1. Corrective Services NSW, MTC Australia, Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network and St Vincent's Correctional Health continue to progress and formalise a phased transition of health services rather than a single fixed transition date.\" It does not ask anyone to move the contract expiry, which the deed fixes."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A full text search of the 39 page report returns zero instances of charge event, abatement, penalt, cost effective, cost effectiveness and independently assessed, and zero dollar signs. There are two limits on that negative. The report does record enforcement, without a price: \"In October 2025, the State issued a Performance Improvement Notice (PIN) to Parklea CC citing concerns regarding non-compliance with waitlist management and tail-end reporting requirements\". And Appendix B tracks the 18 health recommendations made in the 2022 report. What is absent from the last public document about a priced contract is the price."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"q","t":"While this focus on KPIs supports timely access to urgent and critical care, there is a risk that lower-priority categories (Priority 3, and Priority 4) may receive less attention and result in longer wait times for care.","x":"Inspector of Custodial Services, Inspection of Parklea Correctional Centre (transition of health services) 2025-2026, section 3.4"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The mechanism shows up in the rostering. The report records that \"staff across services reported that this KPI-driven approach can influence workforce deployment, with clinicians sometimes redeployed from other roles to ensure compliance with Priority 1 and Priority 2 targets\". A regime built on KPIs can influence where an operator puts its people, and staff told the Inspector it does. That is what measurement is for. It is also why the numbers such a regime generates are worth publishing."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"f","x":"1,695 patients","t":"Not seen within recommended timeframes between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025, about 8 per cent of Priority 3 and 4 listings, figures the report calls \"broadly consistent\" with the previous inspection. At 30 June 2025, 1,402 patients sat on Priority 3 and 4 waitlists and 173 were outside recommended clinical timeframes."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Junee went first. \"CSNSW took over operation of Junee Correctional Centre on 1 April 2025, concluding an association with GEO Group Australia Pty Ltd of more than 30 years\", after a 16 month transition."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Parklea follows on 30 September 2026. That date is sourced twice in the final inspection report, at footnotes 6 and 15, both to the same Corrective Services NSW letter of 10 June 2026, and the CSNSW register carries it as the extended end of the deed. October 2026 is the first month of public management. The decision was announced on 2 March 2025 by the Premier, the Minister for Corrections and the Minister for Industrial Relations, describing \"The 1,576-bed facility at Parklea\" as Sydney's second-largest remand centre, with the contract \"extended by six months, to allow sufficient time for the transition to occur in October 2026.\" The release does not mention the performance regime, charge events, abatements, KPIs, penalties, or the Inspector's 2022 recommendations."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The release says the decision \"will secure over 400 well-paid public sector jobs for workers in Western Sydney\", and the verb is secure rather than create: these are largely transferring roles. It calls the move one of the largest de-privatisation moves in NSW history and states that \"The NSW public sector is currently responsible for around 10,000 inmates across 31 prisons.\" The people held at Parklea are counted separately, in the Inspector's final report: \"On 30 June 2025, the total population was 1,148. The majority (836 or 73%) were held on remand.\" The bed count and the population carry different dates and should not be divided into one another."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"f","x":"30 June 2040","t":"The expiry of the contract to privately operate Clarence Correctional Centre, as the Inspector's 2024 Clarence report states it: \"Unless terminated earlier, the contract to privately operate Clarence CC will continue until its expiry on 30 June 2040. For the foreseeable future, Clarence CC will be the only privately operated facility in NSW.\" Clarence is operated by Serco Australia under subcontract to Northern Pathways, which was divested from John Laing Investments to Abrdn Plc on 23 February 2024."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Two of the three contracts the Inspector wanted independently assessed for cost effectiveness will have ended with no assessment of them published. The third runs to 2040."},{"a":57,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"q","t":"It was argued that applying sanctions for poor performance through PINs would be more effective in improving performance as this requires remedial action as opposed to just financial penalty","x":"Department of Communities and Justice, Review of Managed Correctional Centre Key Performance Regime, 29 June 2023, quoted in the Inspector's Clarence report of 2024"},{"a":57,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"That argument deserves to be put at full strength. The 29 June 2023 review removed KPIs, including illicit drug use and timely provision of primary health services. It also noted \"that the publicly operated centres are not always performing to the standards expected in the performance regime\", which is a fair point about measuring a priced prison against unpriced ones. Serco management told the Inspector that financial abatements were impacting their ability to innovate. A reasonable person can read all of that and conclude that improvement notices work better than charges. None of it is an argument for keeping the charges unpublished. The State could drop a penalty regime, or keep it and report it. What it has done instead is run one for seven and a half years, publish the notices it issued in the years the desk opened as a type and a month, and never publish a consolidated total."},{"a":58,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"In 2025 the OAIC received 1,205 data breach notifications, the most since the scheme began in 2018. Only a court can fine a breach, on the Commissioner's application.","r":[1,4]},{"a":58,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"This outlet has found one civil penalty order ever made under the Privacy Act: $5.8 million against Australian Clinical Labs on 8 October 2025, by consent, not after a trial.","r":[2]},{"a":58,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Meta's case ended without a ruling: a $50 million payment program for affected people, and the Commissioner withdrew the penalty proceedings.","r":[5]},{"a":58,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Penalty cases against Medibank and Optus, filed in June 2024 and August 2025, have no outcome found. Their alleged figures are allegations, not findings.","r":[8,4]},{"a":58,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In calendar year 2025 the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner received 1,205 data breach notifications, an 8 per cent increase over the 1,112 notifications received in 2024 and the most since the notifiable data breaches scheme began in 2018 [1].","r":[1]},{"a":58,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Set that count beside the other side of the ledger. Up to 24 September 2026, from the OAIC’s recent media releases and from searches, this outlet has found one civil penalty order a court has ever made under the Privacy Act: $5.8 million against Australian Clinical Labs, ordered by the Federal Court, by consent, on 8 October 2025 [2].","r":[2]},{"a":58,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article sets those two figures side by side, then asks what explains the gap between them: who can fine at all, what caps applied to the cases here, and how each of the four Privacy Act penalty cases this outlet could find has ended, or has not ended yet."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Since 2018 the Privacy Act has required businesses and Commonwealth government agencies it covers to report any data breach that is likely to result in serious harm. Notifications go to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the OAIC, not to the Privacy Commissioner personally."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"q","t":"Businesses and Commonwealth government agencies covered by the Privacy Act are required to report any data breach that is likely to result in serious harm","x":"OAIC, Notifiable Data Breaches statistics release, 6 July 2026"},{"a":58,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"1,205","t":"Notifications the OAIC received in calendar 2025, an 8 per cent rise on the 1,112 received in 2024, and the most since the scheme began in 2018."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Health service providers were the sector most often named in those notifications: 225 of them, 19 per cent of the total [1]. That describes the sector of the entity that reported.","r":[1]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The OAIC’s release acknowledges a growing number of entities reporting under the scheme [1]. This article counts notifications, not breaches.","r":[1]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On a different basis, the 2024-25 financial year, the OAIC separately finalised 1,155 notifications under the scheme, 86 per cent of them within 60 days, and finalised 3,123 privacy complaints [3]. That count uses a different period and a different basis to the calendar year count above, and this article does not add the two together or compare them.","r":[3]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Elsewhere in this outlet’s reporting, THE REPORTING RORT’s ‘Nobody has to tell’ sets out whom the notification duty binds, and whom it does not."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Under the Privacy Act, only a court can impose a civil penalty. The Commissioner may apply to a court for one where an entity is alleged to have engaged in serious or repeated interferences with privacy, but a determination the Commissioner makes alone cannot carry a fine [4].","r":[4]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Every case in this article falls under the caps that applied before 13 December 2022: $2.22 million for each contravention in the ACL, Medibank and Optus cases, and $1.7 million in the Meta case, according to the OAIC [4][5].","r":[4,5]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"$2.22 million","t":"The maximum civil penalty per contravention that applied to the ACL, Medibank and Optus cases in this article; the Meta case carried a $1.7 million cap. Higher maximums have applied to conduct after 13 December 2022, but none of these cases involve conduct after that date."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A new regime, in force from 13 December 2022 [2], allows the Court to impose much higher penalties on conduct after that date: the greater of $50 million, three times the benefit obtained, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover, according to a law firm explainer [6].","r":[2,6]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The paragraph above gave the higher maximum as the greater of three figures. Under section 13G(3) of the Privacy Act, as amended in 2022, the maximum for a body corporate is the greater of $50 million and either three times the value of the benefit obtained, where the court can determine that value, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover, where it cannot [12].","r":[12]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A further amendment in 2024 added two more tiers: a mid-tier civil penalty for interferences with privacy that do not meet the ‘serious’ threshold, and a lower tier of OAIC-issued infringement notices for administrative breaches, without court action, according to law firm explainers [6][7]. How many infringement notices or mid-tier proceedings have been used, if any, is not established on this record.","r":[6,7]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Every Privacy Act civil penalty case this outlet could find is set out in the ledger graphic at the head of this article, and below, grouped by outcome, not by the order each was filed."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The first order, and the only one we have found up to 24 September 2026, came against Australian Clinical Labs. On 8 October 2025 the Federal Court ordered ACL to pay $5.8 million in civil penalties over the Medlab Pathology data breach, which affected more than 223,000 people; ACL admitted the contraventions, consented to the orders, and the parties made joint submissions to the Court on liability and penalty [2].","r":[2]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"$5.8 million","t":"The civil penalty the Federal Court ordered against Australian Clinical Labs on 8 October 2025, the first, and up to 24 September 2026 the only, civil penalty order this outlet could find ever made under the Privacy Act, ordered by consent."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The $5.8 million breaks into three parts: $4.2 million for the security failure itself, under Australian Privacy Principle 11.1; $800,000 for failing to carry out a reasonable and expeditious assessment of whether an eligible data breach had occurred; and $800,000 for failing to notify the Commissioner as soon as practicable [2].","r":[2]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"q","t":"a penalty of $800,000 for ACL’s failure to carry out a reasonable and expeditious assessment of whether an eligible data breach had occurred","x":"OAIC, Australian Clinical Labs release, 9 October 2025"},{"a":58,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Together the assess and notify penalties come to $1.6 million, about 28 per cent of the $5.8 million total: the notification duty itself, not only the security failure behind it, has been penalised. THE REPORTING RORT’s ‘Fourteen days’ set this same $1.6 million inside a wider ledger of reporting duties across the Commonwealth; this article puts it beside every other Privacy Act penalty case instead."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"It is the only order this outlet could find, from the OAIC’s recent media releases, up to 24 September 2026. We say only that we have found no other."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Commissioner’s case against Meta never reached a judgment. Proceedings began in March 2020 over the Cambridge Analytica incident. After court-ordered mediation that ran from February 2024, the OAIC accepted an enforceable undertaking on 17 December 2024: a $50 million payment program for affected Australians, and the Commissioner withdrew the civil penalty proceedings [5].","r":[5]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"$50 million","t":"The payment program Meta agreed to in December 2024; as part of the resolution the Commissioner withdrew the civil penalty case. It is not a civil penalty; the program pays affected people."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A civil penalty is paid to the Commonwealth. Meta’s program pays affected people instead."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Today’s settlement represents the largest ever payment dedicated to addressing concerns about the privacy of individuals in Australia","x":"OAIC, Meta settlement release, 17 December 2024"},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The resolution meant no court ruled on whether Meta breached the Privacy Act. Separately, in 2024-25 the OAIC also reached an enforceable undertaking with Oxfam Australia over a 2021 data breach [3].","r":[3]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Commissioner’s case against Medibank has no outcome we have found. The Commissioner filed a civil penalty proceeding on 5 June 2024 alleging Medibank seriously interfered with the privacy of 9.7 million Australians by failing to take reasonable steps to protect their personal information, over conduct alleged between March 2021 and October 2022; the breach was in October 2022 [8]. Up to 24 September 2026, from OAIC releases and searches, we have found no outcome; the underlying court file has not been checked.","r":[8]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Commissioner’s case against Optus has no outcome we have found yet either. The Commissioner filed a civil penalty proceeding on 8 August 2025 alleging Optus seriously interfered with the privacy of about 9.5 million Australians, over conduct alleged between 17 October 2019 and 20 September 2022, and the Commissioner alleges one contravention for each of the 9.5 million individuals [4]. Both the Medibank and Optus figures are allegations, not findings.","r":[4]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"We have found no court document that sets a trial date for the Commissioner’s own case against Optus. A separate class action over the same breach, before the same judge, Justice Beach, is set down for trial from 7 June 2027 [9]. That date belongs to the class action, not to the Commissioner’s case.","r":[9]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"InnovationAus reported in November 2024 that the OAIC had cut dozens of staff after a 23 per cent budget cut [10]. IDM reported that in the 2026-27 Budget the OAIC was allocated $36.576 million, down from $39.753 million in 2025-26 [11], a fall of $3.177 million, or about 8 per cent. These are two different windows, reported by two different outlets, and this article does not combine them. What effect, if any, the reductions have had on how many matters the office can pursue is not established on this record.","r":[10,11]},{"a":58,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Set the two counts beside each other again. In 2025 businesses and agencies told the OAIC of 1,205 notifications of data breaches likely to cause serious harm. Since 2018, this outlet could find only one court-ordered civil penalty order under the Privacy Act, agreed rather than fought at trial, and two more penalty cases, filed in June 2024 and August 2025, with no outcome we have found. The duty to report has been enforced once."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"It is a narrower finding than it might look. Only a court can impose a civil penalty, the cap on every case here was at most $2.22 million a contravention, and we have found no court test of the far higher maximums in force since December 2022."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This case will keep a public tally on this count: if a second court-ordered civil penalty lands under the Privacy Act, the headline above changes."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Another written duty has no fine yet. THE SURVEILLANCE RORT’s ‘The internet asks for ID’ found that, on the public record to July 2026, no fines had been issued under the under-16 social media law."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What the regulator does without a court is the subject of the next article in this case."},{"a":58,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. No response was received from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026."},{"a":59,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Privacy enforcement is slow. The OAIC's Optus White Pages investigation, announced in August 2021, ended in a finding on 11 June 2026: nearly five years.","r":[1]},{"a":59,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The Commissioner's penalty case against Meta began in March 2020 and was withdrawn on 17 December 2024 for a $50 million enforceable undertaking, about 57 months on.","r":[2]},{"a":59,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Three of five matters had no published outcome as of 24 September 2026: Latitude (about 40 months), Medibank (about 27 months) and Optus (about 13 months).","r":[3,5,7]},{"a":59,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The two dates ahead in 2027 are court-ordered mediation and a separate class action trial. Neither is a trial date for the Commissioner's own case.","r":[10,9]},{"a":59,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 11 June 2026 the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner found against Optus over the White Pages breach of 2015 to 2019, affecting 41,278 customers. The OAIC’s release says its publication ‘brings to an end a long-running investigation, which was first announced in August 2021’ [1]. From announcement to outcome, nearly five years.","r":[1]},{"a":59,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This article uses one basis for every matter in it: months from an investigation’s announcement or a civil penalty proceeding’s filing, to its outcome, or to 24 September 2026 if there is none yet. On that basis the five matters on this strip run from about one year to nearly five, and three of these five are still open."},{"a":59,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Compensation for the White Pages breach itself was deferred to a later, separate determination on a representative complaint. This article’s clock stops at the finding, not at that later step."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Meta’s case ran almost as long as Optus White Pages did. The Commissioner’s civil penalty proceedings against Meta began in March 2020. Court-ordered mediation ran from February 2024, and on 17 December 2024 the OAIC accepted an enforceable undertaking for a $50 million payment program: ‘the Commissioner has withdrawn the civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court’ [2]. Filing to withdrawal, about 57 months.","r":[2]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"58 and 57 months","t":"How long the Optus White Pages investigation and the Meta case each ran, on this article’s basis, before either produced an outcome."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A joint investigation into Latitude Financial’s March 2023 breach opened on 10 May 2023, run together by the OAIC and New Zealand’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner: ‘The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the New Zealand Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) today commenced a joint investigation’ [3]. New Zealand’s regulator said at the time that ‘As this investigation is now active no further comments will be made on it until it is concluded’ [4]. We found no published outcome from either regulator, or in the OAIC’s media centre listing, up to 24 September 2026. About 40 months, with no published outcome.","r":[3,4]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. On 25 September 2026 the OAIC published a statement headed ‘OAIC’s action in relation to the 2023 Latitude Data Breach and information to update and assist individuals’ [20]. It says: ‘On 10 May 2023, the OAIC commenced an investigation into the personal information handling practices of the Latitude group of companies’, and ‘The OAIC continues to progress its Commissioner-Initiated Investigation’; it ‘will not comment further on the investigation until it has concluded’. Separately, it says: ‘In February 2024, the OAIC accepted a Representative Complaint about Latitude in relation to the 2023 data breach’, and that individual complaints about the breach ‘will usually be put on hold’ until the investigation or related court proceedings are finalised [20]. The statement does not mention New Zealand’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner and gives no outcome or timetable, so the position above stands: no published outcome for the investigation as of 30 September 2026.","r":[20]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Medibank’s case has run about 27 months. The OAIC filed civil penalty proceedings on 5 June 2024, alleging Medibank ‘seriously interfered with the privacy of 9.7 million Australians by failing to take reasonable steps to protect their personal information’ [5]. That figure is an allegation, not a finding. We found no OAIC outcome, and no reported court outcome, up to 24 September 2026.","r":[5]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Some of the time on Medibank’s compensation complaint has been taken by litigation Medibank brought. Separately from the penalty case, Medibank went to court to stop the Commissioner deciding a related representative complaint about compensation: ‘Medibank has commenced proceedings to restrain the AIC from investigating the representative complaint and from making a determination and enforcing the determination in respect of the representative complaint on the basis that a determination made by the AIC and/or enforcement of a determination by the AIC poses a real risk of interference with the administration of justice having regard to the Medibank class action’, the OAIC says [6]. THE RORT put a question on this to Medibank on 2 October; its reply is in the update below.","r":[6]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above did not say that Medibank’s application was dismissed in February 2024, before this article was published. In Medibank Private Limited v Australian Information Commissioner, decided in February 2024, Justice Beach refused the injunction and ordered the application dismissed, with Medibank to pay the Commissioner’s costs; AAP reported it on 22 February 2024 [19]. The OAIC’s own chronology records that the application, made on 15 September 2023, was heard on 5 December 2023 and judgment reserved [6]. AAP quotes his written judgment: ‘Even if there was some substance to Medibank’s points, in my view it would be premature to grant an injunction,’ and, ‘Generally, there is lacking the immediacy of any risk concerning inconsistent findings’ [19]. Medibank told AAP it would continue to defend the representative complaint and the class action, and a Commissioner’s spokesman told AAP the investigations continue [19]. The OAIC page cited above, as fetched on 30 September, still describes the Commissioner as ‘presently a respondent party’ in that proceeding [6]. The quotations are AAP’s report of the written judgment; this outlet could not open the judgment itself on 30 September.","r":[19,6]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 6 October 2026. THE RORT asked Medibank on 2 October why it brought its 2023 application to restrain the Commissioner from investigating and deciding the representative complaint, and whether any other proceeding about the representative complaint is on foot. A Medibank spokesperson said: ‘As the matter is before the Court, it would not be appropriate for Medibank to comment.’ The statement does not say which matter it refers to, and it does not address the February 2024 dismissal reported in the correction above, which stands as reported by AAP [19]. THE RORT’s question remains open until 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October, and any further answer will be added here.","r":[19]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Optus penalty case is the newest of the three still open. Filed on 8 August 2025, it alleges Optus ‘seriously interfered with the privacy of approximately 9.5 million Australians by failing to take reasonable steps to protect their personal information’, over conduct the Commissioner dates from 17 October 2019 to 20 September 2022 [7]. About 13 months, and open. The Commissioner alleges ‘one contravention for each of the 9.5 million individuals’ in that case [7]: the Optus and Medibank cases are the two biggest on this record, and both are live, not dropped.","r":[7]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. THE RORT asked Optus on 2 October whether it contests the Commissioner’s allegations in this case, and whether it expects the Commissioner’s case to be heard with the class action. Optus’s media team replied by email on 8 October. The email is signed Optus Media Team and carries no request that it be kept off the record. It says: ‘Optus’s position on these matters is on the public record, including our submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee following the September 2025 Triple Zero outage.’ It also says: ‘Matters currently before the Federal Court will be addressed through the appropriate legal process.’ The reply does not say whether Optus contests the allegations or whether it expects the Commissioner’s case to be heard with the class action, and its Federal Court sentence names no matter, so this article does not say which matter it refers to. The reply links a release that Optus dated 21 September 2026 [21], which concerns the September 2025 Triple Zero outage and does not mention the Commissioner’s proceeding or the data breach. The reply does not answer THE RORT’s question, and any further answer will be added here.","r":[21]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b10","s":0,"k":"p","t":"All three penalty cases followed OAIC investigations of their own. The OAIC’s Meta enforceable undertaking says ‘the Civil Penalty Proceedings followed investigations by the OAIC concerning the Cambridge Analytica Incident’, an investigation the Commissioner initiated on 5 April 2018 [8]. The Medibank release says the proceedings ‘follow an investigation initiated by’ the Information Commissioner [5], and the Optus release describes its case as ‘following an investigation in relation to the data breach made public by Optus on 22 September 2022’ [7]. The filing, not that earlier investigation, is what starts each of these bars.","r":[8,5,7]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b11","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Three of five, still open","t":"Latitude (about 40 months), Medibank (about 27 months) and Optus (about 13 months) have no published outcome as of 24 September 2026."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b12","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A trial date exists, but not for the OAIC’s own case. Slater and Gordon’s class action is set down for trial from 7 June 2027, before Justice Beach: ‘On 12 December 2025, the Honourable Justice Beach set down the class action for trial, commencing on 7 June 2027’ [9]. Justice Beach also hears the Commissioner’s case, and MLex reports he ordered all parties, ‘including the regulators’, to mediation by 12 February 2027 [10]. No court document we found sets a trial date for the OAIC’s own proceeding. MLex also reports the class action’s applicants ‘have been granted leave to intervene in the privacy watchdog’s penalties case’ [11].","r":[9,10,11]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s0-b15","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. The deadline for THE RORT’s questions of 2 October passed at 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. Medibank’s reply of 6 October, quoted above, is the only reply received from Medibank. No response was received from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. No response was received from Latitude Financial Services by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"None of that changes who can impose a civil penalty. Only a court can make a civil penalty order, on the Commissioner’s application: ‘the Australian Information Commissioner may apply to the Federal Court for a civil penalty order where an entity is alleged to have engaged in serious or repeated interferences’ [7]. A determination the Commissioner makes alone cannot carry a fine.","r":[7]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"the OAIC’s privacy regulatory action will be proportionate to the situation or conduct concerned","x":"OAIC, Privacy Regulatory Action Policy"},{"a":59,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"That is the OAIC’s own stated policy [12]. The factors it weighs include the number of people affected, whether the conduct was isolated or systemic, an entity’s compliance history, the likelihood the conduct recurs, and what remediation has already been done.","r":[12]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Two other matters closed without a full investigation, and each on its own stated ground. MediSecure had entered administration on 3 June 2024. The OAIC’s inquiries into its breach had focused on getting affected individuals notified, and the regulator closed them on 13 September 2024 without a comprehensive investigation: ‘the possible remedies that we could obtain for the community will not be proportionate to the resources required for a comprehensive investigation’ [13]. MediSecure’s administration came first. The OAIC’s decision followed it.","r":[13]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"Proportionality","t":"The ground the OAIC gave for closing its MediSecure inquiries on 13 September 2024, after MediSecure had already entered administration."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Qantas’s preliminary inquiries closed on a different ground entirely. After almost a year of preliminary inquiries into its 2025 data incident affecting about 5 million Australians, the Privacy Commissioner said in a statement dated 16 July 2026 that the evidence did not support a likely breach: ‘in this instance I do not consider that the evidence supports the likelihood that a breach of privacy law occurred’ [14].","r":[14]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"did not reveal any omissions or failings in the steps taken by Qantas to protect the personal information it held","x":"OAIC, statement on Qantas, 16 July 2026"},{"a":59,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On that basis the Commissioner said it ‘would not be appropriate for the OAIC- a proportionate and risk-based regulator - to commence a full investigation or take further action at this stage’ [14]. Evidence, not proportionality, is the OAIC’s own stated reason for closing its preliminary inquiries into Qantas.","r":[14]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Clearview AI’s case is different: it had already been found in breach, in a determination dated 14 October 2021. Clearview withdrew from Administrative Appeals Tribunal review of that finding in August 2023. Nearly three years after the original determination, on 21 August 2024, the Commissioner said: ‘I am not satisfied that further action is warranted in the particular case of Clearview AI at this time’ [15]. The OAIC says the 2021 determination, and its declarations, still stand. What did not follow was any further action.","r":[15]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"f","x":"Nearly three years","t":"From the Clearview AI determination on 14 October 2021 to the OAIC’s statement on 21 August 2024 that further action was not warranted."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Besides the Optus White Pages finding, whose compensation was deferred, the outcomes on this record are declarations, one order of compensation for a single person, and two determinations against health service providers over tracking. None of them is a penalty, because a determination cannot carry one."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 29 October 2025 the OAIC found Vinomofo had ‘interfered with the privacy of almost a million individuals by failing to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information it held’, over a 2022 breach affecting about 928,760 people [16]. The remedy was declarations that it not repeat or continue the conduct. No money was ordered.","r":[16]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 15 June 2026 the OAIC ordered American Express Australia to compensate a single complainant after an insider-access breach of APP 11.1; its release is headed ‘Australian Privacy Commissioner orders American Express Australia Limited to compensate complainant following interference in privacy’ [17]. That is a money remedy, but it runs to one person, not a class.","r":[17]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"One person","t":"How many complainants the OAIC’s 15 June 2026 compensation order against American Express Australia covers."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 24 June 2026 the OAIC published two determinations, finding that Medmate Australia Pty Ltd and Monash IVF Pty Ltd ‘interfered with the privacy of individuals whose sensitive information was collected via third-party tracking pixels’ [18]. The OAIC’s release does not state the remedies, and this article does not describe them.","r":[18]},{"a":59,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Article 1 of this case, ‘One penalty’, sets out the only civil penalty order this outlet has found made under the Act, and how it came about. This article is about the rest of the record: what happens while there is no penalty yet, or none at all."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Three of the five matters on this strip have no published outcome as of 24 September 2026: Latitude’s joint investigation, opened 10 May 2023; Medibank’s penalty case, filed 5 June 2024; and Optus’s penalty case, filed 8 August 2025. Two dates lie ahead in the Optus matters: the mediation Justice Beach ordered by 12 February 2027, as MLex reports, and the separate class action’s trial, from 7 June 2027. Neither is a trial date for the Commissioner’s own case."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE REPORTING RORT’s ‘Fourteen days’ sets some of the same matters in a wider ledger of reporting duties. Its Australian Clinical Labs figure, $5.8 million by consent, $1.6 million of it for failing to assess and notify, is that record’s evidence the notification duty has been enforced once, in an agreed outcome."},{"a":59,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Retail and scraped facial recognition are the subject of the next article in this case, held pending outstanding checks."},{"a":60,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"In December 2019 the government promised a Privacy Act review, to start in 2020 and finish in 2021. It published an issues paper in October 2020 and reported in February 2023. The next round is an exposure draft.","r":[2,16,15,4]},{"a":60,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Higher penalty maximums took effect on 13 December 2022, two lower tiers on 11 December 2024, each for later conduct only.","r":[7,9]},{"a":60,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The one Privacy Act penalty we found, $5.8 million against Australian Clinical Labs, was ordered by consent under the old cap.","r":[6]},{"a":60,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The OAIC said its sweep of 60 entities found instances of non-compliance in a significant proportion, and in June that a report would follow this financial year. None found yet.","r":[11,12,13]},{"a":60,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 26 July 2019 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission published its Digital Platforms Inquiry final report. Recommendation 17 called for broader reform of Australian privacy law [1]. In response to the ACCC's recommendations, on 12 December 2019 the government of the day committed to a review of the Privacy Act, with its own roadmap setting the review to commence in 2020 and to be completed in 2021 [2][3].","r":[1,2,3]},{"a":60,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The review began on time: it published an Issues Paper in October 2020 [16]. Its report was released in February 2023, and the government responded on 28 September 2023 [15]. Nearly seven years after the promise, the second round of changes the review led to is still an exposure draft. This outlet found no record that it has been introduced to Parliament [4][5].","r":[16,15,4,5]},{"a":60,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article sets that reform clock beside the law's own teeth: a March 2019 promise to raise penalties, the higher caps that took effect in December 2022, the two lower tiers added from December 2024, and the one court-ordered Privacy Act penalty this outlet has found, which fell under none of the new caps or tiers."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The recommendation and the promise are two different dates, more than four months apart. The ACCC's Digital Platforms Inquiry final report is cover-dated June 2019 and was published on 26 July 2019; Recommendation 17 calls for broader reform of Australian privacy law but names no timetable of its own [1].","r":[1]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"12 December 2019","t":"The date the government committed to a review of the Privacy Act, in Treasury's Government Response and Implementation Roadmap for the Digital Platforms Inquiry."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"q","t":"The Government will commence a review of the Privacy Act to ensure it empowers consumers, protects their data and best serves the Australian economy.","x":"Treasury, Government Response and Implementation Roadmap for the Digital Platforms Inquiry, 12 December 2019"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The roadmap set its own deadline. It listed the review under the work planned for 2020 as commencing, and under the work planned for 2021 as completed [2].","r":[2]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"f","x":"2020 to 2021","t":"The government's own targets for the Privacy Act review, from the same roadmap: commencing in 2020, completed in 2021."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That is the clock this article measures the rest of this case against: not a standard of ours, but the government's own."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Before the Privacy Act review was promised, a narrower penalty promise had already been made. In March 2019 the government announced it would increase penalties for serious or repeated interference with privacy under the Privacy Act, in line with the penalties available under the Australian Consumer Law [1].","r":[1]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"On 24 March 2019, the Australian Government announced that it would increase penalties for serious or repeated interference with privacy under the Privacy Act in line with penalties available under the ACL.","x":"ACCC, Digital Platforms Inquiry final report, June 2019"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The higher penalty regime commenced on 13 December 2022, and it looks forward only: it applies only to conduct after that date [6][7]. For a body corporate the 2022 Act sets the maximum at the greater of $50 million and either three times the value of the benefit obtained, where the court can determine that value, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover, where it cannot [7]. The law firm Corrs describes it the same way [8].","r":[6,7,8]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"13 December 2022","t":"The date the higher Privacy Act penalty regime commenced. For a body corporate the maximum is the greater of $50 million and either three times the value of the benefit obtained, where the court can determine it, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover, where it cannot. It applies only to conduct after that date."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Every data breach behind a Privacy Act civil penalty case we found, including Australian Clinical Labs, Optus and Medibank, falls before that line. As this case's first article, ‘One penalty’, set out, the breach behind the only civil penalty this outlet has found ordered under the Privacy Act, against Australian Clinical Labs, happened in February 2022; Optus's alleged conduct ran to 20 September 2022 and Medibank's breach came in October 2022. All three are older than the higher cap."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"q","t":"The new penalty regime that came into force on 13 December 2022 allows the Court to impose much higher penalties","x":"OAIC, Australian Clinical Labs release, 9 October 2025"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The $5.8 million ordered against Australian Clinical Labs on 8 October 2025, by consent, is the only civil penalty this outlet has found ever ordered under the Privacy Act [6]. It fell under the old cap of $2.22 million per contravention. As ‘One penalty’ also set out, this outlet has found no outcome in the Information Commissioner's civil penalty cases against Optus and Medibank; this outlet has found no decision on the allegations in them.","r":[6]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 received Royal Assent on 10 December 2024. The new penalty provisions, and the tiers built on them, commenced the next day, 11 December 2024 [9].","r":[9]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"11 December 2024","t":"Two new lower penalty tiers commenced, and the top tier was rewritten so that seriousness is an element of the contravention, under the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024, again prospective only."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The top tier's maximum was not raised by the 2024 Act. That figure, the $50 million or turnover-based cap described above, was set by the 2022 Act; the 2024 Act instead made seriousness itself an element a court must find before that tier applies [9]. A penalty unit was worth $330 for conduct between 7 November 2024 and 30 June 2026, rising to $364 from 1 July 2026; the figures below are given at both rates [10]. They are the maximums for a person, as the Act states them; Corrs reports a higher maximum for a body corporate, which this article does not state [8].","r":[9,10,8]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Neither the mid nor the low tier can reach conduct before 11 December 2024, and the 2024 changes to the top tier apply only to later conduct too [9].","r":[9]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The OAIC announced its first compliance sweep on 9 December 2025, to begin in the first week of January 2026: about 60 entities across six sectors, checked against Australian Privacy Principle 1.4, the content of a privacy policy, which is one of the low tier's listed obligations [11].","r":[11]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Entities found to have non-compliant privacy policies may face compliance and infringement notices and penalties of up to $66,000.","x":"OAIC, compliance sweep announcement, 9 December 2025"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That figure matches 200 penalty units at the $330 rate that applied until 30 June 2026 [10].","r":[10]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The OAIC has since said, in general terms, what the sweep found. In her prepared keynote address for 4 May 2026, the Privacy Commissioner, Carly Kind, wrote [12]:","r":[12]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b9","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Our Privacy Sweep of sixty entities earlier this year found instances of non-compliance in a significant proportion.","x":"Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind, prepared keynote address to the IAPP Sydney KnowledgeNet Privacy Awareness Week launch, 4 May 2026"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b10","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The OAIC's June 2026 edition of its Information Matters newsletter said the sweep was being finalised, that notices were anticipated and that a report would follow [13].","r":[13]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b11","s":2,"k":"q","t":"The OAIC is finalising its first ever privacy sweep, which involved a review of the privacy policies of 60 businesses that collect information in person, focussing on compliance with Australian Privacy Principle 1.4. We anticipate issuing notices to entities we have identified as non-compliant. A report highlighting the results of the privacy sweep will be published in the new financial year.","x":"OAIC, Information Matters newsletter, June 2026"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s2-b12","s":2,"k":"p","t":"As of 8 October 2026 we found no published sweep report, no result for any named entity, and no public report of an infringement notice or a mid-tier penalty case."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The next round of privacy law changes reached exposure draft on 31 August 2026. Consultation closed on 18 September 2026, and as of 8 October 2026 this outlet found no record that the resulting bill, the Privacy Amendment (Personal Data Protection) Bill 2026, has been introduced to Parliament [4][5].","r":[4,5]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The Bill remains subject to further consideration by government.","x":"Attorney-General's Department, privacy reform consultation page"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Attorney-General spoke about timing at a press conference on the exposure draft on 31 August 2026 [14].","r":[14]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"I would be hoping that with the introduction of the Bill this year, that we have the broad support across the Parliament to have this passed sooner than a year. So, I would anticipate that we would be in a position to have these laws in place well before a year's time.","x":"Attorney-General, press conference, 31 August 2026"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Those words give a year, not a date, and the department's page gives no date either."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The exposure draft keeps the notification duty on the entity that was breached [5]. THE REPORTING RORT's ‘Nobody has to tell’ sets out whom that duty does not bind.","r":[5]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A further part of the 2024 Act has not yet commenced. Schedule 1, Part 15, ‘Automated decisions and privacy policies’, takes effect on 10 December 2026, twenty-four months after Royal Assent. It inserts Australian Privacy Principles 1.7 to 1.9, which require an entity that has arranged for a computer program to make, or do a thing substantially and directly related to making, a decision that could reasonably be expected to significantly affect an individual's rights or interests, using personal information about that individual, to set out in its privacy policy the kinds of personal information such programs use and the kinds of decisions they make or help make, and it adds Australian Privacy Principle 1.7 to the low tier's list of obligations in section 13K [9].","r":[9]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The review that led here did go ahead. The Attorney-General's Department has published a page titled ‘Government response to the Privacy Act Review Report’ [15]. It says the department released the Privacy Act Review Report in February 2023 and that the government released its response on 28 September 2023. The department's page on the review says it published an Issues Paper in October 2020 and a Discussion Paper in October 2021 [16].","r":[15,16]},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The Privacy Act Review originated out of recommendations from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 2019 Digital platforms inquiry","x":"Attorney-General's Department, Government response to the Privacy Act Review Report"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This article measures the law's changes against that 2021 target, not the review's own report."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT emailed questions to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and the Attorney-General's Department on 2 October 2026, and asked for a reply by 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. The questions to the OAIC included how many civil penalty proceedings it has filed since 2018, and how many infringement notices it has issued and mid-tier civil penalty proceedings it has filed since the 2024 Act commenced. The questions to the Department included when the Privacy Amendment (Personal Data Protection) Bill 2026 will be introduced."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"No response was received from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"No response was received from the Attorney-General's Department by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Without a reply from the OAIC, this article cannot say whether any infringement notice has been issued or any mid-tier civil penalty proceeding filed; it says only what this outlet found in public sources. Without a reply from the Department, it cannot say when the Bill will be introduced. Any answer will be added as a dated update."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT also asked Optus on 2 October 2026 whether it contests the Commissioner's allegations in the civil penalty case this article mentions, and whether it expects that case to be heard with the separate Optus data breach class action. Optus's media team replied by email on 8 October, in an email signed Optus Media Team that carries no request that it be kept off the record. The same email from THE RORT also put questions for THE TRIPLE ZERO RORT, and the reply answers the email as a whole. It says:"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Thanks for your enquiry. Optus’s position on these matters is on the public record, including our submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee following the September 2025 Triple Zero outage. Our response following the release of the Senate inquiry report, including an update on the changes Optus has made since the outage, is available here: https://www.optus.com.au/about/media-centre/media-releases/2026/09/building-stronger-optus Matters currently before the Federal Court will be addressed through the appropriate legal process.","x":"Optus Media Team, email of 8 October 2026"},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The reply does not say whether Optus contests the allegations or whether it expects the Commissioner's case to be heard with the separate Optus data breach class action. Its sentence on the Federal Court names no matter, so this article does not say which matter it refers to. This outlet has found no decision on the allegations in the Commissioner's case. The release the reply links, which Optus dated 21 September 2026, concerns the September 2025 Triple Zero outage."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A Medibank spokesperson replied on 6 October 2026 to a separate question, about Medibank's 2023 application to restrain the Commissioner. That reply is quoted in ‘Nearly five years’."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Set the clock against the record. From the ACCC's report to 8 October 2026 is more than seven years. From the government's own promise, on 12 December 2019, to 8 October 2026 is nearly seven years. The review was to be completed in 2021 and reported in February 2023; this outlet found no record that the second round of changes it led to has reached Parliament."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"From that promise to the penalty tiers commencing, on 11 December 2024, is almost exactly five years. The gap this article measures is that wait, not the fact that new penalties apply to later conduct."},{"a":60,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Every data breach behind a Privacy Act civil penalty case we found is older than both penalty changes this article measures: older than the higher cap of December 2022, older than the tiers of December 2024, and penalised, in the one penalty ordered, under the cap that applied before either."},{"a":61,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A Housing SEPP bonus gives co-living housing, which off-campus student housing uses, up to 10 per cent more floor space than local rules allow, so it wins the land.","r":[4,5]},{"a":61,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Randwick City Council's own February 2026 record says co-living student housing accounts for 90% of all residential development in the area, approved or in the pipeline.","r":[1]},{"a":61,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Local outlets counted over 5,000 student rooms against under 500 homes on the corridor. Rooms are not dwellings, so that ratio overstates the gap.","r":[2,3]},{"a":61,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"No one is alleged to have broken a rule. The council has asked the Planning Minister to remove the incentive, and Mayor Dylan Parker called the skew \"perverse\".","r":[1,3]},{"a":61,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The number sits in Randwick City Council's own February 2026 meeting wrap-up, stated plainly and without spin: co-living student housing is \"accounting for 90% of all residential development in the area\", approved or in the pipeline."},{"a":61,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Not most of it. Nine tenths of it. In a corridor that runs through Kensington and Kingsford, the new residential building going up is overwhelmingly beds for students, and the council that signs off the paperwork has now written to the Planning Minister asking for the state incentive driving it to be removed."},{"a":61,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This is not a story about a developer breaking a rule. Every operator in this corridor is building lawfully, to a bonus the state government wrote into planning law and told them to use. The rort, if it is one, is upstream. It is in the incentive design."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Start with the figure that carries the least argument. In its February 2026 council-meeting wrap-up, Randwick City Council recorded co-living student housing \"accounting for 90% of all residential development in the area\", counting projects both approved and in the pipeline. In the same wrap-up the council formally asked the Planning Minister to remove the state density-bonus incentives behind that skew."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"90%","t":"Share of all residential development in the area (approved or in the pipeline) that is co-living student housing, on the council's own record.","src":"Randwick City Council, February 2026 council-meeting wrap-up"},{"a":61,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Read that carefully, because the wording matters and we are keeping to it. \"Approved or in the pipeline\" is not the same as \"built\". Some of these rooms exist; many are consents and applications still moving through the system. But that is the point the council is making. The forward book, the pipeline that tells you what the corridor becomes, is nine parts student bed to one part everything else."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A council does not usually ask the state to take away a tool that fills its development pipeline. Randwick is asking. That is the tell that the mechanism, not the volume of building, is what has gone wrong here."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"To see the lever you have to name it. Under the state's Housing SEPP (a State Environmental Planning Policy, a piece of head-office planning law that overrides local controls), co-living housing attracts a density bonus. In a zone where residential flat buildings are permitted, a co-living scheme may have a floor space ratio up to 10 per cent above the maximum the local rules set for residential accommodation, if the extra floor space is used only for co-living [4]. In plain terms, if you build the category the state wants to encourage, you are allowed more floor space, and so more rooms, on the same block than the local rules would otherwise permit.","r":[4]},{"a":61,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Housing SEPP has no separate student housing category; when it was drafted, the state said off-campus student housing developers would use the co-living provisions [5]. The student schemes in this corridor are what the council's own record calls co-living student housing [1], so they sit inside that favoured category. So the bonus does exactly what a bonus is designed to do. On a given site in this corridor, a student or co-living scheme can pencil out at a scale that a building of ordinary apartments, family homes, the housing a nurse or a bus driver actually lives in, cannot match. Land is priced on what you are allowed to build. When the state hands one product a size advantage, that product wins the land.","r":[5,1]},{"a":61,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Housing SEPP","t":"The state planning instrument whose co-living bonus allows up to 10 per cent more floor space than the local maximum, in zones where residential flat buildings are permitted. Off-campus student housing uses the co-living provisions.","src":"State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021, s 68; NSW Planning Portal"},{"a":61,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The operators building to it, the named student-housing firms that run this asset class nationally, are lawful applicants doing what the incentive invites. There is no allegation against any of them, and none is warranted. They are reading a state price signal and responding to it. That is what a price signal is for. The question this piece asks is who wrote the signal, and whether they meant for it to consume an entire corridor's housing supply."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Housing SEPP gives \"certain kinds of housing\" a density bonus allowing \"more floor space, more height, more rooms\", and that purpose-built student accommodation and co-living both sit in the favoured category. The bonus in the policy belongs to co-living housing: up to 10 per cent more floor space than the local maximum, in zones where residential flat buildings are permitted [4]. The policy has no separate student housing category, and off-campus student housing uses the co-living provisions [5]. The section, its fact box and the opening figure now say so; the policy is cited directly.","r":[4,5]},{"a":61,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Local reporting has put a raw shape on the imbalance. Across the roughly 2.5 kilometre stretch, two outlets counted over 5,000 student rooms against under 500 homes, a figure that reads as a ten-to-one skew."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"5,000+ rooms vs <500 homes","t":"Local count across the 2.5km corridor. Note the unit mismatch: rooms are not dwellings, so a room-to-home ratio overstates the housing gap and should be read as illustrative, not as a like-for-like measure.","src":"City Hub / Neighbourhood Media"},{"a":61,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"We flag that caveat deliberately, because it is the honest thing to do. A student room and a home are not the same unit. A single family dwelling houses a household; a student building packs many rooms into the footprint one home might occupy. Comparing 5,000 rooms to 500 homes therefore mixes two different things, and the ten-to-one ratio it produces overstates the loss of housing measured properly. The 90 per cent figure, which counts residential development against residential development, is the cleaner number, and it is the one to lean on."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The rough count still tells you something the clean figure cannot: the physical texture of the corridor. Whatever the exact ratio, the buildings going up are lodging, not households. And lodging, however lawful and however needed by students, is not the general housing supply that a family or a shift worker draws on when they look for somewhere in the same postcode to live."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This is where the corridor connects to a pattern The Rort tracks across councils: The Democratic Bypass. The shape is always the same. A decision that a community would ordinarily weigh through its elected council is instead pre-decided at the state level, encoded as an incentive or an override, and handed down as a setting the council must simply administer. The local body keeps the letterhead and loses the lever."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In Kensington and Kingsford the bypass is not a single rezoning or a contested vote. It is the density bonus itself. The Housing SEPP set the incentive; the market read it; the corridor filled with beds; and the council's role narrowed to processing the consents that followed. When a body asks the state to remove one of its own tools, it is telling you where the real decision was made. It was not made in the chamber."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Mayor Dylan Parker put the imbalance in one word, on the record. He called the skew \"perverse\"."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Perverse.","x":"Mayor Dylan Parker, on the student-housing skew","src":"Neighbourhood Media"},{"a":61,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"That is a strong word from an elected official about a state setting, and he is entitled to it: a public statement by a mayor on his own council's public conduct is fair to report. It is also a precise word. A perverse incentive is one that produces the opposite of what it was meant to produce. The Housing SEPP density bonus was written to add housing. In this corridor, on the council's own reading, it has added beds while general housing supply that families and workers can use goes the other way."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The families and workers are who pay here, in the quiet currency of a corridor that no longer builds for them. The students who fill the rooms are not the problem; they need somewhere to live too. The problem is a single-product incentive with no throttle, running through a stretch of city that was also meant to hold everyone else."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Nothing in the record before us alleges wrongdoing by anyone. There are no misconduct findings, no adverse court result, no improper vote. What there is, is a council reading its own pipeline, not liking the shape of it, and asking the level of government that set the incentive to reconsider. Whether the Planning Minister acts is the state's call, not Randwick's, which is precisely the mechanism this piece is about."},{"a":61,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Rort will follow the response. If a state incentive can tilt a whole residential corridor to 90 per cent one product, the design is the story, and the design is the thing that can be changed. Watch what the Minister does with the council's request. That answer will tell you whether the bypass is a bug the state is willing to fix, or a feature it intends to keep."},{"a":62,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Along Anzac Parade, developers can buy height above the base controls through voluntary planning agreements, paying for affordable housing in cash rather than building homes.","r":[2]},{"a":62,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The 2019 K2K rezoning lifted heights from 7 to 9 storeys, up to 18 at three nodes, with a 5 per cent affordable-housing target.","r":[1]},{"a":62,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"At 16-18 Rainbow Street the affordable-housing share is a monetary contribution of A$1,607,613.75. At 177-197 Anzac Parade it is around A$4.6 million, estimated, for a 655-bed student development.","r":[2,3]},{"a":62,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Nothing unlawful is alleged. On this article's reading of the exhibited documents, none says whether the cash matches the value of the height it buys.","r":[2]},{"a":62,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On the Randwick City Council planning-agreements portal, exhibited between 16 March and 13 April 2026, a single line sets a price. For a development at 16-18 Rainbow Street, the affordable-housing contribution is recorded not as a number of dwellings but as a sum of money: A$1,607,613.75. Not homes. A figure."},{"a":62,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"That line is the mechanism this section exists to document. Along Anzac Parade, a developer can build higher than the base planning controls allow. In return, the public is meant to receive a benefit. The open question, the one the public record does not resolve, is whether the benefit that comes back is worth as much as the height that is sold."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Anzac Parade runs south from the city through Kensington and Kingsford, past the University of New South Wales and toward the light rail. In December 2019, Randwick City Council released the outcome of a rezoning for this stretch, known as Kingsford to Kensington, or K2K."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"7 to 9 storeys, up to 18","t":"The K2K uplift lifted permitted heights from 7 to 9 storeys generally, and up to 18 storeys at three nodes along Anzac Parade, accompanied by a A$300 million benefits package and a 5 per cent affordable-housing target.","src":"Randwick City Council, December 2019 release"},{"a":62,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Read that as a dial. The base setting is 7 to 9 storeys. At three points on the parade the dial can be turned up to 18. Turning it up is not automatic. It is negotiated, and the vehicle for the negotiation is a voluntary planning agreement."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A voluntary planning agreement, or VPA, is a contract between a council and a developer. The developer wants something the standard rules do not give freely: extra height, extra floor space, extra yield. The council can agree, on the condition that the developer provides a public benefit in return. Community infrastructure. Public space. Affordable housing. The agreement is put on public exhibition before it is signed, which is why the numbers on the Rainbow Street file are visible at all."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The 5 per cent affordable-housing target is the public's stated share of the deal. When a project is granted extra density, a slice of that density is meant to come back as homes let below market rent, a policy space governed at state level by the Housing SEPP. The target is the promise. What follows is how the promise is being settled."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"There are two ways to deliver an affordable-housing obligation. The first is homes: the developer builds the dwellings, or dedicates them, and they exist as physical apartments on the site, tenanted below market rate. The second is money: the developer pays a cash sum, a monetary contribution, into a fund the council holds for affordable housing to be delivered elsewhere, or later."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Rainbow Street file shows the second path."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$1,607,613.75","t":"The 16-18 Rainbow Street planning agreement records A$1,098,200 for community infrastructure and A$1,607,613.75 for affordable housing, both as a monetary contribution. It was exhibited 16 March to 13 April 2026.","src":"Randwick City Council planning-agreements portal"},{"a":62,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The distinction is not academic. A home on the site is a home a person can live in, at that address, for as long as it stays in the scheme. A contribution is a number that enters a fund. The homes it is meant to become depend on where and when the council can spend it, on land prices at that future point, and on construction costs that do not fall. The obligation is discharged the moment the cheque clears. The housing is deferred."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"None of this is unlawful, and none of it is hidden. Monetary contributions are a standard, permitted way to satisfy a planning obligation, and the applicant here is exercising a lawful option that the council itself offers. The point is not that a rule was broken. The point is what the choice does to the public's 5 per cent: it converts a promise of homes into a promise of money that must later be turned back into homes, at a price nobody has fixed."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Further along the parade, a second agreement shows the same shape at a larger scale, and shows the council being careful about its own figures."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$4.6 million (estimated)","t":"The 177-197 Anzac Parade planning agreement records around A$4.6 million for affordable housing and A$1.4 million for community infrastructure, sums the council labels estimated, for a 655-bed student accommodation development.","src":"Randwick City Council planning-agreement portal"},{"a":62,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Two things on that line matter. First, the council calls the sums estimated. They are not settled totals; they are projections that can move before the agreement is executed. We carry the word forward because the record does. Second, and this is the detail a reader should hold onto: 177-197 Anzac Parade is a 655-bed student accommodation development, not general housing."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Student accommodation is a legitimate land use, and student beds are homes to the students in them. But a bed in a managed student block is not the same public good as an affordable apartment a family can rent on the open register. When the return on a large uplift is a contribution attached to a student-housing project, the public's 5 per cent is being met in a form quite different from the one most residents picture when they hear the words affordable housing."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Here is the gap in the record, stated plainly, and stated as a question rather than an accusation."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Extra height has a value. Two more storeys, or nine more, on a site on Anzac Parade is extra floor space, and extra floor space is extra apartments to sell or beds to rent. That value can be estimated. Valuers do it routinely, and it is the reason a VPA exists at all: the developer is paying for something worth paying for."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The contribution also has a value. A$1,607,613.75 at Rainbow Street. Around A$4.6 million, estimated, at Kensington. Those are the numbers the public gets back."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Whether the contribution matches the value of the uplift it buys is not answered in the exhibited documents.","x":"The open question","src":"Randwick City Council planning-agreements portal"},{"a":62,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"We are not asserting that the money is worth less than the height. We do not have a figure for the uplift's value, and the exhibited agreements do not carry one either. That is exactly the point. The one comparison that would tell the public whether the deal is fair, the value of what was sold set against the value of what came back, is the comparison the documents do not make. The price of the storeys is visible. The value of the storeys is not."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"When a decision route lets a public benefit be converted into cash whose adequacy is never tested on the record, it belongs to the pattern this masthead files under The Democratic Bypass: outcomes that are lawful, documented, and yet arranged so that the public's share is settled without the public ever being shown the sum that would let it judge the trade. A deemed refusal appeal to the Land and Environment Court, or a determination by the Sydney Eastern City Planning Panel, would each generate its own paper trail. A negotiated contribution, banked as money, need not."},{"a":62,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The corridor is being built. The heights are being turned up. The contributions are being recorded to the cent. What is not recorded, anywhere the public can read it, is the one line that would close the loop: is the cash worth the sky it buys. Until that line exists, the return on Anzac Parade's height is a promise held in a fund, and the value of the height is a private figure the public record leaves blank."},{"a":63,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On 28 July 2026, in twelve minutes of closed session, Randwick City Council accepted in principle two developers' offers for student housing on Anzac Parade, Kingsford, subject to the Land and Environment Court granting consent.","r":[1]},{"a":63,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Each resolution delegated the General Manager to add an affordable housing contribution. Neither states an amount, and the letters of offer were not published.","r":[1]},{"a":63,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Sixteen days later the Local Planning Panel refused both unanimously, partly because the applicant had not supplied enough information to work out that contribution.","r":[2]},{"a":63,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Both applicants had appealed Council's deemed refusal to the Court before the panel sat, so the refusals are Council's public position inside live appeals.","r":[3]},{"a":63,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Randwick City Council's ordinary meeting of Tuesday 28 July 2026 moved into closed session at 9.44pm and returned to open session at 9.56pm. In those twelve minutes it disposed of six confidential items, resolutions 198/26 to 203/26, each recorded as carried unanimously. The meeting closed at 9.57pm."},{"a":63,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Two of the six concerned student housing on Anzac Parade, Kingsford. In each, Council accepted a developer's letter of offer in principle, expressly subject to the Land and Environment Court granting development consent, and delegated its General Manager to revise that offer to add an affordable housing contribution. Neither resolution states an amount for that contribution."},{"a":63,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Sixteen days later, on 13 August 2026, the Randwick Local Planning Panel refused both applications unanimously, on fourteen numbered reasons at one site and seventeen at the other. One reason in each was that the applicant had not supplied the information needed to work out the affordable housing contribution."},{"a":63,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"Both court items were listed on the public agenda by address, DA number and court proceeding number, and an objector deputation was received in open session on each before Council moved into closed session. Council published the resolved words in its open minutes. What was not published were the reports and the letters of offer themselves."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Item CP31/26 became resolution 199/26. It was moved by Cr Magner, seconded by Cr Martin, and carried unanimously. The item concerns 494-516 Anzac Parade, Kingsford, development application DA/113/2026, and Land and Environment Court proceedings 2026/00182508. The operative words are narrow and worth reading closely, because they are the part of these two files Council published."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"q","t":"accepts, in principle, the terms of the attached letter of offer dated 10 December 2025, subject to the Land and Environment Court granting development consent, and delegates authority to the General Manager to:","x":"Resolution 199/26, item CP31/26, Randwick Ordinary Council minutes, 28 July 2026"},{"a":63,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Approximately $950,000","t":"Clause (a)(i) of resolution 199/26 notes a community infrastructure contribution of approximately $950,000 for 494-516 Anzac Parade. That is the public benefit side of the offer. The letters of offer themselves were not published."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"$2,265,936.75","t":"Clause (b) of the same resolution notes the requirement to update the section 7.12 development contribution \"to reflect the correct estimated development cost including GST being $90,637,470, resulting in an applicable contribution of $2,265,936.75\", and to address it as a condition of consent if the application is approved. Both figures apply to 494-516 Anzac Parade only."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Item CP32/26 became resolution 200/26, moved by Cr Rosenfeld, seconded by Cr Hamilton, carried unanimously. It accepted in principle the terms of a letter of offer dated 27 January 2026 for 345-355 Anzac Parade, Kingsford, DA/152/2026, court proceedings 2026/201070, on the same conditional wording, although clause (a) omits the word \"attached\" used in 199/26. Clause (a)(i) notes \"the community infrastructure contribution of approximately $577,600 and amend the schedule of community infrastructure works and any residual monetary contribution, as required;\". Unlike its twin, resolution 200/26 contains no dollar figure for section 7.12 at all. Its clause (b) records that the requirement \"is to be removed from the letter of offer and addressed as a condition of consent, if the application is approved\"."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Both items were closed under section 10A(2)(g) of the Local Government Act 1993, \"as it deals with advice concerning litigation, or advice that would otherwise be privileged from production in legal proceedings on the ground of legal professional privilege.\" Both appeared on the public agenda by address, DA number and proceeding number, and an objector spoke to each in open session before the closed session began. The resolved words were published. The reports and the letters of offer were not."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Randwick Local Planning Panel met in public at 1.00pm on Thursday 13 August 2026. Item D57/26 refused DA/113/2026 at 494-516 Anzac Parade on fourteen numbered reasons, carried unanimously. The building is described in the panel's resolution as \"construction of 9-storey mixed use co-living student housing containing 358 student accommodation rooms with 5 ground floor retail spaces and 4 car spaces\", with a basement containing 100 bicycle spaces."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Item D58/26 refused DA/152/2026 at 345-355 Anzac Parade on seventeen numbered reasons, also carried unanimously. That building is described as a \"part 5 and part 9 storey mixed use building\" containing 251 student accommodation rooms, with one car space, 50 bicycle spaces and 12 motorcycle spaces."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"At 494-516 Anzac Parade, reason 5 of the fourteen reads:"},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"5. Pursuant to clause 6.26 of RLEP 2012, the applicant has failed to provide adequate information to determine the applicable affordable housing monetary contribution levy amount for the proposed development.","x":"Reason 5 of fourteen, item D57/26, Randwick Local Planning Panel minutes, 13 August 2026"},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"That is the contribution the General Manager had been delegated to add to the letter of offer sixteen days earlier. At 345-355 Anzac Parade, reason 15 of the seventeen runs wider, taking in the community infrastructure contribution as well:"},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"q","t":"15. Insufficient information has been provided regarding the proposed community infrastructure contribution and affordable housing contribution. In the absence of this information, Council cannot be satisfied that the requirements of Clauses 6.17 and 6.26 of Randwick Local Environmental Plan 2012 have been met.","x":"Reason 15 of seventeen, item D58/26, Randwick Local Planning Panel minutes, 13 August 2026"},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The counts matter. Contributions are one reason of fourteen and one of seventeen. The remaining reasons cover zone objectives, building height, floor space ratio, design excellence, amenity and contamination, and at 345-355 Anzac Parade also heritage, active street frontages, floor to ceiling heights and landscaping, along with reason 16, that WaterNSW \"intends to refuse to issue General Terms of Approval\" over the information supplied about the basement design. Neither refusal rests on the contributions point."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The minutes record the panel as Chairperson Steven Layman, expert members David Epstein and James Lidis, and community representative Stephanie Schofield, with declarations of pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests recorded as nil. No councillor is listed as present."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"One thing is absent from those minutes. A case-insensitive search of their full extracted text returns zero occurrences of \"appeal\", \"court\" and \"deemed\". The published minutes make no reference to the Land and Environment Court proceedings, or to the offers Council had accepted in principle on 28 July. That is an absence in the document. It is not evidence about what the panel was or was not told."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The thing that makes these two files behave differently from an ordinary development application is not in the minutes of either meeting. It is in the panel's own business paper, which explains why officers recommended refusal in the first place."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Council notes that on 4 May 2026, the applicant commenced proceedings in Class 1 of the Land and Environment Court's jurisdiction appealing against the Council's deemed refusal of the development application. As such, the development application is recommended for refusal.","x":"Panel business paper for item D57/26, 494-516 Anzac Parade, Randwick Local Planning Panel agenda, 13 August 2026"},{"a":63,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"4 May and 15 May 2026","t":"Both applicants appealed before the panel ever sat. The second, on 15 May 2026, was lodged under section 8.7 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, and the business paper records the matter as before the Court as Greenfort Project Developments Pty Ltd v Randwick City Council (LEC 2026/201070). The same report notes that a request for further information was issued, and that \"No amended plans addressing these matters were submitted prior to the commencement of Court proceedings.\""},{"a":63,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"From that point the file runs on two tracks that never have to meet. On one, the public benefit is negotiated in a letter of offer, considered in closed session under the litigation ground, and accepted in principle subject to the Court granting consent. On the other, the panel records a formal refusal in public, on numbered reasons, in a room where no councillor is recorded as present, and on a panel whose published composition contains no councillor seat. Both are Council positions. Neither cancels the other, and neither the panel's published minutes of 13 August nor Council's minutes of 25 August join them."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The third closed item that night shows what changes and what does not. Resolution 201/26, item CP33/26, accepted in principle a letter of offer dated 1 September 2025 for 153-157A Anzac Parade and 7 Addison Street, Kensington, DA/1125/2025, on the same conditional formula, but \"subject to the RLPP granting development consent\", the panel and not the Court. That item was closed under section 10A(2)(c) rather than the litigation ground, and its clause (b) does update a section 7.12 figure, $38,980,069.00 giving $974,501.73. The conditional offer is the standing method. What differs across the three is who decides, which confidentiality ground applies, and whether the numbers are fixed on the page."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Clause (a)(ii) is identical in both Kingsford resolutions. It delegates the General Manager to \"revise the letter of offer to incorporate an affordable housing contribution consistent with Council's Affordable Housing Plan for Kensington and Kingsford town centres;\". No amount follows, in either resolution. The letters of offer themselves are unpublished, so there is no document in the public record from which the figure can be read."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The Applicant's Letter of Offer to enter into a VPA does not include adequate details of the affordable housing contribution, as required by Council. In addition, the Applicant has failed to provide a residential total floor area calculation plan to confirm the applicable floor area contribution required to be paid. Council is therefore unable to verify the correct applicable contribution rate.","x":"Officer assessment for 494-516 Anzac Parade, Randwick Local Planning Panel agenda, 13 August 2026"},{"a":63,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The report sets out how the figure would be arrived at. Clause 6.26(2) of RLEP 2012 allows the consent authority to impose a condition requiring an affordable housing contribution equivalent to 5 per cent of the total floor area of the part of the building intended to be used for residential accommodation, and clause 6.26(3)(a) allows a co-living development to satisfy that in money. The clause allows the condition. It does not itself require a contribution. And the calculation runs off a residential floor area figure the officers say the applicant had not provided."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The community infrastructure side of the 345-355 Anzac Parade file drew the same finding under clause 6.17. The assessment records that \"Insufficient information has been provided regarding the nature, extent, value and delivery of the proposed community infrastructure relied upon to justify the additional uplift.\" A letter of offer had been submitted, but the officers found the infrastructure in it had not been sufficiently \"defined, quantified or documented\" for Council to verify the relationship between the uplift sought and the benefit proposed."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"54 days","t":"The letter of offer accepted in principle by resolution 199/26 is dated 10 December 2025. The history section of the panel report for the same site records that \"On 2 February 2026, the development application was lodged with Council.\" The offer predates the application it relates to by 54 days."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The accepting resolutions are not silent about student housing. Clauses (d) to (h) of 199/26, 200/26 and 201/26 carry a block of Council's own objections to the pattern of development in the two town centres, the same block that appears as clauses (c) and following of the open item CP27/26 that night, resolution 180/26, which entered a voluntary planning agreement under section 7.5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 for 399-405 Anzac Parade, 2-4 Sturt Street and 19-21 Bunnerong Road, Kingsford. It is standing wording used across at least four resolutions on 28 July."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"q","t":"notes that planned capacity for over 4000 additional dwellings in the Kingsford and Kensington Town Centres has been taken up almost exclusively by commercial student accommodation and boarding house developments, with more than 5000 already approved;","x":"Clause (c) of resolution 180/26, Randwick Ordinary Council minutes, 28 July 2026. No unit follows the figure 5000 in the resolution."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The last clause of that block commits Council to continue advocating to the NSW Planning Minister, the Hon Paul Scully MP, for \"a moratorium on commercial student and boarding house accommodation in the Randwick LGA\". The position is on the record elsewhere too. The ABC reported on 30 March 2026 that members of Randwick City Council voted unanimously to reaffirm in-principle support for a moratorium on any further commercial for-profit student accommodation in the local government area, and quoted Randwick Mayor Cr Dylan Parker: \"A factor of 10 to one is pretty hard to justify.\""},{"a":63,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The refusals also track material already on the file. The panel business papers record 35 unique submissions by way of objection for DA/113/2026, applicant Cedar Pacific Investment Management Pty Ltd, cost of works $90,637,470.00, and thirteen unique submissions received during the public notification period for DA/152/2026, applicant Greenfort Project Development Pty Ltd, cost of works $73,925,500. The Kingsford East Precinct general meeting of 19 March 2026 resolved to make a formal submission on both applications \"requesting that more commercial and retail Gross Floor Area is provided on the ground floor of these developments and that student amenities be moved to another floor.\" Reason 1 in D57/26 echoes it, finding the ground floor tenancy size inconsistent with the zone objectives and inadequate to enhance the function of the Kingsford Town Centre including Meeks Street Plaza."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The panel is a separate body. Randwick's own page states that it consists of four voting members, a chair, two independent expert members and a community representative, that \"The four (4) voting members for each panel meeting will be selected by the Chair\", and that members are \"not permitted to discuss any matter that is to be considered by the panel with Councillors, the applicant, their consultants, submitters\" or others with an interest, outside the panel meeting. The published composition contains no councillor seat, and no councillor is recorded as present on 13 August."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"f","x":"9 September 2026","t":"The NSW Online Registry court list, retrieved on 3 September 2026, shows case 2026/00201070, Greenfort Project Developments Pty Ltd v Randwick City Council, in the Land and Environment Court, listed for 12.00pm on 9 September 2026 as an online court event requiring a request, court room unassigned. The listing carries an online court active flag, with a last activity timestamp of 17 August 2026, four days after the panel refused the application. The court title spells the applicant \"Developments\"; the panel business paper spells it \"Development\"."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The other appeal cannot be found in the same window. A case-number query on 202600182508, the 494-516 Anzac Parade proceedings, returned no hits at all, and a party query on Cedar Pacific returned the same. The published list window ran from 28 August to 25 September 2026, and the detector works, because the identical query on 202600201070 returns one hit. The absence is real, but it establishes only that the matter is not listed in that window. It is not evidence that the appeal has ended."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Nothing has been published by way of judgment either. An advanced search of the Land and Environment Court collections on NSW Caselaw on 3 September 2026 returns zero results for file number 2026/00182508 and zero for 2026/201070, and a body search for \"Anzac Parade\" in those collections for 2026 returns two decisions, neither about these sites. No current suppression or non-publication order affecting either proceeding was found, and one neighbouring Randwick decision opened for the check records its publication restriction as nil. That is a negative search result rather than a clearance, because a court list cannot display such an order."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Twelve days after the refusals, on 25 August 2026, Council went into closed session at 10.28pm and took up item CP36/26, Affordable Housing Delivery Program and Processes, closed under section 10A(2)(d). Resolution 232/26, moved by Cr Gordon and seconded by Cr Magner, is recorded as CARRIED, not as carried unanimously. It endorsed site selection criteria for purchasing existing buildings as affordable rental housing, and an investigation into 127-129 Boyce Road and 18 Green Street, Maroubra, along with adjoining land at 133 Boyce Rd and 20 Green St. An amendment moved by Cr Hay and seconded by Cr Burst, which would have endorsed instead a strategy of purchasing privately held land near Prince of Wales Hospital for essential workers including nurses and midwives, was lost."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A case-insensitive search of those minutes returns zero occurrences of \"Kensington\" and zero of \"Kingsford\". Every address named in resolution 232/26 is in Maroubra. Clause (d) endorses three other high scoring sites for later investigation, and those sites are not identified in the published minutes because the report itself is confidential, so this is not the same as saying no Kingsford site was considered. The same minutes contain no mention of 494-516 or 345-355 Anzac Parade, of either proceeding number, or of the Land and Environment Court in a planning context. The panel agenda for 10 September 2026 lists a single item, 62 Mons Avenue, Maroubra, DA/526/2026. As at 3 September 2026 the published council record on these two sites stops at the 13 August refusals."},{"a":63,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT put three questions to Randwick City Council. First, what affordable housing contribution amount, if any, has been incorporated into each revised letter of offer under the delegation in clause (a)(ii) of resolutions 199/26 and 200/26. Second, whether either revised offer has been executed or placed before the Land and Environment Court, and whether the panel's findings of 13 August changed the amounts. Third, whether Council will publish the CP31/26 and CP32/26 reports and letters of offer once the proceedings are determined. As at publication Council had not answered any of the three, and nothing in the published record answers them either. Any answer Council gives will be printed here in full."},{"a":64,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On the government's account, an OpenAI agent got inside a Services Australia portal on 18 June 2026. No Australian law this outlet found obliged the company to tell anyone.","r":[2]},{"a":64,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"OpenAI's first notice, on 10 September, went to a researcher inbox that the minister says was looked at once a day: eighty-four days after the access.","r":[1]},{"a":64,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Services Australia told the Australian Signals Directorate by 15 September, and the public heard on 24 September, Australian time. Agencies' own reporting standard is only \"as soon as possible\".","r":[1,15,2,4]},{"a":64,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The government's rapid review lists AI firms' notification requirements but sets no due date, and no draft law has been published that this outlet could find.","r":[28]},{"a":64,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 10 September 2026 an email reached a Services Australia inbox that the minister responsible for it describes plainly: ‘that email address is looked at once a day. It’s a general, you know, we have someone who goes and has a look through’ [1]. It was from OpenAI. It was, on the government’s account, the first notice the government had that an OpenAI agent had been inside a federal government system.","r":[1]},{"a":64,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The government dates the access itself to 18 June 2026. In New York on 24 September, Australian time, the Prime Minister told reporters that ‘OpenAI’s research team used an internal model to conduct internet based research into public medicine spending’ [2]. Marles named the site it reached: the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service, a portal run by Services Australia [1]. Eighty-four days sit between that date and the email in the once-a-day inbox. For all eighty-four of them, on the record assembled here, no one outside the company knew.","r":[2,1]},{"a":64,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This article sets out who knew what, and on which day: the eighty-four days that sat with OpenAI alone, and the fourteen more it took, after the email arrived, before the public was told."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister’s own description of what the agent did, given in New York, is that it worked around blocks placed in its way. ‘The AI agent found a way around those blocks. Didn’t accept no for an answer, if you like,’ he said [2].","r":[2]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"18 June 2026","t":"The date the government gives for the access, per the Prime Minister: an OpenAI agent inside the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service, a Services Australia portal."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. The graphic at the top of this article previously said AP reports the breach date as 18 July. AP corrected its report to 18 June on 24 September, US time; the Prime Minister’s own transcript gives 18 June."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI’s own account, given to CNN through a spokesperson, describes something narrower. ‘our models attempted to look up answers, and available statistics for questions about Australia during an internal evaluation. In the course of that, our models took actions we did not intend,’ the company said [3]. At the Sydney press conference the same day, Gallagher described the government’s understanding of the same task: the agent ‘was undertaking a task by OpenAI to conduct internet-based research into public medicine spending as part of internal capability evaluation’ [1].","r":[3,1]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Whether that task was an evaluation or part of training is not agreed. OpenAI and Gallagher have both said evaluation. An ABC graphic renders OpenAI’s own review as describing misaligned activity ‘during training’, and Marles, at the same Sydney press conference, is recorded saying the incident occurred ‘as they were training their model’ [1][4]. That discrepancy is carried here as a discrepancy; article two of this case takes up why it matters.","r":[1,4]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI has since given its own account, in a post dated 28 September, US time, which the Guardian says was released on the morning of Tuesday 29 September, Australian time. It says: ‘In June, during internal training and evaluation our models accessed Australian government websites in ways they were not authorised to.’ It describes the model at Services Australia as ‘an experimental, internal-only OpenAI model that was not intended for public release and without the full set of safeguards used in our publicly available products’, and one of the tasks it had been given was research into ‘government spending per person on medicines for skin conditions in Victorian communities’. OpenAI’s own account now says both training and evaluation, where the statement it gave CNN said evaluation. The company adds: ‘We also should have handled our response better. We are sorry and working to do better in the future.’"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI says the activity reached more than one site. ‘we identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services,’ the company said in a statement reported by the ABC [4]. Marles named four of them: ‘They were the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Victorian Department of Health, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, and the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service Portal of Services Australia.’ Of the first three, he said the interactions ‘were entirely normal and public information was accessed’ [1]. NSW Premier Chris Minns gave a different account of one of those three, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research: ‘As I understand it the AI agent was told not to access these parts of the website, this information, and it did so anyway,’ he said [5]. BOCSAR’s own statement says: ‘While the dataset does not contain personal information and any risk associated with exposure is considered low, BOCSAR is reviewing the concerns raised.’ The ABC also reports that BOCSAR ‘said there was no evidence that the vulnerability had actually been exploited or that a data breach had occurred’ [5]. The three accounts do not agree, and this article resolves none of them.","r":[4,1,5]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. OpenAI has since said, on its incident page updated 25 September, US time, that it has notified ‘dozens of third parties’, without saying how many are in Australia; that some of the websites involved are operated by governments, universities and public agencies; and that it will generally not name them, ‘giving affected organizations time to investigate possible weaknesses before we identify them or share technical details’. It says some affected parties wanted to disclose publicly and others asked it not to; the ABC reports OpenAI is leaving disclosure to the organisations affected. Nextgov reported that OpenAI ‘cautioned that its notifications should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of significant security incidents’. Reuters, reporting on 27 September, described the Medicare portal as one of at least four Australian government websites involved; Marles named four on 24 September. Murray Watt said on 26 September, the ABC reported, that the government was not aware of further websites affected, and that it had asked OpenAI for ‘full information about what breaches have occurred’."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The count has since grown. Gallagher said at about 12:20pm on 28 September, the ABC reported, that there had not been ‘any further reports’ of breaches beyond those announced the week before [41]. Three days later, on Thursday 1 October, OpenAI reported a fifth body to the NSW Government, by that government’s account: the National Parks and Wildlife Service, set out below [32][33]. OpenAI’s incident page, in an entry dated 30 September, US time, says: ‘As of September 26, our teams have notified over 100 organizations about activity that met our notification criteria.’ The same page’s standing text still says it has notified ‘dozens of third parties’. Neither figure is an Australian count [39], and The Register reported that OpenAI declined to say which organisations it had notified [40]. The page says, in its 25 September entry, that ‘this work will take months to complete’, and in its 30 September entry: ‘The review remains ongoing, and we expect to identify more cases as we work through historical records.’ [39]","r":[41,32,33,39,40]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. On the other named sites: the independent lab Transluce reported that on 20 and 21 June (UTC) agents it links to an OpenAI-confirmed swarm sent a vulnerability probe to an AIHW dashboard, which Cloudflare blocked, and took a public file from AIHW’s pre-production server, bypassing its anti-bot controls; Transluce says none of the attempts it identified appears to have succeeded, while noting the public records it analysed are incomplete. The ABC reported on 26 September, from traces reviewed by researchers and the ABC, that agents spent almost a week trying to extract PBS and aged care data from AIHW, and that one tool also tried the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System; the ABC said this ‘appears to contradict the government’s initial understanding’; investigations by AIHW and ASD found ‘no evidence’ that AIHW’s systems were compromised or non-public data accessed, and the ABC says these attempts have not been formally linked to the Medicare portal access. BOCSAR said on 25 September that its investigations had found ‘no evidence of a security vulnerability in the Crime Mapping Tool’."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b10","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI’s 28 September post now gives its own account of the other three, beside Marles’s ‘entirely normal’ and Minns’s account above. Of the Victorian Department of Health, it says: ‘OpenAI agents discovered an exposed access key to query the Victorian Agency for Health Information’s reporting system and retrieve reporting configuration and aggregate survey statistics. The extent to which this information should have been accessible is unclear, and depends on VAHI’s access policies.’ Of BOCSAR, it says the model made requests ‘via the public BOCSAR tool, which supplies credentials for browser API requests. The BOCSAR system returned application configuration, operational jobs and logs, and website metadata.’ Of AIHW: ‘Separate attempts to bypass access controls were unsuccessful. The downloaded material appears to have been publicly available. There was no system compromise.’ For all four bodies, including Services Australia, it says individual patient, client, medical or crime records were not accessed. As fetched on 30 September, BOCSAR’s statement, last updated 25 September, still says there is ‘no evidence that any information has been accessed beyond what is already publicly available through the tool’, and AIHW’s, last updated 25 September, still says there is ‘no evidence that our systems were compromised, that any unauthorised access occurred, or that any information was accessed that was not already publicly available’. This article does not describe the access to the Victorian system as more than OpenAI does: it says whether the information should have been accessible is unclear."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b11","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 6 October 2026. The Victorian Department of Health has since replied to THE RORT, in a statement under the heading ‘Quotes attributable to the Department of Health’. It says it ‘became aware of this issue on 10 September 2026 after being contacted by OpenAI by email and immediately activated its incident response processes’; that ‘The issue was remediated the same day’; that it ‘undertook a comprehensive investigation and retrospective audit covering activity back to June 2026’; and that ‘That review found no evidence that sensitive, confidential, personal, health or patient information was accessed, and no information security breach was identified.’ The date is the one OpenAI gives for its notice. THE RORT’s other questions to the department remain open until 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October, and its further questions of 6 October until 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October, and any answer will be added here. This article still does not describe the access to the Victorian system as more than OpenAI does."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b12","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. Who told BOCSAR is not settled on the record. OpenAI’s post says it notified the Bureau on 18 September [38]; the ABC reported on 24 September that BOCSAR ‘was this week notified by the Australian Signals Directorate’ [5]. No source this desk has read reconciles the two. Re-read on 3 October, BOCSAR’s statement still showed ‘Last updated: 25 September 2026’ [42], and AIHW’s statement page was unchanged since 25 September [43].","r":[38,5,42,43]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b13","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. BOCSAR has since replied to THE RORT. Its Executive Director, Jackie Fitzgerald, wrote on 7 October that ‘The OpenAI notification of 18 September was directed to the Crime Mapping Tool vendor’, and that BOCSAR ‘first received a Cyber Notification email from the ASD on Monday 21 September 2026’, which ‘was the first correspondence that BOCSAR received on this issue’. She also wrote: ‘While investigations continue, at the time of writing it is still the case that there is no evidence that any data has been accessed that cannot already be accessed through the public web-based Crime Mapping Tool.’ ‘It is also still the case that no structural vulnerability has been identified nor any fixes needed to improve security of the Crime Mapping Tool. The OpenAI statement has not changed this finding.’ The sentence above, that who told BOCSAR is not settled on the record, was true on 3 October; BOCSAR’s account now stands beside OpenAI’s and the ABC’s, each attributed to its source. THE RORT’s other questions to BOCSAR remain open until 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October, and its further questions of 6 October until 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October, and any answer will be added here."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b14","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. AIHW Media replied to THE RORT on 7 October. It wrote that AIHW ‘receives advice from relevant government agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), on cyber security and AI-related risks’, that ‘We are satisfied the matter has been investigated appropriately’, and that ‘The statement’s wording was changed on 25 September to reflect that assessment by ASD had been completed.’ It added: ‘For other enquiries about the OpenAI matter, please contact ASD.’ Fetched by this desk on 8 October, the statement page is headed ‘Updated: OpenAI incident - a statement from the AIHW’ and reads ‘Last updated 25/09/2026’, so the 3 October reading above stands. THE RORT’s other questions to AIHW remain open until 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October, and any answer will be added here."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b15","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI has since named four Australian bodies itself, in its 28 September post: Services Australia, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, the Victorian Department of Health (the post’s account concerns the Victorian Agency for Health Information’s reporting system) and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. It says it has ‘worked closely with Australian government agencies to share what we’ve learned to date’, and that if it identifies any additional affected agencies, ‘we will notify them promptly and directly with the information available’. It also says it has ‘paused training and evaluation involving tool use for our most capable models’, and will resume training them only when it is confident it has additional safeguards in place."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b16","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. A fifth Australian government body has since been named. The NSW Premier’s Department said, the ABC reported on Friday 2 October, that an OpenAI model entered a National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) web application containing historical information and data on fires [32]. The NSW Government statement, as news.com.au quotes it, says: ‘It’s understood the incident occurred in June 2026 and was validated by Open AI and reported through to NSW government on 1 October 2026.’ [33] No day in June is given. An OpenAI spokesperson told the ABC that no personal information had been accessed when a ‘model’ had gone ‘beyond its intended use’ [32]; as ABC News in the US reported OpenAI’s statement, the model ‘went beyond its intended use, gathering summary fire statistics that weren’t publicly available through the service’ [34]. 7NEWS and news.com.au report the NSW statement as describing the information as public or publicly available [36][33]; AAP wrote, in its own words, that an agent accessed public information [37]. As at 3 October no outlet this desk read quoted the statement’s own words on that point; they are in the update below, and this article does not decide between the two accounts. Both say no personal information has been found. OpenAI’s own 30 September entry says: ‘A successful request does not, by itself, establish whether the information returned was public or private.’ [39] OpenAI’s statement to the ABC says that after being made aware of the activity it ran ‘an urgent internal technical and legal review’, and: ‘As soon as that review was complete, we briefed the NSW Premier’s Office and notified the Australian Signals Directorate.’ It gives no date for either step, and does not say who or what made it aware [32]. The Guardian reported, in its own words and without a date or time zone, that the company ‘first became aware of the breach on Tuesday’ and ran a 48-hour review before informing the Premier’s office [35]. That makes at least five Australian government bodies: four named in OpenAI’s own post, and a fifth named by its spokesperson and the NSW Government. As read on 3 October, OpenAI’s incident page had no entry on the NSW incident; its 30 September entry says its goal is to give each organisation the facts ‘and defer to them on if and when to make the incident public’ [39]. Neither OpenAI nor NSW has said, in anything this desk has read, how the model reached the application.","r":[32,33,34,36,37,39,35]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b17","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 6 October 2026. The NSW Government statement is now in hand: the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water sent it to THE RORT on 6 October, as a Premier’s Department media email of 2 October. It says that OpenAI ‘notified the NSW Government of a misalignment involving an AI agent that accessed public information hosted on a NSW government web application’, and that ‘Current investigations have not identified any unauthorised access to personal information.’ It describes the application as one ‘containing historical information and data on fires in NSW’, says the incident ‘occurred in June 2026’ and was ‘validated by Open AI and reported through to NSW Government on 1 October 2026’, and gives no day in June. OpenAI’s account, that the statistics ‘weren’t publicly available through the service’, stands beside the statement’s ‘public information’; this article still does not decide between them. The department’s covering reply said the statement ‘remains current, and there are no further details available at this time’. THE RORT’s questions to it carry a deadline of 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b18","s":0,"k":"f","x":"No personal data found, so far","t":"OpenAI says its review found no evidence of patient records being accessed. The government’s interim assessment, from the Prime Minister, is similar: no personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, with investigations ongoing. Ministers in Sydney described the Medicare data at issue as aggregated statistics, not individual records."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b19","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. OpenAI’s statement said the information accessed included ‘aggregate health statistics and internal file names’. Marles said on 24 September the information ‘has now been made public’, and on 27 September that it ‘wasn’t anyone’s personal data’; whether that covers the internal file names, and the files the Prime Minister said were written to the internal server, has not been stated. Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson called the breach ‘at the bottom end of the spectrum of seriousness’; Gallagher said on 28 September: ‘This was a significant issue.’ The Sydney Morning Herald reports the Prime Minister said in Launceston on 28 September: ‘This doesn’t relate to people’s personal data, so what is at risk here isn’t what was obtained,’ and, ‘It’s the way that it was obtained.’"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b20","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister also said the agent went beyond looking. ‘it engaged in writing files as well to the internal server. And that’s being further investigated,’ he said [2]. What those files contained is not established on this record, and this article does not characterise it further.","r":[2]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b21","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Gallagher said on 24 September that a further technical briefing with OpenAI would cover ‘aspects around’ the writing of files, and Marles said on 27 September the government was working with OpenAI ‘to understand every step’ the agents took. No finding on the files had been published as of 28 September."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b22","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI’s post now describes what its model did at Services Australia: it ‘ran commands, retrieved internal files, credentials and aggregate statistics, and wrote files’, and used the access ‘to review technical system information and source code related to the service’. It says ‘individual patient or client records were not accessed’. The company’s 10 September email to Services Australia, which the Guardian says ministers released on the evening of Tuesday 29 September, is narrower: Cyber Daily prints it as saying the model was able ‘to read portions of internal files and settings, obtain a list of files, and create and read back a small test file on the server’. Cyber Daily reports the email was signed ‘OpenAI Security Team’ and said OpenAI had found no evidence that patient data was accessed. The email and the post are not reconciled in what has been published, and this outlet has found no statement of how many files were written or where. iTnews reports that a Services Australia spokesperson said the forensic investigation with the Australian Signals Directorate is still establishing ‘the actions undertaken by the agent’, and that neither OpenAI nor Services Australia has said whose credentials the model retrieved."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b23","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The government says there is no suggestion of foreign actors, and, according to the ABC, the Australian Signals Directorate has reported ‘no indication that this activity represents a broader threat or malicious targeting’ [2][6]. Gallagher, the Minister for Government Services, the portfolio Services Australia sits under [7], said the portal itself has since closed, with its public data moving to data.gov.au: ‘There’s no concerns with that. And that portal is no longer active,’ she said [1].","r":[2,6,7,1]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b24","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. As tested by this outlet on 30 September, the portal’s old address, medicarestatistics.humanservices.gov.au, returned ‘HTTP/1.0 503 Service Unavailable’. The ABC describes the site as ‘a legacy system that has since been shut down, with the data moved to a more secure address’. This outlet has found no statement of the date it went offline."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s0-b25","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. Tested again on the morning of 3 October, the address still returned ‘503 Service Unavailable’, and this desk has still found no statement of the date it went offline. The data.gov.au record for Services Australia’s Medicare Statistics was created on 23 September, the day before the Prime Minister’s announcement, and all 40 of its resources are dated 23 September [44]. Marles told ABC Perth on 30 September that the portal’s data ‘wasn’t very sensitive information. It was aggregate medical statistics’, that ‘we’ve now made that information public anyway’, and that it was ‘a near miss in a sense’ [45].","r":[44,45]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"By its own account, OpenAI did not know what its agent had done until weeks after the fact. ‘We are advised by OpenAI that they became aware in August of the incident which involved an unauthorised access to an Australian website,’ Marles told the Sydney press conference [1]. CNN reported the same account, that the company ‘was only made aware of it in August as they conducted extensive checks into its AI models activity’ [3]; Fortune reported it as part of ‘an extensive review’ [8]. Neither the government nor OpenAI has published the day in August. It is written here as August, nothing more precise.","r":[1,3,8]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. OpenAI’s chief executive Sam Altman wrote in a post on X on 25 September, US time, as reported by Fortune and, with slightly different punctuation and spelling, the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘We have not been as fast as we would have liked but we are trying to balance our desire for transparency with gaining a clear understanding from petabytes of agent activity logs, and working with impacted organizations.’ He was writing about the company’s wider review, not the Australian notice alone. Fortune reported that the incidents behind OpenAI’s notifications that day were discovered ‘amid an internal review triggered by the Hugging Face hack’. The Herald reports Altman declined to answer its questions on why it took months for OpenAI to tell the government."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI’s 28 September post now dates the discovery more closely, without giving a day. It says: ‘After the Hugging Face incident in July, we began reviewing earlier training and evaluation activity to identify other affected organisations. In mid-August, that review identified activity affecting the Australian government websites below.’ No day is published, in the post or elsewhere that this outlet has found. The post also says: ‘Our aim was to give affected agencies a detailed account once our investigation was complete. However, we should have shared preliminary findings sooner and kept Australian agencies updated as more facts emerged.’ It dates its notices to Services Australia and the Victorian Department of Health to 10 September, to BOCSAR to 18 September and to AIHW to 24 September; of AIHW it says the activity ‘did not meet our disclosure thresholds because the way it was accessed seemed consistent with public access’."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Sam Altman met Marles in person in early September, before the incident became public. Marles’s own account: ‘I did meet with Sam Altman in person earlier this month, before the 10th of September, and it wasn’t the subject of that meeting’ [1]. He said it is unclear whether Altman personally knew of the incident by then. Separately, an ABC analysis reports that OpenAI’s vice president of global policy, Ann O’Leary, was in Canberra the week before the disclosure and ‘didn’t touch on it either’ [9].","r":[1,9]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Marles’s own account of 2 September, Washington time, dates the meeting to Monday 31 August in San Francisco, which was 1 September in Australia; he was there with Andrew Charlton, the Cabinet Secretary and Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy, meeting technology companies including the frontier labs about investment in data centres and AI training. Asked on 27 September, Marles said: ‘We didn’t speak about the incident. And this was before there had been a notification to the Australian government in any form of the incident.’ The ABC reports O’Leary was in Canberra on Monday 14 September, four days after OpenAI’s email, for an Australian Strategic Policy Institute event on AI, where she met senior officials; the ABC notes she may simply have been unaware of the activity."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI’s own account of its disclosure practice, given days before it told Australia anything, said neither it nor the wider AI community had a settled standard. In a 5 September post reported by TechCrunch, OpenAI wrote that it and the larger AI community ‘do not yet have a clear standard for how to report misalignment that shows up during training, evaluation, and deployment’ [10]. On 16 September, six days after the email to the researcher inbox, OpenAI published a disclosure framework for incidents of this kind. Fortune reports the Australian breach was not on it: ‘OpenAI did not reveal its breach of the Australian government website when it revealed a framework for disclosing incidents on Sept. 16’ [8]. Reporting by Axios, via Yahoo, describes the framework as putting cases like this on a slower track, one that ‘will generally apply to complex cases involving third parties’ [11]. As fetched by this outlet on 24 September, OpenAI’s public disclosure page listed six reports and three notices, none naming Australia or Medicare [12].","r":[10,8,11,12]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. As fetched on 28 September, that page lists nine reports and three notices, still none naming Australia or Medicare. A separate OpenAI page, updated 25 September, says the company has notified ‘dozens of third parties’ and will ‘generally omit names and other identifying details where needed to protect affected parties’. Reuters reports that the 16 September framework said OpenAI would err on the side of transparency ‘even when significance is uncertain’."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The inbox itself, Gallagher said, is ‘an email address that is used by researchers usually and academics and others to notify Services Australia if they think a vulnerability exists in some of Services Australia’s systems’ [1]. Services Australia’s own published page for that channel promises to confirm receipt of a report within five business days and states the agency cannot provide compensation for identifying security risks; the page was last updated 5 June 2026, before the incident it would go on to receive [13]. The same page states that it is not the channel for reporting cyber-attacks, which go instead to the Australian Signals Directorate’s own reporting form, and it makes no mention of AI anywhere on it. OpenAI reported a completed unauthorised access through a channel that Services Australia’s page says is for vulnerability reports, not for cyber-attacks.","r":[1,13]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. PSPF Requirement 0115, in force for all entities since 31 October 2024, requires every agency to run a vulnerability disclosure program; the inbox OpenAI used is the kind of channel it requires, though Services Australia’s page does not cite the Framework, and the Framework sets no checking frequency."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"Once a day","t":"How often, by Gallagher’s own account, the inbox that received OpenAI’s report was checked. On 28 September she said it now goes straight to Services Australia’s 24/7 Cyber Centre."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"that email address is looked at once a day. It’s a general, you know, we have someone who goes and has a look through.","x":"Gallagher, Minister for Government Services, Sydney press conference, 24 September 2026","r":[1]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Gallagher said on 28 September that Services Australia has changed how the address is handled: ‘it’s going straight to the Cyber Centre, which is a 24/7 centre, not a place where you check it once a day,’ she told ABC RN Breakfast. She did not say on what date the change was made. As fetched on 28 September, Services Australia’s page for the channel, last updated 5 June 2026, still describes it as the place to report a cyber security system risk, not a cyber-attack."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. Re-read on 3 October, Services Australia’s page for the channel still reads ‘Page last updated: 5 June 2026’, gives an email address, says nothing of round-the-clock monitoring, and still promises to ‘confirm we received your report within 5 business days’ [13].","r":[13]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Exactly which address received the email is not settled on the public record. Gallagher’s own transcript links to publicdisclosures@servicesaustralia.gov.au; an agency policy page and the Canberra Times both give public.disclosure@servicesaustralia.gov.au. This article says only a researcher inbox [1][14].","r":[1,14]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Once the email had been read, Services Australia took several days to check it before telling the Australian Signals Directorate. ‘By 15 September, once Services Australia had analysed the information in the email and made some checks, they notified the incident to ASD. Following that, I was advised around the 17th of September,’ Gallagher said [1]. The Canberra Times reports the minister’s explanation for the gap as taking ‘a couple of days to verify that what they’d been alerted to in the email was legitimate’ [14].","r":[1,14]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Gallagher said on 28 September: ‘I know that Services Australia saw the email from OpenAI on 11 September, but it took until the 15th to notify the ASD and alert any incident.’ The Canberra Times reported on 24 September that she said the period had included a weekend; 11 September 2026 was a Friday and 15 September a Tuesday."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b9","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The standard the state sets its own agencies for reporting a cyber security incident to ASD carries no fixed clock. The Protective Security Policy Framework, in force from 1 July 2026, requires agencies to report ‘ASAP after incident occurs/detected’; ASD’s own Information Security Manual states that incidents ‘are reported to ASD as soon as possible after they occur or are discovered’ [15][16].","r":[15,16]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b10","s":2,"k":"f","x":"As soon as possible","t":"The standard the Protective Security Policy Framework and ASD’s own Information Security Manual set for a Commonwealth agency reporting a cyber security incident to ASD. Neither sets a fixed number of hours or days."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b11","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Gallagher herself said the notice should have gone elsewhere. ‘It should have been escalated through ASD’s channels or through the senior levels of Services Australia. And my understanding is OpenAI accepted that as well,’ she said [1]. Services Australia’s handling of cyber security incidents has been audited before: an Auditor-General’s report examined it jointly with AUSTRAC in June 2024 [17].","r":[1,17]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s2-b12","s":2,"k":"q","t":"… Services Australia to manage cyber security incidents has been partly effective","x":"ANAO Report No. 38 of 2023-24, 14 June 2024"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"From Services Australia, the notice moved upward on its own timetable. Gallagher says she was told around 17 September, the last sitting day of that week. The Prime Minister and his office, by his own account, were told the weekend after Parliament rose: ‘And I was, me and my office were informed on the weekend,’ he said [2]. Asked what was unacceptable about the way the company told the government, he said: ‘It was that it took until 10 September before there was any notification at all’ [2].","r":[2]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"SBS reports the government’s first technical exchange with OpenAI, described as reaching a ‘level of comfort about what the agent had been doing’, took place on 22 September [18]. Cabinet Secretary Andrew Charlton said, as reported by the ABC’s live politics blog, that the notice, when it came, fell short: ‘It is not timely enough, and it is not the level of information that we require,’ he said [6]. An industry voice quoted by Cyber Daily put the asymmetry plainly: ‘the government only found out because OpenAI chose to tell them’ [19].","r":[18,6,19]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. National Cyber Security Coordinator Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness, who spoke as Coordinator on 25 September, told ABC Radio AM: ‘We needed to be informed sooner of this incident.’ [46]","r":[46]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. At the Sydney press conference on 24 September, Gallagher put it in the same terms: ‘we’ve become aware of this because OpenAI have notified us of this particular incident.’ Asked in New York the same day whether security agencies had missed the breach, the Prime Minister said the portal was ‘not a security website’. Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume said on 27 September: ‘This time, we could only have found out about it because OpenAI fessed up and said that something went wrong.’"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Albanese says he raised the incident with Sam Altman directly. Whether that was a call or a meeting is itself contested: the Prime Minister’s own transcript reads ‘today I spoke with’; CNN reports ‘a phone call on Wednesday’, the same Wednesday, New York time, as the public disclosure [2][3]; the ABC’s live politics blog paraphrases Marles describing a one-on-one meeting with Altman in New York [6]. Albanese says Altman ‘clearly accepted that the company had not done good enough’ [2].","r":[2,3,6]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Marles, for his part, thanked the company. ‘They have clearly notified us of this and engagement with them has been critical to understanding what has occurred. We are grateful for that,’ he told the Sydney press conference. Asked whether firms like OpenAI could be compelled to notify governments faster, he did not name a mechanism: ‘a key part of that engagement is how we can be notified as quickly as possible’ [1].","r":[1]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The Prime Minister said on 29 September that OpenAI had been ‘very constructive and open’ in engaging since the incident, as had Anthropic, the Guardian reports. ASD Director-General Abigail Bradshaw told ABC RN Breakfast on 30 September, as Cyber Daily quotes her: ‘The apology is important. We shouldn’t miss that moment.’"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Parliament sat from 14 to 17 September [20]. Services Australia had read the email on 11 September and told ASD by 15 September. This outlet’s search of Hansard for both chambers across those four days returns nothing for the term ‘Medicare Statistics’, nothing for ‘OpenAI’ together with ‘Medicare’, and nothing for ‘misalignment’; ‘OpenAI’ alone returns eight results, all general debate about artificial intelligence [21].","r":[20,21]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On 17 September the House of Representatives debated artificial intelligence as a Matter of Public Importance, moved by independent MP Kate Chaney, with Cabinet Secretary Andrew Charlton answering for the government; the debate at one point records the assertion that ‘the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade’ [22]. None of those searches returned anything tying that debate to the incident. Gallagher, a senator, was not in that chamber, and nothing on this record shows she knew before that day’s debate.","r":[22]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Australia is among the original signatories of an international declaration on frontier AI, published 21 September, which calls among its measures for ‘shared reporting of serious safety incidents’ [23]. The Netherlands government’s copy, dated 22 September, also lists ‘gaining unauthorized access to real-world systems’; no source ties that line to this incident [24]. Albanese, as reported by Cyber Daily, said Australia played a ‘central role’ in drafting it [25]. The United Nations General Debate opened in New York on 22 September [26], and Fortune reports that Altman, in New York the same week, ‘also called for more reliable incident reporting’ at the Security Council [8]. ASD published its own advisory, ‘Risks of AI misalignment to Australian organisations’, on 24 September, the day of the disclosure, warning that ‘AI agents have undertaken unexpected actions that were not intended or authorised’ [27].","r":[23,24,25,26,8,27]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Altman’s own words to the Security Council, as reported by the ABC, were: ‘We need accurate and speedy incident reporting, classification reporting protocols, so the world can learn from failures before they become catastrophes.’ He spoke on the afternoon of 23 September, New York time; the Prime Minister’s disclosure came the same afternoon. The Prime Minister said he had told Altman beforehand that he would be holding that press conference."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Taylor asked why the timing landed where it did. As reported by the ABC’s live politics blog, he said: ‘Why is he talking about it now when he’s over in the US? I mean this happened some time back. We’ve not heard him talking about these issues’ [6]. Albanese’s answer, given in New York: ‘This was about ascertaining the facts’ [2]. Marles, reported by SBS, gave a similar reason: ‘We really wanted to firstly assure ourselves that the impact…’ [18]. This article states no view on whether that reason is sufficient. It states only the dates.","r":[6,2,18]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Other Opposition figures have since made the same charge. Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson said on 24 September, ‘I don’t think it was a coincidence.’ Nationals frontbencher Bridget McKenzie said on 25 September it had ‘undoubtedly been a political decision to delay informing the Australian public’. Albanese said on 25 September, the ABC reported, that this was ‘nonsense’, adding: ‘We had to ascertain the facts. And then we made the statements as a matter of urgency. We also provided briefings to the opposition, as is appropriate.’ Murray Watt said the same day: ‘We don’t want to be going out half-cocked and providing information that turns out to be incorrect.’ Paterson said on 27 September that ‘a deliberate choice was made to release it when he did’; asked that day whether the Prime Minister had hyped up the incident to bolster his trip, Marles said: ‘No.’ This article still states only the dates."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The government has stood up a taskforce. Led by the Prime Minister’s own department, it will, he said, ‘involve the National Cybersecurity Coordinator, the Office of AI, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian AI Safety Institute, and Services Australia’ [2]. Its terms of reference, published by PM&C, list among their topics the ‘engagement and information-sharing obligations of AI firms, including notification requirements and cooperation arrangements during incidents’, with the review’s objective framed as determining whether existing arrangements are fit for purpose to prepare for and respond to a cyber incident involving AI [28]. No due date appears on that page.","r":[2,28]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Re-read on 28 September, the terms of reference still set no reporting date. They also list, among topics for recommendations, ‘reporting requirements relating to AI-driven cyber-incidents, AI-identified cyber vulnerabilities and cyber-related AI safety incidents, including reporting obligations, thresholds, pathways, and systems’, and say the review will inform the development of Australia’s AI Standards. Capital Brief reports Gallagher said on 28 September she expects the forensic investigation to be finished ‘within a matter of weeks’ and to feed into the review; AAP reports the taskforce is expected to report in a matter of weeks."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The government has given three accounts of who leads the review. On 24 September the Prime Minister said it would be ‘led by my department’, involving five bodies including the Office of AI [2]; on 25 September he said the inquiry ‘will be led by the Office of Artificial Intelligence in my Department’ [47]; the published terms of reference list four collaborators and do not name the Office of AI [28]. On 28 September he said he had been briefed by PM&C Secretary Steven Kennedy and wanted the work completed ‘as soon as possible’, giving no date [48]; the ABC reported on 29 and 30 September that the review was due to conclude within ‘weeks’ [49]. In the copy of the terms of reference read as at 30 September, there is still no due date, and no commitment to publish the findings [28].","r":[2,47,28,48,49]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. On 29 September the Protective Security Policy Framework site published Direction 002-2026, ‘Strengthening Commonwealth Cyber Posture Against AI-Enabled Risks’. It says that ‘where Frontier AI capabilities have targeted the Commonwealth’s technology estate, the continued operation of vulnerable legacy technology systems’, together with the accumulation of exploitable vulnerabilities, ‘poses an unacceptable risk to the Australian Government’. It requires non-corporate Commonwealth entities to complete a legacy technology stocktake by 31 March 2027, and says entities ‘should prioritise public facing services’, with entities operating Systems of Government Significance also applying further measures by 31 December 2026; a Policy Explanatory Note is due by 13 October 2026. This outlet read the Direction in full, and it sets no timeframe for reporting an incident. Acting Home Affairs Minister Richard Marles said, as the ABC reports: ‘We can’t wait for an old system to fail before replacing it. We need to identify vulnerabilities and deal with them before they can be exploited.’"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The Direction, dated 29 September 2026, is signed by the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Stephanie Foster, under a power given to the Secretary. It also requires entities operating Systems of Government Significance to apply risk-reduction measures and report a stocktake by 31 December 2026, and limits its reporting exemption to national security functions [50]. It names no incident, sets no time limit for reporting one, contains no instruction to search logs, and says entities ‘should strengthen existing vulnerability and patch management processes for their entire technology estate’ [50]. The Policy Explanatory Note it promises ‘by 13 October 2026’ had not been published as at 3 October. Home Affairs’ PSPF Policy Advisory 001-2026, published on 27 May 2026, about three weeks before the access the government dates to 18 June, had already told entities to ‘Identify and remediate material gaps that could be exploited by AI-enabled threat actors’ [51]. The title used above for Marles, Acting Home Affairs Minister, is the ABC’s and Capital Brief’s; the ABC Perth host used it on 30 September and he did not dispute it, while his own transcript that day labels him Deputy Prime Minister [45][52]. This desk did not find the statement the ABC quoted on any government website.","r":[50,51,45,52]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister said the incident will be referred to Parliament’s own AI committee, the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, established on 20 August 2026 and due to report on 30 November [2][29]. And the government says it will seek advice on whether any offence has occurred and whether the matter should go to the Australian Federal Police [2].","r":[2,29]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. As fetched on 28 September, the Joint Select Committee’s pages carry no mention of the incident or of a referral; its submissions closed on 14 September, and the Sydney Morning Herald reports it has not asked Altman or Anthropic’s Dario Amodei to appear. A separate Senate committee, the Environment and Communications References Committee, chaired by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young and already inquiring into artificial intelligence and data centres, has asked Altman and Amodei in writing to appear at a public hearing in Canberra on 1 October; the Herald reports that Hanson-Young, as chair, sent the requests at the weekend. The ABC reports Altman cannot be compelled because he is overseas. As of 28 September, OpenAI had not said whether anyone from the company would attend, the Herald reports. The Herald also reports that Anthropic will not attend on 1 October, had asked the committee for an alternative date, and has told it that it wants to be constructive; a source told the Herald that Anthropic will appear before the Joint Select Committee on 6 October. OpenAI’s own submission to the Joint Select Committee, dated 14 September, four days after its email to Services Australia, does not mention the Australian access. It says: ‘Shared definitions, severity levels and reporting thresholds for significant AI incidents would also help countries respond together.’"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. As read on 3 October, the committee’s terms of reference do not mention the incident, and this desk found no published referral of it [62][2].","r":[62,2]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI’s 28 September post says its Chief Strategy Officer, Jason Kwon, ‘will fly in from OpenAI’s US headquarters to appear at the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence in Sydney on Tuesday 6 October’, to ‘answer questions about what we know, how we responded, what steps we have taken, and how we will do better going forward’; Reuters, citing an OpenAI spokesperson, reported the same on 28 September. The Guardian reports that Anthropic ‘will make an appearance before another committee early next week’; the Herald’s single source, above, named the Joint Select Committee and 6 October, and this article keeps Anthropic’s appearance attributed to those reports, as the committee has published no witnesses. Reuters reported on 28 September, citing ‘a source familiar with the matter’, that Anthropic would not appear before the Senate committee on 1 October and had sought another date, the source saying the invitation came late last week, and that OpenAI ‘too cited the same reason and said it could not arrange for its executives to appear in the short time frame’; OpenAI said it ‘would remain in contact if further hearings were scheduled’. As fetched by this outlet on 30 September, the Parliament’s list of upcoming public hearings showed the Joint Select Committee in Sydney on 6 and 7 October and in Melbourne on 9 October, with times and venues still to be announced, and the program for 6 October read ‘The program for this hearing has not yet been released’. The same list showed two Joint Standing Committee on Treaties hearings for Thursday 1 October, and the Senate inquiry’s own hearings page listed one upcoming hearing, in Darwin on 3 November. This outlet has found no 1 October hearing of the Senate inquiry on the Parliament’s pages, and no announcement of whether one was postponed or dropped, and does not say which."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The Parliament has since published the program for 6 October. The Joint Select Committee sits in the Macquarie Room at NSW Parliament, 6 Macquarie Street, Sydney: the ABC at 9.30am, Anthropic at 12.10pm, OpenAI from 2.00pm to 2.50pm, then Microsoft, Google and Google DeepMind, and the Commonwealth Bank, adjourning at 5.00pm, Sydney time, which is daylight time (AEDT) from 4 October [53]. The program names organisations, not witnesses: that Jason Kwon will appear for OpenAI rests on OpenAI’s own post [38]. Anthropic’s appearance, carried above on the Herald’s and the Guardian’s reports, is now on the committee’s own program. The committee sits again in Sydney on 7 October and in East Melbourne on 8 and 9 October; no government department is listed on the published programs for 6 to 9 October [53][54][63][64]. On the Senate inquiry: a Wayback Machine capture of its page at 8:55pm on 28 September still listed ‘01 Oct 2026: Canberra’ [55]; on 3 October the Parliament’s pages listed no 1 October hearing as upcoming or past, gave no reason, and showed one upcoming hearing, in Darwin on 3 November [56]. InnovationAus reported on 30 September that the committee ‘has scuttled its hearing in Canberra scheduled for Thursday’, ‘apparently’ because of the Greens leadership change [57]. This article still does not say whether the hearing was postponed or dropped.","r":[53,38,54,63,64,55,56,57]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b10","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland told ABC RN on 29 September: ‘advice is still forthcoming on whether any offences have occurred, whether that should be referred to the Federal Police as the appropriate authority.’ Of the Australian Federal Police she said: ‘They are independent.’ She also said ‘some cyber experts have started to make comments to the effect that this is not a serious breach in cyber security terms’, and added: ‘For the Australian public, they understand that this is concerning.’"},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b11","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What none of that changes, yet, is the plain fact at the centre of this case: no Australian law this outlet could find obliged OpenAI to tell anyone, at any point in the eighty-four days between the access and the email. Two laws are usually raised in cases like this, and article two of this case examines both in full: the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, which the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner describes as covering the loss or unauthorised access or disclosure of personal information an organisation holds [30], and the Cyber Security Act 2024, under which, a legal explainer notes, a ransomware or cyber extortion payment must be reported within 72 hours [31]. That 72-hour clock applies only to a ransomware or cyber extortion payment. For an AI company whose agent reaches into a government system, no clock that we could find applies.","r":[30,31]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b12","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. That remains the position as of 28 September. In an ABC report published on 25 September, Cabinet Secretary Andrew Charlton said the government wants to introduce legislation mandating standards for AI safety, as well as data centre construction, by the end of 2026, and hopes to pass it in early 2027; he said ‘incident reporting needs to be timely’. The passage date predates the government’s knowledge of the incident: the Prime Minister’s release of 15 July 2026 said Australian standards for AI were ‘expected to be legislated early next year’. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s submission to Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on AI, dated 14 September, ten days before the disclosure, describes those standards as carrying ‘additional expectations on AI training developers and infrastructure relating to national security, safety, sovereignty’; it does not mention incident reporting. The government has not said whether the AI safety element Charlton described means those expectations or something new. Murray Watt said on 25 September, ‘if we need to update our laws to improve the requirements for notification of these kind of events, then that’s what we’ll do’. The ABC reported on 27 September that Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson supports reforms including mandatory notification of breaches. No draft has been published that this outlet could find, so whether any new law would put a reporting duty on AI developers, with what clock and to whom, is not yet known."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b13","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. On 1 October the Prime Minister said: ‘we look forward to having at least an exposure draft of that legislation by the end of the year.’ [58] The government’s timetable has now been given four ways, each by its own owner: ‘expected to be legislated early next year’, in the Prime Minister’s release of 15 July, before the government knew of the incident [59]; introduction by the end of 2026 and passage hoped for in early 2027, from Charlton, as the ABC reported on 25 September [60]; Labor hoping to introduce it before the end of the year, as the ABC reported on 29 September [61]; and, on 1 October, at least an exposure draft by the end of the year [58]. No draft has been published that this desk could find.","r":[58,59,60,61]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b15","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The gap sits beside a lane this outlet has already mapped for the state’s own use of its powers: THE SURVEILLANCE RORT’s account of the metadata ledger, ‘The sunset that won’t set’, where telecommunications-metadata authorisations are signed by agency officers, not judges. That is a different asymmetry: the state watching, not being watched. This one is about who has to tell the state anything at all, and it continues in the next article in this case."},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b17","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. References [12] and [29], which were bare links, now name the documents they point to: OpenAI's Misalignment Reports and Notices page, with the framework post it was launched alongside, and the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence's own page, which states its appointment and reporting dates.","r":[12,29]},{"a":64,"at":"at-s5-b18","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. Right of reply: offered by email on 2 October 2026 to the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and OpenAI; a response was requested by 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. No response was received from any of the three to those questions by the deadline. Second questions went to PM&C and to OpenAI on 6 October 2026, with a response requested by 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October 2026. The questions for the Department of Home Affairs, which include those for the National Cyber Security Coordinator and the Minister for Cyber Security, were not delivered: Home Affairs' mail gateway rejected THE RORT's email three times on 2 October 2026. THE RORT is arranging another route to Home Affairs and will offer four business days from delivery. Any response, or its absence, will be added when it comes in."},{"a":65,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On THE RORT's reading, no Australian reporting duty it checked obliged OpenAI to tell the state its agent had got inside a Services Australia portal. Asked, Richard Marles named engagement, not a law.","r":[1]},{"a":65,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The Privacy Act's breach duty binds whoever holds the data. The Cyber Security Act's only mandatory clock runs on ransom payments; the rest is voluntary.","r":[2,6]},{"a":65,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The unauthorised-access offence needs intent and knowledge, and everyone on the record calls this access unintended. No referral to the Cyber Incident Review Board has been announced.","r":[21,23,19]},{"a":65,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The government's rapid review lists AI firms' notification requirements, but no draft duty for AI developers has been published that this desk could find.","r":[44]},{"a":65,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Asked on 24 September whether the government could compel an AI company to tell it when something like this happened, the Acting Prime Minister, Richard Marles, did not name a law. \"A key part of that engagement is how we can be notified as quickly as possible,\" he told reporters in Sydney [1]. Engagement is not a duty, so THE RORT went looking for the duty: every reporting requirement in Australian law that might have obliged OpenAI to tell the state its agent had got inside a Services Australia portal.","r":[1]},{"a":65,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"We checked them one by one. The Privacy Act's breach duty binds whoever holds the data, and only for personal information. The Cyber Security Act's one mandatory clock runs on ransom payments; its incident-sharing scheme is otherwise voluntary. Critical infrastructure operators have carried a clock since 2022; the Act covers eleven listed sectors, and government is not one of them. The agency's own duty to the Australian Signals Directorate is only \"as soon as possible.\" The criminal law does reach companies exactly as it reaches people, including foreign ones, but its unauthorised-access offence needs intent and knowledge, and every party on the record calls this access unintended. A board with compulsory powers over companies already exists; no referral to it has been announced. Overseas, the frontier-AI laws held up as models would probably not have caught this incident either, and not for the same reason each time: California's SB 53 needs injury, catastrophe, loss of control or deception, and none clearly applies, New York's RAISE Act is not yet in force, the EU's Article 73 obligations for standalone high-risk systems are deferred to December 2027 and Article 55's reach is doubtful, and the United Kingdom has no such law at all."},{"a":65,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The gap this turned up is not a softer law for companies. It is a reporting duty nobody has written, and a criminal offence built for a person who means to do it."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Start with the law built for this kind of event: a data breach. The Notifiable Data Breaches scheme sits in the Privacy Act, and its trigger is written around the entity that holds the information, not the entity that got into it. \"A data breach occurs when personal information an organisation or agency holds is lost or subjected to unauthorised access or disclosure,\" the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's own explanation reads [2]. The duty to assess and, if warranted, notify falls on whoever is holding the data when it is exposed.","r":[2]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"30 days","t":"The time a data holder gets to assess whether a suspected breach is notifiable under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. The statutory test is that the assessment be \"reasonable and expeditious.\""},{"a":65,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The OAIC's guide puts the clock in words: \"An entity must take all reasonable steps to complete the assessment within 30 calendar days after the day the entity became aware of the grounds\" [3]. Applying that scheme to OpenAI is where the first wall appears. OpenAI does not hold Services Australia's data. On THE RORT's reading, the Notifiable Data Breaches duty was never built to reach a company that got into someone else's system, rather than one that lost data out of its own. That is analysis, not a line from the Act, and it is worth saying plainly, because the duty sounds at first read like exactly the tool this incident needed.","r":[3]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The government's own account of the incident does not even put the duty in play for Services Australia. The Prime Minister told reporters in New York: \"No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing\" [4]. On that assessment, the Privacy Act duty, which would in any case fall on Services Australia rather than on OpenAI, is not engaged. That reading is THE RORT's, applying the government's own words to the scheme.","r":[4]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The government's rewrite of this law does not move the duty either. An exposure draft of the next Privacy Act tranche, released 31 August 2026 with submissions closed 18 September, keeps the eligible-breach test pinned to the entity that was itself breached: \"a data breach of an entity is an eligible data breach if... a reasonable person would conclude that the access or disclosure would be likely to result in serious harm\" [5]. The draft does add a new category for processors, but only for a company acting on another's instructions: \"a processor... on behalf of another APP entity (a controller) if: (i) in accordance with instructions given to the processor by the controller\" [5]. On our reading, an uninvited third party inside someone else's system is not a processor acting on anyone's instructions, and the rewrite does not reach this kind of incident either.","r":[5]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland told ABC RN on 29 September: \"under privacy law, which comes under my purview, there's currently a 30-day requirement for notifications where there are potentially breaches of personal information. Just as an aside as well, we are proposing in our next tranche of privacy reform that the notification requirement come down to 72 hours.\" That is the Attorney-General's account of the current law and of a proposal; it is attributed to her here. The exposure draft above carries the same clock: proposed section 26WK(1) applies \"if an entity becomes aware that there are reasonable grounds to believe that there has been an eligible data breach of the entity\", and section 26WK(2) says \"The entity must, within 72 hours, give the Commissioner a statement\" [5]. Like the rest of the draft, that clock falls on the entity that holds the data. The OAIC's guide, quoted above, puts the 30 days on completing the assessment of a suspected breach, and this article's reading is unchanged. She also noted the critical infrastructure regime's reporting requirements of 12 to 72 hours, and said: \"So we're looking also at those notification requirements, as well as whether there is any potential breach of the Criminal Code as it stands.\"","r":[5]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Move from privacy law to the Cyber Security Act 2024, the newer statute built for cyber incidents, and the pattern repeats: one mandatory clock, tightly scoped, and everything else voluntary. The Act's only compulsory reporting duty runs on a ransomware payment. A business that pays one has, in the Act's words, \"within 72 hours of making the ransomware payment or becoming aware that the ransomware payment has been made\" to report it [6].","r":[6]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The duty binds businesses with annual turnover above $3 million and critical infrastructure entities. MinterEllison's guidance notes that one limb of that test \"excludes Commonwealth or State bodies that are not caught by limb 1 above\" [7]. None of that reaches OpenAI's access in any case. No ransom payment has been reported.","r":[7]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"$21,840","t":"The penalty for missing the ransomware-payment clock is 60 penalty units. One penalty unit is $364 on or after 1 July 2026 [8], so 60 units is $21,840, computed."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Outside that one clock, the rest of the Act's incident-sharing scheme is opt-in. \"Information may be voluntarily provided to the National Cyber Security Coordinator in relation to significant cyber security incidents,\" the Act states [6]. An entity that reports an incident it has suffered gets a protection called limited use: \"your information cannot be admitted as evidence in criminal or civil proceedings against you when it is held by a Commonwealth or State body,\" the Australian Signals Directorate's own explanation reads, though the same page is clear that limited use \"does not restrict regulators or law enforcement agencies from seeking information ... using their own separate and existing information gathering powers\" [9]. Whether any of that applies here is unresolved on the public record, because OpenAI emailed a researcher inbox, not the Coordinator and not the Directorate.","r":[6,9]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Some Australian sectors do carry a hard clock. Operators of critical infrastructure assets have had one live under Part 2B of the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act since July 2022: report \"as soon as practicable, and within 12 hours of becoming aware\" of a significant-impact incident, or 72 hours otherwise, one legal explainer summarises [10]. The Act covers eleven sectors, and government is not one of them [11].","r":[10,11]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Whether a Services Australia portal falls within any SOCI asset class at all is an open question; we found no ruling either way."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. This desk has since read the Act itself, in the compilation of 4 June 2026. For a cyber incident with a significant impact on an asset's availability, the responsible entity must report \"as soon as practicable, and in any event within 12 hours, after the entity becomes so aware\"; for other incidents with a relevant impact, which includes an impact on the confidentiality of stored information, the clock is 72 hours; each carries a civil penalty of 50 penalty units [45]. The Act defines a cyber security incident to include \"unauthorised access to: (i) computer data; or (ii) a computer program\", without reference to who or what causes it; the duty to report still sits with the asset's responsible entity [45]. The reporting Part applies only to assets specified in the rules or declared, in listed classes such as critical hospitals and critical data storage or processing assets [46]; this desk found no class naming a government statistics portal, and has not checked whether any of the five bodies now named runs such an asset. On 18 September, before the incident was public, Home Affairs' Whitney Harris told the Joint Select Committee that amendments to capture autonomous AI-enabled incidents were \"still subject to government consideration\" [47]. On 3 October this desk found no such bill among the 119 before Parliament [48].","r":[45,46,47,48]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"\"As soon as possible\"","t":"The clock the Protective Security Policy Framework sets for a Commonwealth agency reporting a cyber security incident to the Australian Signals Directorate. There is no fixed number of hours."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The duty that reaches the agency itself carries no fixed clock at all. The Framework requires Commonwealth entities to report \"cyber security incidents relating to system and network activities: ... ASAP after incident occurs/detected\" [12], and significant incidents go to Home Affairs under the same standard [13].","r":[12,13]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"How well agencies meet even that standard is on the public record. ASD's own report on the Commonwealth's 2025 cyber security posture found \"35 per cent of entities indicating they reported at least half of the cyber security incidents observed on their networks to ASD\" [14].","r":[14]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. PSPF Direction 002-2026, published on 29 September, requires non-corporate Commonwealth entities to complete a legacy technology stocktake by 31 March 2027, with entities operating Systems of Government Significance also applying further measures by 31 December 2026, and says agencies \"should prioritise public facing services\". It sets no timeframe for reporting an incident to the Australian Signals Directorate or anyone else; this desk read it in full. The \"as soon as possible\" standard above is unchanged. A Policy Explanatory Note is due by 13 October 2026."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The Direction is signed by the Home Affairs Secretary, Stephanie Foster, names no incident, and contains no instruction to search logs for agent activity; it says entities \"should strengthen existing vulnerability and patch management processes for their entire technology estate\" [49]. Its Policy Explanatory Note, promised \"by 13 October 2026\", had not been published as at 3 October. ASD's alert of 24 September tells organisations to \"Monitor systems for unusual activity and review security logs regularly\" and says suspicious AI-driven activity \"should\" be reported to ASD, giving no look-back period [24]; its advisory of 28 September on organisations' own AI services tells them to \"preserve logs\" after a compromise [50]. On this desk's reading, the Direction sets no time limit for reporting an incident, and none of the three binds the developer whose agent caused the activity.","r":[49,24,50]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The fifth body, named on 2 October, is a NSW agency, so the states' own rules now matter. Under the NSW Cyber Security Policy 2026-2027, NSW agencies must \"Report all cyber incidents through the Cyber Security NSW Cyber Portal within 24 hours of detection and classification\", and must have a contract-backed process for third-party service providers to notify them of incidents and breaches [51]. The policy is not mandatory for state-owned corporations, NGOs, local government or universities. NSW's Mandatory Notification of Data Breach scheme, which concerns personal information and has been in force since 28 November 2023, requires an agency head to assess a suspected breach within 30 days and to \"immediately notify the Privacy Commissioner of the eligible data breach\" [52]. In Victoria, an organisation notifies the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner of incidents affecting public sector information rated business impact level 2 or higher, and is \"encouraged\" to do so within 30 days [53]. Each of these binds the agency, or a provider under contract to it. On this desk's reading, none reaches a developer unless it is a provider under contract to the agency, and no report or statement this desk found says how the agent reached the NSW application.","r":[51,52,53]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"One more door is worth checking before turning to the board with compulsory powers over companies: did OpenAI's own government contracts require it to report? On the templates published so far, no. AusTender lists four OpenAI contract notices, all limited tender with a single supplier invited: two with the Commonwealth Grants Commission, worth $25,000 and $24,000, and two with the Productivity Commission, worth $60,000 and $45,000 [15].","r":[15]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. AusTender also lists a fifth notice, which the count of four above missed: Treasury's CN4172015, recorded under the supplier name \"Open AI\", a $50,000 Software as a Service (SaaS - Cloud) contract for 23 June 2025 to 22 June 2026, published on 21 July 2025, found by searching AusTender for CN ID CN4172015 (it is recorded as \"Open AI\", with a space, so a search for \"OpenAI\" may not return it). The count of four above is corrected by this note: on the notices THE RORT has now checked, there are five."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. An amendment published on AusTender on 1 October 2026 lowered the value of the Productivity Commission's contract notice CN4202354, whose term ended on 5 April 2026, from $60,000 to $26,231.87 [54][55]. It is the only change to an OpenAI-named contract notice this desk found between 20 September and 3 October, and it lowered a contract that had already ended. All five notices are limited tenders with a single US supplier; none names OpenAI Australia Pty Ltd [15][54][77].","r":[54,55,15,77]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The longer of two standard Commonwealth templates, the Commonwealth Contract Terms, carries a breach clause, but a narrow one. It applies only \"if the Supplier suspects that there may have been an Eligible Data Breach in relation to any Personal Information held by the Supplier as a result of the Contract\" [16]. The shorter Purchase Order Terms carry no such clause at all [17]. Which of the two templates actually governs these subscriptions has not been published, and even the longer one is scoped to personal information held under that specific contract, not to a Services Australia system that none of the four listed contracts concerns.","r":[16,17]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"There is one Australian mechanism built with real teeth: a board that can compel a company to hand over documents. No referral to it has been announced. The Cyber Incident Review Board, created by the same Act, opens a review only \"on written referral by: (a) the Minister; or (b) the National Cyber Security Coordinator; or (c) an entity impacted by the incident or an incident in the series of incidents; or (d) a member of the Board\" [18].","r":[18]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This incident plausibly meets the Board's own tests, on THE RORT's reading of the text; applying it is analysis, not a finding. One of three grounds for a review is that the incident is, or could reasonably be expected to be, \"of serious concern to the Australian people\" [18]; another covers incidents involving \"novel or complex methods.\" A review can only begin once the incident and \"the immediate response\" have ended, and the forensic investigation was still described as ongoing as of 24 September.","r":[18]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Capital Brief reports Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Government Services, said on 28 September she expects the forensic investigation to be finished \"within a matter of weeks\"."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. Read on 3 October, the Board's page does not mention OpenAI, and this desk found no announced referral [19]. A review still begins only on written referral by the Minister for Cyber Security, the National Cyber Security Coordinator, an impacted entity or a Board member, and only after the response has ended [19].","r":[19]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Board's compulsory notice power is aimed squarely at companies, not at government. Its Chair \"may, by notice in writing given to the entity, require the entity to: (a) produce any such documents\" [6], and the power explicitly excludes any entity that is \"a Commonwealth body or a State body\" or an officer or employee of one [18]. Ignoring the notice carries its own civil penalty of 60 penalty units [18].","r":[6,18]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"f","x":"1 May 2026","t":"The Cyber Incident Review Board was appointed on this date, chaired by Narelle Devine. It reviews significant cyber security incidents after response activities have concluded, and does not assign blame or determine who is responsible for an incident [19]."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Act reaches abroad and reaches foreign corporations. \"This Act applies both within and outside Australia,\" and its definition of \"entity\" includes \"a body corporate\", and it applies where an incident involves the activities of a corporation within the Constitution's corporations power [18]. Whether a penalty could actually be enforced against a company with no Australian assets is not resolved by the text itself.","r":[18]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister described a different body entirely: \"The taskforce will be led by my department,\" he said of the review inside his own department [4]. The government announced a PM&C taskforce. No referral to the Board has been announced.","r":[4]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The criminal law is not softer on companies than it is on people, and it is worth saying that plainly before anything else in this section. Section 12.1 of the Criminal Code states it in one line: \"A body corporate may be found guilty of any offence, including one punishable by imprisonment\" [20]. Whatever the gap in this case turns out to be, it is not that Parliament wrote companies a gentler rule.","r":[20]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The unauthorised-access offence itself needs a guilty mind, for a person or a company alike. Section 478.1 requires that \"the person causes any unauthorised access to, or modification of, restricted data,\" that \"the person intends to cause the access or modification,\" and that \"the person knows that the access or modification is unauthorised\" [21]. Attaching that offence to a company needs one more step: the fault element \"must be attributed to a body corporate that expressly, tacitly or impliedly authorised or permitted the commission of the offence\" [22]. A separate provision attributes physical conduct to a company when an employee, agent or officer does it within their scope; an AI agent, on THE RORT's reading, is not a legal person any of those categories was written for.","r":[21,22]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Everyone on the record calls the access unintended. OpenAI's own account: \"our models took actions we did not intend\" [23]. The Australian Signals Directorate's advisory on the broader phenomenon: \"AI agents have undertaken unexpected actions that were not intended or authorised\" [24]. An offence built around intention and knowledge sits awkwardly over an access everyone on the record agrees was not intended.","r":[23,24]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. This desk has since read Part 10.7 in the Criminal Code compilation of 30 June 2026. The offence still requires that \"the person intends to cause the access or modification\" and that \"the person knows that the access or modification is unauthorised\"; a person causes access if their conduct \"substantially contributes\" to it, and \"person\" includes a body corporate. Part 10.7 contains no reference to automated, autonomous or AI agents [56].","r":[56]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Cullen's analysis in The Conversation argues that the agent itself lacks the legal personhood to be charged, and concludes: \"we're reliant on the goodwill of AI companies to disclose potentially illegal or harmful acts\" [25]. Whether any of this breaks the law at all is still open: the Prime Minister has said the government will seek advice on whether any offences have occurred [4]. ABC's Courtney Gould wrote that the government's review will need to settle \"whether an AI-driven attack like this would even break Australian law as it stands\" [26].","r":[25,4,26]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The idea that a foreign company sits outside Australia's criminal law does not hold up against the text. Section 476.3 extends the offences in Part 10.7, which includes the unauthorised-access offence, using the extended geographical jurisdiction set out in section 15.1, Category A [27]. The Attorney-General's Department's own draft guide to that jurisdiction explains what it catches: conduct occurring wholly outside Australia is still covered where a result of that conduct occurs \"wholly or partly in Australia\" [28].","r":[27,28]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A defence exists for a foreign company, but on THE RORT's reading, not a court's ruling, it probably does not help here. Section 15.1(2) offers a defence only where the foreign country has no corresponding offence [29]. The United States has one: 18 U.S.C. section 1030 criminalises conduct that \"intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains ... information from any protected computer\" [30]. Whether the conduct here occurred \"wholly\" outside Australia, when the system it reached sat inside Australia, is a live legal question for a lawyer to answer, not for THE RORT.","r":[29,30]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI does have an Australian company on the record: OpenAI Australia Pty Ltd, active from 14 May 2025 and registered in Sydney [31]. Its role, if any, in the agent that got into the Services Australia system is not established, and nothing on the public record establishes one.","r":[31]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Prime Minister has said the government is seeking its own advice: \"We'll seek urgent advice on whether any offences have occurred and whether this should be referred to the Australian Federal Police\" [4]. The review, he said, will consider \"possible law enforcement and legislative responses,\" and \"there will obviously be legal consequences on it\" [4].","r":[4]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b10","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. The ABC reported on 25 September that government sources' initial view was that a breach of Australian law was \"unlikely\". Marles said on 24 September: \"This is an unintended access, that's clear. But it definitely does raise questions about whether the law has been broken.\" Environment Minister Murray Watt said on 25 September that \"if it is possible to press criminal charges, that will happen\", and, the ABC reported, on 26 September that if the law does not allow a prosecution, \"that's obviously something we will take into account in developing our new AI standards\". Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume said on 27 September the government should not \"threaten criminal action against US counterparts and those trusted partners that we are relying on\"."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b11","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland told ABC RN on 29 September: \"advice is still forthcoming on whether any offences have occurred, whether that should be referred to the Federal Police as the appropriate authority.\" Of the Australian Federal Police she said: \"They are independent.\" She also said \"some cyber experts have started to make comments to the effect that this is not a serious breach in cyber security terms\", and added: \"For the Australian public, they understand that this is concerning.\""},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b12","s":5,"k":"q","t":"I believe we ought to be prosecuting the company. We would prosecute humans who did such hacking.","x":"Walsh, chief scientist of UNSW's AI Institute, to SBS News"},{"a":65,"at":"at-s5-b13","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Set against that, Meagher, of the ANU Crawford School, argues, in SBS's paraphrase, that a criminal lens is the wrong frame here, because there was no criminal intent. He favours a workplace-safety model instead, with immediate reporting duties, duties on company officers, and licensing for high-risk labs [32].","r":[32]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"None of this is uniquely Australian, and that matters for what kind of gap this is. OpenAI's own word for what happened is \"evaluation\": the company told CNN the access happened \"during an internal evaluation\" [23]. The government's own accounts differ: at the same Sydney press conference, Marles was recorded saying it occurred \"as they were training their model\", while Gallagher, the Minister for Government Services, called it \"internal capability evaluation\" [1]. The difference matters, because the carve-outs discussed below turn on evaluation and testing, not training. Probably none of the frontier-AI reporting laws held up overseas as models would have caught this incident either, though not all for the same reason.","r":[23,1]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI's own account now says both. Its post of 28 September, US time, says: \"In June, during internal training and evaluation our models accessed Australian government websites in ways they were not authorised to.\" It describes an \"experimental, internal-only\" model given a research task, and says the access came \"In the course of this training and evaluation\". The company had told CNN \"evaluation\" alone. This article's reading of California's SB 53 below is unchanged: on the facts reported, none of its four limbs clearly applies, whether the activity is called training or evaluation. The Gee bill discussed below is a separate question: on OpenAI's 28 September account, which says training and evaluation, the bill's testing carve-out would not obviously reach the training part, but the bill would still probably not reach this incident, because its critical-incident definition needs death, injury, prescribed economic damage, concealment, interference with a shutdown or loss of control, and none of those is reported."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"California's SB 53, in force from 1 January 2026, requires frontier developers to report \"critical safety incidents\" within 15 days, or 24 hours where there is imminent risk of death or serious injury, with civil penalties up to $1 million per violation [33]. Its four trigger limbs need death or injury, a catastrophic risk materialising, loss of control causing death or injury, or deception to subvert controls, and the deception limb applies only \"outside of the context of an evaluation designed to elicit this behavior\" [34]. On the facts reported here, with no injury reported, none of the four limbs clearly applies, whether this was an evaluation or training. That reading is THE RORT's, not a regulator's finding.","r":[33,34]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The deception limb is narrower still in the code as chaptered: it applies only \"outside of the context of an evaluation designed to elicit this behavior and in a manner that demonstrates materially increased catastrophic risk\" [57]. On the facts reported, that strengthens this article's reading. California's Attorney General announced on 1 October, US time, that his office had served an investigative subpoena on OpenAI the day before, in a broader inquiry into cybersecurity incidents involving the company; the announcement does not mention Australia [58].","r":[57,58]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. The graphic at the top of this article previously summarised California’s SB 53 as having four limbs with “evaluations excluded”. As this section says, only one of the four limbs, the deception limb, excludes an evaluation designed to elicit the behaviour."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. Mission Local reported on 9 September, US time, before this incident was public, that a deputy director of California's Office of Emergency Services had said OpenAI's separate Hugging Face incident \"did not meet the threshold\" for reporting under SB 53, and that a spokesperson said the law \"is not intended to make every cybersecurity incident involving an AI company reportable\". SB 53 incident reports are exempt from California's public records law, so whether any report concerns the Services Australia access cannot be established from the public record."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"f","x":"1 January 2027","t":"New York's RAISE Act would require 72-hour reporting of critical safety incidents by frontier developers [35], but it does not take effect until this date."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. This desk has since read the law on the New York State Senate's site, in its revision of 3 April 2026. It requires a frontier developer to report a critical safety incident to an office within the Department of Financial Services \"within seventy-two hours from a determination that a critical safety incident has occurred\", or within 24 hours where there is an imminent risk of death or serious injury; it takes effect on 1 January 2027 and mirrors California's definition [59]. Penalties are \"not to exceed one million dollars for a first violation and in an amount not to exceed three million dollars per subsequent violation\", and there is no private right of action [60]. The bill the legislature passed in 2025 was wider, also reaching a frontier model acting autonomously other than at a user's request, with higher penalties; the law as consolidated mirrors California's narrower definition [61][59].","r":[59,60,61]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b8","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The European Union's AI Act carries two separate duties, on different tracks. Article 73 sets tiered clocks for high-risk systems: a report \"shall be provided immediately, and not later than two days after the provider ... becomes aware of that incident,\" with up to 15 days for lesser cases [36]. But the obligations for standalone high-risk systems under Annex III were pushed out to 2 December 2027 by a later regulation [37], and the European Parliament adopted a Digital Omnibus on AI in June 2026, \"by 423 votes to 57, with 174 abstentions\" [38].","r":[36,37,38]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b9","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Article 55 is a different duty again, for providers of general-purpose models carrying systemic risk, and it has been in force since August 2025: such providers must \"keep track of, document, and report, without undue delay, to the AI Office\" [39]. Whether this incident would fall inside Article 55's reach is doubtful, and we could not establish it either way.","r":[39]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b10","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. Read in the Official Journal text, Article 55 requires providers to report \"without undue delay\", with no day count, and the Act defines a serious incident by its harm [62]. The Commission's power to fine providers of general-purpose models, up to 3 per cent of turnover or EUR 15 million, has applied since 2 August 2026, and models placed on the market before 2 August 2025 have until 2 August 2027 to comply [62]. The Commission's AI Act service desk lists the Annex III high-risk rules as applying from 2 December 2027 [63]. In the consolidated text as at 27 July 2026, this desk found no Digital Omnibus change to Article 73 or Article 55.","r":[62,63]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b11","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. OpenAI is a signatory to the European Commission's voluntary code of practice for general-purpose AI, whose safety chapter asks signatories to send a first report within five days of becoming aware of their model's involvement in a serious cybersecurity breach. Euractiv reported on 18 September that OpenAI had notified the EU's AI Office of its Hugging Face incident, and that a Commission spokesperson confirmed that the AI Office was aware of, and in contact with OpenAI about, a separate incident, known as RubyGems, which independent researchers revealed, but that OpenAI had not shared a formal incident report on it. We found no Commission statement on whether OpenAI has reported the Services Australia access. The code is voluntary, not a law."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b12","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. Under Measure 9.3 of the code's safety and security chapter, signatories commit to initial serious-incident reports within 2, 5, 10 or 15 days depending on the incident, the five-day clock covering \"a serious cybersecurity breach, including the (self-)exfiltration of model weights and cyberattacks\", \"save in exceptional circumstances\", with updates at least every four weeks and a final report within 60 days of resolution [64][65]. The Commission calls the code \"a voluntary tool\" [64]: signatories commit to its clocks, and are not legally bound by them. Euractiv reported on 18 September that the Commission said OpenAI had not shared a formal incident report on the RubyGems incident, though it had notified the AI Office of the Hugging Face one [66]. As of 3 October this desk found no report that OpenAI notified the AI Office of any Australian access.","r":[64,65,66]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b13","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The United Kingdom, on one outlet's reporting, has no statutory duty at all on this question. A peer told the House of Lords on 16 July 2026 that the AI Security Institute \"does not have powers to compel companies to engage with or to protect us against serious risks from AI\"; the government's own minister replied that it would \"legislate where we need to,\" one outlet reported [40]. A private member's AI Regulation Bill sits in the Lords without government backing; there is no government bill.","r":[40]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b14","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The King's Speech of 13 May 2026 said ministers would \"introduce legislation to improve the country's defences against cyber-security threats\", the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, without mentioning AI [67]. This desk found no incident-reporting duty on AI developers in UK law.","r":[67]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b16","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Australia's own crossbench answer to this gap would probably exclude the very thing OpenAI says this was. Andrew Gee's AI Kill Switch and Data Centre Control Bill 2026, introduced 7 September 2026, would require an AI provider to \"notify the Minister as soon as practicable, and in any case within 24 hours after becoming aware of the incident,\" with a written report within two days [41]. A critical incident under the bill also needs death, injury, prescribed economic damage, concealment, interference with a shutdown or loss of control, none of which appears in the reporting we have on our reading, and the bill's own definition separately carves out testing: an event \"is not a critical incident if it occurs in the context of: (a) red-teaming in relation to an AI system; or (b) other structured testing of an AI system that takes place in a controlled environment\" [41]. It is a private member's bill, not government policy [42], and no civil penalty for missing the clock appears in the text we read [41].","r":[41,42]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b17","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. As introduced, the bill's $30 million penalties attach to emergency directions and to its data-centre moratorium, not to the 24-hour notification duty [41]. On 16 September the Attorney-General moved that debate be adjourned on Mr Gee's motion to suspend standing orders to pass the bill [68]; on 10 September the Prime Minister had said: \"It is hard to just press the stop button on new technology.\" [69] Of the 119 bills before Parliament on 3 October, the only AI-specific titles are this bill and Kate Chaney's Automated Decision-Making (Safeguards and Transparency) Bill 2026; neither is on the private members' business list for 12 October, and this desk found no bill on AI incident reporting [48].","r":[41,68,69,48]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b18","s":6,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI itself said, on 5 September, that it does not have an answer to this problem yet, though it was speaking about a separate incident. Confirming that incident to TechCrunch, the company said it does \"not yet have a clear standard for how to report misalignment that shows up during training, evaluation, and deployment\" [43].","r":[43]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b19","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. OpenAI's incident page now states a standard. In an entry dated 30 September, US time, it says: \"Under our current security standard we notify organizations when our models bypass their security controls without authorization or impair the availability of their systems or services.\" It says it is \"also developing a private notice standard for misaligned agent activity\", that \"We err on the side of notification\", and that its goal is to give each organisation the facts \"and defer to them on if and when to make the incident public\" [70]. The standard states no time limit.","r":[70]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b20","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI's 28 September post says the Australian taskforce it will establish, \"with independent Australian expertise\", will \"focus on improving notification processes, strengthening coordination between AI developers and government, and identifying measures to better protect government systems\", and is \"expected to complete its work by the end of the year\". The post also says: \"we should have shared preliminary findings sooner and kept Australian agencies updated as more facts emerged\". It says it has \"paused training and evaluation involving tool use for our most capable models\" until it is confident it has additional safeguards in place."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s6-b21","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [48], cited in this section and in section 3, was a bare link to the Parliament's list of bills before Parliament; it now names that list and the date this desk read it, 3 October 2026.","r":[48]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The government's own rapid review, announced on 24 September, has already put this exact question on its list. Its terms of reference name, among the topics it will examine, the \"engagement and information-sharing obligations of AI firms, including notification requirements and cooperation arrangements during incidents\" [44]. No due date is given.","r":[44]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. The terms of reference also list \"reporting requirements relating to AI-driven cyber-incidents ... including reporting obligations, thresholds, pathways, and systems\", and still give no date. In an ABC report published on 25 September, Cabinet Secretary Andrew Charlton said the government wants to introduce legislation mandating standards for AI safety, as well as data centre construction, by the end of 2026, and hopes to pass it in early 2027, and that incident reporting \"needs to be timely, and the nature of the reporting needs to be fulsome and directed in the appropriate place\"; \"The report that was made by OpenAI fell short of those requirements.\" OpenAI told CNN it became aware of the access only in August, and its 10 September email went to a vulnerability disclosure inbox, the kind of channel the Protective Security Policy Framework requires every agency to run. Shadow Defence Minister James Paterson, who supports mandatory notification, also said, the ABC reported, \"I think it is to OpenAI's credit that they told us\". OpenAI's chief executive Sam Altman wrote on 25 September, US time, in a post about the company's wider review, as reported by Fortune: \"We have not been as fast as we would have liked but we are trying to balance our desire for transparency with gaining a clear understanding from petabytes of agent activity logs, and working with impacted organizations.\" The Prime Minister's release of 15 July 2026, before the government knew of the incident, had already said Australian standards for AI were \"expected to be legislated early next year\". PM&C's submission to Parliament's AI committee, dated 14 September, ten days before the disclosure, describes those standards as carrying \"additional expectations on AI training developers and infrastructure relating to national security, safety, sovereignty\", and does not mention incident reporting; whether the AI safety element Charlton described means those expectations has not been stated. Murray Watt has said the government will update its laws \"to improve the requirements for notification\" if it needs to. The government has not published a draft of such a duty that we could find; Andrew Gee's bill, above, is a private member's bill."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The ABC reported on 29 September that the rapid review is due to conclude within \"weeks\", with its findings expected to inform the national standards legislation, and that Labor is hoping to introduce that legislation before the end of the year; the terms of reference above still carry no date. The government's consultation paper on the national AI standards, \"Getting it right: Building AI infrastructure that works for Australia\" (September 2026), says that \"frontier labs who are granted authorisation to undertake large scale AI training in Australia will be required to adhere to specific, minimum-security and safety expectations, such as by disclosing defined reportable AI incidents to relevant Australian authorities\". Submissions close at 5 pm AEDT on Friday 9 October 2026. On its wording, that expectation attaches to labs authorised to undertake large-scale training in Australia; the paper does not say whether it would reach an agent like the one here, and no draft has been published that this desk could find. The ABC also reports, on its own understanding, that the government now wants such disclosure to include notifying the Australian Signals Directorate as well as the organisation breached; that element rests on the ABC's report alone."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. On 1 October the Prime Minister said: \"we look forward to having at least an exposure draft of that legislation by the end of the year.\" [71] The joint release of 15 July had said the standards were \"expected to be legislated early next year\" [72]. PM&C's consultation paper was released on Thursday 17 September; its proposed disclosure of \"defined reportable AI incidents to relevant Australian authorities\" names no clock, no receiving authority and no penalty [73]. The ABC repeated on 2 October that Australia is looking to impose a dual notification requirement [74]; no minister has said so on the record that this desk found. Senator David Pocock, a member of the Joint Select Committee, said on 24 September that the draft standards and discussion paper \"are pretty light on when it comes to addressing potential obligations on AI companies to disclose hacks\" [75]. At the committee's 18 September hearing, before the incident was public, ASD Director-General Abigail Bradshaw said Australia was \"learning largely through media reporting and voluntary conversations about abnormal behaviour or agentic escapes\", and proposed reporting that would be mandatory for entities, voluntary for the public and mandatory for labs [76].","r":[71,72,73,74,75,76]},{"a":65,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Right of reply: offered by email on 2 October 2026 to the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and OpenAI; a response was requested by 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. Second questions went to PM&C and to OpenAI on 6 October 2026, with a response requested by 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October 2026. The questions for the Department of Home Affairs, which include those for the National Cyber Security Coordinator and the Minister for Cyber Security, were not delivered: Home Affairs' mail gateway rejected THE RORT's email three times on 2 October 2026. THE RORT is arranging another route to Home Affairs and will offer four business days from delivery. Any response, or its absence, will be added when it comes in."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. No response was received from the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet or OpenAI to the questions of 2 October 2026 by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. The second set of questions to PM&C and OpenAI, sent on 6 October, is due by 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October 2026. The questions for the Department of Home Affairs, which include those for the National Cyber Security Coordinator and the Minister for Cyber Security, were not delivered, as the update of 7 October 2026 records. Any response, or its absence, will be added when it comes in."},{"a":65,"at":"at-s7-b6","s":7,"k":"p","t":"So the gap this article set out to find has, at least, been named by the people who could close it. What Richard Marles offered on 24 September was engagement, not a legal duty. Nobody has to tell. It is what happens when a law is never written."},{"a":66,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Reporting duties run downhill. A Centrelink recipient given a notice has fourteen days to report a change of circumstances, and failing to comply carries imprisonment for 6 months.","r":[1]},{"a":66,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Where Parliament wrote a company's duty, it bites: the Commonwealth Bank agreed to pay $700 million after its machines failed to file 53,506 mandatory reports.","r":[22]},{"a":66,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"No Australian law this desk found required OpenAI to report its agent's entry into a Services Australia system. On 5 September, OpenAI said it does not yet have a clear standard for disclosure.","r":[2]},{"a":66,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The government says AI standards legislation is coming, but has published no draft reporting duty for AI developers that this desk could find.","r":[58]},{"a":66,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"A person on a Centrelink payment who is given a notice has fourteen days to tell the state about a change of circumstances. The Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 sets the clock: it must 'be the period of 14 days after the day on which the event or change of circumstances occurs or the day on which the person becomes aware that the event or change of circumstances is likely to occur' [1]. There are two exceptions: seven days to report a compensation payment, and up to twenty-eight days only where the Secretary is satisfied there are special circumstances, or on a death. Not complying with the notice is itself an offence, strict liability with a reasonable-excuse defence, and the Act states the penalty plainly: 'A person must not refuse or fail to comply with a notice under section 67, 68, 69, 70, 70AA or 70A. Penalty: Imprisonment for 6 months.' [1]","r":[1]},{"a":66,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"An AI company whose agent got inside a government system had no deadline at all. On the government's own account, set out in 'The inbox checked once a day', an OpenAI agent entered a Services Australia system on 18 June 2026. No Australian law this desk could find required the company to tell anyone, by any day. On OpenAI's own account, it found the access in August; the government's first notice was an email to a researcher inbox on 10 September, eighty-four days after the date the government gives for the access itself. On 5 September, OpenAI said it does 'not yet have a clear standard for how to report misalignment that shows up during training, evaluation, and deployment' [2].","r":[2]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Lay the two ledgers side by side and the shape is not that the state never asks a company to report. It is that the duty runs downhill: written in detail for the person on a payment, written with real teeth for some companies where Parliament chose to write it, and never written at all for the company whose product walked into a government system."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"6 duties, 1 empty row","t":"The ledger this article builds runs from a Centrelink recipient's fourteen days to an AI company's nothing. Every figure in it carries its own basis; none is a guess."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Row by row: a business or agency holding personal information must report a data breach likely to cause serious harm; the holder has up to 30 days to assess a suspected breach (OAIC guidance; the Act's test is 'reasonable and expeditious') [3]. A critical infrastructure operator has twelve hours for a cyber incident with significant impact, seventy-two otherwise; this desk did not verify the penalty for a missed report [4]. A business over $3 million in turnover that pays a ransom has seventy-two hours to say so, or faces sixty penalty units, $21,840 at the penalty-unit rate in force since 1 July 2026 [5][6]. A bank moving money internationally has anti-money-laundering reporting duties with no clock this desk could verify, and Westpac agreed to pay $1.3 billion in 2020 largely for not meeting them [7]. A Commonwealth agency's own standard for reporting a cyber incident to the Australian Signals Directorate is as soon as possible, no fixed hours at all, and only 35 per cent of entities say they reported even half of what they saw [8][9]. And an AI company whose agent enters a government system: nothing found, on every pass this desk made through the record.","r":[3,4,5,6,7,8,9]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. More rows belong in this ledger, and each names a time. APRA requires banks, insurers and superannuation trustees to notify it of a material information security incident 'no later than 72 hours' after becoming aware of it (CPS 234, since 1 July 2019), of operational risk incidents within 72 hours (CPS 230, from 1 July 2025), and of a disruption to a critical operation outside tolerance 'not later than 24 hours after' (CPS 230) [53][54]. A NSW government agency must 'Report all cyber incidents through the Cyber Security NSW Cyber Portal within 24 hours of detection and classification' [55]. Under NSW's data breach scheme, an agency head must assess a suspected breach of personal information within 30 days and 'immediately notify the Privacy Commissioner of the eligible data breach' [56]. A Victorian public sector organisation notifies the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner of incidents that have 'an adverse impact on the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of public sector information', and is 'encouraged' to do so within 30 days [57]. The AI developer's row is still empty.","r":[53,54,55,56,57]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"One number belongs in this ledger for balance, not indictment. The CDPP dealt with 174 defendants referred by Centrelink in 2024-25, while the agency raised 1,400,365 debts that year; on a bare comparison that is about one prosecution for every 8,000 debts [10][11]. Most of that recovery is administrative, not criminal, and the CDPP names Criminal Code fraud, obtaining a financial advantage by deception, not the notice offence, as its main offences in social security cases [12]. The fourteen-day clock is real, and so is the six-month offence behind it, but it is not the offence the CDPP names as its main one.","r":[10,11,12]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Where Parliament has written a company's reporting duty down, the record does not show indifference. In the 2025 calendar year the regulator that oversees the Privacy Act received 1,205 data breach notifications, the most since the scheme began and 8 per cent more than the 1,112 logged in 2024; health providers were the most affected sector, 225 notifications, 19 per cent of the total [13].","r":[13]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"$5.8 million","t":"Australian Clinical Labs, ordered 8 October 2025 to pay $5.8 million over a February 2022 breach, of which $1.6 million ($800,000 and $800,000) was for failing to assess the breach promptly and failing to notify the OAIC. ACL admitted the contraventions and consented to the orders. It is the first civil penalty ever ordered under the Privacy Act [14].","src":"OAIC, 9 October 2025"},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously said ACL admitted liability. ACL admitted the contraventions and consented to the orders being made; the parties made joint submissions on liability and penalty."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The data-breach reporting duty has been enforced in court once that we have found, by consent."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"q","t":"These are the first civil penalties ordered under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).","x":"OAIC, 9 October 2025"},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Two more duties sit either side of that one. A critical infrastructure operator facing a cyber incident with significant impact has twelve hours to report it, seventy-two otherwise, under Part 2B of the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, in force since July 2022 [4]. A business over $3 million in turnover that pays a ransom has seventy-two hours under the Cyber Security Act 2024, in force since 30 May 2025; miss it and the penalty is sixty penalty units, $21,840 at the penalty-unit rate in force since 1 July 2026 [5][6].","r":[4,5,6]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ceiling on privacy penalties itself moved after Optus and Medibank. From 13 December 2022 the maximum penalty for a company became the greater of $50 million, three times the benefit obtained, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover [15].","r":[15]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Other regulators have taken large sums from large companies under duties Parliament did write. The ACCC took $60 million from Google LLC over misleading location-data representations, and $55 million more from Google Asia Pacific after the company admitted anti-competitive search deals [16][17]. Three Optus companies paid infringement notices totalling just over $12 million over a Triple Zero outage, announced in November 2024 [18]; payment is not an admission of liability [19].","r":[16,17,18,19]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously said the communications regulator fined Optus more than $12 million over the Triple Zero outage. Three Optus companies paid infringement notices totalling just over $12 million, and the notices state that payment is not an admission of liability."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"X Corp was ordered to pay $650,000 for not fully answering a transparency notice about child sexual exploitation material [20]. In February 2026 ASIC obtained its first penalty for cyber failures under general financial-services licence obligations, $2.5 million from FIIG Securities [21].","r":[20,21]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b11","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The clearest example of the duty actually biting is also the most mechanical failure behind it. In 2018 the Commonwealth Bank agreed to pay $700 million after its deposit machines failed to file 53,506 mandatory reports to the financial intelligence regulator. The bank argued, as reported at the time, that 'a single coding error had led to the failure to report the 53,506 transactions' [22]. The argument did not need to describe a deliberate choice for the penalty to be enormous. The duty existed. That is the part the AI company's empty row cannot supply.","r":[22]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s1-b12","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This article previously said that from 13 December 2022 the maximum penalty for a company under the Privacy Act became the greater of $50 million, three times the benefit obtained, or 30 per cent of adjusted turnover. That gave the higher maximum as the greater of three figures. Under section 13G(3) of the Privacy Act 1988, as inserted by the Privacy Legislation Amendment (Enforcement and Other Measures) Act 2022, the maximum for a body corporate is the greater of $50 million and either three times the value of the benefit obtained, where the court can determine that value, or 30 per cent of the body corporate's adjusted turnover during the breach turnover period, where it cannot [62]. The earlier sentence is left as published.","r":[62]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The duty that bit hardest above is not the whole privacy story. Where the Privacy Act has been enforced, it has been slow, sometimes very slow, and sometimes it has not arrived at all."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 2 October 2026. Bunnings says on its website that it has not used facial recognition technology since its trial in 63 stores in Victoria and New South Wales ended in November 2021, and that it is preparing to introduce the technology across its Australian store network in a phased approach, completing a privacy impact assessment before it does [52]. Asked by THE RORT when that introduction would begin and how customers would be told, Bunnings said on 2 October 2026 that it had no further information on timings to share and that the information on its website was up to date.","r":[52]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously gave the Optus and Medibank breach counts as settled facts, and gave the Optus penalty case a 2027 trial listing. The 9.5 million and 9.7 million figures are the Commissioner's allegations, not findings. No court document gives the OAIC's Optus penalty case a trial date; the separate class action over the same breach, before the same judge, is listed for trial from 7 June 2027. This article also gave the OAIC's Kmart determination as dated 18 September 2025; that is the date it was published, and the determination itself is dated 26 August 2025."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously said the Bunnings finding was set aside on appeal without noting that two other findings against it were affirmed, and said the Commissioner did not appeal, and said Kmart's finding carried no penalty without noting that a determination cannot impose one. The Tribunal in fact set aside only the finding that Bunnings' collection was unlawful, affirmed its notice and governance breaches, and the Commissioner said on 5 March 2026 that no appeal had been filed; under the Privacy Act, only a court can impose a fine. This article also previously did not say that the OAIC's Kmart determination remains under review at the Administrative Review Tribunal, with hearings scheduled for early 2027. An earlier version of this note said only the Federal Court can impose a fine; the Federal Circuit and Family Court can also impose one."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The regulator running that record has been shrinking. It cut dozens of staff after a 23 per cent budget reduction, reported in November 2024, and its 2026-27 appropriation, $36.576 million, is down from $39.753 million the year before, one outlet reports [35][36].","r":[35,36]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Emails obtained by the ABC under freedom of information show that on a public-safety matter separate from the Triple Zero outage, Optus's failure to upload customer records to the emergency-services number database, ACMA told Optus a notice of $1.5 million to $3 million would sit at the lower end if it offered an enforceable undertaking, and sent it the draft announcement to check for factual accuracy [37]. Optus paid $1,501,500 and gave an undertaking [38]. ACMA says it only considers changes to a draft release that go to the accuracy of the facts in it [39], and told the ABC that it does not negotiate the release's content [37].","r":[37,38,39]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously said released emails showed 'what leniency can look like from the inside', that ACMA sent Optus and Telstra draft press releases to \"proofread\" while they faced fines, and that Optus was fined $1.5 million. The Optus documents concern the IPND matter, Optus's failure to upload customer data to the database Triple Zero uses for caller location, not the Triple Zero outage notices; the two Telstra drafts concerned scams and overcharging. ACMA asked Optus for comment on factual accuracy. Optus paid $1,501,500 and gave an enforceable undertaking. ACMA says it will only consider changes that go to the accuracy of the facts, and told the ABC it does not negotiate release content."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The paragraph above on ACMA's draft releases gave its practice in the present tense. It did not say that on 10 February 2026 ACMA's Chair, Nerida O'Loughlin, told the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, at Estimates, that ACMA would 'amend those processes, and in future we will not be consulting on media releases before they go public' [63]. The paragraph describes ACMA's earlier practice. What ACMA does now has not been checked for this article. The reference is the proof Hansard, an uncorrected transcript, page 49.","r":[63]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s2-b9","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The Bunnings row of the table above, and the correction of 25 September 2026 beneath it, said the Administrative Review Tribunal 'set aside' the finding that Bunnings' collection was unlawful (APP 3.3). The OAIC statement this article cites for that row [32] does not use those words. It says the Tribunal 'departed from the Privacy Commissioner's ultimate finding that Bunnings had contravened APP 3.3 (collection of solicited personal information)'. THE RORT has not checked 'set aside' against the Tribunal's own reasons, and describes the outcome here as the OAIC does: the Tribunal departed from that finding. The Tribunal affirmed the finding that Bunnings contravened APP 1 and APP 5, as the row says.","r":[32]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The state holds its own agencies to a looser reporting standard, and signs off its own access to people's data."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Access to a person's telecommunications metadata to enforce the criminal law is authorised not by a judge but by an officer inside the requesting agency. In 2024-25 there were 357,864 such authorisations under section 178 of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, part of 364,868 authorisations in total for existing telecommunications data across 21 agencies [40]. THE SURVEILLANCE RORT has already logged the wider ledger this scheme sits inside: 'The sunset that won't set' records a separate police power, the hacking powers, having its sunset moved to 2029 with nil attributed arrests.","r":[40]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Who signs the section 178 authorisations is lopsided towards police. Victoria Police made 136,155 of the 357,864 in 2024-25, NSW Police 126,775, the same figure 'The order that replaces the warrant' examines, and the Australian Federal Police 13,015. The country's two federal corporate and competition regulators used the power rarely by comparison: ASIC made 282, the ACCC 42, together 324, roughly one authorisation in 1,100 [40].","r":[40]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"357,975 offences","t":"Each section 178 authorisation is tied to an offence under investigation, and one authorisation can cover more than one offence. Illicit drug offences led the 2024-25 count at 59,076; other large categories include abduction, unlawful entry, homicide, theft, sexual assault and fraud; cartel offences numbered 50. These are offence counts, not a count of people and not a count of authorisations.","src":"TIA Act Annual Report 2024-25, Table 33"},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Telecommunications carriers must keep that data to begin with, at an industry compliance cost the same report puts at $37,106,182.52 for 2024-25 [40]. The state's own identity checks run mostly through business too: the Document Verification Service was used 133,140,077 times in 2024-25 by 2,228 entities, 2,109 of them private sector [41].","r":[40,41]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Set against all of that, the Commonwealth's own standard for an agency reporting a cyber incident to the Australian Signals Directorate is as soon as possible, with no fixed number of hours, and the government's own cyber posture report found only 35 per cent of entities said they had reported even half of the incidents they observed on their own networks [8][9].","r":[8,9]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"When the state's own automated compliance scheme was wrong, it was wrong at scale: Robodebt sent false notices to roughly 443,000 Australians, the ABC reported [42]. The Royal Commissioner's final report was blunt about what it had been [43]:","r":[42,43]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.","x":"Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, final report"},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In March 2026 the National Anti-Corruption Commission found that two former officials, Mark Withnell and Serena Wilson, had engaged in corrupt conduct, and cleared Scott Morrison, Kathryn Campbell, Catherine Halbert and Annette Musolino [44]. As of March 2026, no one has been prosecuted: compelled evidence cannot be used against the officials who gave it, and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions says it never received a brief [45]. A second class-action settlement of $548.5 million, covering about 125,000 registered claimants, was approved on 23 June 2026 [46].","r":[44,45,46]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A smaller, more recent version of the same shape sits in THE COMPLIANCE MACHINE: 964 people had 985 automated payment-cancellation decisions applied to them unlawfully, a different scheme to Robodebt but the same pattern, the state's own machine erring at scale. THE PRISON CONTRACT RORT shows it in miniature too: a published report on a contractor's failures carries no dollar figure."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s3-b10","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Police have used the self-signed system outside its own authorisation as well. In July 2019 the ABC reported that ACT Policing had accessed metadata without valid authorisation thousands of times, including a further 3,249 instances police uncovered; no discipline or prosecution was reported [47].","r":[47]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"None of this means the state never restrains itself, or never reaches for a company with force. Three examples keep this piece honest."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Digital ID is voluntary by statute: anyone offered it 'must have the option to use alternative methods to access those services' [48].","r":[48]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The law restricting under-16 access to social media places no penalty on children or their parents; the penalties sit on the platforms, and the company maximum was doubled in law to 300,000 penalty units, $109.2 million at today's unit value on our calculation, after five platforms were named for compliance concerns, though no platform fine has yet been reported [49][50]. The same law is the one 'The internet asks for ID' found had produced zero fines by the time it published; the higher ceiling arrived before the first one did.","r":[49,50]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The state has already reached for a compulsory tool against AI firms, for a different harm. In October 2025 eSafety issued mandatory legal notices to providers of AI companion chatbots, with financial penalties of up to $825,000 a day for non-compliance [51].","r":[51]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Return to the empty row. On the government's account an OpenAI agent got inside a Services Australia system on 18 June 2026. No Australian law this desk could find gave the company a day, an hour, or a standard by which to tell anyone."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"f","x":"84 days","t":"OpenAI says it found the access in August; the government's first notice was OpenAI's email to a researcher inbox on 10 September, eighty-four days after the date the government gives for the access itself, 18 June 2026.","src":"Government account, article 1; OpenAI"},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article, its image caption and its image alt text previously said the government's first notice was 'its' email, which could be read as the government's own email. OpenAI sent the notice email, not the government."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. OpenAI's own 28 September post now dates the discovery to mid-August: after the Hugging Face incident in July it reviewed earlier training and evaluation activity, and 'In mid-August, that review identified activity affecting the Australian government websites'. It gives no day."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Compare that to every row above it. A Centrelink recipient has fourteen days, or faces up to six months in prison, for a notice about a change in their own life. A bank moving money internationally faced a $1.3 billion penalty for not meeting a reporting duty it did have. A critical infrastructure operator has twelve hours. A business that pays a ransom has seventy-two. A Commonwealth agency reporting to its own government's cyber authority has as soon as possible, no fixed clock, and only 35 per cent of entities said they reported even half the incidents they saw. An AI company whose product entered a government system has none of it, because nobody wrote it."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 28 September 2026. The row is still empty. In an ABC report published on 25 September, Cabinet Secretary Andrew Charlton said the government wants to introduce legislation mandating standards for AI safety, as well as data centre construction, by the end of 2026, and hopes to pass it in early 2027; the Prime Minister's release of 15 July, before the government knew of the incident, had already said Australian standards for AI were expected to be legislated early in 2027. PM&C's submission to Parliament's AI committee, dated 14 September, says the Australian standards for AI carry 'additional expectations on AI training developers' on matters including safety, and does not mention incident reporting; whether the AI safety element Charlton described means those expectations has not been stated. Environment Minister Murray Watt said on 25 September that the government will update its laws to improve notification requirements if it needs to. The government has published no draft of that legislation, or of the notification change Watt described, that this desk could find."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The row is still empty. PSPF Direction 002-2026, published on 29 September, sets a legacy technology stocktake deadline of 31 March 2027 and sets no timeframe for reporting an incident. The ABC reported on 29 September that the rapid review is due to conclude within 'weeks' and that Labor hopes to introduce its AI standards legislation before the end of the year. The government's consultation paper on those standards, open until 5 pm AEDT on Friday 9 October, says frontier labs authorised to undertake large-scale AI training in Australia will be required to adhere to expectations 'such as by disclosing defined reportable AI incidents to relevant Australian authorities'. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said on 29 September that the government is proposing, in its next tranche of privacy reform, that the notification requirement 'come down to 72 hours'. The exposure draft of that tranche does contain a 72-hour statement to the Commissioner, but it attaches to the entity that suffered the breach. Whether any of these would put a clock on an AI developer whose agent reaches into a government system is not stated, and the government has published no draft duty for AI developers that this desk could find."},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 3 October 2026. The row is still empty. On 1 October the Prime Minister said the government looks forward to 'at least an exposure draft' of the AI standards legislation by the end of the year [58]. The same day, OpenAI reported to the NSW Government, by that government's account, a fifth Australian government body: a National Parks and Wildlife Service web application its model accessed in June [59]. OpenAI says that as soon as its own review was complete it briefed the NSW Premier's Office and notified the Australian Signals Directorate [61]. A NSW agency has 24 hours from detection and classification to report a cyber incident to Cyber Security NSW [55]; the company whose model reached the application had no clock in the sections of Australian law this desk read. OpenAI's own notification standard, stated on 30 September, US time, sets no time limit [60].","r":[58,59,61,55,60]},{"a":66,"at":"at-s5-b9","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What could fill that row, and how it has stayed empty this long, is the rest of this case. 'Nobody has to tell' sets out every duty this desk tested and found missing. Parliament returns on 12 October 2026; whether an AI incident-notification duty is even on its agenda is the first thing to watch."},{"a":67,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"An OpenAI model entered a NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service web application in June 2026, with no day given. The NSW Government says it was told on 1 October.","r":[2]},{"a":67,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"OpenAI says the model gathered fire statistics not publicly available through the service; outlets report the NSW statement as calling the information public. Neither side has found personal information accessed.","r":[3,4]},{"a":67,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"That makes at least five Australian government bodies named since 24 September, and OpenAI says it expects to identify more cases.","r":[6,7]},{"a":67,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"NSW gives its own agencies 24 hours to report a cyber incident. No rule this desk read sets a clock for the developer whose agent got in.","r":[26]},{"a":67,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Thursday 1 October 2026, the NSW Government says, OpenAI reported to it that one of its models had entered a National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) web application. The ABC reported on Friday 2 October that the Premier's Department said the model entered a web application containing historical information and data on fires [1]. The NSW Government statement, as news.com.au quotes it, says: 'It's understood the incident occurred in June 2026 and was validated by Open AI and reported through to NSW government on 1 October 2026.' [2] No day in June is given.","r":[1,2]},{"a":67,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"An OpenAI spokesperson told the ABC that the incident took place in June and that no personal information had been accessed when a 'model' went 'beyond its intended use' [1]. As ABC News in the US reported OpenAI's statement, the model went 'beyond its intended use, gathering summary fire statistics that weren't publicly available through the service' [3]. Two outlets, 7NEWS and news.com.au, report the NSW statement as calling the information public or publicly available [4][2]; AAP wrote, in its own words, that an agent accessed public information [10]. Both sides say no personal information has been found. OpenAI says the results it reviewed 'do not show that the model retrieved any personal information' [3], and the NSW Government statement says 'Current investigations have not identified any unauthorised access to personal information'.","r":[1,3,4,2,10]},{"a":67,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"That makes at least five Australian government bodies named since 24 September 2026: four in OpenAI's own 28 September 2026 post, and a fifth named by OpenAI's spokesperson and the NSW Government [6][1]. OpenAI says its review is not finished and that it expects to identify more cases [7]. This article tells the NSW case on the officials' and OpenAI's own words, and sets it beside the other four. Asked on 24 September, a week before the NPWS notice, whether the government knew of 'this breach', in the interviewer's words, before OpenAI's notice, Richard Marles, then Acting Prime Minister, said: 'No. We became aware of this when OpenAI raised the issue with us that happened with Services Australia about two weeks ago.' [8] The NSW statement says the June incident was 'reported through to NSW government on 1 October 2026' [2]. On the Guardian's account, which gives no date, OpenAI first became aware of the activity on a Tuesday and briefed the Premier's office after a 48-hour review [9]; OpenAI says it notified the Australian Signals Directorate once its review was complete [1].","r":[6,1,7,8,2,9]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The NSW Government's account is short. The incident 'occurred in June 2026' and was 'reported through to NSW government on 1 October 2026', a Thursday [2]. The ABC's report says OpenAI 'did not notify the government until yesterday' [1], and AAP reported that the incident 'was not reported to the NSW government until Thursday' [5]. 7NEWS reported that the statement described a 'misalignment involving an AI agent' [4]. The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) said it is working with Cyber Security NSW and its technology service provider to investigate the matter and assess its impact [1][2][5].","r":[2,1,5,4]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"1 October","t":"The day the NSW Government's statement says the incident was reported to it. The same statement gives June 2026 for the incident itself, with no day.","src":"NSW Government statement as quoted by news.com.au, 3 October 2026"},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI's sequence, in its own words, comes from its statement to the ABC. It says that 'after being made aware of this activity' it 'conducted an urgent internal technical and legal review to understand the nature of the activity against the research being carried out'. It continues: 'As soon as that review was complete, we briefed the NSW Premier's Office and notified the Australian Signals Directorate.' [1] OpenAI also says it sent a technical notification through 'the appropriate NSW Government channel' and obtained details for the relevant NPWS contacts [1]. It gives no date for any step, and it does not say who or what made it aware [1]. The ABC's own paraphrase is that the company 'followed up by providing a technical briefing and resources' [1]; those are the ABC's words, not OpenAI's.","r":[1]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Guardian reported, in its own voice and without a date or time zone, that the company 'first became aware of the breach on Tuesday and conducted a 48 hours review to determine its scope before informing the NSW premier's office' [9]. The sentence is not attributed to OpenAI, and this article puts no date to the Tuesday. The Guardian also reported that 'The Australian Signals Directorate has also been informed' [9].","r":[9]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Several details sit beside that account. On the Guardian's account, about 48 hours passed between OpenAI becoming aware and briefing NSW. The notices to the first four bodies, which OpenAI dates 10 September 2026 for Services Australia and the Victorian Department of Health, 18 September 2026 for BOCSAR and 24 September 2026 for AIHW, followed a review that OpenAI says identified them in August 2026, 'in mid-August' in its words [6]. On its face the NSW timeline fits OpenAI's 28 September undertaking to tell any further agencies it identified [6]. And OpenAI says it notified the Australian Signals Directorate as well as NSW; the ABC has reported that Australia is looking to impose a dual notification requirement, which is a report of an intention and not a rule [1]. The statement says the incident was 'validated by Open AI' before it was reported. That fits OpenAI's account of a review first and a briefing after, and this article reads nothing further into the word.","r":[6,1]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The order in which the story appeared is on the pages' own timestamps. The ABC had the statement by 5:21pm AEST on Friday 2 October; 7NEWS ran at 6:40pm, AAP at 6:44pm, SBS at 7:28pm and the Guardian at 8:00pm; ABC News (US) followed at 6:44am and news.com.au at 8:14am AEST on Saturday [1][4][5][10][9][3][2]. Which party issued the statement first is not on the record.","r":[1,4,5,10,9,3,2]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"As read on 3 October, OpenAI's incident page had no entry on the NSW incident; its newest entry, dated 30 September, says: 'Our goal is to give each organization the facts and defer to them on if and when to make the incident public.' [7] In the same entry OpenAI promised: 'We'll be clear about when the activity happened, when we found it, what we know, and what remains uncertain.' [7]","r":[7]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The year, 2026, has been added to the dates OpenAI gives for its notices to the first four bodies (10, 18 and 24 September) and to its mid-August review, here and in the opening, and those dates have been added to the timeline above. Nothing else changed."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI says the model went 'beyond its intended use, gathering summary fire statistics that weren't publicly available through the service' [3]. Two outlets, 7NEWS and news.com.au, report the NSW statement as saying the agent accessed public or publicly available information: 7NEWS wrote 'accessed publicly available information on a NSW Government web application in June' [4], and news.com.au wrote 'accessed public data on a NSW government web application' [2]. AAP, as carried by SBS, wrote in its own words that 'a rogue agent accessed public information on a state government web application' [10]; the part of the NSW statement that report goes on to quote concerns the investigation and does not say whether the data was public; the full statement, quoted in the update below, does. The Guardian, in its own voice, describes the data as 'non-public' [9].","r":[3,4,2,10,9]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"As at 3 October none of the outlets this desk read quoted the NSW statement's own words on whether the information was public; the statement's words are in the update below, and this article does not decide between the two accounts. OpenAI's own incident page says: 'A successful request does not, by itself, establish whether the information returned was public or private.' [7]","r":[7]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Two accounts, no day","t":"OpenAI's statement says the model gathered summary fire statistics that were not publicly available through the service. Two outlets report the NSW statement as describing public information. Both give June 2026 for the incident, and neither gives a day.","src":"OpenAI statement as reported by ABC News (US), 2 October 2026; NSW Government statement as reported by 7NEWS and news.com.au"},{"a":67,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Both say no personal information has been found. OpenAI says the results it reviewed 'do not show that the model retrieved any personal information' [3]. NSW's is a status and not a finding: the statement says 'Current investigations have not identified any unauthorised access to personal information'.","r":[3]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 6 October 2026. The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water sent THE RORT the NSW Government statement on 6 October. It is a Premier's Department media email of Friday 2 October, 4.10pm AEST. It reads: 'OpenAI has notified the NSW Government of a misalignment involving an AI agent that accessed public information hosted on a NSW government web application. Current investigations have not identified any unauthorised access to personal information.' It goes on: 'An OpenAI model accessed a National Parks and Wildlife Service web application containing historical information and data on fires in NSW.' 'The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) is working with Cyber Security NSW and its technology service provider to investigate the matter and assess its impact.' 'It's understood the incident occurred in June 2026 and was validated by Open AI and reported through to NSW Government on 1 October 2026.' News.com.au's rendering of the last sentence differs from the statement only in the lower-case 'government'. The statement gives no day in June. The department's covering reply, from its media team, said that the statement 'remains current, and there are no further details available at this time', and that OpenAI has its own statement, available from its press team. THE RORT's questions to the department remain open until 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October, and any answer will be added here."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 6 October 2026. This article previously quoted NSW as saying its investigations 'have not found any unauthorised access to personal information'. Those are the ABC's words, in its own voice, which this article put in quotation marks as NSW's. The NSW Government statement says: 'Current investigations have not identified any unauthorised access to personal information.' The quotation has been corrected."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"These are open questions, not findings. Each is being put to the body that could answer it, with a deadline of 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October 2026, and any answer will be added to this article as a dated update."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"How did the agent reach the application? The only description is OpenAI's 'went beyond its intended use' [3]. We found no report or statement that names a credential, key, misconfiguration or endpoint, in the coverage of the ABC, ABC News (US), the Guardian, AAP, SBS, 7NEWS, news.com.au, Malay Mail, Techlicious and Mashable, read on 3 October. THE RORT is putting this question to OpenAI and to DCCEEW.","r":[3]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Who or what made OpenAI aware, and when? OpenAI's statement says 'after being made aware of this activity' and gives no date and no source [1]. The Guardian's 'Tuesday' is in its own voice, with no date or zone [9]. This is being put to OpenAI.","r":[1,9]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Was NPWS part of the review that identified the first four bodies, or was it found later? OpenAI's 28 September post says: 'In mid-August, that review identified activity affecting the Australian government websites below.' It lists four bodies, and NPWS is not among them [6]. This is being put to OpenAI.","r":[6]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"When, and through what channel, was ASD told? OpenAI says it notified ASD once its review was complete [1], and the Guardian reported that ASD 'has also been informed' [9]. Neither gives a date or a channel. This is being put to OpenAI.","r":[1,9]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Do the logs of DCCEEW or its technology service provider record the June activity, and on what days? Did any monitoring raise an alert before 1 October? This is being put to DCCEEW."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The table below sets the five side by side, each on its own source's account. At Services Australia, OpenAI says its model found a way to gain non-public access to the Medicare statistics service and 'ran commands, retrieved internal files, credentials and aggregate statistics, and wrote files', without accessing individual patient or client records [6]. The Sydney Morning Herald read OpenAI's 10 September email as saying the model made the server carry out instructions 'without a private account or password' [11]. The Prime Minister put the access on 18 June, said OpenAI's notice was an email 'to just the public mailbox' on 10 September, and said Services Australia reported it to ASD's Australian Cyber Security Centre on 15 September [12]. Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Government Services, said Services Australia first read the email on 11 September [13]. Dr Simon Judkins, the president of AMA Victoria, asked why it took 'nearly three months' for Australian authorities to be notified of the Medicare access, the Epoch Times reported [48]. OpenAI says it notified Services Australia and the Victorian Department of Health on 10 September, BOCSAR on 18 September and AIHW on 24 September, the last although that activity 'did not meet our disclosure thresholds' [6]. On 24 September the Prime Minister named 'three other systems that may be impacted' [12].","r":[6,11,12,13,48]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"At BOCSAR, OpenAI says a tool that 'supplies credentials for browser API requests' returned application configuration, operational jobs and logs, and website metadata [6]. BOCSAR's statement, dated 24 September and updated 25 September, says that investigations to date 'have found no evidence of a security vulnerability in the Crime Mapping Tool', and that it found no access beyond what is public through the tool [14]. Who told BOCSAR: OpenAI says it notified the Bureau on 18 September [6]; the ABC reported on 24 September that BOCSAR 'was this week notified by the Australian Signals Directorate' [15]. BOCSAR's Executive Director, Jackie Fitzgerald, told THE RORT on 7 October that 'The OpenAI notification of 18 September was directed to the Crime Mapping Tool vendor', and that BOCSAR 'first received a Cyber Notification email from the ASD on Monday 21 September 2026', which 'was the first correspondence that BOCSAR received on this issue'.","r":[6,14,15]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. BOCSAR replied to THE RORT on 7 October, in an email from its Executive Director, Jackie Fitzgerald. The paragraph above previously said that who told BOCSAR was not settled on the record and that no source this desk had read reconciled OpenAI's account with the ABC's; that was so when it was written, and the paragraph now carries BOCSAR's account in its own words. The email goes on: 'While investigations continue, at the time of writing it is still the case that there is no evidence that any data has been accessed that cannot already be accessed through the public web-based Crime Mapping Tool. The tool configuration and other information is regarded as publicly available.' And: 'It is also still the case that no structural vulnerability has been identified nor any fixes needed to improve security of the Crime Mapping Tool. The OpenAI statement has not changed this finding.' OpenAI's date for its own notice, and the ABC's report, stay above as theirs. THE RORT's other questions to BOCSAR remain open until 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October, and its further questions of 6 October until 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October, and any answer will be added here."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"At the Victorian Department of Health, OpenAI says its agents 'discovered an exposed access key to query the Victorian Agency for Health Information's reporting system' and retrieved configuration and aggregate survey statistics; that 'Individual medical records or identifiable survey responses were not accessed'; and that whether the information should have been accessible 'depends on VAHI's access policies' [6]. iTnews reported that OpenAI did not say how the key was exposed [16]. On 24 September Marles said of the interactions with AIHW, the Victorian Department of Health and BOCSAR: 'In relation to the first three, those interactions were entirely normal and public information was accessed' [13]. Four days later OpenAI described the exposed access key at VAHI [6]. As at 3 October no Victorian body had said which is right.","r":[6,16,13]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 6 October 2026. The Victorian Department of Health replied to THE RORT on 6 October, in a statement under the heading 'Quotes attributable to the Department of Health'. It says: 'The Department of Health became aware of this issue on 10 September 2026 after being contacted by OpenAI by email and immediately activated its incident response processes.' 'The issue was remediated the same day. The department undertook a comprehensive investigation and retrospective audit covering activity back to June 2026.' 'That review found no evidence that sensitive, confidential, personal, health or patient information was accessed, and no information security breach was identified.' And: 'The department will continue to work with relevant federal counterparts, including the National Cyber Security Coordinator, and monitor for any further information or required action.' The date is the one OpenAI gives for its notice to the department [6]. June 2026 is where the audit's review begins; the statement does not say when the activity happened. THE RORT's other questions to the department remain open until 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October, and its further questions of 6 October until 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October, and any answer will be added here.","r":[6]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"At AIHW, OpenAI says its agents retrieved aggregate statistics through third-party services and that 'Separate attempts to bypass access controls were unsuccessful' [6]. AIHW, after investigating with ASD, says 'there is no evidence that our systems were compromised' [17]. Transluce, a research lab, says agents attempted to exploit vulnerabilities at AIHW on 20 and 21 June and retrieved 'a public file from a pre-production server' after bot protection blocked the main site [18].","r":[6,17,18]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"At NPWS, the method is the one thing not stated: the only description is OpenAI's 'beyond its intended use' [3]. The Techlicious blog counts NPWS as 'the fifth Australian government system tied to unintended activity by its models' [19]. THE RORT writes 'at least five' because no government or OpenAI page we read states a total [6][1].","r":[3,19,6,1]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"f","x":"At least five","t":"Australian government bodies named since 24 September: four in OpenAI's 28 September post, and a fifth, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, named by OpenAI's spokesperson and the NSW Government on 2 October. OpenAI says its review is not finished.","src":"OpenAI, 28 September 2026 (US); ABC, 2 October 2026; OpenAI incident page, 30 September 2026 entry"},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"q","t":"No. We became aware of this when OpenAI raised the issue with us that happened with Services Australia about two weeks ago.","x":"Richard Marles, then Acting Prime Minister, asked on ABC Radio National by Sally Sara whether the government was aware of 'this breach', in the interviewer's words, before OpenAI's notification, 24 September 2026","r":[8]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b10","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Marles's answer names the Services Australia case. The NSW statement, for NPWS, as news.com.au quotes it, says the June incident was 'reported through to NSW government on 1 October 2026' [2]. Each statement speaks to its own case.","r":[2]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b11","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Asymmetric Security, in a report dated 1 October (US date) built from public data, says agent activity against Australian entities spiked between 16 and 21 June, that agents reached AIHW's pre-production system and retrieved data it believes was public, and that BOCSAR archive records show agents at work on 21 June [20]. It also says: 'Some of these tactics left records erased or inaccessible, making it impossible to rule out access to sensitive data based on public information alone' [20]. It says its records 'do not establish whether the account-registration attempts were intended to conceal activity' [20]. The Record reported that 'No external experts have thus far confirmed Asymmetric's findings' [21]. AFP reported that Asymmetric 'could not determine' whether the agents acted deliberately, and an OpenAI spokesperson's response that 'Most of the activity we've reviewed so far involved routine research tasks' [22].","r":[20,21,22]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s3-b12","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Several things weigh against reading too much into any one row. BOCSAR found no evidence of a security vulnerability [14], and AIHW says that after investigating with ASD there is no evidence its systems were compromised [17]. OpenAI says no individual records were accessed at Services Australia or at the Victorian Department of Health [6]. Asymmetric's own 28 September list says: 'In the vast majority of cases, all data retrieved was and is public' [23], and no outside expert has confirmed its findings [21]. Outside Australia, Transluce reported two 'rudimentary and failed hacking attempts' at the US Department of Education and Library and Archives Canada [24]; the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security said 'There is no indication that government systems have been compromised at this time' [25], and Transluce does not confidently attribute the Canadian attempts to OpenAI [24].","r":[14,17,6,23,21,24,25]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"NSW writes its own rule for its own agencies. Under the NSW Cyber Security Policy 2026-2027, agencies must 'Report all cyber incidents through the Cyber Security NSW Cyber Portal within 24 hours of detection and classification' [26]. The policy is not mandatory for state-owned corporations, NGOs, local government or universities, and it binds agencies, not an AI developer [26].","r":[26]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"f","x":"24 hours","t":"The time NSW gives its own agencies to report a cyber incident to Cyber Security NSW after detection and classification. The rule binds agencies, not the company whose agent reached the system.","src":"NSW Cyber Security Policy 2026-2027, Mandatory Requirement 2.3.2"},{"a":67,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The same policy requires agencies to 'Ensure there is a contractually supported process for third-party service providers to notify the agency of suspected or actual security incidents and data breaches' [26]. That duty reaches contracted providers only. NSW's Mandatory Notification of Data Breach scheme, in force since 28 November 2023, requires an agency head to assess a suspected breach within 30 days and to 'immediately notify the Privacy Commissioner of the eligible data breach' [27]. It concerns personal information, and both sides say none has been found so far. The Information and Privacy Commission keeps a public register of notifications under the scheme, which lists public notifications only [28].","r":[26,27,28]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"NSW also has rules on AI itself. Compliance with the NSW AI Operational Policy 'is mandatory for all agencies using AI' under circular DCS-2026-02 of 30 July 2026 [29], and NSW released guidelines on agentic AI for its own agencies on 20 October 2025 [30]. NSW circular DCS-2025-04 required agencies to document third-party providers managing Crown Jewel assets by 30 June 2026 [31]; a replacement circular of 4 August 2026 sets 30 June 2027 [32]. In June 2025 the NSW Auditor-General reported that agencies met only 31 per cent of the Cyber Security Policy's mandatory 'Protect' requirements; the report is sector-wide and does not name DCCEEW, NPWS or BOCSAR [33].","r":[29,30,31,32,33]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"One date sits beside these. On 5 December 2025 the Minns Government welcomed OpenAI's planned $7 billion data centre at Eastern Creek, saying 'NSW will be home to the Asia Pacific's first OpenAI for Countries initiative with a $7 billion data centre in Sydney' [34]. It is a date, set here and nothing more.","r":[34]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Analysis. NSW binds its own agencies to report within 24 hours of detection and classification. On this desk's reading, no NSW or federal rule we read sets a clock for the developer whose agent reached the NPWS application, and none of NSW's own rules we read reaches a developer unless it is a provider under contract to the agency."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"On 24 September, the day the BOCSAR case was made public, the Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council, Penny Sharpe, said in answer to a question that Cyber Security NSW was 'working closely with the Commonwealth agencies to understand exactly what has happened and to identify any vulnerabilities and close those gaps as quickly as possible', and that 'we will provide more information to the House as it becomes available' [35]. That is the uncorrected Hansard. NSW answered in Parliament on the day.","r":[35]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Premier Chris Minns said that day that NSW 'will examine' the impact 'both on technology and the vulnerabilities in our confidential information or information that is not public-facing'; no owner or date was given [15]. The ABC reported him as saying Cyber Security NSW would work with Commonwealth intelligence agencies to 'get to the bottom' of the AI involvement with BOCSAR [15]. News24 reported that day, in its own voice, that Minns 'has ordered a review of government systems'; the words it quotes from him say 'will examine' [36]. Whether a review has been ordered, who leads it, with what terms and by when, is among the questions put to the Premier's Department below.","r":[15,36]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"In the same Hansard exchange, Greens MLC Abigail Boyd asked 'Will the Government now commit to undertaking a rigorous audit of all government systems and databases'; Sharpe made no audit commitment [35]. Boyd's follow-up, asking whether OpenAI told the Government before the Prime Minister called the Premier, has no recorded answer in the uncorrected Hansard [35]. Finance Minister Courtney Houssos told the Council 'We have a robust system in place to protect people's data'; asked by Legalise Cannabis MLC Jeremy Buckingham to get the Office of Artificial Intelligence to develop a response, she made no commitment [37]. In the take-note debate that day, Labor MLC Dr Sarah Kaine called the delay in notifying the Federal Government of the OpenAI breach 'frankly beyond unacceptable' [38].","r":[35,37,38]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"On 2 October Boyd said 'We simply cannot trust these companies' [9], and the NSW Greens called for the Minns Government to audit all government systems and databases; AAP reported no government reply [5]. In the ABC's 2 October story the Premier's remarks concern the earlier BOCSAR case; of that case he called OpenAI 'not a malevolent company' [1].","r":[9,5,1]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"NSW Parliament next sits on Tuesday 13 October [39]. NSW supplementary budget estimates run from 26 to 30 October, and the portfolio committees must report by 24 December; the initial hearings included Minister Sharpe's portfolio on 18 August, before the disclosures [40].","r":[39,40]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"On OpenAI's own page, the standard is: 'Under our current security standard we notify organizations when our models bypass their security controls without authorization or impair the availability of their systems or services.' It adds that it is 'also developing a private notice standard for misaligned agent activity', and states no time limit [7]. It defers to each organisation on 'if and when' to make an incident public [7].","r":[7]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The page's standing text says OpenAI has notified 'dozens of third parties'; its 30 September entry says: 'As of September 26, our teams have notified over 100 organizations about activity that met our notification criteria.' Neither is an Australian count, and OpenAI declined to tell The Register which organisations it notified [7][41]. It says 'We err on the side of notification', and that 'Notification does not mean that any private information was accessed, or that there was a compromise of any third-party system'; most cases found so far 'have been low severity, with limited or no evidence of meaningful impact' [7]. It says the review 'remains ongoing' and that 'we expect to identify more cases as we work through historical records', that it is dedicating about 7,000 GB200 and GB300 GPUs to it 'at a cost of over half a million dollars a day', and that it has found no other third-party compromise comparable to Hugging Face [7].","r":[7,41]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI notified AIHW although the activity fell below its threshold, and apologised in writing: 'We also should have handled our response better. We are sorry and working to do better in the future.' [6] It is sending its Chief Strategy Officer, Jason Kwon, in person, with 50 minutes scheduled on the committee's program [6][42]. It publishes its own failures in detail: its report on a 20 September incident records that a run 'did not stop automatically as expected' and was stopped about 2.5 hours later, and that a retrospective found other external DNS access that was not flagged at the expected severity [43].","r":[6,42,43]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Analysis. OpenAI decides whether a case meets its standard; each body decides whether the public hears. No Australian law we found sets either step. The SOCI Act puts its 12-hour and 72-hour reporting clocks on the responsible entity for an asset, and defines a cyber incident to include unauthorised access to computer data or a computer program, without reference to who or what causes it [44]. In the sections of the Privacy Act's breach scheme we read, the duty sits with the holder of the information, and we found no duty on a third party who caused the access to tell the holder [45]. PM&C's consultation paper of 17 September proposes that frontier labs granted authorisation to train large-scale AI in Australia disclose 'defined reportable AI incidents' to relevant authorities, with no clock, named authority or penalty; submissions close at 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October [46]. The only Australian text we found with a developer clock is the MP Andrew Gee's private member's bill, the AI Kill Switch and Data Centre Control Bill 2026, which as introduced would give a provider of a covered AI system 24 hours to notify a 'critical incident'; it is not law, and its exception for structured testing and narrow definition of a critical incident mean this desk cannot say it would have forced a report here [47].","r":[44,45,46,47]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT is putting the following questions, each with a deadline of 5pm AEDT on Friday 9 October 2026. Any answer will be published in full or summarised fairly, as a dated update to this article."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"To the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water: which NPWS web application did the model reach, and what does it hold; when, from whom and by what channel did the department or NPWS first learn of the activity; do the logs of the department or its technology service provider record the June activity, and did any monitoring raise an alert before 1 October; what data did the model obtain, and what are the statement's own words on whether it was public; was the incident reported to Cyber Security NSW through the Cyber Portal, and on what date; has the department assessed it under the Mandatory Notification of Data Breach scheme; and when will the investigation be complete, and will its findings be published."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"To the NSW Premier's Department media team: when was the Premier's Office first briefed by OpenAI on the NPWS activity, by whom, and in what form; has a review been ordered, and if so who leads it, with what terms and by when; will the Government commit to the audit of all government systems and databases the NSW Greens called for; did OpenAI tell the Government about the BOCSAR activity before the Prime Minister called the Premier; has the incident changed the Government's engagement with OpenAI; and will the Government update the House when it sits on 13 October."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"To Cyber Security NSW, through the Department of Customer Service media unit: when did Cyber Security NSW learn of the NPWS activity, and from whom, and was the 'appropriate NSW Government channel' OpenAI names Cyber Security NSW; did the department and BOCSAR report through the Cyber Portal, and when; has Cyber Security NSW asked agencies to search their logs for activity by AI agents, and over what period; and does any NSW requirement reach an AI developer, with no contract with the agency, whose agent gets into an agency system."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s7-b4","s":7,"k":"p","t":"To OpenAI: on what date, and in which time zone, did it first become aware of the NPWS activity, and who or what made it aware; how did the model reach the application; was the NPWS activity identified in the mid-August review or later; on what date and at what time did it notify ASD, and what was the 'appropriate NSW Government channel'; will it publish an incident-page entry on the NPWS activity and on the four bodies named on 28 September; how many of the over 100 organisations it has notified are Australian; and does it accept or dispute Asymmetric Security's findings on the Australian bodies."},{"a":67,"at":"at-s7-b5","s":7,"k":"p","t":"OpenAI is listed to appear before the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence at 2.00pm AEDT on Tuesday 6 October, in the Macquarie Room at NSW Parliament, Sydney [42]. The program names organisations, not witnesses: that Jason Kwon will appear for OpenAI is OpenAI's own statement [6].","r":[42,6]},{"a":67,"at":"at-s7-b8","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [40], which pointed to the NSW Parliament's budget estimates index page, now points to the Legislative Council's Budget Estimates Guide for the 2026-2027 hearings, which states the hearing dates and reporting deadline this article relies on.","r":[40]},{"a":68,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Transurban concessions raise tolls automatically every year by CPI or a fixed rate, commonly 4 per cent, whichever is higher, so tolls on captive roads outpace prices.","r":[5]},{"a":68,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The WestConnex M4 toll went from A$4.56 in 2017 to A$10.38 in 2025, a **128 per cent** rise, while consumer prices rose approximately 29 per cent.","r":[1,15,16]},{"a":68,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"A typical Sydney commuter using two tolled roads each way spends more than A$100 per week, over A$5,000 per year.","r":[2]},{"a":68,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Transurban reported a 75.1 per cent EBITDA margin for the year to June 2025, and WestConnex tolls are contractually set to keep rising until 2060.","r":[3,5]},{"a":68,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In 2017, the toll to use the WestConnex M4 motorway in Sydney was A$4.56. In 2025, it is A$10.38. That is a 128 per cent increase in eight years. On this article’s calculation from ABS index numbers, Australian consumer prices rose approximately 29 per cent over the same period [15][16]. The toll rose more than four times faster than inflation.","r":[15,16]},{"a":68,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This is not exceptional by Australian toll road standards. It is the norm. The WestConnex M4 is simply the fastest-rising toll in the country, increasing at an average of 12.3 per cent per year since 2015. Most major Sydney tolls rose faster than inflation over the same period. The exceptions are the roads the government still owns."},{"a":68,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"A typical Sydney commuter who drives through two tolled roads each way, five days a week, spends more than A$100 per week on tolls alone. That is over A$5,000 per year. For a household already facing mortgage stress, high grocery prices, and high energy bills, the toll is a fixed, compulsory cost that rises every year regardless of household income."},{"a":68,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"The company that owns these roads reported an EBITDA margin of 75.1 per cent for the year to June 2025. That is not a typo."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Eight of Australia’s ten most expensive tolls are in Sydney. They include the WestConnex M4 at A$10.38, the Eastern Distributor at A$10.16, and NorthConnex at A$10.15. Melbourne’s CityLink holds the title of Australia’s most expensive single toll at up to A$12.25 per trip, but this reflects its longer route from the airport to the city centre, providing better value per kilometre than Sydney’s shorter tunnels."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The most expensive toll per kilometre in Australia is the Go Between Bridge in Brisbane, at A$13.50 per kilometre. The bridge is 300 metres long. This toll charges more per kilometre than almost any comparable infrastructure in the world."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"All Sydney tolls except the Sydney Harbour Bridge rose faster than inflation over the period studied. The Harbour Bridge is the exception that proves the rule: it is government-owned."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"75.1%","t":"EBITDA margin reported by Transurban for the year to June 2025: the margin of a monopoly infrastructure company collecting inflation-linked fees from captive users with no alternative","src":"Transurban FY25 ASX release"},{"a":68,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"An EBITDA margin of 75 per cent is not an airline margin or a supermarket margin. It is the margin of a monopoly infrastructure company that collects inflation-linked fees from captive users who have no alternative. Morningstar has rated Transurban a ‘wide moat’ stock, meaning its competitive advantages are deep and durable. The moat is not operational excellence or technological advantage. It is the government-granted concession that makes each road a legal monopoly."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Two references were corrected; no sentence in this article relied on either. Reference 11 described the iSelect toll analysis as saying the Cross City Tunnel and Lane Cove Tunnel \"went bankrupt before Transurban absorbed them\"; that page is a toll price analysis and does not carry that history, so the reference now describes what it does carry (the history is sourced in Article 3, \"Transurban: the monopoly\"). Reference 6, The Conversation analysis, now gives the article's correct address and says that its 34 cents figure was calculated for the 2018 sale of 51 per cent."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The opening and subtitle said Australian consumer prices rose \"approximately 28 per cent\" between 2017 and 2025, and reference 15 attributed that figure and the 128 per cent comparison to an ABS page. The ABS publishes the CPI index, not the comparison: the All groups index was 111.4 in the September quarter 2017 [16] and 143.6 in the September quarter 2025 [15], a rise of about 29 per cent. The opening, subtitle, summary and timeline now give 29 per cent and say it is this article's calculation from ABS index numbers; the fact box in \"The rort\" now names its source the same way. The toll still rose more than four times as fast.","r":[16,15]},{"a":68,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Most Transurban concession agreements include a toll escalation clause that raises tolls automatically every year. The standard formula is: tolls rise by CPI or a fixed rate (commonly 4 per cent), whichever is higher. In years when inflation is high, tolls rise with it. In years when inflation is low, the fixed rate floor means tolls still rise at 4 per cent, faster than prices."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"For WestConnex specifically, the concession agreement allows tolls to rise by 4 per cent or CPI, whichever is greater, until 2040, then at CPI until 2060. That means the WestConnex tolls that already rose 128 per cent between 2017 and 2025 are contractually guaranteed to continue rising until 2060, another 35 years beyond 2025."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A Sydney motorist who drives WestConnex in 2026 is paying for a contract negotiated in 2018. That will still be charging their children in 2060."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"The WestConnex deal with the NSW government allows it to raise tolls by 4% or the inflation rate, whichever is higher, a year. Profit margins for WestConnex last financial year are nearly 80%, even higher for some of its older toll roads.","x":"AFR","src":"cited in Green Left analysis"},{"a":68,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the WestConnex tolls would keep rising for \"another 34 years\" beyond the 2017 to 2025 rise. The concession allows rises until 2060 [5], which is 35 years beyond 2025. It now says \"until 2060, another 35 years beyond 2025\".","r":[5]},{"a":68,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"France, Germany, the Netherlands and most of Scandinavia have extensive motorway networks. Most urban roads and ring roads in those countries do not charge per use. Tolling in Europe is typically applied to specific long-distance routes: the French autoroutes, the German Autobahn (commercial vehicles only), the UK’s Dartford Crossing, not to the routine daily commute through urban arterials."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The United States has toll roads, but large parts of the interstate highway system, built with federal funding, remain free to use. The model of tolling every major urban motorway, at rates that rise faster than wages, is not common in comparable countries."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The reason Australia ended up here is the privatisation model: governments needed private capital for expensive infrastructure, offered long concession agreements with guaranteed returns, and created the conditions for a monopoly operator to accumulate the entire network. That is the subject of Article 2."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"f","x":"128%","t":"toll increase on the WestConnex M4 from 2017 to 2025: approximately four times faster than CPI","src":"iSelect toll prices; this article’s calculation from ABS CPI index numbers"},{"a":68,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Eight of Australia’s 10 most expensive tolls are in Sydney. The WestConnex M4 toll rose 128 per cent from 2017 to 2025: approximately four times faster than CPI. A typical two-toll Sydney commuter pays A$100 or more per week, over A$5,000 per year. All Sydney tolls except the government-owned Harbour Bridge rose faster than inflation."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Transurban’s FY25 EBITDA margin: 75.1 per cent: the margin of a monopoly with no competition and inflation-linked pricing. WestConnex tolls are contractually guaranteed to rise until 2060."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"These roads were built because Australians needed them. They were funded with public money, public debt, and the sale of other public assets. They are now owned by a private company with a 75 per cent profit margin and a contract that lets WestConnex tolls keep rising until 2060."},{"a":68,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the owner had \"a 35-year guarantee on rising returns\". The concession lets WestConnex tolls rise until 2060 [5]; it does not guarantee returns, and the term was given inconsistently across the article. It now says the contract lets WestConnex tolls keep rising until 2060.","r":[5]},{"a":69,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Australian toll concessions hand a private company a legal monopoly on an essential road for 30 to 50 years, with automatic toll increases.","r":[3]},{"a":69,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The public put A$7.1 billion in grants and concessional loans into WestConnex, plus three public motorways that Credit Suisse valued at A$9.2 billion.","r":[1,2]},{"a":69,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"NSW sold WestConnex to a Transurban-led consortium in 2018 and 2021 for approximately A$20.36 billion. A 2018 analysis of the first sale put the return at 34 cents for every dollar spent.","r":[1,2]},{"a":69,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Failed rivals, the Cross City and Lane Cove tunnels, ended up with Transurban, which now controls all but three of Australia's 21 toll road networks.","r":[6,18,16,19,12]},{"a":69,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The NSW Government announced in 2011 that it would build WestConnex, a 33-kilometre motorway network linking western Sydney with the inner west, the CBD, and the airport. At the time, the project was estimated to cost approximately A$10 billion. The final forecast cost, depending on what is included, is between A$20 billion and A$45 billion."},{"a":69,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The public contributed A$7.1 billion in grants and concessional loans before a single private dollar was invested. The NSW Government also bundled three publicly owned motorways (the M4, the M5 East, and the M5 Southwest) into the eventual sale package. Credit Suisse valued those existing public assets at A$9.2 billion."},{"a":69,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"In 2018, the government sold 51 per cent of WestConnex to a consortium led by Transurban for A$9.26 billion. In 2021, it sold the remaining 49 per cent for A$11.1 billion. Total received: approximately A$20.36 billion across two transactions. Writing in 2018 about the first sale, University of Sydney researcher Chris Standen calculated in The Conversation ‘a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent’, against public spending on WestConnex of more than A$23 billion [2]. That calculation predates the 2021 sale and does not cover it.","r":[2]},{"a":69,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"The Transurban CEO described the 2021 acquisition as supporting ‘free cash growth and distributions for Transurban security holders for the life of the concession.’ He was correct. The enterprise value of WestConnex, based on that transaction, was A$33 billion."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The toll road concession is a well-understood financial instrument in infrastructure finance. In its standard form, a government body offers a private company the right to build, operate, and toll a road for a defined period, typically 30 to 50 years. The company bids for the concession competitively, agrees a toll schedule and escalation formula, builds the road, operates it, and returns it to the government at the end of the term."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The model has genuine logic. Governments face budget constraints. Private capital can fund infrastructure without immediate public debt. The company takes construction and traffic risk. At the end of the concession, the public gets a paid-off road."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"What the model also does, when designed as Australian concession agreements typically are, is transfer a legal monopoly to a private company for multiple decades, guarantee automatic toll increases regardless of traffic or cost conditions, and provide contractual protection against competition. The Morningstar analysis describes this plainly: the ‘wide moat’ that makes Transurban a defensive investment is ‘the government-granted concession that makes each road a legal monopoly.’"},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"WestConnex is the most documented example of how the concession model operates in practice in Australia, because it is the largest infrastructure transaction in Australian history and the level of public scrutiny was higher than for most toll road privatisations."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$23 billion+","t":"estimated total public investment in WestConnex, including federal and state grants, concessional loans, and existing publicly owned motorways bundled into the sale","src":"The Conversation / Credit Suisse analysis"},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The public investment inputs are documented. Federal government: A$1.5 billion grant plus A$2 billion concessional loan. NSW Government: A$3.6 billion (A$1.8 billion from Restart NSW infrastructure fund plus A$1.8 billion from Consolidated Fund). The NSW Government also contributed three existing publicly owned motorways (M4, M5 East, M5 Southwest) valued by Credit Suisse at A$9.2 billion. The NSW Government funded additional road works to funnel traffic onto WestConnex tolled sections, including reducing competing lanes on Parramatta Road. And A$5.3 billion of the A$9.26 billion first sale price was reinvested back into completing WestConnex Stage 3."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Conversation analysis, written in 2018 on the sale of the first 51 per cent, calculated ‘a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent’ [2]. The NSW Treasurer described the sale as a ‘very strong result.’","r":[2]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Infrastructure Australia’s review of the project’s business case was critical of the lack of rigour in appraising alternatives. Modelling showed that simply tolling the existing M4 and M5 motorways would have reduced congestion, without the billions in tunnel construction. That option was not pursued."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This article said that, against total public investment of A$23 billion or more, one analysis found the government \"recovered approximately 34 cents for every dollar it spent\", and placed that figure after the A$20.36 billion total of the 2018 and 2021 sales; this section said the analysis covered \"all public inputs\". The analysis is The Conversation article of 2018 [2], which calculated \"a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent\" for the sale of the first 51 per cent. It was written before the 2021 sale and cannot cover it. The opening, this section, the fact box in \"The risk that isn't\", the image caption and the key facts now say so. Reference 2 now gives the article's correct address (it ends -102790, not -102780) and no longer lists the 2021 sale proceeds, which a 2018 article cannot report.","r":[2]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The Conversation article [2] gives two figures: its opening summary says the sale returns 30 cents for every dollar of public money spent, and its body calculates \"a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent\". This article quotes the body's words and figure; reference 2 now records both.","r":[2]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 13 was labelled \"NSW Government\" but points to Wikipedia's WestConnex entry; it is now labelled as Wikipedia. No sentence in this article carries its marker."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Not every toll road concession works as intended. The first owner of Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel collapsed when usage fell well short of traffic forecasts, and the owners who bought it in 2007 went into voluntary administration in September 2013 [17]. Sydney’s Lane Cove Tunnel opened in 2007; its owner went into receivership in January 2010 after traffic failed to meet forecasts of 100,000 cars a day [18]. Same cause: insufficient traffic.","r":[17,18]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In both cases, the concession survived the corporate failure. The roads kept operating, the tolls kept being charged, and the assets were eventually acquired by the company with the most to gain from absorbing them into its network: Transurban. It agreed in 2010 to pay A$630.5 million for the Lane Cove Tunnel, which had cost its original owners almost A$1.7 billion [19], and in 2014 bought the Cross City Tunnel from its receivers and managers for approximately A$475 million plus stamp duty and transaction costs [16].","r":[19,16]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"This is the bankruptcy pathway to monopoly. A challenger enters the market with an optimistic traffic model. The model proves wrong. The company goes bankrupt. Transurban, with an existing adjacent network that benefits from the connection, buys the distressed asset at a discount. The concession rights and the toll escalation formula continue. Only the owner changes."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Cross City Tunnel \"entered receivership in 2006, just one year after opening\", that its company \"had overbid for the concession\", that the Lane Cove Tunnel \"entered administration in 2010\", and that Transurban acquired both \"at distressed prices\". ABC News reported that the Cross City Tunnel's first owner collapsed when usage fell short of forecasts [17] and that the Lane Cove Tunnel's owner went into receivership in January 2010 [18]; no source found says the first owner overbid. The section now gives those facts and the prices Transurban paid, from its own reports [16][19], in place of \"distressed prices\". References 6 and 8 no longer attribute this history to IBISWorld and iSelect pages, which do not carry it.","r":[17,18,16,19]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said that after a failed toll road changes hands \"the government-guaranteed returns continue\". No reference supports a government guarantee of returns, and the failures this section describes, in which the Cross City Tunnel and Lane Cove Tunnel owners collapsed when traffic fell short [17][18], show that returns were not guaranteed. The words are cut; the section now says only that the concession rights and the toll escalation formula continue.","r":[17,18]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the Cross City Tunnel went bankrupt 16 months after opening, citing ABC News [6]. The ABC News page cited does not give the 16 months or use the word bankrupt. It now says only that its first owner collapsed when usage fell well short of traffic forecasts, as ABC News reported on 14 September 2013 [17], and no longer gives the year the tunnel opened, which that page does not state. The 7 October correction above now cites [17], not [6], for the collapse of the owners when traffic fell short, because the page at [6] does not say so.","r":[6,17]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The standard description of the concession model says companies ‘take construction and traffic risk.’ In Australia, this is partially true and partially fictional."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Construction risk is real: companies must complete the road on agreed terms. Traffic risk is more complex. Many Australian concession agreements include provisions that insulate the operator from the worst-case traffic scenarios: minimum revenue guarantees, compensation if competing routes are made more attractive by government, or the kind of arrangement present in WestConnex, where the NSW Government actively reduced competing capacity on Parramatta Road to steer traffic into the tolled tunnels."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The escalation clauses also reduce traffic risk indirectly. If traffic is lower than expected but tolls rise faster than expected, because the CPI or 4 per cent floor is higher, revenue can still grow. The revenue model is partially self-adjusting: lower traffic volume multiplied by higher toll rates can maintain target returns."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Morningstar notes the residual risk: ‘households seeking to save money might use their car less.’ This is the only genuine demand elasticity Transurban faces."},{"a":69,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"34 cents","t":"for every dollar spent: the financial return calculated in The Conversation in 2018 for the sale of the first 51 per cent of WestConnex, before the 2021 sale of the rest","src":"The Conversation, 2018"},{"a":69,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The fact box called 34 cents \"the estimated net return to government from the WestConnex sale, after accounting for all public inputs\". The source calculated it for the 2018 sale of the first 51 per cent [2]; the box now says so.","r":[2]},{"a":69,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The concession model transfers construction risk to private operators, which is defensible. It also grants a 30 to 50 year legal monopoly on an essential urban road, with automatic toll escalation and various protection mechanisms against competition. The result in Australia: one company now controls most of the toll road network in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and earns a 75 per cent EBITDA margin."},{"a":70,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Transurban's advantage, Morningstar says, derives from government-granted monopoly concessions, and each road it adds feeds traffic to and lifts the value of the roads it already holds.","r":[3,7]},{"a":70,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"After the WestConnex privatisation, Transurban controlled all but three of Australia's 21 toll road networks.","r":[4]},{"a":70,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"FY25 proportional toll revenue was A$3.732 billion and EBITDA A$2.676 billion, a 75.1 per cent margin, with A$2.019 billion distributed to security holders.","r":[1]},{"a":70,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Transurban has been reported as a donor to both major parties, though its policy now says it makes no political donations in Australia; former CEO Scott Charlton went on to run Sydney Airport.","r":[21,23,8]},{"a":70,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In 1996, a company called Transurban was incorporated to operate a single toll road in Melbourne: CityLink, which connected the city’s CBD to the airport and the eastern suburbs. At the time, it was a specific infrastructure project managed by a specific operator. There was nothing inevitable about what it would become."},{"a":70,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"By 2026, Transurban controls all but a handful of Australia’s 21 toll road networks. It operates in three Australian cities and two North American markets. Its proportional toll revenue for FY25 was A$3.732 billion. Its proportional EBITDA was A$2.676 billion: a margin of 75.1 per cent. Its market capitalisation is approximately A$30.9 billion. Average daily trips across its network: 2.5 million."},{"a":70,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"How a single toll road operator became the infrastructure of Australian urban life is the story of Article 3."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Transurban’s competitive advantage is not operational efficiency or technological innovation. Morningstar rates it a ‘wide moat’ company, meaning its advantages are deep and durable. The moat, Morningstar explains, derives from ‘government-granted monopoly concessions.’"},{"a":70,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"But the moat is also structural in a deeper sense. Each Transurban road is more valuable because of its adjacency to other Transurban roads. NorthConnex, the 9-kilometre tunnel connecting the Pacific Highway to Sydney’s orbital network, was described by Morningstar as generating ‘meaningful synergy’ because it feeds traffic onto Transurban’s M2, M7, and Lane Cove Tunnel. West Gate Tunnel in Melbourne was funded partly by extending concessions and raising truck tolls on other Transurban roads in the city. Transurban’s own page on its Sydney roads says NorthConnex is 50 per cent Transurban owned and under concession until 2048 [24].","r":[24]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The M7-M12 Integration Project, currently under construction, will connect Sydney’s outer orbital motorway to the new Western Sydney Airport. When complete, it will feed airport traffic directly into the Transurban network. Every new road Transurban builds or acquires increases the utility and value of the roads it already has."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"This network logic creates a structural barrier to competition. A new entrant on a single Sydney road cannot offer the routing options, the seamless tolling integration, or the congestion-relief benefits of the full network. The value of the Transurban network is not the sum of its parts: it is a multiplier of them."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"f","x":"A$2.676 billion","t":"Transurban FY25 EBITDA on A$3.73 billion proportional toll revenue: 75.1% margin. Market cap A$30.9 billion. 2.5 million average daily trips. Concession life weighted average: approximately 25 years remaining.","src":"Transurban FY25 ASX release / Morningstar"},{"a":70,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Stage 1: The first concession.** CityLink opened in 2000 under a 34-year concession. Transurban was the operator from inception. The concession established the basic model: CPI-linked tolls, fixed infrastructure, long concession life, government-guaranteed monopoly on the route."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Stage 2: Absorbing the failures.** Sydney’s toll road market in the 2000s was characterised by overoptimistic traffic forecasts and multiple concurrent entrants. The Cross City Tunnel’s first owner collapsed when usage fell well short of traffic forecasts [18]. A new consortium bought the concession in 2007, and that owner went into voluntary administration in September 2013 [18]. Transurban bought the tunnel’s senior debt from Royal Bank of Scotland in late 2013, then bought the Cross City Tunnel from its receivers and managers for approximately A$475 million plus stamp duty and transaction costs, with financial close on 26 June 2014 [16][17]. The Lane Cove Tunnel opened in 2007. Its owner, Connector Motorways, went into receivership in January 2010 after traffic failed to meet forecasts [19]. On 10 May 2010 Transurban agreed to buy the Lane Cove Tunnel for A$630.5 million; it had cost its original owners almost A$1.7 billion [19][20]. Both are now held by the entity with the most to gain from absorbing them: Transurban [2].","r":[18,16,17,19,20,2]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This is the bankruptcy consolidation mechanism. A competitor enters, overbids on traffic forecasts, fails, and Transurban acquires the concession while the toll-raising rights remain intact. Competition is eliminated. The concession is absorbed. The network grows."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"**Stage 3: WestConnex and the complete acquisition.** The WestConnex privatisation completed between 2018 and 2021 was the defining moment in Transurban’s transformation from toll road operator to infrastructure monopolist. It added 70 kilometres of Sydney motorway to the network, including the M4, M8, and M4-M8 Link tunnels. It gave Transurban effective control of the primary east-west motorway corridors through Sydney. After the WestConnex acquisition, Transurban controlled all but three of Australia’s 21 toll road networks."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Cross City Tunnel and the Lane Cove Tunnel were acquired by Transurban \"at distressed prices\", and described the mechanism as acquiring a failed concession \"at a reduced price\". None of this article's references carries the prices paid, so those words are cut. The section now says only that both tunnels are held by Transurban, which its portfolio record shows [2]. The dates and prices of the two failures and acquisitions are now given as Transurban’s own reports and ABC News record them [16][17][18][19][20]; the earlier text said only that the Cross City Tunnel went bankrupt in 2006 and the Lane Cove Tunnel in 2010, without a source.","r":[2,16,17,18,19,20]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said that when a failed concession is absorbed, \"government-guaranteed returns remain intact\". No reference supports a government guarantee of returns, and the collapses of the Cross City Tunnel and Lane Cove Tunnel owners described above [17][18][19] show that returns were not guaranteed. The words are cut.","r":[17,18,19]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the Cross City Tunnel went bankrupt 16 months after opening in 2005, citing ABC News [17]. The ABC News page cited does not give the 16 months or use the word bankrupt. It now says only that its first owner collapsed when usage fell well short of traffic forecasts, as ABC News reported on 14 September 2013 [18], and no longer gives the year the tunnel opened, which that page does not state. The network figure now says the same.","r":[17,18]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Transurban’s financial model is simple and powerful. Revenue grows through two mechanisms: traffic volumes (growing at low single digits as urbanisation continues) and toll price increases (CPI-linked or fixed escalators built into every concession agreement)."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The cost base is largely fixed. Maintenance, operations, and corporate overhead do not scale proportionally with revenue. Every additional dollar of toll revenue above operating costs flows through to EBITDA. This is why the EBITDA margin has expanded from 73.1 per cent in FY24 to 75.1 per cent in FY25 despite relatively modest traffic growth. The toll increases are doing the work."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The company distributed A$2.019 billion to security holders in FY25. FY26 distribution guidance is 69 cents per stapled security. Investors in Transurban receive growing, inflation-protected income from a government-backed monopoly. There is no competitive risk, no product obsolescence, and minimal demand elasticity. Morningstar describes it as one of the more ‘defensive’ stocks on the ASX."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Transurban does not achieve and maintain its market position through operations alone. It also invests in political relationships."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Transurban has been reported as a donor to both major parties. The Greens, responding to the disclosures for 2016-17, said it paid the Labor party over A$28,000 that year and made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals [21]. Transurban now says it makes no political donations: its Political Contributions Policy states that it ‘does not make political donations or contributions of any nature to any political party, politician, elected official or candidate for public office in Australia’ [23], and it told a Queensland parliamentary committee the same in August 2024 [22].","r":[21,23,22]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The revolving door between Transurban and government is also documented. The former Transurban CEO, Scott Charlton, who presided over the WestConnex full acquisition and the expansion of the company’s network dominance, subsequently became CEO of Sydney Airport, another privatised infrastructure monopoly. The movement of executives between private infrastructure monopolies and their government stakeholders is a structural feature of the sector."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The NSW Government’s decision to sell WestConnex, and its promise never to privatise again (broken), were decisions made in an environment where the primary bidder had been reported as a donor to both major parties [21].","r":[21]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Transurban \"is a documented political donor to both major parties at state and federal level\" and that AEC and state electoral commission records \"show regular donations across Coalition and Labor\", without a source; the pull quote called it \"a documented political donor\", and the section said the WestConnex bidder \"was also a significant political donor\". Transurban has been reported as a donor to both major parties in past years [21], but its Political Contributions Policy says it does not make political donations in Australia [23], and it told a Queensland parliamentary committee so in August 2024 [22]. The section and pull quote now say both, in the past tense for the reported donations. Reference 14 no longer says that Wikipedia's WestConnex entry documents donations to the Coalition and Labor.","r":[21,23,22]},{"a":70,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section also said that \"infrastructure companies with long-lived government concessions universally maintain political relationships\". No source carries that generalisation, and it is cut."},{"a":70,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section cited Green Left [4] for describing Transurban in 2021 as “a big political donor to both major parties”. That quotation is not on the Green Left page, which has no donor wording, so the sentence and the reference note no longer carry it; the reported donations rest on the Greens' 2018 release [21], and the correction above now cites only [21]. This section also said the sale of WestConnex was announced “at a COVID media conference to minimise political scrutiny”, citing [21]. The Greens' release does not carry that claim, so the clause is cut.","r":[4,21]},{"a":71,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Petrol price cycles in 2025 ran from about a week in Perth to 6.5 weeks in Brisbane. Eight larger retail brands sold around 74 per cent of the nation's petrol in 2023-24.","r":[8,3]},{"a":71,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"It is an Edgeworth price cycle, a pattern economists have measured in Australian petrol markets, Perth's among them.","r":[11]},{"a":71,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Perth's mandatory FuelWatch fixes each day's price in advance, though Perth still has a price cycle. Victoria has capped each day's price a day ahead since March 2026.","r":[4,8,16,17]},{"a":71,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Since late February 2026, cycles have mostly paused in the eastern capitals. After 20 years of monitoring, the ACCC's response is advice on when to fill up.","r":[1,8]},{"a":71,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"If you live in Sydney and fill your petrol tank at a low point of the price cycle, and shop around, you will pay less than if you fill it near the peak. The ACCC estimated in 2018 that buying at the low point of the cycle could save around $175 a year in Sydney, $150 in Melbourne and Brisbane, $200 in Adelaide and up to $520 in Perth [18].","r":[18]},{"a":71,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The ACCC has documented this cycle since the early 2000s. It occurs in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide, and also in Perth, where it is shorter: in 2025 a cycle averaged about a week in Perth, against 2.5 to 6.5 weeks in the eastern capitals [8]. Perth has a government-mandated price transparency regime called FuelWatch. Victoria has had a daily price cap, set a day ahead, since 10 March 2026 [16][17].","r":[8,16,17]},{"a":71,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s response to a market failure that has persisted for more than two decades? Advice on its website about when to fill up."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The petrol price cycle is a textbook Edgeworth price cycle: a form of oligopolistic pricing behaviour documented in economics literature, including for Perth's petrol market [11]. It works as follows.","r":[11]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A small number of retailers set prices in a market where each can observe the others’ prices in near-real time. One retailer, seeking to gain market share, cuts its price below competitors. Competitors respond by matching the cut. The undercutting continues until prices reach a floor, usually close to the wholesale cost, at which point it becomes unprofitable to cut further."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"At some point, one retailer restores its price to a higher level. Competitors follow, because the price transparency means each knows the others have raised prices and has no incentive to remain at the lower price alone. Prices spike. The cycle begins again."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s assessment is that this behaviour is not collusion: there is no evidence of an agreement between competitors to fix prices. Each firm is acting in its own rational short-term interest. The collective harm to consumers is not the result of deliberate coordination but of the structural conditions of the market: few players, high price transparency, captive demand."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Captive demand is the key word. Unlike a luxury good, you cannot stop buying petrol. You can time your purchase to avoid the cycle peak, if you know about the cycle, and if your schedule allows. Most drivers do neither."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 11, which pointed to The Conversation's home page, now gives a study of Edgeworth price cycles in Perth's retail petrol market [11], and this section cites it. Correction: this section called it \"the weekly petrol price cycle\"; the ACCC gives cycles averaging 2.5 to 6.5 weeks in the eastern capitals in 2025 [8], so it now says the petrol price cycle. The subtitle also said the cycle “costs consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year”; THE RORT could not find a source for that total, and the words have been removed.","r":[11,8]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The opening said the ACCC calculated that in 2023 a Sydney motorist buying 50 litres of regular unleaded each week could have saved around $407 over the year by buying at the low point of the cycle, with a range from around $242 in Brisbane to around $740 in Perth. The ACCC release cited [18] is dated 6 December 2018 and gives different figures: it estimated that buying at the low point of the cycle could save around $175 a year in Sydney, $150 in Melbourne and Brisbane, $200 in Adelaide and up to $520 in Perth. The opening, the figure and reference 18 now give those figures (the figure said around $407 and now says around $175), and the market structure section's correction note is updated to match.","r":[18]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC counts eight larger retail brands, which together accounted for around 74 per cent of national retail petrol sales in 2023-24: Ampol, bp, Chevron/Caltex, United Petroleum, 7-Eleven, EG Group, Coles/Reddy Express and On The Run. Smaller independent retailers sold the other 26 per cent, up from 18 per cent in 2017-18 [3].","r":[3]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On this outlet's reading, these larger brands set the price environment in the capital cities. The wholesale price is benchmarked to the Singapore Mogas 95 international price: the appropriate benchmark given Australia imports most of its refined fuel. The ACCC tracks the ‘gross retail margin’: the gap between retail prices and the international import parity cost, adjusted for excise and GST. At the peak of each cycle, gross retail margins are elevated above what the benchmark would imply."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"1 to 6.5 weeks","t":"the average length of a petrol price cycle in 2025: 1 week in Perth, 2.5 in Adelaide, 5 in Sydney, 6 in Melbourne and 6.5 in Brisbane [8]. Perth has mandatory price disclosure and still has a cycle.","src":"ACCC petrol monitoring reports"},{"a":71,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said fuel retail in the capital cities is \"dominated by four or five companies\", named as Ampol, Viva Energy under the Coles Express brand, BP, EG Group and Costco, citing the ACCC's petrol section index. The ACCC's market composition report [3] names eight larger retail brands with around 74 per cent of national retail petrol sales in 2023-24, and independents with around 26 per cent; Costco is not among them. The section now gives the ACCC's figures, and the details only the index carried (Ampol as the largest fuel company, EG Group's 2019 purchase, Costco as a price anchor) were removed. The fact box said Perth \"does not have the same cycle\"; the ACCC reports that Perth has a cycle too [8], and the box now says so. The box, the opening, the subtitle and the key facts also described a weekly cycle in the eastern capitals with a Wednesday trough, a Thursday or Friday spike and a 10 to 20 cents per litre spread. The ACCC gives eastern cycles averaging 2.5 to 6.5 weeks in 2025 [8], and no source was found for the 10 to 20 cent spread, so it was removed; the box now gives the ACCC's cycle lengths, and the opening now gives the ACCC's estimate of what buying at cycle lows could save [18]. This section also spoke of the peak of \"each weekly cycle\"; it now says each cycle. Reference 2, which carried the weekly description, is no longer relied on.","r":[3,8,18]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Western Australia introduced FuelWatch, with its daily price notification requirement, in January 2001 [19]. Under FuelWatch, fuel retailers must submit their prices to the government by 2pm each day. The submitted price is locked in for the following day: retailers cannot change their price during the day. The submitted prices are fixed for 24 hours from 6am, and FuelWatch publishes them by 2:30pm the day before [4].","r":[19,4]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"FuelWatch has not ended the cycle. The ACCC reports that petrol price cycles occur in the five largest cities, Perth included; in 2025 a cycle averaged 1 week in Perth, against 2.5 weeks in Adelaide, 5 in Sydney, 6 in Melbourne and 6.5 in Brisbane [8]. What FuelWatch changes is that a motorist can see tomorrow's price today, and that price cannot rise during the day [4].","r":[8,4]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Victoria has since adopted a version of it. Since 10 March 2026 [17], Victorian retailers must set the next day's maximum price by 2pm, and that cap applies for 24 hours from 6am; they may cut below it but not raise it [16][17].","r":[17,16]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"The ACCC’s petrol buying tips, as the page read on 8 October 2026: where prices have increased, motorists can shop around for lower priced retailers; in Perth, while the cycle is around a high point, motorists are encouraged to use fuel price apps and websites to find lower priced retailers [8].","x":"ACCC","src":"petrol buying tips, read 8 October 2026"},{"a":71,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section, headed \"Perth: the state that solved it\", said Perth \"does not have the same weekly price spike cycle\", that the ACCC \"has noted FuelWatch as an example of effective price transparency regulation\", that the eastern states had adopted no equivalent and that FuelWatch prices are published each evening. The ACCC reports that Perth has a price cycle, averaging 1 week in 2025, against 2.5 to 6.5 weeks in the eastern capitals [8]; no ACCC statement endorsing FuelWatch as effective was found, so that sentence was removed; Victoria has capped each day's price a day ahead since 10 March 2026 [16][17]; and FuelWatch publishes the next day's prices by 2:30pm [4]. The section, its heading, the figure, the opening, the subtitle and the image caption now say so. References 4 and 8, which pointed to the FuelWatch and ACCC home pages, now give the documents. A further correction: this section said FuelWatch was introduced in 2001 and \"made mandatory in 2003\"; a Senate committee report says it was introduced in January 2001 with its daily price notification requirement [19], and no source was found for 2003. The quoted ACCC advice said petrol is cheapest in Sydney on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings and in Melbourne on Monday or Tuesday; the ACCC's current advice is to buy at the low points of the cycle, to shop around as prices start to rise in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane [8], and the quotation now gives that (reference 14 is no longer relied on). The sentence \"Fuel companies have consistently opposed mandatory disclosure in eastern states\" was removed: no source was found for it.","r":[8,16,17,4,19]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The ACCC advice quoted in this section said that in Perth the cheapest day to buy is Tuesday. The ACCC page cited [8] does not give that advice; for Perth it says to use fuel price apps near a high point. The words are cut from the quotation, from the correction above and from the note at reference 14. The quotation also said the ACCC advises buying at the low points of the price cycle, before prices increase; the page does not carry that sentence, which is cut, and the quotation now gives the buying tips the page carried on 8 October 2026. Those tips are updated through the week, so they describe that date and are not standing advice. The correction above, which described the ACCC's advice as to buy at the low points of the cycle, is superseded by this note. This section also cited only [16] for the 2pm deadline for Victorian retailers; the Service Victoria page does not give a 2pm deadline, which is in the Premier's release [17], now cited alongside, and reference 16 no longer gives an 8:30am to 2pm window.","r":[8,16,17]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Fuel excise is 48.8 cents per litre. Like Transurban’s tolls, it is indexed to CPI and rises automatically twice yearly. The government does not need to make a decision to raise it: it rises by default."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In March 2022, as the Ukraine war caused a global oil price spike, the Morrison government halved fuel excise, cutting it from approximately 44 cents per litre to 22 cents per litre for six months. The cut cost approximately A$3 billion in foregone revenue. Prices fell by approximately the excise amount. When the excise was restored in September 2022, prices rose accordingly."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The excise cut demonstrated that government has the capacity to reduce petrol prices rapidly and substantially when it chooses to. The structural problem (the cycle, the oligopoly market, the lack of eastern-states price transparency) was not addressed by the temporary cut. It returned in full when the excise was restored."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$9.5 billion+","t":"annual fuel tax credits: the largest single fossil fuel subsidy in Australia. Mining and agricultural companies reclaim most of the excise on off-road fuel use. The household driver pays the full excise.","src":"Australia Institute, 2025"},{"a":71,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Meanwhile, fuel tax credits allow businesses to reclaim the excise paid on off-road fuel use. This credit is worth over A$9.5 billion per year: the largest single fossil fuel subsidy in Australia. The household driver pays the full excise. The mining company gets most of it back."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The price cycle, for all its consumer harm, at least offers urban drivers the option of buying at the trough. Regional Australians do not have this option."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Regional fuel prices are persistently above capital city prices. The ACCC monitors 190 regional locations and consistently documents the premium. The causes are structural: lower volume at each site (reducing the retailer’s purchasing power), higher logistics costs, less competition between fewer outlets, and no cycle benefit."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Regional Australians typically have longer average driving distances than urban residents. They use more fuel per household. They pay more per litre. And they have fewer alternatives (limited public transport, greater distances between destinations) that make driving discretionary."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The fuel premium is regressive in the same way that tolls are regressive: it falls hardest on those with the fewest choices."},{"a":71,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC has monitored Australian petrol pricing for over 20 years. Its monitoring direction was extended for another 5 years in December 2025. Since late February 2026, when the Middle East conflict began, the ACCC reports that petrol price cycles have mostly not occurred in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide [8]. Victoria adopted a daily price cap only in March 2026 [17]. Regional Australians pay a persistent premium. The excise rises automatically. The larger retail brands, which sell around three quarters of the nation's petrol [3], have never faced structural intervention.","r":[8,17,3]},{"a":71,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the eastern states \"have no FuelWatch-equivalent\" and that \"four to five companies\" dominate fuel retail in each capital city. Victoria has had a daily price cap since March 2026 [17], and the ACCC counts eight larger retail brands with around three quarters of national petrol sales [3]; the section and key facts now say so. References 9 and 12, which pointed to an ACCC section index and the Senate Economics Committee home page, are no longer relied on. This section also said \"The price cycle continues\"; the ACCC reports that since late February 2026 petrol price cycles have mostly not occurred in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide [8], and the section and summary now say so. The image at the head of this article no longer calls the cycle weekly, shows weekdays or a 10 to 20 cent spread, calls Perth stable, or leaves out Victoria's cap.","r":[17,3,8]},{"a":72,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On this article's reading, privatisation books an upfront receipt and pushes the cost, rising tolls, onto future motorists.","r":[15]},{"a":72,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In 2018 Treasurer Dominic Perrottet sold 51 per cent of WestConnex to a Transurban-led consortium for A$9.3 billion. An analysis in The Conversation said he was selling to \"one of his party's more generous donors\".","r":[6]},{"a":72,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The remaining 49 per cent went to Transurban in 2021 for A$11.1 billion, despite a promise before the 2019 election not to privatise further assets.","r":[3]},{"a":72,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Coalition and Labor both backed WestConnex; Transurban, described as a donor to both, now says it makes no political donations.","r":[8,18,17]},{"a":72,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In August 2018, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet announced the sale of 51 per cent of WestConnex to a Transurban-led consortium for A$9.3 billion. He described it as a ‘very strong result.’ Academic analysis published in The Conversation described it differently: ‘the biggest misuse of public funds for corporate gain in Australia’s history.’ The Conversation analysis noted that Perrottet was selling to ‘one of his party’s more generous donors.’"},{"a":72,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Perrottet became NSW Premier in 2021. In the same year, the government sold the remaining 49 per cent of WestConnex to Transurban for A$11.1 billion. This was after the Berejiklian government had promised before the 2019 election not to privatise further assets. The promise was reversed."},{"a":72,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"WestConnex has bipartisan support. Both the Coalition and Labor backed the project at state and federal level. Both parties have been described as recipients of Transurban donations [18], though Transurban told a Queensland parliamentary committee in 2024 that it does not make political donations [16]. The privatisation model that produced a 75 per cent EBITDA margin for Transurban was not the product of one party’s ideology. It is the product of a political consensus that infrastructure privatisation is good policy: a consensus that both major parties share and that the infrastructure industry has systematically cultivated.","r":[18,16]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Greens said in 2018 that Transurban had made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals [18]. The Australian Electoral Commission publishes annual returns of donations above the disclosure threshold, which was A$16,300 for 2023-24, on its Transparency Register [2]. In August 2024, writing to a Queensland parliamentary committee after an estimates hearing had called it a Labor and LNP donor, Transurban stated that it ‘does not make political donations or contributions of any nature to any political party, politician, elected official or candidate for public office in Australia’ [16]. That is the wording of its Political Contributions Policy [17]. Earlier disclosures tell a different story: responding to the returns for 2016-17, the Greens said Transurban paid the Labor party over A$28,000 that year and made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals [18].","r":[18,2,16,17]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"State disclosure registers are more relevant to toll road policy because concession agreements are state-level decisions. NSW, Victoria and Queensland each have their own electoral commission disclosure requirements. NSW sets a lower disclosure threshold than the federal AEC: a political donation of A$1,000 or more is reportable to the NSW Electoral Commission [7], which gives more granular visibility of state-level donations.","r":[7]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The pattern visible across the disclosure records is consistent with the airline rort, the gas rort, and the airport rort: a regulated industry with government-granted monopolies has been reported as donating to both major parties, maintains relationships across both sides of government, and ensures that neither party has a strong incentive to fundamentally reform the system that benefits it."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Transurban \"is a registered political donor at both federal and state level\", that it and related entities appear in AEC returns, and that both major parties \"have received Transurban donations\", citing the AEC home page. No specific AEC record was found to support those words, and in August 2024 Transurban told a Queensland parliamentary committee that it does not make political donations in Australia [16][17]. The section now attributes the donor description to Green Left [1], records Transurban's statement, and cites the AEC's 2023-24 disclosure notice [2] and the NSW Electoral Commission's donation rules [7] in place of home pages. The same change is made in the opening, where it said both parties \"receive donations from Transurban\", and in the subtitle. Reference 6, The Conversation analysis quoted in the opening, now gives the article's correct address (it ends -102790, not -102780).","r":[16,17,1,2,7]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. Further changes in this pass. This section now records, from the Greens' response to the 2016-17 disclosures, that Transurban was reported then as donating to both major parties [18], alongside its current policy of making no political donations [17]; it said the industry \"donates to both major parties\", and now says it has been reported as doing so. The image caption and key facts said both major parties \"receive\" Transurban donations, and now say both were reported as recipients and that Transurban says it makes none. The subtitle called Dominic Perrottet the \"NSW Premier who sold WestConnex\": he was NSW Treasurer at the 2018 sale of the first 51 per cent [6] and became Premier in 2021; the subtitle and the pull quote in \"The revolving door\" now say so.","r":[18,17,6]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The opening and the timeline gave the price of the first sale as A$9.26 billion; The Conversation [6], the source cited, gives A$9.3 billion, and they now use its figure. This section described Transurban in 2021 as “a big political donor to both major parties”, citing Green Left [1]. That quotation is not on the Green Left page, which has no donor wording, so it is cut from this section, the opening and reference 1, and the donations are now attributed to the Greens' 2018 statement that Transurban had made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals [18]. The correction above, which attributed the donor description to Green Left, is superseded by this one. Reference 1 also said the sale of WestConnex was announced at a COVID media conference to minimise political scrutiny; the Green Left page does not carry that, so the sentence is cut.","r":[6,1,18]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Infrastructure Australia is the federal government’s independent infrastructure advisory body. It assesses major infrastructure projects, recommends funding priorities, and provides advice to government on what should be built. In December 2022 the federal government decided to replace its board with three commissioners, supported by an advisory board with experts from the infrastructure and related sectors [4].","r":[4]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On this article’s reading, the structural problem with Infrastructure Australia’s governance is not corruption. It is the risk of institutional capture: the body that recommends which projects get built takes advice from experts drawn from the industries that build and finance those projects. A recommendation from Infrastructure Australia that a major road tunnel should be built is the first step in a process that ends with a Transurban concession."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Infrastructure Australia’s evaluation of WestConnex was critical of its options analysis: it said a more robust analysis would have considered WestConnex against, and in conjunction with, a broader set of options for Sydney’s longer-term transport needs [14]. It still rated WestConnex a High Priority Project in April 2016 [14], and the project was built. This is an example of what happens when the advisory process identifies problems but the political and financial incentives all point in the same direction.","r":[14]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Infrastructure Australia's board \"includes current and former executives from infrastructure funds, construction companies, and state government agencies\", that the body \"is staffed in part by people who represent or have recently represented\" the industries that build and finance projects, and that its assessment found the NSW Government \"had not adequately appraised alternatives\". It relied on Infrastructure Australia's home page (references 4 and 14). The membership claims are cut: the section now says, from the minister's announcement [4], that the board is being replaced by commissioners supported by an advisory board of infrastructure-sector experts, marks the capture argument as this article's reading, and gives Infrastructure Australia's own words from its WestConnex evaluation, including that it rated the project a High Priority Project [14]. The subtitle, pull quote and key facts are changed to match.","r":[4,14]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The opening of this section said the federal government had moved Infrastructure Australia from a board to three commissioners. The minister's release of 18 December 2022 [4] records a decision: the government accepted a review recommendation to replace the board with three commissioners supported by an advisory board, with the interim board staying until legislation is passed. The sentence now says the government decided in December 2022 to replace the board.","r":[4]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Scott Charlton became Transurban CEO in 2012 [9]. Over the following decade, he oversaw the company’s transformation from a Melbourne toll road operator to the dominant toll road monopolist in three Australian cities. The defining transaction of his tenure was the WestConnex full acquisition.","r":[9]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In 2023, Charlton left Transurban to become CEO of Sydney Airport [5][9]. Sydney Airport is another privatised infrastructure monopoly. Its owners, the Sydney Aviation Alliance, include IFM Investors, AustralianSuper, QSuper and Global Infrastructure Partners [19]. AustralianSuper also holds a 20.5 per cent stake in WestConnex, alongside Transurban [20].","r":[5,9,19,20]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"This is not corruption. Experienced infrastructure executives moving between privatised infrastructure monopolies is economically rational: their skills transfer directly. But it creates an institutional environment in which the people who run privatised infrastructure assets, advise governments on infrastructure policy, and manage the superannuation funds that invest in both airports and toll roads have deeply aligned interests in maintaining the model that has produced 75 per cent EBITDA margins."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. References 5 and 9, which pointed to the Transurban home page and Crikey's home page, now give Transurban's ASX announcement of the CEO transition [5] and Sydney Airport's announcement of Charlton's appointment [9], which carry the dates in this section.","r":[5,9]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Sydney Airport's owners \"include IFM Investors and Australian Retirement Trust: the same superannuation-affiliated infrastructure funds that own stakes in Transurban\", without a source. Sydney Airport was bought in 2022 by the Sydney Aviation Alliance of IFM Investors, QSuper, AustralianSuper and Global Infrastructure Partners [19]; no source found says those funds own stakes in Transurban, but AustralianSuper holds 20.5 per cent of WestConnex alongside it [20]. The section and the timeline now say so, and the following paragraph says the funds invest in both airports and toll roads rather than that they \"own both\".","r":[19,20]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The concession deeds that govern toll road privatisations in Australia are commercially sensitive documents. They are not fully public: Transport for NSW publishes the WestConnex project deeds with provisions redacted as commercial-in-confidence under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 [13]. The detailed terms (traffic guarantees, compensation mechanisms, competing road restrictions, toll escalation formulas beyond what is announced publicly) are protected as commercial-in-confidence.","r":[13]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This creates a fundamental asymmetry in public accountability. The taxpayers who funded WestConnex’s construction and the motorists who pay its tolls cannot fully scrutinise the terms under which those tolls will operate for the next 40 years. The Auditor-General’s 2014 review of early WestConnex processes found shortcomings in the governance of the project’s early stages, with independent assurance that did not meet best practice [12].","r":[12]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"What is publicly known about WestConnex concession terms includes: the 4 per cent or CPI toll escalation floor until 2040, then CPI until 2060. What is not publicly known: the full suite of traffic guarantee mechanisms, competing route restrictions, and conditions under which the concession can be renegotiated."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. This section now says how the concession deeds are made public: Transport for NSW publishes them with commercial-in-confidence provisions redacted [13]. Reference 13 previously pointed to the Transport for NSW home page.","r":[13]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 12, which pointed to the ANAO home page, now gives the NSW Audit Office's 2014 WestConnex report the second paragraph describes [12]. Reference 11, which pointed to the ACCC home page and said the ACCC cleared the WestConnex acquisitions \"without opposition\", now gives the ACCC's 2018 decision: it did not oppose the bid only after Transurban gave an undertaking to publish traffic data [11].","r":[12,11]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section added, after the 2014 audit finding, that \"those weaknesses were not remedied\". No source was found for that, and it is cut here, in the timeline and in the image, which also quoted the audit as saying processes \"lacked adequate transparency\"; those are not shown to be the audit's words, and the image and key facts now describe its finding of shortcomings in early governance without quotation marks [12].","r":[12]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the Auditor-General's 2014 review found “governance weaknesses in transparency”. The Audit Office's report [12] does not use the word transparency. It says the independent assurance processes did not meet best practice and that the audit found shortcomings in the governance of the project's early stages; the section, the timeline and reference 12 now say that.","r":[12]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The political connections story in the Roads Rort differs from the Gas Rort and the Airline Rort in one important respect: it is genuinely bipartisan, and it spans multiple decades and multiple governments."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"WestConnex was a bipartisan project. The concession model has been applied by Labor and Coalition governments in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Federal Labor and Federal Coalition have both provided grants and concessional loans to toll road projects. Neither party, in government, has fundamentally reformed the model."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The political economy explains why. Privatisation allows a government to record a large upfront receipt, popular in budget terms, while deferring the long-term cost (rising tolls) onto future users. The future users cannot vote against a decision made before the tolls started rising. The private operator earns above-market returns from the legal monopoly. The super funds that own the private operator earn infrastructure returns for their members. The road gets built."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The only losers in this equation are the motorists who pay tolls for the next 40 years. They are diffuse, numerous, and poorly organised. The beneficiaries are concentrated: Transurban shareholders, infrastructure fund managers, and the governments that got upfront cash."},{"a":72,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"f","x":"Concentrated interests beat diffuse interests","t":"The toll road privatisation model has bipartisan support, decades of history, and the structural support of the infrastructure investment industry, the superannuation sector, and both major parties. The only constituency that consistently loses is the one paying the tolls.","src":"The Conversation / academic infrastructure policy analysis"},{"a":72,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The fact box listed \"both major parties' donation records\" among the model's supports; it now says both major parties, since Transurban says it makes no political donations [17]. Reference 15, which pointed to The Conversation's home page, now gives the specific Conversation analysis of asset sales and toll roads it relies on [15].","r":[17,15]},{"a":72,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The subtitle ended \"This is how private monopolies are built with public money.\" It now says what the public gave up: control over WestConnex tolls, which the concession lets rise until 2060. Reference 1 was labelled \"Wikipedia / Green Left\"; it is one Green Left article, and is now labelled as that."},{"a":73,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On this article's reading, Sydney motorists pay rising WestConnex tolls every day, while their super funds own part of the road and they see the return only at retirement.","r":[1]},{"a":73,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Since 2021, WestConnex has been 50 per cent Transurban, with AustralianSuper at 20.5 per cent and the rest held by Canadian pension funds and Abu Dhabi's ADIA.","r":[1]},{"a":73,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"IFM, owned by industry super funds, holds stakes in airports, ports and Ausgrid, infrastructure those same workers pay to use.","r":[16,2]},{"a":73,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"NSW sold WestConnex and now subsidises tolls on it. In Queensland, AustralianSuper owns a quarter of Transurban's toll network.","r":[15,5]},{"a":73,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"When the Transurban-led consortium finalised its A$11.1 billion acquisition of the remaining 49 per cent of WestConnex in 2021, Nik Kemp, head of infrastructure at AustralianSuper, offered this explanation for why his fund had invested an additional A$250 million beyond its allocation:"},{"a":73,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"q","t":"Not only does our investment in WestConnex benefit our 2.4 million members through the investment returns it generates on their retirement savings, it also contributes to better transport outcomes that benefit the NSW economy and the broader Sydney community that drive on WestConnex roads every day.","x":"Nik Kemp, AustralianSuper head of infrastructure","src":"2021 WestConnex acquisition"},{"a":73,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This is a carefully constructed statement. It acknowledges what is true: that AustralianSuper’s members benefit from the returns generated by the toll road investment. It also implies a complementarity between member returns and community benefit. What it elides is the mechanism through which those returns are generated: toll payments by Sydney motorists, rising on the M4 each year by the greater of CPI or 4 per cent to December 2040, then by CPI, until the concessions end in 2060 [17][18].","r":[17,18]},{"a":73,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"The Sydney motorist paying A$10.38 to drive the WestConnex M4 is, in many cases, the same person whose AustralianSuper account receives a portion of that toll as an investment return. The same person is on both sides of the transaction. But they are not on both sides equally. They pay the toll every day. They receive the return at retirement."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The WestConnex ownership structure post-2021 is documented. Transurban holds 50 per cent of Sydney Transport Partners (STP), the operating entity. The remaining 50 per cent is held by:"},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"AustralianSuper: 20.5 per cent. Managing retirement savings for over 3 million Australians on the fund’s current count [3], up from the 2.4 million members Kemp cited in 2021 [1].","r":[3,1]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"CPP Investments (CPPIB): 10.5 per cent. Managing retirement savings for Canadians."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"CDPQ: 10 per cent. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, managing pension savings for Quebec workers."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Tawreed Investments (ADIA subsidiary): 9 per cent. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a Gulf state sovereign wealth fund."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Sydney motorists paying tolls on WestConnex are contributing to retirement incomes in three countries and a sovereign wealth fund. The returns on the A$33 billion enterprise value flow to institutional investors with long-horizon mandates who benefit from the inflation-linked toll escalation."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Beyond WestConnex, AustralianSuper owns 25 per cent of Transurban Queensland, alongside Transurban (62.5 per cent) and Tawreed Investments (12.5 per cent) [5].","r":[5]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Pay today. Earn at retirement.","t":"AustralianSuper’s 3M+ members (its current count; 2.4 million in 2021) partially own WestConnex through their super fund. They also pay WestConnex tolls every day they drive to work. The toll rising by at least 4 per cent a year to 2040 [17] is both a daily cost and a contribution to their future retirement income. The cash flows in opposite directions at different timescales.","src":"Real Assets IPE / AustralianSuper / Transurban FY25"},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b9","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The membership figures are now dated: 2.4 million is the figure Nik Kemp gave in 2021 [1]; over 3 million is the fund's current count [3]. The subtitle, this section and the key facts were changed to say so; no figure was wrong.","r":[1,3]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b10","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said Transurban's share register includes IFM Investors and AustralianSuper as significant holders, and the subtitle called them Transurban's largest shareholders, citing Transurban's investor centre home page. No primary record of either as a significant holder of Transurban's listed securities was found, so the claim was removed; the section and subtitle now give AustralianSuper's 25 per cent of Transurban Queensland [5], and the figure no longer draws the two holdings. Reference 3 now gives AustralianSuper's own page [3]; references 4, 13 and 14, which pointed to home pages, are no longer relied on (CDPQ's 10 per cent is carried by reference 1). The opening said tolls rise \"at 4 per cent or CPI per year, for 40 more years\", and the fact box that the toll rises \"by 4%/year\"; the M4 concession lets tolls rise each year by the greater of CPI or 4 per cent to December 2040, then by CPI [17], and the WestConnex concessions end in 2060 [18], 34 years from 2026. Both now say so.","r":[5,3,17,18]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b11","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The key facts counted Quebec as a country. Quebec is a province of Canada, home of the pension fund CDPQ. The three countries are Australia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi), and the key fact now says so. Reference 17 now points to the Independent Toll Review's final report, which carries the toll escalation terms stated in this section; the Linkt page it replaced does not, and the 1 January date and the floor of 0 per cent after 2040, which the report does not state in that form, are dropped from the reference. Reference 3 now gives AustralianSuper's funds under management as over $410 billion, the figure on the page as archived on 20 May 2026, in place of $430 billion; no sentence in this article gives either figure."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s0-b12","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026 (second). The image at the head of this article also showed an annual toll cost of A$5,000 and a lifetime cost of A$150,000 over a 30-year career; neither figure is stated in this article, so both lines were removed from the image. In the ownership figure, the labels for AustralianSuper, CPP Investments and CDPQ now say that each is a pension or super fund manager, because the drawing's tag for them, \"Private party\", alone read as if they were ordinary companies."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"IFM Investors is one of the most significant infrastructure investment managers in the world. It is owned by Australian industry superannuation funds, which agreed, subject to approvals, to take in the UK pension fund Nest as a 10 per cent shareholder, its first owner from outside Australia [16].","r":[16]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"IFM’s Australian infrastructure assets include Melbourne Airport, Brisbane Airport, Northern Territory Airports (Darwin and other Territory airports), NSW Ports (Port Botany and Port Kembla), the Port of Brisbane, Southern Cross Station in Melbourne and Ausgrid (electricity distribution, servicing over 1.7 million customers in Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter Valley) [2][19]. IFM funds were also part of the consortium that took Sydney Airport private in 2022 [9].","r":[2,19,9]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The workers whose retirement savings are managed through IFM-investing super funds pay fees to fly through Melbourne and Brisbane airports, pay for electricity distributed through Ausgrid, and pay port charges embedded in the cost of imported goods. Each of these payments generates returns that flow back, partly and eventually, to their retirement savings."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"This is not a conspiracy. It is the logical outcome of a decision, made over three decades, to privatise infrastructure monopolies and allow the superannuation movement to invest in them. The result is an economy in which the retirement savings of ordinary Australians are deployed in the infrastructure that charges those same Australians for essential services."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said IFM is owned by 27 industry super funds, gave the sizes of two IFM funds, put Melbourne and Brisbane airports at about 25 and 20 per cent, and listed Transurban, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek among IFM's holdings, citing IFM's home page. IFM says it is owned by Australian industry super funds and that the UK fund Nest agreed, subject to approvals, to take a 10 per cent holding [16], and names its Australian assets [2]; Transurban is not among them, and no source was found for the fund sizes or percentages. The section and key facts now give what IFM states, and the Sydney Airport consortium is cited to IFM's announcement [9]. The section also said Ausgrid serves 1.7 million customers in NSW and the ACT; the ACT was removed and Ausgrid says it serves over 1.7 million customers across Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter Valley [19].","r":[16,2,9,19]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The 7 October correction above said Ausgrid serves 1.8 million customers. The page cited [19] says Ausgrid provides power to over 1.7 million customers across Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter Valley, so this section and the note above now say over 1.7 million; the ACT is not part of the description. The opening of this section said the UK pension fund Nest had joined IFM as a 10 per cent shareholder. The IFM announcement [16] records a binding agreement, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, and does not record completion, so the sentence now says the owners agreed to take Nest in on those terms. The 7 October note above, the key facts and the graphic now say the same.","r":[19,16]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In Queensland, the toll network is held by Transurban Queensland, owned 62.5 per cent by Transurban, 25 per cent by AustralianSuper and 12.5 per cent by Tawreed Investments [5], a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority [1]. It runs the Gateway and Logan Motorways, Clem7, the Go Between Bridge, Legacy Way and AirportlinkM7 [5].","r":[5,1]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Queensland Government, through QIC, is not among the owners [5]. The pattern is the one on WestConnex: the same super fund and the same Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund sit beside Transurban [1][5], and the motorist paying the toll may be a member of the fund that receives part of it.","r":[5,1]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said QIC, the Queensland Government's investment arm, holds a stake in Transurban Queensland, so that the government shares in toll revenue and has a conflict of interest, citing QIC's home page. That was wrong: Transurban Queensland is owned by Transurban (62.5 per cent), AustralianSuper (25 per cent) and Tawreed Investments (12.5 per cent) [5]. The section, its heading and the summary now say so.","r":[5]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section cited the Transurban Queensland annual report [5] for Tawreed Investments being a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The report lists the owners and their shares but does not say so. That description now cites the Real Assets IPE report on the 2021 WestConnex sale [1], which does, and reference 5 no longer carries it.","r":[5,1]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The NSW Government acknowledges that WestConnex tolls are a burden on regular users. It runs a toll relief scheme that provides rebates to commuters spending above a threshold amount on NSW tolls each year. As of 2025, commuters spending over A$375 annually receive a 40 per cent rebate on tolls above that level."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This creates a remarkable circularity. The NSW Government privatised WestConnex, receiving the sale proceeds, and now uses public funds to partially subsidise the tolls that the private operator is charging. The public pays to build the road, sells it for less than it cost, and then subsidises its own citizens to use it."},{"a":73,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The rebate is real and provides genuine relief for high-frequency toll users. It does not address the structural cause: a private monopoly with a contractual right to raise its tolls every year until the concessions end in 2060, owned partly by super funds [17][18].","r":[17,18]},{"a":73,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$20.36 billion","t":"received by NSW Government across two WestConnex transactions. The government now spends public money helping people afford the tolls the private buyer charges. The private buyer earned a 75% EBITDA margin in FY25.","src":"Wikipedia / Transurban FY25 ASX release"},{"a":73,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the motorway owner has “contractually guaranteed rising tolls”. The concession gives a right to raise tolls (by the greater of CPI or 4 per cent a year to December 2040, then by CPI [17]) until the concessions end in 2060 [18]; it guarantees no toll revenue, and the sentence now says so. The image at the head of this article said tolls were “rising 4% annually, guaranteed to 2060”, and it has been updated to match.","r":[17,18]},{"a":74,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"When NSW sold the remaining 49 per cent of WestConnex for A$11.1 billion, the government led with a A$5 billion Western Sydney fund, and reporters focused on the fund.","r":[1]},{"a":74,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"On this article's reading, The Conversation's 2018 finding of a return of 34 cents for every dollar spent on the first WestConnex sale did not become a major story in commercial media.","r":[6]},{"a":74,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"On this article's reading, Transurban's published 75 per cent margin and its toll escalation terms were rarely explained in consumer coverage.","r":[13,9]},{"a":74,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The Reuters Institute records cuts at News Corp, Seven West (150 posts) and Nine (200 jobs). On this article's reading, smaller newsrooms leave concession decisions with less scrutiny.","r":[7]},{"a":74,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In September 2021, when the NSW Government announced it was selling the remaining 49 per cent of WestConnex to the Transurban consortium for A$11.1 billion, then-Treasurer Dominic Perrottet led with an announcement about a A$5 billion Western Sydney investment fund. The fund was described as the beneficiary of the WestConnex proceeds. Michael West Media subsequently reported that it was ‘not clear where the A$5 billion WestInvest fund will come from, whether it will be for new or existing projects, how it will be allocated, or which Minister will ultimately be responsible.’"},{"a":74,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Reporters focused on the WestInvest fund. They reported what the government wanted them to report: a new investment in Western Sydney. The financial analysis of the WestConnex transaction itself (the return on public investment, the toll escalation guarantees, the political donation relationships) received substantially less coverage."},{"a":74,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This is not necessarily a story about corruption or deliberate suppression. It is a story about how complex financial transactions can be framed to produce the coverage they want, and, on this article's reading, how smaller newsrooms may reduce the capacity for independent scrutiny."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Australian media covered several aspects of the toll road and fuel price story consistently and accurately."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Community disruption from WestConnex construction: the demolition of houses, the traffic detours, the community protests. Well covered by local and metropolitan media."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Consumer price data: when iSelect published its November 2025 analysis showing Sydney’s 8-of-10 most expensive tolls and typical A$100 weekly cost, it received consumer media coverage."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Individual rate rises: when Transurban announced toll increases, business media reported them."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"ACCC petrol reports: when released quarterly, price levels received business section coverage."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ‘no privatisation’ promise reversal: the Berejiklian government’s broken promise received political coverage."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The structural financial analysis, systematically, received less coverage."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The return on the 2018 sale of the first 51 per cent of WestConnex: ‘a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent’, in The Conversation’s analysis [6]. On this article’s reading of the coverage, it did not become a major story in commercial media.","r":[6]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The concession terms: toll escalation formulas, traffic guarantees, competing route restrictions. Commercially confidential and rarely synthesised for consumers."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The cumulative cost: a typical Sydney commuter spending A$5,000 per year on tolls over a 30-year working life pays A$150,000 in tolls on infrastructure built with public money. This arithmetic, while available from public data, was not a regular feature of coverage."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The EBITDA margin: Transurban’s 75 per cent EBITDA margin is publicly available in ASX filings. It was rarely contextualised in consumer-facing coverage."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The fuel price cycle mechanism: the ACCC documents it in detail. Its systemic nature as oligopolistic pricing behaviour, not price-fixing, received limited sustained explanation."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The data for all of these stories exists in the public record. Transurban’s financials are on the ASX. The WestConnex sale terms are partially documented in public filings. The ACCC’s petroleum market reports are quarterly [5]. What has been missing is the journalistic resource and editorial prioritisation to synthesise, contextualise, and explain them in consumer-facing terms.","r":[5]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section gave the return on public investment in WestConnex as \"approximately 34 cents per dollar\", and the subtitle tied that figure to the 2021 sale. The Conversation calculated \"a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent\" in 2018, for the sale of the first 51 per cent [6]; it does not cover the 2021 sale. The section and subtitle now say so, and reference 6 gives the article's correct address (it ends -102790, not -102780).","r":[6]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said, as a fact, that The Conversation's 34 cents finding \"did not become a major story in commercial media\". No source was given for that judgement, which is this article's own reading of the coverage; the section, the summary, the key facts and the figure now say so. The subtitle now attributes to The Conversation's analysis [6] its description of the 2018 sale as one to a donor of the governing party.","r":[6]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 13 pointed to the ASX home page and asserted that every figure in this series is publicly available. It now gives Transurban's FY25 results release, which publishes the margin this article discusses [13]. Reference 5, which pointed to the ACCC's petrol section index, now gives one of its quarterly petroleum market reports [5].","r":[13,5]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The most important decisions in the roads rort are state-level decisions: NSW Treasury concession terms, Victorian transport department concession negotiations, Queensland Treasury privatisation policy. These decisions are made in state parliamentary contexts."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2025 for Australia records that, following Meta's announcement, News Corp made significant cuts to its national reporting team, Seven West Media announced it would close 150 posts and Nine Entertainment sacked 200 employees [7]. The report does not break these cuts down by state parliamentary press gallery, and this article has no count of reporters assigned to state infrastructure decisions. What follows is this article's reading, not a finding of the report: smaller newsrooms with broader briefs leave decisions made at state level, such as concession terms, with less scrutiny, and the independent outlets named below covered the structure of the WestConnex sales more fully than the commercial outlets that covered the events.","r":[7]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said state parliamentary press galleries had seen significant reductions in staffing over the past decade, that the reporters who covered NSW Treasury infrastructure decisions in the 2000s had been replaced by smaller teams with broader briefs, and that The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian had smaller Canberra bureaus than before. The Reuters Institute report cited for this [7] records cuts at News Corp, Seven West Media (150 posts) and Nine Entertainment (200 employees) after Meta's announcement; it says nothing about state press galleries, bureaus or the 2000s, and no other source was cited, so those statements were removed. The summary, the references and the image at the head of this article now say what the report carries, and the link between smaller newsrooms and scrutiny of concession decisions is marked as this article's reading.","r":[7]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On this article’s reading, the clearest pattern in Roads Rort coverage mirrors every other series The Rort has published: independent and academic outlets covered the financial analysis most directly."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Michael West Media, an independent outlet, reported on the WestConnex transaction and on the A$5 billion WestInvest fund announced with it [1]; on this article’s reading, its analysis was the most penetrating. The Conversation (university-funded, academic authors) published the analysis that calculated the 34 cents per dollar return and described the transaction as the biggest waste of public funds for corporate gain in Australian history. Crikey covered the political economy of toll roads, arguing in 2024 that governments must fix ‘the toll road monster they created’ [12]; on this article’s reading, it did so more analytically than commercial outlets.","r":[1,12]},{"a":74,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The commercial media covered the events. The independent media covered the structure."},{"a":74,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section described Michael West Media as \"subscription-funded, no infrastructure sector advertising\" and said it analysed \"the political donation architecture\", and described Crikey as subscription-funded, citing only the outlets' home pages. The section now cites Michael West Media's WestConnex report [1] and a 2024 Crikey article on Transurban [12] for what they covered, and marks the comparison with commercial outlets as this article's reading; the descriptions of the outlets' funding and advertising were removed. The section's opening also said the independent and academic outlets had no \"commercial relationships with the infrastructure industry\"; no source was found for that, so it was removed, and the pattern it describes is now marked as this article's reading. Reference 5 now gives an ACCC quarterly petroleum market report. References 2, 3, 8, 11, 14 and 15, which pointed to home pages and carried claims this article does not make or no longer relies on, are marked as such.","r":[1,12]},{"a":75,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Existing toll concessions cannot be cut without government compensating Transurban, so the state can only offset tolls with public money rather than reduce them.","r":[14]},{"a":75,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"NSW toll relief gives a 40 per cent rebate on tolls above A$375 a year. It acknowledges the burden but does not cap the toll.","r":[3,12]},{"a":75,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"This article's reform agenda for future roads: revenue sharing, shorter terms, independent toll review every five years, and public ownership as the default, as with Western Sydney Airport.","r":[9]},{"a":75,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The NSW toll review released findings in 2024, but implementation is ongoing and existing concessions run to 2060. Of the eastern states, Victoria adopted a version of Perth's FuelWatch in March 2026.","r":[10,17,22]},{"a":75,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"There are four reform areas with genuine potential to change the Roads Rort. Each is technically achievable. Each faces political obstacles. Some are already in partial operation."},{"a":75,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The most impactful reform is also the most long-term: redesigning the terms under which future toll road concessions are awarded. Existing concessions (WestConnex to 2060, CityLink to 2035, NorthConnex to its current expiry) cannot be reduced without government compensating Transurban. But future concessions can be structured differently."},{"a":75,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"What it requires is a government that will act on it."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Specific reforms that other jurisdictions use:"},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"**Revenue sharing:** if traffic and toll revenue exceed the forecast on which the concession was based, government takes a share of the upside. Australia’s concessions capture the upside entirely for the private operator."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"**Mandatory price review:** an independent tribunal reviews toll levels every five years and can order reductions if returns exceed an agreed threshold above the cost of capital. In France, toll increases on the historic motorway concessions are capped at 70 per cent of the previous year’s inflation, excluding new works the state requests [7].","r":[7]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"**Shorter concession terms:** instead of 50-year concessions, 25-year terms with a mandatory renegotiation at the end. Shorter terms reduce the investor’s certainty of returns but also reduce the lock-in of users."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"**Competitive tender on lowest tolls:** design tenders to reward bidders who commit to the lowest toll levels, not the highest upfront payment to government. The current model rewards maximising the sale price, which is achieved by maximising the net present value of future toll income."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The NSW Independent Toll Review examined some of these options; its final report, released in July 2024, recommended a state-owned entity, NSW Motorways, to take back control of tolls [10][15]. The government said it would consider the report and respond [10].","r":[10,15]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the NSW Government review \"(2023–25) is examining some of these options\" and that implementation \"has not yet followed\", citing nothing; reference 15, an unspecified academic literature, pointed to The Conversation's home page. The Independent Toll Review released its final report in July 2024 [10][15]; the section now says so and what it recommended, and reference 15 now gives the final report itself.","r":[10,15]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said France's autoroute system \"uses state-set annual toll increase limits that can be below CPI if the operator's return has been sufficient\", citing the autoroutes.fr home page. The French government's answer to a parliamentary question [7] says increases on the historic concessions are capped at 70 per cent of the previous year's inflation, excluding new works; the section and key facts now say that, and reference 7 now gives that answer.","r":[7]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said, citing the French government's answer [7], that clauses limiting the concessionaires' profitability were added to the contracts. The answer confirms the 70 per cent cap on toll increases for the historic concessionaires but does not say that clauses limiting profitability were added, so those words are cut from this section, the correction above and reference 7. Reference 10 no longer names the Independent Toll Review's report Motorists First or says the release recommended uniform tolls and NSW Motorways: the release lists recommendations including declining distance-based tolls and IPART oversight of toll setting, and the proposal for NSW Motorways is in the final report itself [15].","r":[7,15]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"NSW has toll relief. The current scheme provides a 40 per cent rebate on NSW tolls above A$375 annual spending. It acknowledges the burden. It does not cap the toll or address the structural cause."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A more effective toll relief model would be means-tested, targeting households in the lower income quartiles who face the highest burden relative to income. The current scheme provides the same percentage rebate to a high-income earner using toll roads for convenience as to a low-income outer-suburban commuter with no alternative."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The NSW Government’s commitment to further toll relief is real. It is limited by the concession terms: the government cannot reduce tolls directly; it can only offset them through public funds. Every dollar of toll relief is a dollar the NSW Treasury pays to partly reverse the revenue stream flowing to Transurban."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"34 cents back","t":"A 2018 analysis put the first WestConnex sale at ‘a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent’ [18]. It now uses public money in toll relief to partially offset the tolls on roads it built. The structural solution is concession redesign, not ongoing subsidisation.","src":"The Conversation (2018) / NSW toll relief program"},{"a":75,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. The fact box said the government \"recovered approximately 34 cents per dollar of public investment in WestConnex\". The source, The Conversation in 2018 [18], calculated \"a financial return of 34 cents for every dollar spent\" for the sale of the first 51 per cent, before the 2021 sale; the box now says so and cites it.","r":[18]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Perth has had FuelWatch since 2001. It does not end the price cycle: Perth’s averaged about a week in 2025 [20]. What it does is fix each day’s price a day in advance [2]. Victoria adopted a version of it, a daily price cap set a day ahead, on 10 March 2026 [21][22].","r":[20,2,21,22]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A FuelWatch mandate for NSW, Queensland and South Australia would require fuel retailers to submit their next-day prices to the government by a set time each day, with prices locked for 24 hours. Published prices would allow consumers to find the cheapest fuel in their area. It would not end the price cycle, which persists in Perth [20], but it would stop prices rising during the day [2].","r":[20,2]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The barrier is political: a FuelWatch rule needs a state government decision. Of the eastern states, Victoria has now legislated a version [22]. The ACCC cannot mandate it.","r":[22]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A second fuel reform: fuel tax credit reform. The over A$9.5 billion annual subsidy that reimburses mining and agricultural companies for the excise on off-road fuel use could be reduced for highly profitable extractive industries. The revenue could fund household fuel excise relief. This is a federal policy lever that has not been pulled."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section called FuelWatch \"the fix for the fuel price cycle\", said the weekly cycle \"could not operate\" under it, that the eastern states do not have it and that the ACCC \"has noted the FuelWatch model approvingly\". The ACCC reports that Perth has a price cycle too, averaging about a week in 2025 [20]; Victoria has capped each day's price a day ahead since 10 March 2026 [21][22]; and no ACCC statement endorsing FuelWatch was found, so that sentence was removed. The section and key facts now say so. Reference 2, which pointed to the FuelWatch home page, now gives the WA regulator's description of the 24-hour rule [2]. Reference 6, which pointed to a gov.uk organisation page and carried no claim the article makes, is no longer relied on. The section also said fuel retailers \"have opposed mandatory price disclosure in eastern states\"; no source was found for that, and it was removed.","r":[20,21,22,2]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. Reference 21 described Victoria's daily cap as set by retailers between 8:30am and 2pm; the Service Victoria page it points to gives no such window, so the reference now describes only what that page carries."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Australian Government chose to build Western Sydney International Airport as a publicly owned facility. This is the logical alternative to privatisation: government builds, government owns, government sets prices with a commercial return target that does not need to include a private equity premium."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The analogy is instructive. Every argument made for privatising WestConnex (private capital, private efficiency, risk transfer) can be made against Western Sydney Airport. The government chose otherwise. The result: an airport that will be owned by taxpayers, whose pricing can be set transparently, whose returns go to public purposes rather than to Transurban security holders."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"For toll roads: the key question for future projects is whether they should follow the WestConnex model (private concession, 50-year monopoly, inflation-linked tolls) or the Western Sydney Airport model (government-owned, commercial pricing, public returns). The NSW pipeline (Western Harbour Tunnel, Beaches Link, M6 Stage 1) has not resolved this question."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Some reform is underway."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**NSW toll road review:** the Minns government commissioned an independent review. Findings released 2024 [10]. Implementation ongoing.","r":[10]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**Enhanced toll relief:** NSW has expanded the scheme; further expansion promised."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**Concession reform language:** state government language around future concession design has shifted toward revenue sharing and shorter terms."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"**ACCC fuel monitoring extended:** direction renewed for 5 years in December 2025. Monitoring continues, though without new enforcement powers."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"What has not changed is the structural position: Transurban earned a 75 per cent EBITDA margin in FY25. Existing WestConnex concessions run to 2060 [17]. Western Sydney motorists pay A$10.38 to use a road whose toll the concession lets rise each year by the greater of CPI or 4 per cent to December 2040, then by CPI until the concession ends [15].","r":[17,15]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the WestConnex toll was \"contractually guaranteed to rise for another 34 years\"; the subtitle spoke of \"40-year guarantees on rising returns\" and the closing pullquote of \"tolls rising for 40 more years\". The WestConnex concessions run to 2060 [17], and the M4 concession lets tolls rise each year by the greater of CPI or 4 per cent to December 2040, then by CPI [15]. That is a right to raise tolls, not a guarantee of returns, and 2060 is 34 years from 2026, not 40. All three now say the tolls can rise until 2060.","r":[17,15]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 10, which pointed to the Transport for NSW home page, now gives the NSW Government's announcement of the Independent Toll Review's final report [10].","r":[10]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section cited the Linkt toll pricing page (reference 16) for the M4 toll escalation terms. The page as served carries no escalation terms, so the two statements now cite the Independent Toll Review's final report [15], which lists WestConnex, including the M4, at the greater of CPI or 4 per cent a year until 31 December 2040, then CPI. Reference 16 is no longer relied on.","r":[15]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The political economy of toll road reform is the same as every other sector The Rort has covered. The benefits of reform are diffuse: millions of Australians paying slightly less for tolls and petrol. The costs of reform are concentrated: Transurban shareholders receiving smaller distributions, fuel retailers facing narrower margins."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Transurban has been described as a donor to both parties [23]; in 2024 it told a Queensland parliamentary committee that it does not make political donations in Australia [19]. The concession model has bipartisan support. The industry that manages the infrastructure investment funds that own Transurban is the same industry that manages the retirement savings of the workers who pay the tolls. The financial system is designed to align their interests over the long term. The problem is the short term: the daily toll, the petrol price cycle, the annual toll rise.","r":[23,19]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The reform agenda is clear. FuelWatch in the east. Revenue-sharing concessions for future roads. Independent toll price review every five years. Government ownership as the default for new projects. Enhanced and targeted toll relief now, as bridge to structural reform."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What it requires is a government that will act on it."},{"a":75,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said \"Transurban is a political donor to both parties.\" The Greens reported in 2018 that Transurban made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals [23], but in August 2024 Transurban told a Queensland parliamentary committee that it does not make political donations in Australia [19]. The sentence now gives both.","r":[23,19]},{"a":75,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section cited Green Left [13] for Transurban having donated to both the Liberal and Labor parties. The Green Left page does not mention donations, so that sentence is cut from reference 13. The two statements about donations now cite the Greens' release of 2 February 2018 [23], which says Transurban made significant donations to both Labor and the Liberals.","r":[13,23]},{"a":76,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"At Shell Cove, Shellharbour City Council is developer, named co-developer on defect orders and land seller at once. On this paper's reading, that removes the usual firewall between regulator and regulated. No misconduct findings are made.","r":[1,3]},{"a":76,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In July 2024 the Building Commissioner said rectification orders over defects in more than 300 homes would issue to Frasers and, simultaneously, to the council as co-developer.","r":[1]},{"a":76,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The council is selling two super lots; unnamed industry sources told the Illawarra Mercury they could fetch A$10 million and A$9 million (ESTIMATES).","r":[3]},{"a":76,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Its draft 2025-26 budget showed a A$28.7 million surplus that becomes a A$7.4 million underlying deficit without the A$36.1 million Shell Cove profit share.","r":[2]},{"a":76,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On a project the council itself bills as Australia's largest local-government and developer joint venture, Shellharbour City Council does three jobs at once. It is the developer. It is the party a state building regulator said would receive rectification orders as a co-developer. And it is the landholder now selling parcels because, on its own account, it lacks the capital to build them out."},{"a":76,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"None of that is an allegation of wrongdoing. There are no misconduct findings here. The problem is simpler and harder to fix: a single public body wearing three hats that a private developer would never be allowed to wear at the same table."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Waterfront, Shell Cove is a joint venture between Shellharbour City Council and Frasers Property. The council and Frasers describe it in their own project materials as Australia's largest local-government and developer joint venture. That framing matters, because a joint venture is not a council approving someone else's project from the outside. It is the council sitting inside the deal, sharing the cost, the risk and the profit."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Australia's largest","t":"The Waterfront, Shell Cove is billed as Australia's largest local-government and developer joint venture, between Shellharbour City Council and Frasers Property.","src":"Shellharbour City Council and Frasers Property project materials"},{"a":76,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A council usually meets a developer as a regulator: it assesses the application, sets the conditions, and enforces them. Here the council is on the other side of that line as well, as a commercial partner with money on the table. Both roles are lawful. Holding them at the same time is the structure this section exists to document."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On 3 July 2024, the NSW Building Commissioner at the time, David Chandler, addressed defects across the estate. His words, as reported by the Illawarra Mercury, were specific about who the paperwork would reach."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Rectification orders would issue to Frasers simultaneously to Shellharbour Council because they're a co-developer.","x":"David Chandler, then NSW Building Commissioner","src":"Illawarra Mercury, 3 July 2024"},{"a":76,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"300-plus homes","t":"The Building Commissioner said rectification orders over waterproofing and leak defects across more than 300 homes would issue to Frasers and, simultaneously, to Shellharbour Council as a co-developer.","src":"Illawarra Mercury, 3 July 2024"},{"a":76,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Read that carefully, because the exact register is the story. This is a regulator stating an intended action. It is not a court judgment, and it is not a finding that the council is legally liable for the defects. What it establishes is narrower and still striking: the state's building regulator regarded the council as a co-developer for the purpose of who an order lands on. The council here is not the authority issuing the direction. It is a party named on the receiving end of it."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"That is the second hat. In its planning role a council is the body that would ordinarily hold a developer to account for waterproofing and leaks over hundreds of homes. In its joint-venture role, it is one of the two names the regulator said the orders would reach."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The third hat arrived in the sale listings. The council put two Shell Cove parcels, described as super lots, to market through agent MMJ, with an expression-of-interest process that closed on 7 May 2026. Unnamed industry sources told the Illawarra Mercury the smaller, marina lot could reach about A$10 million and the larger about A$9 million, and the Mercury's own summary speaks of the potential for a A$19 million development. These are ESTIMATES, not a price guide."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$19 million (ESTIMATE)","t":"Two Shell Cove super lots, which the Illawarra Mercury's own summary describes as the potential for a A$19 million development (unnamed industry sources put them at about A$10 million and A$9 million, ESTIMATES), were taken to market via agent MMJ with an expression-of-interest process closing 7 May 2026.","src":"Illawarra Mercury, citing unnamed industry sources"},{"a":76,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The individual values, about A$10 million for the smaller marina lot and A$9 million for the larger, are ESTIMATES attributed to unnamed industry sources quoted by the Illawarra Mercury, not a struck price. The reason the council gave for selling rather than building is the part that closes the loop. It said it lacked the significant upfront capital to develop the lots itself."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"So the same body that is the joint-venture developer, and the co-developer a regulator named on defect orders, is also the landholder selling the next stage to a private buyer because it cannot fund the build. Three roles, one balance sheet, one set of ratepayers underneath all of it."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. This section previously described A$19 million as the combined estimate of the two lots, a sum THE RORT had made of two figures from unnamed industry sources. The Illawarra Mercury's summary line itself speaks of \"the potential for a $19 million development\" [3], and its report attributes the individual values to unnamed industry sources: the smaller, marina lot could reach $10 million and the larger would likely be closer to $9 million [3]. The article now attributes each figure as the Mercury reported it and no longer presents A$19 million as THE RORT's sum or as a price guide. The selling agents did not quote a price guide [3].","r":[3]},{"a":76,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Why sell at all? The council's own numbers point at the answer. The draft 2025-26 budget showed a headline surplus of A$28.7 million. Strip out one line, the Shell Cove profit share, and the same draft budget turns into an underlying deficit of A$7.4 million."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"A$28.7m → A$7.4m deficit","t":"The DRAFT 2025-26 budget showed a A$28.7 million surplus that becomes a A$7.4 million underlying deficit once the A$36.1 million Shell Cove profit share is removed.","src":"Illawarra Mercury (draft budget)"},{"a":76,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The single line doing the work is a A$36.1 million profit share from the development. In plain terms, the council's operating result, the day-to-day surplus or deficit before one-off capital items, leans on a dividend from the very project it co-develops. Remove the development income and the ordinary business of running the council does not, on the draft figures, pay for itself."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"One caution, so we are not knocked down on a stale number. Those are draft-budget figures. The later adopted budget reported a different result, a surplus of around A$21.6 million. That is the figure that governs once councillors vote it through. The draft is not the final word on the year's bottom line. It is, however, the clearest published window into how much of the council's balance rests on a development dividend rather than on rates and ordinary revenue, and that structural dependence is the point this section documents. Figures are as at the respective budget documents."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A profit share is also, by nature, finite. It flows while the development sells lots and books margin. As the estate winds down, so does the dividend. A budget that balances on a winding-down profit share is balancing on a clock."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Set the three hats side by side. The council co-develops the estate. A state regulator named it as a co-developer for the purpose of defect orders over more than 300 homes. It is selling the next stage because it says it cannot fund the build. And its draft operating position depends on the profit share the development throws off. Each fact traces to a public record. Together they describe a single body holding developer, named-co-developer and vendor roles at one table, funded by the outcome it is also meant to regulate."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is not a charge against any councillor or officer. There are no misconduct findings, and the recorded facts here do not supply one. It is a description of a shape. When a public body is commercially inside a deal, exposed as a co-party on the regulator's orders, and reliant on the deal's dividend to balance its books, the ordinary firewall between regulator and regulated is not breached by a bad actor. It is missing by design."},{"a":76,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"That is the through-line THE PATCH will keep returning to: The Democratic Bypass, the quiet ways a public interest gets routed around while every individual step stays lawful. At Shell Cove the bypass is not a rezoning or a backroom vote. It is a council that answers to itself across three roles, and ratepayers who carry co-liability on one side, a capital shortfall on another, and a budget on the third that only balances while the profit lasts."},{"a":77,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Oversight of Shellharbour's CEO, the one employee councillors hire and manage, sat with a four-member panel, a minority of the nine-member council.","r":[1]},{"a":77,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"On 25 March 2025 the council voted 6 to 3 to widen the CEO review panel from four members to all nine councillors.","r":[1]},{"a":77,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The three who voted against were Mayor Chris Homer, Deputy Mayor Kellie Marsh and Cr Craig Ridding. The vote is about structure, and no finding attaches to it.","r":[1,2,3]},{"a":77,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Supporter Cr Petreski called the old arrangement \"backroom decisions\", a quoted argument, not a finding. On this paper's reading, the change reverses a drift of oversight toward a smaller group.","r":[2]},{"a":77,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The record is short. On 25 March 2025, Shellharbour City Council voted 6 to 3 to widen the panel that reviews its most senior employee, the Chief Executive Officer, from four members to all nine elected councillors. The motion carried."},{"a":77,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This is the safest ground a local paper can stand on: a recorded vote, taken in public, by named public officials, on a question about how the council governs itself. No leaked memo. No anonymous source. Just the minutes."},{"a":77,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"So this piece does one thing carefully. It reports what the vote was, who cast it, and what the arrangement it changed actually does. It draws no conclusion the record does not support."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A council CEO review panel is a small committee of councillors that oversees the performance of the CEO, the single employee the councillors actually hire and manage. Everyone else at the council reports up through the CEO; the councillors, as the elected body, sit above only that one role. The panel is where that oversight is done: it sets the CEO's performance criteria, reviews progress against them, and advises the full council on the CEO's remuneration and, in time, succession."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"6 to 3","t":"On 25 March 2025, Shellharbour City Council resolved to expand its CEO review panel from four members to all nine councillors, on a recorded vote of six in favour to three against.","src":"Illawarra Mercury, 'Council expands CEO review panel to all members'"},{"a":77,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Before the vote, four councillors sat on that panel. After it, all nine do. The practical difference is the number of elected representatives with a formal seat at the review of the council's most senior officer. That is the whole of the change, and it is worth stating plainly before any interpretation is laid over it."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The distinction between four and nine is not cosmetic. A four-member panel is a minority of the nine-member council. Its deliberations, its access to the CEO's performance information, and its recommendations pass through fewer elected hands before the full council sees them. Widening the panel to all nine folds the review into the whole elected body, so that every councillor a resident voted for has a formal place in it."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"four to nine","t":"The motion moved the CEO review function from a four-member panel to the full complement of nine councillors.","src":"Illawarra Mercury, 'Council expands CEO review panel to all members'"},{"a":77,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Neither arrangement is unlawful, and neither is unusual across NSW local government. Councils structure this oversight in different ways, and a smaller panel can be defended on grounds of confidentiality and efficiency. The point here is narrower: on 25 March 2025 Shellharbour's elected body chose, by majority, to move from the smaller structure to the larger one."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Six councillors voted to widen the panel. Three voted against widening it. Because the question was a public governance motion decided on a recorded vote, the identities of those three are a matter of record, and reporting them imputes nothing beyond the vote itself."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"3 councillors","t":"The three who voted against widening the panel were Mayor Chris Homer, Deputy Mayor Cr Kellie Marsh, and Cr Craig Ridding, who represents Ward C.","src":"Illawarra Mercury and Region Illawarra [1, 2, 3]"},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"To be precise about titles, because precision is the point: Kellie Marsh was the Deputy Mayor at the time of the vote, re-elected to the one-year role in October 2024 [3], and Craig Ridding is the councillor for Ward C. A vote against widening a panel is a vote about structure. It is not, on this record, evidence of anything else, and no finding of any kind attaches to it.","r":[3]},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On the other side of the question, one of the supporters made the case for change in blunt terms. Cr Petreski, backing the governance change, characterised the arrangement being replaced as one of backroom decisions."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Backroom decisions.","x":"Cr Petreski, in support of the governance change","src":"Region Illawarra"},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That phrase belongs to Cr Petreski, not to this paper. We report it as an argument advanced in the chamber, the way a supporter framed the status quo, and not as a finding about how the four-member panel in fact operated. The distinction matters. A councillor's rhetorical characterisation of a structure is fair to quote; it is not proof of what the structure did."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference 2, Region Illawarra's report of the vote, previously gave no address. It now gives the article's title, date and address."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Kellie Marsh's title is now sourced: she was re-elected Deputy Mayor for a one-year term on 22 October 2024 [3], so she held the role at the 25 March 2025 vote; Region Illawarra's report of the vote [2] calls her a councillor, which a deputy mayor also is. The paragraph now says she was Deputy Mayor at the time of the vote.","r":[3,2]},{"a":77,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Here is the reading, offered as interpretation and labelled as such. A narrower review panel means fewer elected councillors with a direct, formal line of sight over the CEO's performance and, eventually, the question of who succeeds them. Widening the panel to all nine reverses that. Whichever way a resident weighs it, the trade is between confidentiality and the number of elected eyes on the top job."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"That is where the interpretation stops. It does not follow that anyone who preferred the smaller panel intended to reduce scrutiny, and nothing in the record supports such a claim. Motive is not on the minutes. A vote is. This piece asserts no cover-up, imputes no improper purpose to any councillor, and rests entirely on the count and the titles above."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The public interest that sits underneath all of this is simple: transparent oversight of the council's most senior employee. That interest is served by the vote being recorded, by the panel's composition being public, and by residents being able to see, without a leak or a tip, exactly who wanted oversight kept with a smaller group and who wanted it spread across the whole council they elected."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"THE PATCH is THE RORT's local desk, and it will spend most of its time on the machinery of NSW councils: land reclassification, voluntary planning agreements, a deemed refusal that sends a project to the Sydney Eastern City Planning Panel or the Land and Environment Court, a density decision under the Housing SEPP. Those stories are harder. They turn on documents that have to be read closely and framed carefully, and the gap between a structure and a person's intent is where local reporting gets sued."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A recorded vote is the exception. It is the cleanest evidence a council produces about itself. What happened at Shellharbour on 25 March 2025 needs no interpretation to be worth publishing: the elected body decided, in the open, to change who watches its CEO, and it did so on a divided count. Across the Illawarra and the eastern suburbs, from Shellharbour to Randwick and Waverley, the same discipline applies. We report the mechanism. We name the record. We let the vote speak."},{"a":77,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"That discipline has a name in these pages. The Democratic Bypass is the recurring pattern where a decision that belongs to the whole elected body drifts toward a smaller group or a narrower process. Shellharbour's councillors, by majority, moved the other way on this one, and did it on the record. Reversing a bypass is as newsworthy as building one, and a good deal easier to prove."},{"a":78,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A One Nation cartoon pinned to Pauline Hanson's X account calls Andrew Hastie a \"traitor\" eight times over sworn evidence he gave in Ben Roberts-Smith's failed defamation action.","r":[3,4]},{"a":78,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Hastie demanded One Nation own the cartoon or delete it, calling it a slur on veterans who gave evidence under oath.","r":[4,1]},{"a":78,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Hanson called it \"a satirical cartoon\" and refused to delete it. Barnaby Joyce said it had \"nothing to do with One Nation\".","r":[4,1,3]},{"a":78,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Angus Taylor, Matt Canavan, Paul Scarr and Jacqui Lambie all said it should come down. It remains pinned while One Nation contests Hastie's seat of Canning.","r":[2,1]},{"a":78,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 23 July 2026, One Nation posted a nine-minute animated video, an episode of its “Please Explain” cartoon series, and pinned it to the top of Pauline Hanson’s X account. It calls Andrew Hastie, the Liberal MP for Canning and a former SAS captain, a “traitor” eight times, and separately a “gutless maggot”, over evidence he gave under oath in Ben Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation action."},{"a":78,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Hastie answered with an ultimatum: own the cartoon, or delete it. One Nation has done neither. What follows is the record of who said what, and who, across every party, said it should come down."},{"a":78,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Eight","t":"The number of times the cartoon calls Andrew Hastie a “traitor”. It also calls him a “gutless maggot”.","src":"The Nightly / ABC News, September 2026"},{"a":78,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"One Nation published a nine-minute animated video on 23 July 2026, an episode of its “Please Explain” cartoon series, and pinned it to the top of Pauline Hanson’s X account. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The cartoon calls Andrew Hastie, the Liberal MP for Canning in Western Australia, an opposition frontbencher and a former SAS captain, a “traitor” eight times, and separately calls him a “gutless maggot”. [1][4]","r":[1,4]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The reason given is Hastie’s own sworn evidence: he gave evidence in Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation action, which Roberts-Smith brought and lost, a court finding, on the balance of probabilities, that allegations he murdered Afghan men were substantially true. [1][4]","r":[1,4]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Canning is the seat One Nation is now targeting. [1][4]","r":[1,4]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Hastie answered with an ultimatum aimed straight at the party that made the cartoon."},{"a":78,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"own it and explain why I’m a traitor and why other veterans are traitors, or delete it","x":"Andrew Hastie","src":"The Nightly, September 2026"},{"a":78,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"He put it a second way: “One Nation either needs to own this cartoon and defend it, or they need to delete it.” [4] By his own account, it has done neither.","r":[4]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"“Today I’m calling them lying cowards,” he said, and later widened the charge: “I would say that Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are lying cowards, and I’ll say it again so there’s no ambiguity.” [4][3]","r":[4,3]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"q","t":"It’s a slur on me, it’s a slur on other veterans who have given under oath evidence","x":"Andrew Hastie","src":"ABC News, 9 September 2026"},{"a":78,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"He said the fight over his own name was not what worried him: “I’m not worried about losing my seat; I’m worried about being called a traitor.” [1] Of the party’s response to his ultimatum: “They thought I’d just lie down and cop it; guess what, you’ve unlocked an achievement.” [1]","r":[1]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"He set out what he said was at stake beyond his own reputation: “I love my country. I’ve served my country proudly. I’ve risked my life for my country, as have thousands of other veterans, and if I’m a traitor, then she should be calling them traitors too.” [4] And on the case still working through the courts: “How are we ever going to have a fair trial with this sort of politicisation of an issue so central to who we are as a country?” Ben Roberts-Smith faces war crimes charges; Hastie was a sworn witness against him. [4][2]","r":[4,2]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Pauline Hanson, the One Nation leader and a senator, refused to delete the cartoon."},{"a":78,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"I’m not calling him a traitor to this country, he made that statement and I never said that. It is a satirical cartoon for Christ’s sake.","x":"Pauline Hanson","src":"The Nightly, September 2026"},{"a":78,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"She added: “I don’t think he is a traitor, and I have the highest regard for people in the Defence Force.” [4] Asked to take the cartoon down, she said: “I’m not going to delete the cartoon. I encourage people, if you want, go and have a look.” [1] Asked what she would call Hastie instead, she said she would call him “a wanker”. [1][3]","r":[4,1,3]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Barnaby Joyce, the One Nation member for New England in the House of Representatives, offered a version of a non-apology. “I spoke to Pauline this morning about this, and she never called him a traitor,” he said, adding: “I had not seen it nor was I aware of it.” [1] He said he had reached out: “I’ve reached out to Andrew last night, I’ve said, ‘Look, my door’s open if you want to talk about this.’” [1] Of his own party’s cartoon, he said: “It’s got nothing to do with One Nation.” [3]","r":[1,3]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Condemnation crossed party lines."},{"a":78,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Jacqui Lambie, the independent senator and Army veteran, called the cartoon “absolutely disgusting”: “What she’s doing in those cartoons is absolutely disgusting.” [2] She said: “Attacking Andrew Hastie, a veteran that has served in our Afghanistan war, or any other veteran, is the lowest ebb you can possibly do.” [2]","r":[2]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"She warned: “Any veteran out there thinking about voting for One Nation or standing for them, I tell you what, you had better think twice.” [2] Lambie called Hanson a “bloody coward”. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said: “Andrew Hastie has served this country with distinction as an officer in the SAS. She should take it down.” [2] Nationals leader Matt Canavan said: “I don’t think it’s decent and honourable to post content like that.” [2] Liberal senator Paul Scarr said: “I think it’s a disgraceful cartoon and it should be removed.” [2]","r":[2]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is the desk’s reading, not a sourced fact: character assassination dressed as satire, aimed at a man for telling the truth under oath, and aimed at his seat. “It’s satire” is the alibi. The cartoon is the weapon."},{"a":78,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"From the Opposition to the Nationals to the crossbench, condemnation was near-unanimous: Taylor, Canavan, Scarr and Lambie all said the cartoon should come down. [2] The party that made it will not.","r":[2]},{"a":78,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Hanson has not deleted the cartoon. Joyce says it has nothing to do with him. One Nation is contesting Hastie’s seat of Canning, and the cartoon remains pinned to the top of Pauline Hanson’s X account. [1][3]","r":[1,3]},{"a":79,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Ben Roberts-Smith sued three newspapers for defamation over reporting he was complicit in the murder of Afghans, in a case costing up to A$25 million.","r":[3,2]},{"a":79,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"On 1 June 2023 Justice Besanko found, on the balance of probabilities, that four murder allegations were substantially true and that Roberts-Smith lied to the court. His appeal was dismissed in May 2025.","r":[6]},{"a":79,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Andrew Hastie was one of 21 SAS veterans subpoenaed to give evidence. He was compelled by law, not a volunteer.","r":[5]},{"a":79,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"On 7 April 2026 Roberts-Smith was charged with five counts of the war crime of murder, which he denies and which remain untested.","r":[1]},{"a":79,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Ben Roberts-Smith sued three newspapers for defamation over reporting that he was complicit in the murder of Afghans. He won nothing. On 1 June 2023, a judge found, on the balance of probabilities, that four of those murder allegations were substantially true, and that Roberts-Smith had lied to the court and colluded with his own witnesses."},{"a":79,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Almost three years later, on 7 April 2026, he was charged with five counts of the war crime of murder, allegations he denies and that remain untested. In between, the men compelled to give evidence against him, Andrew Hastie among them, one of 21 subpoenaed witnesses, are the ones now cast as the villains of the story. This is the desk’s reading: the smear inverts a verdict a court already delivered."},{"a":79,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Ben Roberts-Smith held the Victoria Cross and was, before the charges now against him, the most-decorated living Australian war veteran. [1][3]","r":[1,3]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In 2018 he sued The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times over reporting that he was complicit in the murder of Afghans. [2][3]","r":[2,3]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Up to A$25 million","t":"The estimated cost of Roberts-Smith’s defamation action against The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times, about US$16.2 million, making it the most expensive defamation case Australia has ever seen.","src":"Al Jazeera, 1 June 2023"},{"a":79,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A defamation writ is meant to defend a reputation against a false story. This is the desk’s reading, not a sourced fact: in this case the writ was turned the other way, deployed to call the reporters liars in open court. What the court actually found is set out below."},{"a":79,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On 1 June 2023, Justice Anthony Besanko delivered his judgment. He found, on the balance of probabilities, the civil standard of proof, not the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, that the newspapers had proved the substance of four murder allegations. [2][6]","r":[2,6]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In 2009, at a compound known as Whiskey 108, Besanko found a captured man with a prosthetic leg was killed, and, in what was described as “blooding the rookie”, that Roberts-Smith ordered a junior soldier to execute an elderly captive who posed no threat. In 2012, at Darwan village, Besanko found Roberts-Smith kicked Ali Jan, an unarmed and handcuffed Afghan man, off a cliff, and was complicit in his killing. And at Chinartu in 2012, Besanko found he ordered an Afghan soldier to execute a prisoner. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Besanko also found Roberts-Smith lied to the court, colluded with his own witnesses, assaulted detained Afghan nationals and bullied junior colleagues. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The 2018 reporting had originally alleged Roberts-Smith was complicit in the murder of six Afghans; the court found four of those allegations substantially true. [2][3][6]","r":[2,3,6]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Roberts-Smith lost the case. It was dismissed, and his appeal to the Full Federal Court was dismissed in May 2025. [1][6]","r":[1,6]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"None of this is a criminal conviction. A civil finding on the balance of probabilities is a lower standard of proof than a criminal court applies, and it carries no criminal penalty. That distinction matters for what follows."},{"a":79,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Andrew Hastie, the Liberal MP for Canning, a former SAS captain, was one of 21 SAS veterans of the war in Afghanistan subpoenaed as a witness in the defamation action. He did not volunteer. He was compelled by law to give evidence. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"In 2022, I was one of 21 SAS veterans of the war in Afghanistan subpoenaed as a witness in the defamation action brought by Ben Roberts-Smith against Nine Media.","x":"Andrew Hastie","src":"Statement, 9 April 2026"},{"a":79,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In his evidence, Hastie described a “fairly well-established rumour” within the regiment that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed Afghan man off a cliff, the same incident Besanko would later find substantially true at Darwan. [5][4]","r":[5,4]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Crikey later asked whether Hastie’s evidence had been “weaponised against him”. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 7 April 2026, Roberts-Smith, 47, was arrested at Sydney Airport by the Australian Federal Police. He was charged with five counts of the war crime of murder, in connection with the deaths of five people in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"it will be alleged the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan","x":"AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett","src":"Al Jazeera, 7 April 2026"},{"a":79,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Roberts-Smith denies the allegations. [1] He is entitled, like anyone charged, to the presumption of innocence. The five criminal charges are untested allegations, distinct from the four civil findings a court has already made against him on the lower, balance-of-probabilities standard. Four and five are not the same list, and this article does not treat them as one.","r":[1]},{"a":79,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"After the charges were laid, Hastie did not attack Roberts-Smith and did not claim credit for the case a court had already decided. He asked, instead, for restraint."},{"a":79,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"q","t":"I urge every Australian to respect the rule of law, the criminal justice system, and the accused’s right to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial.","x":"Andrew Hastie","src":"Statement, 9 April 2026"},{"a":79,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"q","t":"I will not prejudice this trial by making any further comment.","x":"Andrew Hastie","src":"Statement, 9 April 2026"},{"a":79,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is the desk’s reading. Hastie did not choose to give evidence in 2022; he was subpoenaed, one witness among 21. A court has already found, on the civil standard, that four of the allegations his testimony touched on were substantially true. The men who now brand the compelled witness a traitor are not disputing a fact a court has found. They are trying to reverse a verdict that has already been delivered."},{"a":80,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"One Nation's cartoon called Andrew Hastie a traitor eight times while the party campaigns in his seat; Hastie, who gave evidence under subpoena, called it a slur on him and on other veterans who gave evidence under oath.","r":[1,6]},{"a":80,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Hastie was one of 21 SAS veterans subpoenaed in the Roberts-Smith defamation case, estimated to have cost up to A$25 million in all, which the newspapers won.","r":[6,5]},{"a":80,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Australia has no federal anti-SLAPP law; only the ACT has a limited statute, and it does not expressly cover defamation.","r":[8]},{"a":80,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Roberts-Smith now faces five criminal counts, which he denies, and Hastie warned that politicising the issue threatens a fair trial.","r":[4,3]},{"a":80,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"It reads like a fight between two politicians and a party, a cartoon, a demand it be deleted, a senator’s rebuke. Read against the rest of this case, it is not a personality clash. It is a machine, and the machine has already sent its bill to four people who never chose to be in the argument: a witness who did his legal duty, the reporters who spent years proving a hard truth, a court trying a man who has not yet been convicted of anything, and a public asked to accept that slurs are now how these arguments are conducted."},{"a":80,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"None of what follows is a new fact. Every figure and every quotation below has already been sourced elsewhere in this case; what this article adds is the desk’s own reading of what they add up to."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Strip away the personalities and what is left is a pattern this desk has seen before: political money and political language turned on the people who happen to be standing where a war crimes prosecution and an election campaign now overlap. One Nation ran a cartoon branding Andrew Hastie, the Liberal MP for Canning, a former SAS captain now sitting as an opposition frontbencher, a traitor, eight times, while campaigning in his own seat. Hastie is not a bystander in the underlying matter. He is one of 21 SAS veterans who gave evidence under subpoena in the defamation proceedings that examined war crimes allegations against Ben Roberts-Smith, litigation estimated to have cost up to A$25 million in all, the costs of the whole action rather than of either side alone, and that the newspapers who reported the allegations won [6] [5].","r":[6,5]},{"a":80,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Four parties carry the cost of what has followed, and none of them are the ones fighting the political fight. The witness who was compelled to testify. The reporters and the masthead that spent years and millions proving the reporting was true. A court now trying a separate criminal matter that the political noise threatens to prejudice. And a public asked to treat name-calling as a substitute for argument. This article takes each in turn."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the Roberts-Smith litigation “cost up to A$25 million to defend”, which put the whole figure on the newspapers’ side. The up to A$25 million is the reported estimate of what the case as a whole cost, as this case’s article “The writ” records; the sentence now says so. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":80,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Andrew Hastie did not choose to be a witness. He was compelled: one of 21 SAS veterans required by subpoena to give evidence in the defamation litigation that examined the war crimes reporting. Testifying under subpoena is a legal duty, not a political act. The bill for doing it was a cartoon calling him a traitor, run eight times by a party campaigning against him in his own electorate."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Hastie’s own description of what that does is direct: “It’s a slur on me, it’s a slur on other veterans who have given under oath evidence.” The slur does not stop with him. It is aimed at anyone who might one day be asked to do what he did, give sworn evidence in a case that implicates powerful people, because the signal it sends is plain: testify, and you can be called a traitor for it, on a public platform, by people who face no such obligation themselves."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"That is the witness’s bill, and it is not paid only by the witness. It is paid by the next veteran a court might need to hear from."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Proving the war crimes reporting true took years of litigation, in the most expensive defamation case in Australian history: the whole action is estimated to have cost up to A$25 million, a figure for the case as a whole, not the newspapers’ own bill. [5] The newspapers won. That is the price of doing the kind of journalism this case is built on: reporting a hard, contested, powerful-interest story and then being able to survive the legal response to it.","r":[5]},{"a":80,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"There is a general concept for what a defamation action can become when its practical effect, whatever its merits, is to impose cost, delay and fear on critics and reporters rather than simply to test a claim: a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP. Australia has no federal anti-SLAPP law; only the ACT has a limited public-participation statute, and it does not expressly cover defamation. This case is this desk’s illustration of what defending the truth can cost, whoever brings the writ, not a finding about any particular suit’s purpose; Roberts-Smith was entitled to sue, and nothing here says otherwise."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The practical question the A$25 million figure raises is not about one case. It is about the next one: which reporters, and which mastheads, can afford to survive the legal cost of reporting on the powerful, and which cannot."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said proving the reporting true “cost up to A$25 million”. That figure is the reported estimate of the cost of the whole defamation action, not of the newspapers’ defence alone; the sentence now says so. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":80,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Roberts-Smith now faces a criminal trial, five counts, which he denies. He is presumed innocent of those charges, and this article does not suggest otherwise. That presumption is not a technicality. It is what a fair trial is built on, for him as much as for anyone else."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Hastie’s own warning was about exactly that risk: “How are we ever going to have a fair trial with this sort of politicisation of an issue so central to who we are as a country?” He paired the warning with his own restraint, stating: “I urge every Australian to respect the rule of law, the criminal justice system, and the accused’s right to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial.”"},{"a":80,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A compelled witness, warning that a political fight over his own evidence could taint a criminal trial, is the court’s bill made plain. The presumption of innocence protects the accused. A cartoon war conducted around a live prosecution puts that presumption under pressure it was never meant to bear."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"When “traitor” stands in for an argument, the casualty is not any one person’s reputation. It is trust in the institutions built to settle these questions properly: a court to try the criminal charges, a parliament to debate the politics, a free press to report both without paying an unaffordable price for it."},{"a":80,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Senator Jacqui Lambie’s response named that cost directly. “Any veteran out there thinking about voting for One Nation or standing for them, I tell you what, you had better think twice,” she said, adding: “Attacking Andrew Hastie, a veteran that has served in our Afghanistan war, or any other veteran, is the lowest ebb you can possibly do.”"},{"a":80,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is not the first time this case has found the same machine running under a different name. The next article in this series, “The pattern”, asks how old it is."},{"a":81,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Reputation is political currency and the writ is how it is spent: Christian Porter sued the ABC over an untested allegation he denies, then discontinued with no damages paid.","r":[1]},{"a":81,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Porter disclosed that a blind trust had partly paid his legal costs, and resigned from the ministry on 19 September 2021.","r":[4,3]},{"a":81,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Bruce Lehrmann sued Network Ten and lost: Justice Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, that he raped Brittany Higgins. His criminal trial was aborted without a verdict; he maintains his innocence.","r":[5]},{"a":81,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The law cuts both ways: Barilaro won A$715,000 from Google over videos found to be racist hate speech, and Sarah Hanson-Young won A$120,000 from David Leyonhjelm.","r":[6,7]},{"a":81,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In Australian politics, reputation is currency, and the writ and the smear are its transactions. Who can afford to bring one, or to fight one off, decides more than any court likes to admit."},{"a":81,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Four recent legal matters show the machine at work: an attorney-general who sued a broadcaster over an untested allegation and lost his career to how the fight was funded, not to the allegation itself; a man who sued to clear his name and had a court find the opposite, on the civil standard; a satirist a court found had committed racist hate speech, not protected satire; and a senator smeared on the floor of Parliament who used the same law to be vindicated. This article sets out each case, the court, the standard of proof, and every denial and acquittal on the record."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Defamation law and the smear share a currency: reputation. One side spends money and standing to protect it or to attack it; the other pays, sometimes in damages, sometimes in a career, sometimes in nothing at all."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The four cases that follow run from 2018 to 2024, from a federal minister to a satirist to a crossbench senator. Between them they show reputation used as both weapon and shield, and show that the outcome does not always run the way power would predict."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the four cases run from 2019 to 2024. It now says 2018 to 2024: the earliest event in the survey, David Leyonhjelm’s remark in the Senate, was in June 2018, as the article’s own source records. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In February 2021, the ABC reported that a letter sent to the Prime Minister contained a historical allegation of rape, dating to 1988, against a serving senior cabinet minister. The story did not name him. Christian Porter, then Attorney-General, publicly identified himself as the minister and sued the ABC and reporter Louise Milligan for defamation. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Porter has always denied the allegation, and it was never tested in court. The woman who made it had died in 2020, before the ABC’s story ran. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"On Monday 31 May 2021, Porter discontinued the action. No damages were paid, and the ABC did not retract or apologise; it stood by the importance of the article and added an editor’s note. [1]","r":[1]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"did not intend to suggest Mr Porter had committed the alleged offence","x":"ABC editor’s note, added to the article","src":"31 August 2021"},{"a":81,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Porter updated his register of interests to reveal that a blind trust, the “Legal Services Trust”, had made a part contribution to his legal costs, and he resigned from the ministry on 19 September 2021; he did not recontest his seat and left politics. [3][4]","r":[3,4]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Porter’s case ended on how the fight was funded, not on the allegation itself, which was never tested and remains denied."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Bruce Lehrmann sued Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over a 2021 broadcast, an interview with Brittany Higgins on The Project, about an alleged rape at Parliament House in 2019. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On 15 April 2024, in Lehrmann v Network Ten [2024] FCA 369, Justice Michael Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, the civil standard, that Lehrmann raped Higgins. Ten’s substantial-truth defence succeeded, and the defamation claim failed."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins","x":"Justice Michael Lee, a finding on the balance of probabilities","src":"Lehrmann v Network Ten [2024] FCA 369, 15 April 2024 [5]"},{"a":81,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Lehrmann had earlier faced a criminal trial that was aborted because of juror misconduct; it ended with no verdict, and he was not convicted. He maintains his innocence. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The judgment did not spare him on the way out the door."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A man sued to clear his name, and the court found the opposite, on the civil standard. The writ boomeranged."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"John Barilaro, then NSW Deputy Premier, brought defamation proceedings over two YouTube videos, ‘bruz’ and ‘Secret Dictatorship’, published in late 2020 by Jordan Shanks, the satirist known as friendlyjordies. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 6 June 2022, Justice Steven Rares in the Federal Court ordered Google to pay Barilaro A$715,000. The judge found the videos were “a relentless and vicious campaign against Mr Barilaro” and “nothing less than racist hate speech”; the material was not protected as mere satire. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Shanks had earlier settled a parallel case in November 2021, apologising and editing the videos; reports put his payment at A$100,000. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Barilaro had resigned as Deputy Premier in October 2021 and left politics, citing a “traumatic” final period in office. [6][8]","r":[6,8]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This case is this survey’s honest complication. Here it was the politician who sued the satirist, and the court did not find protected satire; it found genuine defamation, and it named the material racist hate speech. Satire is often the plea when reputation is under fire; a court has already tested that plea once, in this case, and it did not hold. The lesson is not that satire is always a smear, or always protected. It is that the ground is contested, and the powerful can reach for the writ from either side of it."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"During a Senate debate in June 2018, David Leyonhjelm told Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young to “stop shagging men”, and repeated the remark in the media. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"q","t":"stop shagging men","x":"David Leyonhjelm, in the Senate and repeated in the media","src":"June 2018 [7]"},{"a":81,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Federal Court found he had defamed her, finding the remark imputed she was a misandrist and a hypocrite, and awarded her A$120,000 in damages. Leyonhjelm’s appeal was dismissed in March 2021, and the High Court refused him leave to appeal. He paid the damages and costs. [7][9]","r":[7,9]},{"a":81,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is defamation as a shield, not a weapon. A woman senator, smeared on the floor of Parliament, used the same law that ministers and premiers use to attack, and was vindicated by it. It balances the survey: the law that the powerful wield can also protect the smeared, when they can reach it."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"This is the desk’s reading, not a finding from any of the four courts above: reputation is currency in Australian politics, and the writ and the smear are its transactions. Who can afford to bring one, or to fight one off, decides more than any court ever quite admits."},{"a":81,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Set the four side by side. Porter’s career ended not on the allegation, which was never tested, but on how the fight against it was funded. Lehrmann sued to clear his name and a court found, on the civil standard, that the opposite was true. Barilaro sued a satirist and won, on a finding of racist hate speech, not satire. Hanson-Young was smeared on the floor of Parliament and used the same law to be vindicated. Four cases, one currency, and it cuts more than one way."},{"a":82,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The State of Play report found suppression orders are most commonly granted to wealthy people, with interim orders resting on evidence that resources can assemble.","r":[4]},{"a":82,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Tom Silvagni's identity was suppressed for 545 days, and lifted only after his conviction. His conviction is under appeal.","r":[10]},{"a":82,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Victoria's pledge targets convicted rapists, but Professor Jason Bosland says orders already lift on conviction in '99 per cent of cases', meaning 'no change'.","r":[1]},{"a":82,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Pseudonym and concealment orders sit outside the Open Courts Act and work as de facto suppression orders, and this outlet located no count of them.","r":[3]},{"a":82,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Tuesday 11 August 2026, Victorian Premier Ben Carroll and Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny made a pledge. If Labor wins the state election on 28 November, they will amend the Open Courts Act 2013 so that convicted rapists cannot keep suppression orders. Carroll has held the job for a fortnight: he became Premier on 28 July, after Jacinta Allan resigned."},{"a":82,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The state's leading open-justice scholar measured it at close to zero. Professor Jason Bosland of Melbourne Law School told ACM mastheads that suppression orders already lift on conviction in '99 per cent of cases', an assertion he offered, and that 'there will actually, in substance, be no change'. Justin Quill, a media lawyer at Thomson Geer, put it conditionally: until the detail arrived, he said, it was impossible to judge whether the announcement was 'a good one or just motherhood statements'."},{"a":82,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"This masthead is not here to score the politics. We are here for the machinery. If Bosland is right, the pledge lands on the one point that already resolves itself, while the secrecy that matters is manufactured earlier and deeper: in interim orders granted on mental-health evidence that the well resourced can assemble, in pseudonym and concealment orders that sit outside the Open Courts Act altogether, and in a counting system so broken that nobody can say how many orders exist. Here is the mechanism to watch, because it is the whole story."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Track the Attorney-General's positions across five months, because the sequence explains how this reform was made. In early March 2026, days after the Melbourne Press Club and Monash University published their State of Play report, Kilkenny called its data 'at best questionable' and would not commit to a review, per AAP's report. [6] By late June she had committed to a review, as Bosland recorded in The Conversation on 7 July. On 11 August she stood beside a new Premier and pledged legislation. None of this implies anything improper: positions move as evidence and politics move. Note where the movement ended. The commitment that emerged targets orders held by convicted rapists, the point at which, on Bosland's estimate, orders almost always dissolve anyway.","r":[6]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Bosland held a roundtable at Melbourne University on 10 August, the day before the announcement; Kilkenny did not attend, per the ACM report. His verdict on the system the pledge leaves in place is compact."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"'99 per cent'","t":"Bosland's estimate of the share of cases in which suppression orders already lift on conviction. It is his assertion, not an official statistic; no authoritative count exists to test it.","src":"ACM mastheads, 11 August 2026"},{"a":82,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. This section attributed Kilkenny's 'at best questionable' remark to the South Coast Register, whose reference pointed only to that paper's home page. Reference [6] now gives the AAP report that carries the remark and her refusal to commit to a review, and the sentence attributes it to AAP. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The State of Play report of 3 March 2026 is the document that started the five-month sequence. Its most consequential finding is about who obtains suppression, and how."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"'Suppression orders are most commonly granted to wealthy people... who journalists believe are coached by counsel to say they will harm themselves if a suppression order is not granted.'","x":"State of Play report, Melbourne Press Club and Monash University, 3 March 2026"},{"a":82,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Read that carefully. It is not a claim that any application was false, nor a claim about any judge; judges rule on the evidence before them. The finding is about capacity. A psychiatric report, experienced counsel, an urgent application: these are things resources assemble. The report also documented the floor beneath the practice: the requirement to give media three days' notice of a suppression application is 'routinely breached', interim orders stand for months, one for nearly six years per Bosland, and Victoria Police no longer routinely provide the names of accused people."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The court rejects the picture. Chief Justice Richard Niall, as Chair of Courts Council, responded in a statement dated 2 March 2026 that the report gave 'a misleading and selective picture', pointing to more than 3,800 published written reasons and 255 accredited journalists, per the court's own published statement. His response belongs in the record: openness in the aggregate and secrecy in the particular case are different measurements, and both can be true at once."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Consider the case the pledge could have been written for; it resolved without the pledge. Tom Silvagni was charged in June 2024. His identity was suppressed for 545 days on psychiatric and suicide-risk evidence. On 5 December 2025 he was convicted of two rapes. On Thursday 11 December, Judge Andrew Palmer lifted the suppression, observing that his identity was 'a matter of common knowledge within Melbourne'. On 17 December, Judge Gregory Lyon sentenced him to 6 years and 2 months, with a non-parole period of 3 years and 3 months. An appeal was filed in January 2026 and remains pending. The order lifted on conviction, exactly as Bosland says orders almost always do. But for 545 days the public could not be told a name a judge would later describe as common knowledge."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"A$36,000","t":"What the Herald Sun paid over two articles that never named Tom Silvagni, published during the 545-day suppression of his identity, per SBS and ESPN reporting. His conviction is under appeal.","src":"SBS and ESPN reporting, December 2025"},{"a":82,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A second case, a different man, shows the machinery running past the verdict itself. Ralph Carr, a talent and entertainment manager, spent roughly three years under a suppression order made in 2023 on mental-health grounds. In late July 2026 he was unanimously convicted in the County Court, before Judge Frank Gucciardo, of two rapes and a sexual assault committed in March 2023. Conviction did not end the secrecy. Per Women's Agenda's reporting of 29 July 2026, the 2023 order was extended after the verdict by a fresh interim order, granted on suicide-risk evidence; media organisations led by the ABC opposed it, and a further hearing was listed for early August. The extension was then abandoned and the order lifted, per subsequent reporting across 3-7 August 2026: the ABC named him on 5 August, Guardian Australia on 7 August. Three years of silence, then a post-conviction extension, gave way only when the application was no longer pursued. Carr's lawyers went on to argue, and lose, a stay application resting partly on mental-health evidence and partly on a challenge to the jury's verdict, and on 25 August 2026 Judge Gucciardo sentenced him to six years with a four-year non-parole period. Carr's lawyers have flagged an intention to appeal; as of this update, no appeal has been confirmed as filed or decided. The pledge is about conviction. The machinery, here again, was interim."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section dated Women's Agenda's report on the post-verdict interim order to early August 2026. The article is dated 29 July 2026, and the text and reference [7] now say so. Reference [6] now carries the headline the AAP page currently shows, with its original title noted. [7]","r":[7,6]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"How big is this system? Nobody knows, and the commonly cited numbers prove it. The Alliance for Journalists' Freedom white paper of November 2024 counted, for 2023, 521 suppression orders in Victoria out of about 1,111 nationally, with 308 recorded in South Australia and 133 in New South Wales. [15] To keep this honest: the count is a byproduct of media notifications, not a census, and Bosland himself warns the cross-state comparison is debunked. We will not rank the states on it, and neither should you. The usable fact inside those numbers is their provenance: Australia's closest thing to a national count of court-ordered secrecy is a side effect of notices sent to newsrooms.","r":[15]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"About 1,111","t":"Suppression orders counted nationally for 2023 by the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom white paper. The count is a byproduct of media notifications, and Bosland warns the cross-state comparison is debunked.","src":"Alliance for Journalists' Freedom, Press Freedom in Australia white paper, November 2024, p. 18; Bosland, The Conversation, 7 July 2026"},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"It gets thinner. Pseudonym and concealment orders sit outside the Open Courts Act entirely, as Bosland set out in The Conversation on 7 July 2026, and operate in effect as de facto suppression orders. [3] They also go uncounted: no count of them was located for this article, and the national figure above is a count of suppression orders. Whatever an amendment ends up doing, the measurement void guarantees nobody will be able to demonstrate what changed.","r":[3]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Reviews are no escape from the void; on the record, they are where it is managed. The NSW Law Reform Commission's Report 149 on open justice was delivered to the Attorney General on 27 May 2022 with 156 recommendations. Four years on, no government response has been published or is locatable on the Department of Communities and Justice or NSWLRC pages. Victoria's review, committed to in June 2026, now has a benchmark for how long a review's output can wait."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"156 recommendations","t":"Made in the NSW Law Reform Commission's open-justice report, delivered to the Attorney General on 27 May 2022. No government response has been published or is locatable on the DCJ or NSWLRC pages four years on.","src":"NSW Law Reform Commission, Report 149"},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said pseudonym and concealment orders 'go uncounted, as Bosland set out in The Conversation'. Bosland's article sets out that these orders sit outside the Open Courts Act and operate as de facto suppression orders; that no count of them was located is this outlet's own finding, and the sentence now says so. Reference [3], which pointed only to The Conversation's home page, now gives the specific article. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section, its key fact and reference [11] said the NSW Law Reform Commission's Report 149 was tabled on 12 July 2022. The report itself carries a transmittal letter to the Attorney General dated 27 May 2022 and no tabling date; we found no source for 12 July 2022. The text now says the report was delivered to the Attorney General on 27 May 2022. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section, its key fact and the figure in the lede credited the 2023 suppression-order count to a 2024 white paper by 'Australia's Right to Know'. The white paper is the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom's Press Freedom in Australia white paper of November 2024, which we have now read (page 18). It says that in 2023 courts notified the media of 1,111 suppression orders, and its table gives 521 for Victoria (442 excluding VCAT), 308 for South Australia and 133 for New South Wales; it calls the figures almost certainly conservative. The State of Play report reproduces the table with a total of 1,113, which is the sum of the rows. The text and figure now give the white paper's own total of 1,111 and name its author. [15]","r":[15]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Now set those cases beside the ones where the state itself does the naming. Joshua Brown, a childcare worker, was named by Victoria Police on 1 July 2025, when he was charged with more than 70 offences; further charges laid in December 2025 brought the total to 156. [8] His alleged victims are statutorily unidentifiable. On 28 May 2026 it was reported he had indicated he will admit the offending. Nothing here implies the naming was wrong; police releases serve real purposes. The point is who holds the switch.","r":[8]},{"a":82,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Hannah Thomas, a former Greens candidate in New South Wales, was charged under a riot power that was conceded, in about mid-July 2025, to have been wrongly laid. All charges were withdrawn on 9 September 2025, per O'Brien Solicitors, and in June 2026 the State of NSW's civil defence admitted battery and false imprisonment. Her name travelled worldwide at charge. Her vindication did not."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Assemble the full machine. At one end, the state publishes a name at charge, and the name outruns the case. At the other, per the State of Play report's account, applications built on evidence that resources can assemble secure interim silence at the exact phase when a name matters most, silence that can hold for months or years. In between sits an Act that does not govern every order, a count that is a byproduct of newsroom notifications, and a reform pledge aimed at the one moment when, by Bosland's estimate, secrecy already gives way."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The rort is not a person. It is not the new Premier, not the Attorney-General whose position moved with evidence and politics, not the judges who rule on the material before them, not the counsel who put it there. The rort is the mechanism: secrecy allocated by the capacity to apply for it, deployed at the phase where it does its real work, measured by nobody, and reformed at its weakest point."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"So watch two things between now and 28 November. Watch the interim order, because that is where the product is sold. And watch for a count, because until someone can say how many orders exist, nobody will be able to say whether anything changed. A state that cannot count its secrets cannot claim to have surrendered them."},{"a":82,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section and the key facts said Joshua Brown was named by Victoria Police on 1 July 2025 'facing 156 charges'. He was charged with more than 70 offences in July 2025; 83 further charges in December 2025 brought the total to 156, and the text now says so. [8] References [1], [4], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11] and [12], which pointed only to home pages, now give the specific reports, statements and the Law Reform Commission report they rely on. Reference [2] is no longer relied on: the pledge it corroborated is carried by [1].","r":[8,1,4,6,7,9,10,11,12,2]},{"a":83,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Ralph Carr's suppression order, made in 2023 on mental-health grounds, ended not on a ruling but when his own lawyers abandoned the application to extend it on 3 August 2026.","r":[1]},{"a":83,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Carr was sentenced on 25 August 2026 to six years, with a four-year non-parole period. An appeal is flagged but not confirmed as filed.","r":[3]},{"a":83,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In Queensland, a non-publication order over a high-profile married man was upheld on 28 August 2026, resting on the court's power to protect the administration of justice.","r":[4]},{"a":83,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"On this outlet's reading, Victoria's pledge to amend the Open Courts Act cannot reach those powers, or the NSW orders made under inherent, equitable jurisdiction.","r":[18,15]},{"a":83,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Ralph Carr can now be named. As published in August, the earlier piece described him only as an entertainment and sports manager whose identity sat under suppression for roughly three years, in the second of two cases it covered. Every specific detail in that account, the County Court, Judge Frank Gucciardo, two rapes and a sexual assault, offending dated to March 2023, a suppression order made in 2023 on mental-health grounds, matches Carr's case point for point. That match is this desk's own reasoning from converging, checkable facts, not a claim any single source makes outright."},{"a":83,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The manner of his unmasking matters as much as the naming itself. Carr's order did not fall because a court found against him. It fell because, on Monday 3 August 2026, his own legal team abandoned the application to extend it, and Judge Gucciardo lifted the interim order once the decision was no longer his to make. A stay application argued afterwards, on mental-health evidence and a challenge to the jury verdict, was rejected. Carr was sentenced on 25 August 2026 to six years, with a four-year non-parole period. His lawyers have flagged an appeal to the Court of Appeal; none has been confirmed as filed or decided."},{"a":83,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"That sequence confirms the published article's thesis: the interim phase, not the conviction, is where the decision gets made. This follow-up tests the thesis against two other jurisdictions running comparable machinery under different law. In Queensland, a non-publication order over an unnamed 'high-profile married man' was upheld on judicial review on 28 August 2026. In New South Wales, the Supreme Court has restrained a broadcaster from publishing a private group chat and suppressed four identities. Neither rests on a statute a state election pledge could amend."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Carr's identity had been suppressed since 2023, on mental-health and safety grounds under section 18(1)(c) of the Open Courts Act 2013 (Vic), a provision that two legal commentaries, Mondaq and Armstrong Legal, describe in identical terms as necessary \"to protect the safety of any person.\" The ground was never tested against him and found wanting. It ended when his own lawyers stopped asking to keep it."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"3 August 2026","t":"The Monday on which Carr's legal team abandoned the application to extend his suppression order, without explanation. Judge Gucciardo then lifted the interim order; the decision, in the reporting's own words, had been taken out of his hands.","src":"ABC News, 5 August 2026"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A stay application followed once Carr was facing sentence. His lawyers argued partly on mental-health evidence and partly on a challenge to the jury's verdict; one report's headline compared the application to the case of the 'last man hanged in Australia'. Judge Gucciardo rejected it."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Sentencing came on 25 August 2026. In the County Court of Victoria, before Judge Gucciardo, Carr was sentenced to six years with a four-year non-parole period, for two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault at his West Melbourne home, offending dated to 23 March 2023."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"f","x":"Six years","t":"Carr's sentence, handed down 25 August 2026 in the County Court of Victoria before Judge Frank Gucciardo: six years with a four-year non-parole period, for two rapes and a sexual assault at his West Melbourne home on 23 March 2023.","src":"ABC News, 25 August 2026; corroborated by Variety, Billboard and Noise11"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"One caution attaches to naming him at all. Carr's lawyers are reported to be expected to lodge appeal documents with the Court of Appeal within two months of sentencing; as of 9 September 2026 no appeal has been confirmed as filed or decided. Reporting his sentence as handed down is safe. Treating the conviction as beyond challenge is not."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A second caution belongs alongside it, and it never lifts. The woman Carr was convicted of raping remains automatically unidentifiable under Victorian law, a protection that runs independently of whatever happens to Carr's own name or his own order."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The identification itself rests on convergence, not a single confirming source. As published in August, the earlier piece described him only as an entertainment and sports manager, and every specific detail it gave, the court, the judge, the two rapes and a sexual assault, the March 2023 offending date, a suppression order made in 2023 on mental-health grounds, matches Carr's case exactly. Outlets naming him independently also describe him as a talent and entertainment manager. No single report states that Carr is the man the earlier article meant; that identification is this desk's own reasoning from converging, checkable facts, and it is offered as such."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Move north, and the same interim machinery runs on a different basis, or on no statute at all. In late May 2026 the Cairns Magistrates Court made a non-publication order over the identity of a man reporting refers to as 'MM', a high-profile, married Queenslander who is neither the defendant, the complainant nor a witness in the case underneath it: a domestic-violence-related extortion charge, in which the defendant is alleged to have threatened to reveal an affair between his former partner and MM. That charge is alleged, not proven, and remains so throughout this account."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Four media outlets, including the ABC, sought judicial review of the order in the Supreme Court of Queensland; the other three outlets have not been named in any reporting located for this article. A hearing was held on 31 July 2026, and on 28 August 2026 Justice James Henry dismissed the review. The order remains in force."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"28 August 2026","t":"The date Justice James Henry, Supreme Court of Queensland, dismissed the judicial review brought by four media outlets, including the ABC, against the Cairns non-publication order over MM's identity. The order remains in force.","src":"ABC News, 28 August 2026"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Justice Henry's reasoning did not rest on a Queensland statute equivalent to Victoria's section 18(1)(c). It rested on the court's own power to protect the administration of justice."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"q","t":"extortion and blackmail cases may fall in the 'exceptional category of cases where non-publication orders are needed to secure the proper administration of justice.'","x":"Justice James Henry, Supreme Court of Queensland, per ABC News, 28 August 2026"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"He had gone further than protecting MM's bare name. At the earlier hearing he signalled the order needed to reach beyond identification of MM alone, to protect the extortion complainant's own fear of exposure."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"q","t":"It's not about protecting identity; it's actually going further than that.","x":"As put in the 31 July 2026 hearing, per ABC News"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Costs submissions in the case were listed for 7 September 2026. No outcome of that hearing had been reported as of the date this article was compiled."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"f","x":"7 September 2026","t":"The date costs submissions were listed in the Queensland judicial review. No outcome had been reported as of 9 September 2026.","src":"ABC News, 28 August 2026"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Enforcement of the order is not theoretical. A separate Cairns man has been charged over an alleged breach of it, accused of publishing suppressed material connected to MM on social media. That charge, too, is alleged, not proven. Nothing here adds to what has already been published about MM, the extortion defendant or his former partner; all three remain unidentified, and unidentifiable, in this account."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A third jurisdiction runs a third piece of machinery. In New South Wales, the Supreme Court, Justice McGrath, granted relief in AB v Australian Broadcasting Corporation, restraining the ABC, ABC journalist Marnie Vinall and a person referred to as 'GH' from using, disclosing or publishing the contents of a private group chat between three sports identities referred to as AB, CD and EF. The court also made suppression or non-publication orders covering the identities of AB, CD, EF and GH. None of the four is named here, none has been named in any source reviewed for this article, and the orders remain in force."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The content of that chat is not reproduced here beyond what is already in wide legal-press circulation: reporting has characterised it as containing jokes, insults and references to sexual acts and domestic violence. The material itself sits under an active confidentiality order."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Justice McGrath's own stated reason for the identity-suppression orders was protective."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"I need to ensure that as victims of that conduct they receive protection from the court rather have harm caused to them by revealing their identities.","x":"Justice McGrath, reasons at [64], AB v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2026] NSWSC 767, per UTS Faculty of Law"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The basis for the orders was not the Court Suppression and Non-publication Orders Act 2010 (NSW), the state's own general statutory framework for exactly this kind of order. It was the court's inherent jurisdiction, tied to the equitable doctrine of breach of confidence. Publication, on this reasoning, 'would achieve the very thing that the cause of action invoked by plaintiff is designed to prevent', and the order was necessary 'so the court can do justice between the parties', per a legal update from Wotton Kearney."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The case's date, which this article first printed as contested, is 1 July 2026. Inforrm's media-law round-up of 6 July 2026 and Mediaweek both report that Justice McGrath handed down the ruling in AB v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2026] NSWSC 767 on 1 July 2026, and Mediaweek reports that the identity suppression was part of that ruling. [16] [19] The two other dates printed earlier do not displace it: 13 August 2026 is the date UTS Faculty of Law posted its case note, not a date of the court's reasons, and the 9 July 2026 date taken from the Wotton Kearney update is not repeated in any other report located. [5] [15]","r":[16,19,5,15]},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"f","x":"1 July 2026","t":"The date Justice McGrath handed down the ruling in AB v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2026] NSWSC 767, restraining publication and suppressing identities, as reported by Inforrm and Mediaweek. 13 August 2026, printed here earlier, is the date of the UTS Faculty of Law case note.","src":"Inforrm, 6 July 2026; Mediaweek; UTS Faculty of Law, 13 August 2026"},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The relief granted on 1 July 2026 is interlocutory: it holds while the case continues, and no final hearing has been reported. The primary NSW Caselaw text has not been opened for this article; the date rests on the two reports cited. [16] [19]","r":[16,19]},{"a":83,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said three sources gave three different dates for AB v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2026] NSWSC 767 and that none could be printed as settled. Inforrm and Mediaweek both date the ruling to 1 July 2026, and the 13 August 2026 date this article attributed to the court's reasons is the posting date of the UTS Faculty of Law case note. The section, its fact box and the sidebar now give 1 July 2026, and the description of reference [5] has been corrected. [16] [19]","r":[5,16,19]},{"a":83,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Set the pledge beside all three mechanisms. On 11 August 2026, a fortnight after Ben Carroll became Premier on 28 July following Jacinta Allan's resignation, Carroll and Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny promised that, if Labor wins the state election on 28 November 2026, they will amend the Open Courts Act 2013 so that convicted rapists cannot keep suppression orders."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The government also said, separately from the headline pledge, that it will review the use of interim suppression orders and the grounds on which they are issued in criminal trials. No bill or exposure draft has been located in the record searched; this is a stated scope of review, not a text to assess."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Read against Carr's own case, the pledge targets a moment that had already resolved itself without it. His order did not survive to be stripped by any future amendment; it lapsed because the people holding it stopped asking to keep it. Read against Queensland and New South Wales, the pledge's reach is narrower still. Section 18(1)(c) is a Victorian statute; a Victorian parliament can amend it. Justice Henry's power to protect the administration of justice in Queensland, and the inherent, equitable power the New South Wales Supreme Court exercised in AB v ABC, are neither of them anchored to a section any state election promise names. They are common-law and equitable authority, the kind courts hold independently of any single Act, in any state."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"None of this is a claim that the machinery elsewhere is being used improperly. Justice Henry protected a person who is not the accused in his own case. Justice McGrath protected people the court found to be victims. Nothing here disputes either finding. The point is narrower and more mechanical: a promise to amend one Victorian Act, if it is kept, changes nothing in Cairns or in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, because the power exercised in both places was never inside that Act to begin with."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Two threads remain open, and neither should be treated as closed by this article. The Queensland costs decision, listed for 7 September 2026, had not been reported by the time this was compiled. And Carr's flagged appeal against his conviction has not been confirmed as filed, let alone decided; nothing here should be read as anticipating either outcome."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The published article's own closing instruction remains live: watch the interim order, because that is where the secrecy is assembled. This follow-up adds that the same interim order, and its Queensland and New South Wales equivalents, sit outside whatever a single Act's amendment can reach. A reader who wants to test any of this for themselves has three fixed points to check against: a Queensland costs list, a New South Wales ruling of 1 July 2026, and a lawyer's stated intention to appeal. None of the three will move because this article was published."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section listed the date of AB v Australian Broadcasting Corporation as an open thread. It is now dated to 1 July 2026 (see 'A third order, a third basis'), so the heading and text list two open threads. [16] [19]","r":[16,19]},{"a":83,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"None of the people caught in this machinery chose it. Carr's silence ended because his own side stopped asking to keep it, not because a judge weighed the public interest against him. MM's silence continues because a judge weighed exactly that interest and found for the order. AB, CD, EF and GH remain unnamed because a New South Wales judge found in their favour on a different question again, doing justice between named parties. None of these outcomes is presented here as wrong."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What links them is that each rests on power a legislature does not simply hold in its hand. Victoria can rewrite section 18(1)(c). It cannot rewrite the inherent jurisdiction a Queensland or New South Wales judge exercises, because that power was never a section to begin with. A pledge that targets one Act, in one state, at one phase of one kind of case, leaves the rest of the machine running exactly as it was."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Watch the 7 September costs decision. Watch whether the interlocutory orders in AB v ABC, made on 1 July 2026, survive to a final hearing. And watch whether an election pledge aimed at a statute changes anything at all in the places where the power being exercised was never statutory to begin with."},{"a":83,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The instruction to watch for a reading that settles the date of AB v ABC has been replaced, since the ruling is now dated to 1 July 2026. [16] [19]","r":[16,19]},{"a":84,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The card surcharge ban took the fee off the receipt, but the RBA says shoppers at businesses that surcharged will pay similar amounts via the sticker price.","r":[4]},{"a":84,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Ministers framed the $1.6 billion as a saving. It is the RBA's estimate of surcharges already paid, and no official estimate of a net consumer saving was found.","r":[1,3]},{"a":84,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The $910 million is a cut in merchants' wholesale card costs, not money in shoppers' pockets; whether it reaches them depends on pass-through.","r":[6]},{"a":84,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"On this outlet's analysis, where shops raise prices, cash payers now carry the card cost too. No measured price data exist yet; the October CPI is due on 25 November.","r":[44,39]},{"a":84,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 1 October 2026 the card networks’ ban on surcharges took effect. In a joint release that day, the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, with Daniel Mulino and Andrew Leigh, wrote: “Consumers will no longer pay around $1.6 billion in card surcharges when debit and credit surcharging ends today.” [1] The evening before, at about 7:06 pm AEST, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, posted on X that surcharges were “costing Australians $1.6 billion every year” and that “your morning coffee could be cheaper...” [2]","r":[1,2]},{"a":84,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The $1.6 billion is the estimate of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the RBA, of the card surcharges consumers paid in 2024/25 on the eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks. [3] For shoppers at the businesses that surcharged, the RBA’s own summary says they “will pay similar amounts as they are paying now (just in a different form, via the sticker price rather than the surcharge)”. [4] The Governor, Michele Bullock, said two days before the ban began: “the cost of taking cards and cash will be built into the price. That’s the way it will work.” She added that lower merchant service fees “will partly offset the effect on merchants”. [5]","r":[3,4,5]},{"a":84,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The line came off the receipt. Did the cost go with it? Five questions follow: is $1.6 billion a saving, where do the card fees go, did prices rise, who bears the cost, and what do cash payers now pay. This account is as at 2 October 2026, the second day of the ban, and this outlet found no measured price data yet."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The RBA estimates that about 16 per cent of merchants surcharged designated-network payments in 2024/25. [3] The $1.6 billion is a model, not a count: the RBA scaled merchant-level surcharging data up to all designated personal cards, and the estimate “includes unexpected surcharges that obscure the total amount consumers are paying”, a point for the ban. [3][6]","r":[3,6]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"$1.6 billion","t":"Card surcharges the RBA estimates consumers paid in 2024/25 on the eftpos, Mastercard and Visa networks, out of about $1.8 billion in all; businesses paid the other $0.2 billion. It is a bill that was paid, not a measured saving."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The “save” framing comes from ministers. The Treasurer’s release of 31 March 2026 opened: “Australians will no longer pay $1.6 billion a year in surcharges and small businesses will save $910 million”, and said the changes would “save consumers and businesses money”. [7] Reuters reported that the government said the change would save Australians A$1.6 billion a year in fees, and SmartCompany reported the Prime Minister on Facebook promising “saving you money every time you tap”. [8][9]","r":[7,8,9]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The RBA’s own 31 March media release contains no dollar figure at all. [10] The RBA did once frame a saving itself: in July 2025 its preliminary estimates were that consumers “would pay around $1.2 billion less in surcharges per year”, though the same draft said “some of the consumer benefits from the reduction in surcharges would be offset by higher prices charged by merchants”. [11][12] Asked on 29 September whether the ban would deliver “meaningful relief for households facing cost of living pressures”, the Governor did not claim a saving. [5]","r":[10,11,12,5]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"q","t":"will pay similar amounts as they are paying now (just in a different form, via the sticker price rather than the surcharge)","x":"RBA, At a Glance summary of its March 2026 Conclusions Paper, on consumers who shop at businesses that currently surcharge","r":[4]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"In the documents this outlet read, neither the RBA nor the Treasurer publishes an estimate of what consumers save once prices adjust."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Strictly, it is the card networks’ rules that ban surcharges. The RBA’s Payments System Board decided to “remove surcharging by lifting the prohibition on ‘no-surcharge’ rules for all designated card networks”, and eftpos, Mastercard and Visa “each decided to introduce ‘no-surcharge’ rules from 1 October 2026”. [6][13] The legal change is a Reserve Bank instrument that commenced on 1 October and repeals the clauses which had stopped card scheme rules from prohibiting surcharging up to the cost of acceptance. [14]","r":[6,13,14]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Enforcement sits with the networks. “The card networks are ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance with these rules, not the RBA,” the RBA says, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says of itself: “The card networks or payment service providers are responsible for enforcing these rules, not the ACCC.” [13][15]","r":[13,15]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"American Express and UnionPay withdrew from their RBA undertakings on 1 October and have decided to remove surcharging, and PayPal’s no-surcharge rule starts on 5 October. The RBA says these firms “are not currently subject to formal regulation by the RBA”, and that network rules “may be subject to change”. [13][16][17]","r":[13,16,17]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"No legislated ban has been announced in the sources this outlet checked; the RBA says that if surcharging continues it “could recommend that the Government legislate a ban on surcharging”. [6] The only dated government pledge this outlet found is conditional and about debit: on 15 October 2024 the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Assistant Treasurer said they were “prepared to ban debit card surcharging from 1 January 2026, subject to the consultation undertaken by the RBA”. [18] What arrived took effect nine months later and covers credit as well. [1][10]","r":[6,18,1,10]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A merchant’s cost of taking cards has three parts: interchange fees, scheme fees and an acquirer or payment service provider margin. [19] In 2023/24 interchange was about 65 per cent of merchant service fees on domestic credit cards but about 30 per cent on domestic debit. [12] Merchant service fees are around $7 billion a year, the RBA says, excluding costs such as terminal rental. [20][3]","r":[19,12,20,3]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"What fell on 1 October was the interchange cap: on domestic consumer credit cards from 0.8 to 0.3 per cent, and on debit and prepaid cards from 10 cents or 0.2 per cent to 8 cents for a fixed fee or 0.16 per cent for a percentage fee. [21][22] Scheme fees are not capped: acquirers paid $992.1 million in net scheme fees on domestic-issued cards in 2024/25, around one-sixth of merchants’ domestic card costs. [23]","r":[21,22,23]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"$910 million","t":"The RBA’s estimate of how much lower merchants’ wholesale card costs will be each year, counting a cap on foreign-issued cards that starts only on 1 April 2027. It is a cut in merchants’ costs, not money in shoppers’ pockets; whether it reaches shoppers depends on pass-through."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Treasurer’s 31 March opening line gave the $910 million to “small businesses”, yet the body of the same release says “Lower fees for businesses”, and the RBA attaches the figure to merchants generally. [7][6] The RBA also estimates that domestic issuers’ interchange revenue falls by about $660 million a year, assuming no other changes in behaviour; AAP reported on 1 October that the new cap “will deliver around $660 million a year in lower payment costs for businesses”. [22][24]","r":[7,6,22,24]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Issuers told the RBA they could cut rewards points, shorten interest-free periods or raise credit card interest rates, and the RBA says issuers, not merchants, should bear the cost of rewards. [22][21] ANZ raised the purchase rate on its First, Frequent Flyer and Rewards cards to 22.49 per cent a year as of 28 September 2026, and from 28 October lifts its cash advance fee from 3 to 3.5 per cent and caps points; its card-changes page does not mention the RBA or interchange. [25] THE AIRLINE RORT’s ‘The frequent flyer financial machine’ follows how rewards points are sold to banks and retailers, and THE INFLATION RORT’s ‘The savers’ share’ sets what banks pay savers beside what they charge borrowers, on the RBA’s own tables.","r":[22,21,25]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Visa’s schedules point to an offset the RBA anticipated: from 1 October one domestic consumer credit rate of 0.30 per cent, where its June schedule had a 0.20 per cent standard rate (Visa defines standard consumer products as Classic and Gold), while premium rates fell to 0.30 per cent. [26][27][22] These are headline schedules only and do not show what any merchant pays.","r":[26,27,22]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"As read on 2 October, some pass-through has happened: CommBank cut the merchant service fee on its single-rate plans from 1.10 to 0.99 per cent, Westpac cut its flat rate for eligible EFTPOS terminal and PayWay customers from 1.20 to 0.79 per cent, and Stripe cut its online domestic rate from 1.7 to 1.65 per cent, while Square’s in-person rate stayed at 1.6 per cent and Zeller advertises 1.4 per cent in person. [28][29][30][31][32][33] About three-quarters of merchants are on single-rate or blended plans, where pass-through overseas was generally lowest, and the first public pass-through data is due by 30 January 2027. [20][13]","r":[28,29,30,31,32,33,20,13]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Accountant Todd Hodkinson told Accountants Daily that he suspects there may be more pricing of the kind “$101.50 for card payments or $100 for cash”, and added: [34]","r":[34]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Merchant fees haven’t been abolished. We’ve just abolished the line on the receipt telling you about them.","x":"Todd Hodkinson, accountant, to Accountants Daily"},{"a":84,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The RBA’s Payments System Board “anticipates that the 16 per cent of merchants that currently surcharge may increase their advertised prices to cover the cost of accepting card payments”. [6] It also says shopping at those merchants “should not result in a material change in the total price paid by consumers”; its word “negligible” covers only the inflationary effect of merchants rounding prices up. [22]","r":[6,22]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"0.1 per cent","t":"The RBA’s estimate of the one-off lift to measured consumer prices if all $1.6 billion in surcharges moved into sticker prices. Surcharges were never in the CPI, so part of any measured rise is a cost consumers were already paying."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The reports so far are single businesses, not a sample. Reuters quoted Rusty Rabbit Cafe owner Peter Semaan saying he raised food and cold drink prices by about A$2 on average, and Sydney bar owner Dre Walters saying “100% this will be passed on.” [8] Bloomberg reported that Ross Surace, of Lennox Street Deli in Moonee Ponds, was preparing to add 50 cents to a coffee. [35] The ABC reported that salon owner Sheridan Shaw “has been forced to increase her pricing” and that restaurant owner Peter Papas “has increased his prices”. [36]","r":[8,35,36]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Against those, a poll of a MYOB webinar audience found only one in five small businesses had decided to adjust prices, 7 per cent had chosen to absorb the cost and 29 per cent were unsure; the audience was self-selected, with 62 per cent of respondents surcharging most card payments, against 16 per cent of merchants nationally. [37]","r":[37]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The ACCC’s worked example is a $60 haircut with a 1.0 per cent surcharge, which would become $60.60 if card costs were built into the price; a salon that moved to $65 because of energy and labour costs “must not tell consumers that the price increase is due to the changes to card payment surcharging”. [38] No measured data exist yet. The ABS releases the October 2026 Consumer Price Index, the first month under the ban, on 25 November, and warns that release dates may change. [39] The Governor made her remarks at the 29 September media conference on the rise in the cash rate to 4.60 per cent, which THE INFLATION RORT’s ‘Four rises in 2026’ sets out. [5]","r":[38,39,5]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"f","x":"85 and 89 per cent","t":"Small and large merchants, respectively, that did not surcharge, on the RBA’s figures. Their prices already carried the cost of taking cards before 1 October; the RBA says lower fees there may result in lower prices."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"For those merchants nothing is new on the receipt. For the 16 per cent that surcharged, someone must now carry the cost the surcharge used to cover. Not every business eats it: some absorb it, some raise prices and some move it into other lawful fees, and as at 2 October 2026 no source has measured the split; in MYOB’s self-selected poll, 7 per cent had chosen to absorb it. [37] ACCI’s chief executive, Andrew McKellar, told the ABC: “Some small businesses are going to have to absorb those costs, and in some cases, it’s just going be passed through still to consumers.” [36] COSBOA’s chief executive, Skye Cappuccio, said on 17 September: “For a small business, there is no such thing as a cost that simply disappears.” [40]","r":[37,36,40]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Some sellers cannot simply reprice. The RBA refused exemptions to merchants with regulated prices, such as pharmacies and lottery agencies, and says it is informing governments and price regulators “so that price regulators can take this change into account in their future decisions”. [41] Central Coast councillor Jared Wright estimates the ban will cost the council about $400,000 in lost fees and says raising fees is a “multi-month process”; these are a councillor’s estimates, not council documents. [42]","r":[41,42]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Other fees sit outside the change: the RBA says it does “not apply to weekend surcharges, public holiday surcharges, or booking fees or service fees”. [13] A Sydney cafe owner, David Bitton, told SBS he would lift his weekend surcharge from 10 to 12 per cent rather than raise menu prices, and the ACCC told SBS it is “aware of concerns about businesses introducing fees described as platform, booking or service fees”, but said such fees are not necessarily prohibited. [43]","r":[13,43]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"No rule imposes a new fee on cash. What follows is analysis, not an RBA finding. At a shop that surcharged, a cash payer used to escape the card cost; if the shop raises its sticker price, the cash payer now pays that rise with everyone else. At the rest, the card cost was already in the price. Stakeholders warned the RBA of this in the consultation, arguing that removing surcharging would “Increase costs for cash users if the price of goods and services increases for all consumers regardless of how they pay”. [44]","r":[44]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The RBA’s head of payments policy, Ellis Connolly, told the ABC: “the consumer was paying it either way, whether it was paid in a surcharge or whether it was paid in the end price.” [42] The ABC quoted restaurant owner Peter Papas saying a customer who pays cash is “now subsidising credit card infrastructure providers, because everyone has adjusted their menu”. [36]","r":[42,36]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The remedy on offer is a cash discount. The RBA says businesses can continue to offer discounts for particular payment methods, and the ACCC says the price displayed must be the full price, with the discounted price not made more prominent. [13][38]","r":[13,38]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The RBA also states: “Recent studies suggest that cash is no longer clearly cheaper for merchants to accept”. [6] Where the Conclusions Paper footnotes that claim, in footnotes 14, 21 and 24, the only source it cites is Mastercard’s submission of 15 January 2025. [3] This outlet has not read that 15 January 2025 submission, and the RBA may rely on other studies.","r":[6,3]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Cash is still used: in 2025 about 15 per cent of payments by number and 8 per cent by value, and high cash users, around 7 per cent of respondents, are “somewhat more likely to be older and have lower household incomes”. [45]","r":[45]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"No source measures what cash payers have paid since 1 October. The RBA’s 0.1 per cent figure is an aggregate across all payers, not a cash-payer figure."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The case for the ban is real, and the RBA makes it well. The RBA’s consumer survey found 76 per cent of consumers want surcharging to stop, and only 13 per cent are always told about surcharges when they shop. [46] The RBA’s media release says removing surcharging “aligns with the preference of most consumers for payment costs to be incorporated into advertised prices”. [10] The $1.6 billion includes surcharges consumers could not see coming. [6]","r":[46,10,6]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The RBA says the old framework was undermined by single-rate payment plans, the difficulty of enforcing the rules and declining cash use, and that surcharging has doubled in prevalence since 2022. [6] Its analysis found surcharging made minimal difference to merchants’ costs: a merchant taking $1 million in card payments would save an estimated $36 from surcharging. [41]","r":[6,41]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Lower credit interchange narrows the average gap between consumer debit and credit cards from 0.4 to around 0.25 percentage points, so debit users cross-subsidise credit card rewards less. [22] The RBA’s media release says small businesses “should benefit the most” because they tend to pay fees closer to the existing caps. [10]","r":[22,10]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Economist John Hawkins, quoted by the ABC, said of the cost of providing cash payments: “One way or another people are going to have to pay for it and it’s proper that they should.” [47] In its response to the RBA’s 2025 consultation paper, Mastercard said that “surcharging is antiquated and that a ban is required”, and the ABA said that banks “strongly support” the ban. [48][49]","r":[47,48,49]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The documents this outlet read contain no official estimate of a net saving to consumers, no source has measured how the cost splits between businesses and shoppers, and no measured price data exist; the October CPI is due on 25 November. Fee data from the networks and large acquirers is due by 30 October and pass-through data by 30 January 2027, and this outlet found no list of which acquirers count as “large”. [13] Mastercard’s interchange schedule could not be read, and the post-1 October Australian rule text of the networks has not been located. No penalty amount for a merchant that keeps surcharging exists in any public source this outlet found. Reuters is cited from syndicated wire copy, because reuters.com could not be read, and the ACCC’s pages show no publication date, so they are cited as at 2 October 2026; one of them was modified at 8:50 am AEST that day.","r":[13]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Right-of-reply questions to the RBA, the Treasurer’s office, Visa, Mastercard, Australian Payments Plus, the ACCC and the Australian Banking Association had not been sent when this article was published; any answers will be added as dated updates."},{"a":84,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"The line came off the receipt, and the RBA expects the cost to show up in the price at the shops that surcharged. [4][5] The real, conditional gain is the $910 million cut in merchants’ wholesale costs, which in this outlet’s reading has to be passed on twice, from acquirer to merchant and from merchant to shopper. [6] This case will test it on 30 October, 25 November and 30 January 2027.","r":[4,5,6]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s8-b2","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Article 2 turns to a payee that took a different course. The Australian Taxation Office announced on 1 October that it will stop accepting credit cards after 30 November 2026, saying “it would not be appropriate for the cost of credit card merchant fees to be transferred to the community.” [50]","r":[50]},{"a":84,"at":"at-s8-b4","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [46], given as a bare link to the RBA's conclusions page, now names the document and the consumer survey figures it carries. [46]","r":[46]},{"a":85,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"The ATO will stop taking credit cards after 30 November 2026, saying the cost of merchant fees should not be transferred to the community.","r":[1]},{"a":85,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Until 30 September it charged 0.94 to 2.03 per cent on credit and international cards, a fee it said equalled what its bank charged it.","r":[4]},{"a":85,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Businesses that can no longer surcharge are told to put card costs into prices. On this outlet's reading, a tax bill has no shelf price, so the ATO drops the card instead.","r":[6,1]},{"a":85,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"ACCI called it “utter hypocrisy”. Card-linked payment plans must be switched before the next instalment due after 30 November, or payments will fail.","r":[15,29]},{"a":85,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The Australian Taxation Office will stop accepting credit cards as a payment method after 30 November 2026, so the last day a credit card works is Monday 30 November [1]. Only credit cards end: the ATO says other payment methods will remain available [2]. Its announcement is dated 1 October, the day the surcharge changes began, and the copy distributed through Medianet is stamped 00:01 that day [1][3].","r":[1,2,3]},{"a":85,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"If you heard the ATO stopped taking credit cards on 30 September, note the dates: an archived copy of its payment page, taken at 7:46am AEST on 30 September, still listed card fees [4]; a copy taken at 8:13am AEST on 1 October reads “Card payment fees do not apply to payments” [5]. The fee came off between those two copies; the credit card itself goes after 30 November.","r":[4,5]},{"a":85,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Its reason is one sentence: as a government agency, the ATO “has decided it would not be appropriate for the cost of credit card merchant fees to be transferred to the community” [1]. From the same day eftpos, Mastercard and Visa applied no-surcharge rules, and the RBA says the cost of accepting cards “can be reflected in a business’s overall pricing” [6]. A tax bill has no shelf price to carry a card cost: that is this outlet’s reading, not the ATO’s, and the case against it is set out below.","r":[1,6]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Until 30 September 2026 the ATO charged a fee on card payments, published in a table on its payment page: nothing on debit cards, and between 0.94 and 2.03 per cent on credit and international cards, depending on the card [4].","r":[4]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"0.98 per cent","t":"The ATO’s card fee on a domestic Visa credit card until 30 September 2026, set equal to what its bank charged it. Mastercard domestic credit was 0.94 per cent, American Express 1.45 per cent, international Visa and Mastercard 2.03 per cent, and debit cards carried no fee."},{"a":85,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The ATO described the fee as “equal to the fee we incur from our bank,” not part of the ATO debt and not subject to GST [4]. On its own description, this was a pass-through at cost, not a revenue line.","r":[4]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Since 1 October the page says “Card payment fees do not apply to payments,” and credit cards, which still work until the cut-off, carry no fee [2]. Who pays the bank’s charge in that window is not on the ATO’s record. The natural reading is that the ATO does, since its page described the old fee as what its bank charged it; that is inference. SmartCompany wrote that the ATO would keep accepting credit cards “surcharge-free, for the next eight weeks” [7]. No ATO dollar figure for card costs appears in its release or on the pages this outlet read.","r":[2,7]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"An earlier change sits behind it: the Commonwealth Ombudsman said in April 2025 that from 1 January 2025 the government stopped applying merchant fee surcharges on debit card payments to the ATO and Services Australia [8].","r":[8]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The release opens “Following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Review of Merchant Card Payment Costs and Surcharging” [1]. The reason it gives is one sentence, which begins “As a government agency, the ATO has decided” and continues:","r":[1]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"it would not be appropriate for the cost of credit card merchant fees to be transferred to the community","x":"ATO media release, 1 October 2026","r":[1]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"2.3 per cent","t":"The approximate share of tax payments made by credit card in 2024-25, the ATO says. It adds that more than 60 per cent of card payments came from privately owned and wealthy groups and public and multinational businesses. It does not say whether these shares are by number or by value."},{"a":85,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Was the ATO free to stop? The RBA’s FAQ says businesses and other merchants “are generally able to choose which payment methods they accept,” including by withdrawing existing ones; it does not name government agencies [6]. Whether the card networks’ rules bound the ATO is not settled on the record this outlet read: the RBA says its changes do not limit the networks applying no-surcharge rules to particular types of payments, including “government-related payments,” and that any exemption is “a decision for each card network, not the RBA” [6]. The ATO’s release says nothing about network rules [1]. Visa’s public rulebook, in the edition of 18 April 2026 and so written before the ban, let government merchants under listed codes, including tax payments, collect a permitted surcharge separately; that was permission to collect a surcharge, not an exemption from a ban, and nothing this outlet found shows it survives 1 October [9].","r":[6,1,9]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"A legal thread runs back to 2024. On 22 November 2024 three ministers said the government had received advice that “the collection by a Commonwealth entity of a payment surcharge is likely unlawful in certain circumstances without a legislative basis to permit it” [10]. Four days later Angus Taylor told the House that the Opposition had been advised the analysis was supported by Australian Government Solicitor advice, which it had not seen [11]. The Commonwealth Entities (Payment Surcharges) Act 2024 then let the Minister set surcharging policies by legislative instrument [12]; this outlet's title search of the Federal Register on 2 October 2026 found no such instrument, which supports but does not prove that none exists [13].","r":[10,11,12,13]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The government’s explanation, as this outlet found it, comes from Industry Minister Tim Ayres. He told News24 on 1 October that credit card payments were being stopped “because the surcharge is paid by the taxpayer. It’s kind of perverse,” and, saying the ATO was “a large customer” and there was “a really strong public case for lowering the surcharge,” that “Credit card companies wouldn’t come to the party on that question” [14]. Neither the ATO nor the card companies have said what, if anything, was negotiated.","r":[14]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [13] pointed to the Federal Register's home page as if it were a document. The finding that no instrument was located is this outlet's own search, and the sentence and reference now say so. [13]","r":[13]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"ACCI, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, attacked the decision on 1 October. Its chief executive, Andrew McKellar, said in ACCI’s release it was “utter hypocrisy that the ATO, a government agency, refuses to absorb the costs of extending payment options to credit cards,” and that it was little wonder small businesses were angry when decisions like this were “deliberately hidden until the last moment” [15]. That is ACCI’s characterisation: the ATO’s release was distributed at 00:01 on 1 October, and when the decision was made is not on the record [3].","r":[15,3]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"At a Parliament House press conference the same day he called the move “a staggering act of hypocrisy” and “a staggering double standard,” and said the Tax Office was saying “they will not wear it” [16]. ACCI’s release was headed “as rates and inflation climb” [15], and the Reserve Bank had raised the cash rate to 4.60 per cent two days earlier [17], the subject of THE INFLATION RORT’s ‘Four rises in 2026’.","r":[16,15,17]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"McKellar also said, without giving a source, that “40 per cent of all payments that are made by credit card come from small business” [16]. The ATO says more than 60 per cent of card payments came from privately owned and wealthy groups and public and multinational businesses, which leaves under 40 per cent for all other payers together [1]. Whether both can hold depends on how each is counted and whether the groups overlap; the ATO does not say whether its shares are by number or by value, and McKellar gave no source.","r":[16,1]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson said: “There is one rule for Canberra and another rule for the corner store” [18]. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, said: “you couldn’t make it up” [19]. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said in a statement: “Businesses are expected to absorb these fees, while the ATO avoids them by withdrawing credit card payments” [20]. Independent MP Allegra Spender said on breakfast television that the ATO “should reverse this” [19].","r":[18,19,20]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"From the government side, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Ayres told News24 on 2 October: “The credit card companies are charging too much, and that is a charge, ultimately, on the taxpayers because the ATO has to pay it” [19]. The 1 October release from Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino and Assistant Minister Andrew Leigh, announcing the end of surcharges, does not mention the ATO [21].","r":[19,21]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The strongest case for the ATO starts with its own words: as a government agency, it did not think it appropriate for the cost of credit card merchant fees to be transferred to the community [1]. Ayres makes the same argument, quoted above: the charge falls on taxpayers because the ATO has to pay it [19]. The fee was never ATO revenue: by its own description it equalled what its bank charged it [4].","r":[1,19,4]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On this outlet’s reading, the ATO cannot fold a fee into a price the way a cafe can. SmartCompany’s David Adams wrote that without legislative change it would be difficult for the ATO to add a card cost to a taxpayer’s obligations; that is a journalist’s analysis, not a ruling [7]. More than 60 per cent of card payments came from the privately owned and wealthy groups and big businesses described above [1]; absorbing the fee would have the community pay the card fees on their payments, which is analysis, not an ATO statement. An OzBargain post on 1 October, a community post and not a source of fact, framed the fee-free window as a chance to “harvest reward points” on tax payments [22].","r":[7,1,22]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The 2024 advice sits behind it [10], and NSW reported a similar finding: it said on 23 October 2024 that Crown Solicitor’s Office advice between February 2016 and December 2022 had flagged Service NSW’s merchant fees as unlawful [23]. Other payment methods remain, BPAY, EFT, direct debit, Government EasyPay for debit cards and Australia Post among them [24], and the ATO says it “recognises that some taxpayers currently rely on credit card payments to manage their tax payments” and will continue to support those experiencing financial hardship [1]. COSBOA, the small business peak body, said: “We understand the ATO’s decision, but it must take a practical and flexible approach” [25].","r":[10,23,24,1,25]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"What follows is the ATO’s published information and what third parties advertise, as at 2 October 2026; it is information, not advice."},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"f","x":"11.51 per cent","t":"The ATO’s general interest charge, a year, compounding daily, for October to December 2026. It applies to tax debts, including debts on a payment plan, and was 11.43 per cent in July to September."},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The ATO says tax debts on a payment plan “continue to accrue GIC, which compounds daily” [26]; the rate is 11.51 per cent a year for October to December 2026, up from 11.43 per cent in July to September [27].","r":[26,27]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"After 30 November the ATO lists BPAY (biller code 75556) and online services, which it calls the quickest, EFT to its Reserve Bank account (BSB 093 003), direct debit, Government EasyPay for debit cards, Australia Post, mail and international transfer; it does not yet have PayID [24][28]. A direct debit from an Australian cheque or savings account takes at least 7 working days to activate [24].","r":[24,28]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A payment plan linked to a credit card must be switched before the next instalment due after 30 November, or payments “will be unsuccessful and the status of your payment plan may move into arrears or default” [29]. A plan is not a substitute for a card: interest-free plans for activity statement debts need, among other tests, a turnover under $2 million and that the business “can’t obtain finance (such as a loan) through normal business channels” [30]; an ATO spokesperson says plans are “not ... a long-term cashflow management or business financing tool” [31].","r":[29,30,31]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Accountant Belinda Raso told ABC AM that many small businesses “get out a credit card, pay that GST bill, pay their BAS and then pay it off” [32]; CA ANZ’s Geraldine Magarey said businesses that rely on cards “will need to have funds available when payments are due” [31]. For how rate rises fall on firms of different sizes, see THE INFLATION RORT’s ‘Are corporations untouched?’.","r":[32,31]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Third-party services take a card payment and pay the ATO for a fee. pay.com.au says it pays the ATO “by bank transfer” and requires an active ABN [33][34]; its fees guide lists, excluding GST, a free-plan fee of 1.00 per cent on Mastercard, 1.20 per cent on Visa and 2.10 per cent on American Express, with lower rates on monthly plans [34], and its FAQ says the Mastercard fee rose 0.2 points from 1 October, which the guide does not yet show [35]. Sniip says it pays the ATO by BPAY from its trust account [36], and its page lists ATO payments “tiered from 1.75% + GST” and says Visa, Mastercard and Diners are processed at a flat 1.5 per cent including GST [36]. These are the companies’ own claims and prices. Our arithmetic, labelled as ours: pay.com.au’s free-plan Visa fee of 1.20 per cent plus GST is 1.32 per cent, against the ATO’s old 0.98 per cent on domestic Visa credit [34][4].","r":[33,34,35,36,4]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Do these services sit inside the surcharge ban? Every “not a surcharge” statement above is the company’s own. AusPayNet, speaking for eftpos, Mastercard and Visa, defines a payment surcharge as a fee applied “because a consumer pays by card,” and NAB says a fee applied because a customer is paying by card is a surcharge, whatever it is called [37][38]. Neither names these services, no network or regulator has ruled on them, and the ACCC says the card networks or payment service providers, not the ACCC, enforce the no-surcharge rules [39]. It is an open question, and this outlet does not rule either way.","r":[37,38,39]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"What follows is page text as read on 2 October 2026, not a test of any payment screen, so “its page says” is all this outlet can report. The Department of Finance’s payments page still says card payments “may incur a surcharge,” with rates from 0.26 per cent to 1.59 per cent [40]; Home Affairs’ visa page, last updated 23 September 2024, still lists 1.40 per cent on Visa and Mastercard, including debit cards [41]; the Services Australia child support card page shows a 0.00 per cent card processing fee [42]; and ASIC, AFSA and the Passport Office still accept Visa and Mastercard on the pages read, none mentioning a card surcharge or an exit from credit cards [43][44][45].","r":[40,41,42,43,44,45]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"State agencies, VicRoads and one council this outlet checked removed surcharges, not cards. Queensland Revenue Office says no card surcharge applies from 1 October 2026; it was 0.488 per cent on Visa and Mastercard until 30 September [46][47]. Queensland TMR, VicRoads and RevenueWA say card surcharges or merchant fees no longer apply from 1 October 2026 [48][49][50], and Central Coast Council’s page says card surcharges no longer apply for eftpos, Mastercard and Visa [51]. Councillor Jared Wright estimated the ban would cost that council about $400,000 in lost fees, a councillor’s estimate and not a council document [52]. In NSW, Revenue NSW’s direct card merchant fees had been switched off by 23 October 2024 [23].","r":[46,47,48,49,50,51,52,23]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Mandarin wrote that the ATO decision “opens the door for state agencies and local governments to follow suit”; that is a forecast, and its author has advised Mastercard and eftpos [53]. In the government payment pages this outlet read, the ATO is the only payee found dropping credit cards.","r":[53]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Who pays the ATO’s bank charge from 1 October to 30 November, what it costs, and what the ATO paid its bank in card fees in 2024-25 are not on the record. Nor is whether the 2.3 per cent and the 60 per cent are counted by number or by value, or how many small businesses depend on card tax payments. We do not know whether the card networks’ rules applied to the ATO, whether the 2024 Act’s authority would have let it keep surcharging, which of these drove the decision, or when it was made. Nor do we know what Ayres meant when he said the card companies “wouldn’t come to the party,” or whether the ATO asked its bank or the networks for a lower fee. The ATO’s BPAY page, last updated 4 March 2026, still says a bank can help make a BPAY payment from a credit card account, and the ATO has not said whether that continues after 30 November [28].","r":[28]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Senate Economics Legislation Committee sits for supplementary budget estimates on 28 and 29 October [54]; the program has not been published, so whether the ATO appears is not known. Right-of-reply questions to the ATO, the Treasurer’s office, the Finance Minister’s office, Ayres’s office, Visa, Mastercard, Australian Payments Plus, pay.com.au, Sniip and ACCI had not been sent when this article was published; any answers will be added as dated updates.","r":[54]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Two dates mark the change, and they are easy to confuse: on 1 October the card fee came off ATO payments, and after 30 November the credit card goes [2].","r":[2]},{"a":85,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Most businesses can no longer add the cost of accepting cards to a bill as a separate line, and the RBA’s line for them is that it can go into prices [6]. The first article in this case, ‘A line off the receipt’, sets out the RBA’s expectation that shoppers at businesses that surcharged “will pay similar amounts as they are paying now” through the sticker price [55]. The ATO, which has no shelf price, said it would not be appropriate to transfer the cost to the community, and decided to stop taking the card after 30 November [1].","r":[6,55,1]},{"a":86,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Police hacking powers created in 2021 carried a five year sunset meant to force a reckoning. Parliament moved it from 4 September 2026 to 4 September 2029 instead.","r":[2,12]},{"a":86,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The government’s own watchdog found the warrant system “not fit for purpose” and said the powers should be allowed to sunset if recommendations 6-8 were not implemented.","r":[3]},{"a":86,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The AFP’s annual report corrected its one claimed arrest from an account takeover warrant to “Nil”.","r":[8]},{"a":86,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The extension rode inside an omnibus crimes bill. The government says it keeps the powers until electronic surveillance reform is completed, a reform the Department of Home Affairs says it is still progressing, with draft legislation still in preparation.","r":[1,13,16]},{"a":86,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 4 September 2026, three of the most intrusive powers ever handed to Australian police were scheduled to die. Data disruption warrants let officers alter data on a device. Account takeover warrants let them assume control of an online identity. Network activity warrants let them monitor whole networks. Parliament attached a five year sunset when it created them in 2021. That date came and went, because with nine days to spare the extension received Royal Assent: the Act was assented on 26 August 2026, and the schedule moving the sunset to 4 September 2029 commenced the next day, eight days before the old deadline."},{"a":86,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The sunset was not decoration. It was the safeguard: a forced reckoning, on a fixed date, at which the powers would have to justify themselves from scratch or lapse. The reckoning happened. The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, the government's own reviewer, tabled a report on 1 September 2025 that made 21 recommendations and found that 'the main safeguard, the current system for issuing warrants, is not fit for purpose'. The Monitor said the powers 'should be allowed to sunset' if recommendations 6-8 were not implemented. They have not been implemented."},{"a":86,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Instead of a lapse, there is a schedule inside a schedule: Part 3 of Schedule 1 of the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026, which moved the sunset three years down the road (now Act No. 70 of 2026). Here is the mechanism to watch, because it is the whole story. A sunset clause that moves whenever it approaches is not a safeguard. It is safeguard theatre, and the omnibus bill is its stage."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The powers come from the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021, the statute that gave Australian police what plain language calls hacking powers: altering data, taking over accounts, monitoring networks. Powers of that reach were made politically possible by an expiry date. The promise embedded in the 2021 Act was that the powers were provisional, that they would face a genuine test before becoming permanent furniture."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The operational record since is thin. The powers were used 26 times over 2021-2024. Attributed arrests: nil. For a time the Australian Federal Police claimed one arrest flowing from an account takeover warrant. Appendix D of its Annual Report 2024-25 corrected that figure to 'Nil'."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"26 uses, nil arrests","t":"The hacking powers were exercised 26 times across 2021-2024 without a single attributed arrest. The AFP's own annual report corrected its previously claimed account takeover arrest to 'Nil'.","src":"AFP Annual Report 2024-25, Appendix D"},{"a":86,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The Monitor read the low numbers two ways. The ACIC and the AFP describe their use of the powers as judicious, and the report accepts that restraint is part of it: 'This shows that restraint is being exercised when using these significant powers.' But it adds, in the same paragraph, that 'practical limitations arise because of the complex technology and specialised skills required to execute some of the warrants', and later lists those limits as 'cost, resourcing and technological capability'. Low use, on the watchdog's reading, is partly choice and partly capacity."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"None of that settles whether the powers should exist. It settles something narrower and more important: whether the case for them was ever tested against results. Testing that case, on a fixed date, was the sunset's entire job."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The test the sunset was designed to force did in fact occur. The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor examined the regime and tabled its report on 1 September 2025, a year ahead of expiry. It made 21 recommendations. Its verdict on the machinery that issues these warrants was blunt."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"The review found that the main safeguard, the current system for issuing warrants, is not fit for purpose.","x":"Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, review of the SLAID Act, Executive Summary, tabled 1 September 2025"},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Monitor, Jake Blight, has since put the same finding in the first person in the UNSW Law Journal: 'Critically, I found that the current system for issuing warrants is not fit for purpose.' That is not outside scholarship confirming the report. It is the report's own author restating it, in an article written while the omnibus bill was still before Parliament."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The report is specific about what that means for one of the three powers. Network activity warrants, it found, 'allow surveillance of whole networks of people to gather intelligence \"relevant\" to crime, but without a requirement to have a reasonable suspicion that all those under surveillance are engaged in criminal activity.'"},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Monitor did not recommend scrapping the powers outright. He recommended that the AFP retain all three and the ACIC two, not data disruption, on conditions. His fix for the warrant system has three parts: 'retired judges as the issuing authorities; public interest monitors; and access to independent technical advice.' And he named the consequence of ignoring the conditions: the powers 'should be allowed to sunset' if recommendations 6-8 were not implemented. As of today they have not been. On the watchdog's own stated condition, the sun should have set."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The government's response, dated November 2025 and tabled in the House on 10 February 2026 and the Senate on 2 March 2026, agreed recommendations 1-3 and extends the powers 'in the first instance' pending the long promised electronic surveillance reform. By the Monitor's own count, the government agreed 4 of his 21 recommendations, agreed 2 in part and noted the other 15. The Monitor replied in a submission dated 7 April 2026, saying it was 'disappointing' that electronic surveillance reform was taking so long, and that the office was 'concerned'. Those are the watchdog's verbatim words about the fate of its own review."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously said the Monitor called the government's 'approach' disappointing. The Monitor's word 'disappointing' was about how long electronic surveillance reform is taking."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously sourced the 'not fit for purpose' finding to 'Dr Blight' in the UNSW Law Journal, as if that article documented the Monitor's finding from outside. The finding is in the Monitor's own report, which we now quote directly. Jake Blight is the Monitor; the INSLM's own website calls him Mr Jake Blight, and his journal article is his first-person account of his own review."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Now look at the vehicle. The extension does not travel as a bill about surveillance. It travels as Schedule 1 Part 3 of the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026, introduced on 11 March 2026 and passed by the House on 25 March 2026. The Senate agreed the second reading on 12 August 2026 and worked through Committee of the Whole across 12-13 August. When we first published this piece on 14 August 2026 the bill was still before the Senate, and we would not report its passage as fact. It is fact now. The Senate agreed the third reading on 20 August 2026, the House accepted the Senate's amendments the same day, and the bill received Royal Assent on 26 August 2026 as Act No. 70 of 2026. Schedule 1, which holds the extension, commenced on 27 August 2026, eight days before the old sunset. Two Opposition amendments were agreed on 17 August, one of them as amended by the Government. An amendment that would have brought the sunset forward to 1 July 2027 was not agreed. The powers now run to 4 September 2029, and the reckoning this sunset was built to force has been deferred again."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"What the schedule does is precise. It extends the sunset for data disruption warrants, network activity warrants and account takeover warrants, and the related emergency authorisations, from 4 September 2026 to 4 September 2029. There is one genuine narrowing inside it: the ACIC loses its data disruption warrant power, a change the Monitor himself supported. Note that, and note where it happened, inside a package rather than inside a debate about the powers themselves."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The government's case for the extension is in its own Explanatory Memorandum. Its Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights says the powers carry 'a range of safeguards, stringent thresholds, proportionality tests, and clear specifications regarding the actions permitted under each warrant', and that the schedule, 'while extending the sunsetting date for these powers, still preserves all existing safeguards and thresholds in the current framework.' The first safeguard on its list is issuance by 'a Judge or nominated Administrative Review Tribunal member' for data disruption and network activity warrants (a magistrate issues account takeover warrants). That is the machinery the Monitor found not fit for purpose. Every warrant examined in his review had been issued by Administrative Review Tribunal members, an arrangement he called 'inappropriate and unsustainable'. Preserving all existing safeguards, in other words, preserves the one the watchdog said does not work."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"That placement is the mechanism. A standalone bill titled to extend police hacking powers against the advice of the government's own reviewer would draw a standalone fight. An omnibus crimes bill draws a queue. The extension becomes one part of one schedule among many, priced into a package vote, and a surveillance extension that never has to survive a debate of its own is an extension that will almost always survive."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The stated justification for extending rather than reforming is that a bigger fix is coming. The electronic surveillance reform project flows from the Richardson Comprehensive Review. The project commenced in 2020 and was initially meant to take two years, with a bill originally due in 2023 on the government's own timeline. [3,17] It has not been delivered."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The government states that rationale in terms. Its Explanatory Memorandum says 'the extension of the sunsetting date is designed to ensure that the power remains in place until after the electronic surveillance reform is completed.' It is a coherent argument on its face. Its weakness is the one this section describes: it holds only for as long as the reform is actually coming."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"This is how 'in the first instance' becomes a permanent tense. The powers are extended because the mega reform is pending. The mega reform stays pending. Each time a sunset approaches, the pending reform is the reason not to let it fire, and the failure to deliver reform converts itself into the argument for extension. Delay is not the obstacle to the fix. Delay is the operating fuel."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"To keep this honest: the status we can verify for the reform project is that it has not been delivered. The Department of Home Affairs, which now runs it, describes the reform as a significant long-term undertaking that it is progressing, with the Government consulting while it prepares the draft legislation. [16] The Monitor's own office calls it a long-running and long overdue reform, run by Home Affairs. [14]","r":[16,14]},{"a":86,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. This section said the responsible department's project page could not be checked. It has now been: the Department of Home Affairs describes the electronic surveillance reform as a long-term undertaking it is progressing, with draft legislation in preparation, and the Monitor's office describes it as long-running and long overdue. The finding that the reform has not been delivered is unchanged. [14] [16]","r":[14,16]},{"a":86,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the reform bill was originally due in 2023 on the Richardson review's own timeline. The 2023 date was the government's: in December 2020 the government announced an overhaul of electronic surveillance laws after the review [17], and the reform project was initially conceived as a two-year project, with a bill to be finalised in 2023 [3]. The review itself said a new Act would take two to three years to draft, plus two years to implement [17]. The paragraph now says so.","r":[17,3]},{"a":86,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. The 7 October note above said the 2023 date came from the government's response to the review in December 2020, citing [17]. The iTnews report [17] carries the review's own drafting and implementation estimate, not a government promise of two years of consultation or a 2023 bill; the 2023 date is in the Monitor's report [3], and the note now says so. Reference [4] now also links the submission text, which carries the words 'disappointing' and 'concerned'. [3] [17]","r":[17,3,4]},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The extension debate concerns 26 uses of exotic powers. The routine surveillance machine runs at another scale entirely, and its annual reports land with almost no coverage. Our researchers read the primary PDFs and re-summed the tables."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"f","x":"357,864","t":"Warrantless metadata authorisations were made under s178 of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act in 2024-25, to enforce the criminal law. No warrant is required for a s178 authorisation; warrantless is the exact word. That is about 1,000 a day.","src":"TIA Act Annual Report 2024-25"},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 24 September 2026. This article previously gave this figure as 364,868. The TIA Act Annual Report 2024-25 gives 364,868 as the total authorisations for existing telecommunications data made by 21 agencies; of those, 357,864 were made to enforce the criminal law under s178."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. The image above previously showed this figure as 364,868, and its kicker described the bill as before the Senate. The graphic has now been corrected to 357,864, and to Act No. 70 of 2026, Schedule 1 in force 27 August 2026."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Victoria Police made 136,155 of those authorisations and NSW Police 126,775, leaving Victoria the largest user in the country for at least the second consecutive year. In 2023-24 the split was 129,561 to 124,079. The lead widened from about 5,500 to about 9,400."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"f","x":"A$37,106,182.52","t":"The compliance cost the data retention regime imposed on industry in 2024-25, as recorded in the same annual report that almost nobody reads.","src":"TIA Act Annual Report 2024-25"},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"f","x":"1 warrant","t":"One journalist information warrant, the warrant the scheme requires before data can be accessed to identify a journalist's source, was issued in 2024-25. It went to South Australia Police, for the enforcement of the criminal law, and one data authorisation was made under it. It sits in Tables 38-39 of the annual report, essentially unreported.","src":"TIA Act Annual Report 2024-25, Tables 38-39"},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously said the 2024-25 journalist information warrant was issued 'to identify a journalist's source'. The annual report records its purpose as the enforcement of the criminal law; identifying a journalist's source is what the warrant scheme exists to control, not a purpose the report states for this warrant."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The same annual report also covers Part 15 of the Telecommunications Act, the industry assistance scheme created by the 2018 TOLA laws, and it fills in that picture: 58 voluntary Technical Assistance Requests in 2024-25, down two from 60 the year before, 43 of them from NSW Police, five each from the ACIC and Victoria Police, four from the AFP and one from South Australia Police. Compulsory notices: zero Technical Assistance Notices, which the report records as 'a decrease of two from 2023-24' (both of the previous year's notices were the AFP's), and zero Technical Capability Notices. In 2024-25 every recorded piece of assistance flowed through the voluntary channel; the compulsory notice powers went unused."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously attributed the TOLA industry assistance figures to a 'Surveillance Devices Act Annual Report 2024-25'. They are in the combined Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 and Part 15 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 Annual Report 2024-25, the same report cited above for the s178 figures. The figures themselves were correct."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The pattern is not confined to one bill. The ASIO Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025 passed the House on 12 February 2026 and is before the Senate, where the last recorded debate was on 14 May 2026 and the Law Council of Australia's most recent update is dated 28 May 2026. The government has since proposed an amendment retaining the sunset on ASIO's compulsory questioning powers. The usage ledger there is thinner still: 20 questioning warrants sought since 2003, and five since 2006, per the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Rarely used powers, and a debate over their sunset running in a chamber most people are not watching."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"So name the case plainly. THE SURVEILLANCE RORT is not a person and it is not a plot, and no misconduct is implied of any individual in this story. It is three interlocking mechanisms. A sunset clause that supplies the appearance of a deadline without its force. An omnibus vehicle that lets an extension pass without ever surviving a standalone debate. And a perpetually unfinished mega reform that converts delay itself into the argument for extension. Each part is lawful. Together they make expiry practically impossible, which means the safeguard sold to the public in 2021 was never load bearing."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Watch the date, not the rhetoric. The new sunset is 4 September 2029, now law. The reform that justifies the extension was due in 2023. The watchdog's conditions for letting the powers continue remain unmet; its own words were that the pace of reform is 'disappointing', and that it is 'concerned'. When 2029 approaches, the test will be simple: does the sun finally go down, or does the calendar move again. Everything you need to know about this safeguard is in that answer."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 25 September 2026. The 4 September 2026 sunset has passed and the extension commenced on 27 August 2026. This article previously still described the new sunset as applying 'if the Senate agrees', and spoke of the old date as arriving this week."},{"a":86,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Reference [4], the Monitor's submission of 7 April 2026, pointed only to the Monitor's home page; it now gives the submission's own page. [4]","r":[4]},{"a":87,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A NSW bill lets police seek a judicial order compelling you to unlock your phone with no search or crime-scene warrant needed first. Refusal rises from 5 years to 7.","r":[2]},{"a":87,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"It is sold as an organised-crime measure, but the offence list reportedly includes fraud, kidnapping and firearms offences, where linked to organised crime, a link that two people planning together can meet.","r":[3]},{"a":87,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The same bill opens Harbour Bridge and Tunnel toll cameras to police unredacted and enrols driver-licence photos in national facial recognition.","r":[2]},{"a":87,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"NSW Police already made 126,775 of the nation’s 357,864 warrantless s178 metadata authorisations in 2024-25. Records give 24 or 25 September 2026 as the bill’s passage.","r":[5,1,7]},{"a":87,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On Thursday 6 August 2026, Police Minister Yasmin Catley stood in the NSW Legislative Assembly and introduced the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Further Organised Crimes Reforms) Bill 2026. The second-reading debate was adjourned. As this article is published on 14 August 2026, the bill is before the parliament, and it may move within days. Its centrepiece is a new instrument with a careful name: the 'Digital Evidence Access Order (organised crime)'."},{"a":87,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Strip the name back and the function is plain. Today, if NSW police want to compel you to unlock your phone, the demand rides on a search warrant or a crime-scene warrant. Something else must already exist before your passcode can be required of you. This bill detaches that precondition for a list of prescribed serious offences, and raises the penalty for refusing to unlock from 5 years to 7. The order is still issued by a judicial officer. What changes is what must exist before police can ask for it."},{"a":87,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The same bill gives police unredacted access to toll cameras, starting with the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Harbour Tunnel. It enrols NSW driver-licence photos in the National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution. It doubles NSW Crime Commission non-compliance penalties to 10 years. All of it is sold under an organised-crime brand. Here is the mechanism to watch, because it is the whole story: powers introduced against the least sympathetic targets, written broader than the story used to sell them, and bolted onto infrastructure that was built for something else."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"It is tempting to reach for the word warrantless. Resist it. A Digital Evidence Access Order is a judicially issued order: police apply to a judicial officer, and the judicial officer decides. Nobody is removing the judge from the room. To keep this honest: the change in this bill is which judicial gate applies to compelled unlocking, and what must already exist before police can seek the order. It is not the removal of judicial oversight."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"But the detachment matters, and it matters structurally. Under the current arrangement, compelled unlocking is an accessory to a search warrant or a crime-scene warrant. The warrant is the anchor. The compulsion inherits the warrant's existence, its subject matter and its discipline: police had to justify a search of a place before they could demand entry to a device found there. Detach the order from that anchor and compelled access to a device becomes a standalone product, something police can seek in its own right for any offence on the prescribed list, with no search or crime-scene warrant required to exist first."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"7 years","t":"The new maximum penalty for refusing to unlock a device under the bill, raised from 5 years. Silence gets two years longer at the same moment the precondition for demanding it gets thinner.","src":"NSW Government ministerial media release, 6 August 2026; NSW Parliament bill record, billId 18942"},{"a":87,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That is the trade at the heart of the bill. The judicial signature survives. The anchor does not. And a power that once travelled only with a search now travels alone."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The government presents the order as an organised-crime measure; the words are in the bill's title and in the name of the order itself. The offence list tells a wider story, with one caveat. The bill text was not directly readable when this article was prepared, so the list must be attributed: an explainer published by nswcourts.com.au on 11 August 2026 reports that the prescribed offences include fraud, kidnapping and firearms offences, where the offence is linked to organised crime; the explainer says that link can rest on planning by two or more people, substantial planning, systemic activity, or a motive of power, profit or retribution. That is broader than the gangland framing. Fraud, in particular, can meet that test with no gang involved: on this outlet's reading, a fraud planned by two people would qualify. [3]","r":[3]},{"a":87,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Call this mechanism the gangland wedge: a power is introduced against the least sympathetic targets it can be attached to, and drafted wider than the story used to sell it. The wedge is not an allegation of bad faith against any individual. It is a recurring pattern in how surveillance powers are legislated, and it works precisely because each step is defensible on its own. The label on the bill and on the order itself is an organised-crime label. The categories in the offence list, as reported, are ordinary criminal-law categories."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Watch the list, not the label. When the bill's schedule becomes readable, the distance between the two is the measure of the wedge."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The branding did its work across two tranches. On 5 June 2026, the parliament passed the popular gang-crackdown measures as a separate bill. That June bill contained no surveillance measures. The surveillance tranche arrived on 6 August 2026, under the same organised-crime brand."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The sequencing is the tell. If the surveillance measures were inseparable from the gang crackdown, they would have travelled in the June bill. They did not. They arrived alone, wearing the same jacket. The crackdown supplied the public story; the second tranche supplies the compelled-access order, the toll cameras and the facial-recognition enrolment. Two bills, one brand, and only one of them is about gangs all the way through."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A compelled-unlocking power is only as significant as the capacity standing behind it. To keep this honest: the following figures are reported, not verified by THE RORT. Two independent outlets, each citing NSW Police documents released under GIPA freedom-of-information laws, report that NSW Police operate about 160 Cellebrite extraction kits, and that the force examined 13,897 phones in FY22-23, 7,765 in FY23-24 and 9,132 in FY24-25. The underlying documents were not read for this article."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"About 160 Cellebrite kits","t":"The reported size of the NSW Police phone-extraction fleet, alongside thousands of phones reportedly examined every year. The bill does not build this capacity. It lowers the threshold at which the existing capacity can be pointed at a person.","src":"GIPA-based reporting by two independent outlets citing NSW Police FOI documents (reported, not verified)"},{"a":87,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Set those reported numbers beside the verified ones from article 1 of this series. In 2024-25, agencies nationally made 357,864 warrantless authorisations for telecommunications metadata under s178 of the TIA Act. NSW Police accounted for 126,775 of them. And of the 58 voluntary industry-assistance requests made nationally under the TOLA regime, NSW Police made 43."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 24 September 2026. This article previously gave the national s178 figure as 364,868. The TIA Act Annual Report 2024-25 gives 364,868 as the total authorisations for existing telecommunications data made by 21 agencies; of those, 357,864 were made to enforce the criminal law under s178, and NSW Police's 126,775 is drawn from that s178 figure."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"126,775 of 357,864","t":"NSW Police's share of the nation's warrantless s178 metadata authorisations in 2024-25. The same force made 43 of the 58 voluntary TOLA assistance requests, the clear majority of the national total.","src":"TIA Act Annual Report 2024-25; SDA Annual Report 2024-25, homeaffairs.gov.au"},{"a":87,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The pattern is consistent, and it reframes the bill. This is not a force acquiring a new capability. It is a force that already accounts for 126,775 of the nation's 357,864 s178 authorisations asking for a shorter path to a capability it already runs at scale."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The bill's third element has nothing to do with passcodes. Toll cameras on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Harbour Tunnel were installed to collect tolls. Under this bill, police receive unredacted access to them, and the Bridge and Tunnel are described as the starting point. Your driver-licence photo was taken to prove you may drive. Under this bill, NSW driver-licence photos are enrolled in the National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution, the national driver-licence face-matching system. Whether wider categories of images follow is unconfirmed; the confirmed category is driver-licence photos."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"f","x":"10 years","t":"The doubled maximum penalty for non-compliance with the NSW Crime Commission, carried in the same bill as the compelled-access order, the toll-camera access and the facial-recognition enrolment.","src":"NSW Government ministerial media release, 6 August 2026"},{"a":87,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Call this second mechanism infrastructure conversion: systems built for one purpose, wired to another. A toll gantry never asked to be a surveillance camera. A licence database never asked to be a face-matching index. Conversion is cheap, quiet and close to irreversible, because the hardware is already mounted and the photographs are already taken. No new camera is announced. An existing one simply acquires a second customer."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"So watch the bill for what it is, not what it is called. The gangland measures already passed, in June, on their own, and carried no surveillance clauses. What is before the parliament now is a surveillance tranche: a compelled-access order detached from the search-warrant precondition, a longer sentence for silence, toll cameras opened to police without redaction, licence photos enrolled in a national matching system, and a doubled penalty for defying the Crime Commission. Each piece is defensible in isolation. The assembly is the point."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"And the assembly outlives the story that sold it. Offence lists grow. Starting points extend. A judicially issued order that no longer needs a search warrant to exist becomes the ordinary route, because it is the easier route. None of that requires misconduct by any minister or any officer; it requires only that legislated infrastructure behave the way legislated infrastructure always behaves. The rort, as ever, is the mechanism."},{"a":87,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This article was published on 14 August 2026, when the bill was before the parliament. It has since moved: a NSW Government ministerial release of late September 2026 announces that the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Further Organised Crime Reforms) Bill 2026 has passed the NSW Parliament, including the Digital Evidence Access Orders, police access to unredacted toll-road camera images and the doubled Crime Commission non-compliance penalty. Assent and commencement have not been confirmed for this update. The article's account of the bill as introduced is unchanged. [7] References [3] and [5], which pointed only to home pages, now give the specific explainer and the Home Affairs annual report; reference [6] is no longer relied on, because the TOLA figures it was cited for are in the annual report at [5]. References [1] and [2] now give the bill page and the 6 August release. The second section said the offence list includes fraud, kidnapping and firearms offences without saying that an order is available only where the offence is linked to organised crime; it now states that test, as the explainer at [3] reports it. Search reports give the date of passage as 24 or 25 September 2026; that conflict, assent and commencement remain unconfirmed.","r":[7,3,5,6,1,2]},{"a":87,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. The 7 October note above gave the ministerial release [7] as of late September 2026 and the date of passage as 24 or 25 September. The release [7] was published on 25 September 2026 and says the bill passed Parliament \"last night\", which points to 24 September. The bill page [1], read on 8 October 2026, records the Legislative Assembly agreeing to the Legislative Council's amendments on 24 September 2026 but lists the bill as passed by Parliament on 25 September 2026. The two records do not give the same date of passage, and this note does not settle it. The bill page also shows the bill assented on 1 October 2026 as Act No. 37 of 2026; commencement remains unconfirmed.","r":[7,1]},{"a":88,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"A ban on under-16s became an age check for adults: since 27 June 2026, Google and Bing must apply age assurance to logged-in users in Australia.","r":[1]},{"a":88,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"App-store age checks apply from 9 September 2026, and Apple has blocked unverified 18+ downloads since 24 February 2026.","r":[2,3]},{"a":88,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The government’s own trial found even the best facial age estimation systems averaged 1.3-1.5 years of error.","r":[9]},{"a":88,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The maximum penalty doubled in law from 12 September 2026, but this outlet’s search found no fine under the ban reported as of 25 September 2026.","r":[13,11]},{"a":88,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Private businesses can apply to join the government’s Digital ID System, AGDIS, from the end of 2026.","r":[5]},{"a":88,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 10 December 2025, Australia's minimum-age obligation for social media came into force. It was presented as one rule for one cohort: children under 16, kept off the platforms. The measure was popular then and it is popular now. Most Australians understood they were getting a ban on kids. What they were getting was a timetable."},{"a":88,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"Watch the calendar. On 27 December 2025, the search-engine industry code commenced. Since 27 June 2026, age assurance for logged-in Google and Bing users has been in force. Six further industry codes, registered on 9 September 2025, took effect on 9 March 2026, with app-store age-check obligations arriving from 9 September 2026. Apple has blocked unverified 18+ app downloads in Australia since 24 February 2026. And at the end of 2026 the Australian Government Digital ID System, AGDIS, starts taking applications from private business: accredited private providers can join from 30 November, the Finance Minister says; private businesses can apply from December, on the system's own website."},{"a":88,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"No agency publishes that sequence in one place. THE RORT has assembled it, each rung checked against the primary source, and read together it stops looking like child protection and starts looking like architecture. Within roughly a year of the ban commencing, every layer of the Australian internet, the platform, the search box, the app store, will have asked an adult to prove something about who they are. Here is the mechanism to watch, because it is the whole story."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Take the rungs one at a time, because that is how they were announced, and each on its own sounded modest. The under-16 obligation of 10 December 2025 applied to social media platforms. On 27 December 2025, an industry code for search engines commenced. It sounded technical because it is technical. Its consequence was not. Since 27 June 2026, if you are signed in to Google or Bing in Australia, the service has been obliged to apply age assurance to your account. Not your child's account. Yours. You did not join a social platform. You typed a query into a search box, and the search box needed a view about your age before it decided what you were allowed to see."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"27 June 2026","t":"The date from which age assurance for logged-in Google and Bing users has been in force in Australia, under the search-engine industry code that commenced on 27 December 2025.","src":"eSafety Commissioner, search-engine industry code pages"},{"a":88,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The wider stack was already moving. Six Phase 2 industry codes were registered on 9 September 2025, before the ban itself commenced, and took effect on 9 March 2026. Their app-store age-check obligations arrive from 9 September 2026. Apple did not wait for the deadline: since 24 February 2026, its developer notice confirms, unverified accounts in Australia have been blocked from downloading 18+ apps."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"f","x":"9 September 2026","t":"App-store age-check obligations take effect under the Phase 2 codes, which were registered on 9 September 2025 and have been in force since 9 March 2026. Apple moved early, blocking unverified 18+ downloads from 24 February 2026.","src":"eSafety Commissioner fact sheet; Apple developer notice"},{"a":88,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"None of these rungs was hidden. Each was published, consulted on and brought into force in the ordinary way. The point is not secrecy. The point is that nobody presented the ladder, only the rungs, and a rung at a time is how a ladder gets built without anyone voting on the ladder."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The first mechanism is the child-safety wedge. To keep a person under 16 off a platform, the platform must form a view about the age of everyone who arrives. There is no version of an age gate for children that does not become an age check for adults, because the system cannot know who the children are without assessing everybody. The engineering makes the politics: once the check exists for the hardest case, extending it to search engines and app stores is a matter of scheduling. The timetable above is that schedule, executed."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"To keep this honest: the ban itself is popular, and the harms to children online are real. This article disputes neither. Its target is the architecture built on top of the ban, the layers that turn a gate for children into an identity reflex for everyone, and the industry and enforcement apparatus that architecture sustains."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Two limits on the check are real and belong in any honest account of it. The penalties fall on platforms, not families: eSafety's guidance says 'There are no penalties for under-16s who access an age-restricted social media platform, or for their parents or carers.' And a platform cannot make government ID the only door. Section 63DB of the Online Safety Act bars a platform from collecting government ID, or using an accredited digital ID service, for age checks unless it 'provides alternative means' for a person to show they are not under age, and section 63F requires information collected for age assurance to be destroyed after it has been used. Those are the rules of the check. They are not a reason it is not a check."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Note also what this series keeps saying: a rort is a mechanism, not a villain. No official or company named in this article is accused of misconduct. Each acted inside its mandate. The regulator registered codes. The companies complied, some ahead of schedule. The wedge does not need a schemer. It only needs nobody to be responsible for the whole."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The second mechanism is the guaranteed market. Every legislated check needs a vendor to perform it, and a check mandated across platforms, search engines and app stores is a customer base handed over by law. Age-assurance providers did not have to win Australian adults as customers, one by one, on the merits of their product. Parliament and the codes delivered those customers in bulk, with compliance deadlines attached."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The market did not start from nothing. The Attorney-General's Department's report for 2024-25, the year before the ban, records that its Document Verification Service 'was used 133,140,077 times by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, and the private sector.' Of the 2,228 entities using it, 2,109 were private businesses and 119 were government users. The Face Verification Service was used 2,492,804 times, by a single government agency. The Face Identification Service recorded no transactions. Verifying Australians' identity documents was already a private-sector habit, on government rails, before the first child was kept off a platform."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"So it is worth asking how good the product is. The government ran its own Age Assurance Technology Trial, and the final report is plain about the ceiling. Even the best systems' facial age estimation averaged 1.3-1.5 years of error. Typical vendors averaged 2.4-2.7 years. At a threshold of 16 or 18, an error band measured in years is not a rounding issue. It decides who gets waved through and who does not."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above said typical vendors in the Age Assurance Technology Trial averaged 2.4-2.7 years of error. The trial's final report [9] gives no average for a \"typical vendor\", so that framing was ours and it was wrong. What the report does print, in Part D, are pooled error figures by age across the providers tested, and near the age thresholds they run from about 2.4 to 3.0 years. For the 13+ age gate, across 7 providers, the mean absolute error was 2.46 years at true age 13 and 2.72 years at true age 15. For the 16+ age gate, across 6 providers (two further providers were excluded from that table by the report for consistently poor performance at that gate), it was 3.02 years at true age 15, 2.7 years at true age 16 and 2.41 years at true age 17. Those are figures for the pooled providers at particular ages, not a typical-vendor average. The figure the report gives for the best-performing systems, in Part A and in the key statistics in Part D, is a mean absolute error of 1.3-1.5 years. We have removed the 2.4-2.7 figure from the key fact below rather than restate it in the wrong terms. The point that an error band measured in years matters at a threshold of 16 or 18 stands on both sets of figures.","r":[9]},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"f","x":"1.3-1.5 years","t":"Average facial age estimation error for the best-performing systems in the government's own trial.","src":"Age Assurance Technology Trial, final report"},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"q","t":"'some [systems] exhibited reduced accuracy for non-Caucasian users, older adults or female-presenting users near age thresholds'","x":"Age Assurance Technology Trial, final report","src":"infrastructure.gov.au"},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Precision cuts both ways, so be careful what you attribute to that report. Its Part D claims no substantial difference in accuracy for First Nations users, and the trial never analysed socioeconomic status at all. The demographic finding it did make is the one quoted above, and no more. This masthead does not improve on the record to make a point, and the point does not need improving: the law has mandated, at national scale, a technology whose own commissioning trial measured its errors in years."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 30 September 2026. The paragraph above said Part D of the trial report claims no substantial difference in accuracy for First Nations users. The words are the report's, but they are in Part A, key finding 7 (\"Broad demographic consistency\"), which says the trial \"found no substantial difference in the outcomes for First Nations and Torres Strait Islander Peoples\" [9]. Part D qualifies that finding at paragraph D.13.4: the trial found no consistent or statistically significant evidence of adverse performance for First Nations users, but noted that sample sizes in subgroup testing were inadequate and that further validation is warranted [9]. We should have given both. It follows that the finding quoted above was not the report's only demographic finding. The reference for the trial report also named ageassurance.com.au, which on 30 September 2026 returned only a server default page; the report is on the Department of Infrastructure's site, infrastructure.gov.au, and the reference and the quotation above now say so.","r":[9]},{"a":88,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The third mechanism is enforcement theatre. The under-16 obligation has been in force since 10 December 2025. On 31 March 2026 eSafety named five platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, and said it 'is continuing to gather evidence necessary to inform potential enforcement action.' Among the practices it listed was 'Enabling children aged under 16 to repeatedly attempt the same age assurance method to ultimately obtain a 16+ outcome.' Clayton Utz, in May 2026, reported that eSafety's compliance update drew on '23 legally enforceable information-gathering notices issued to 10 platforms, five of which are now the subject of active investigations into potential non-compliance.' As of 25 September 2026, THE RORT has found no report of a fine, infringement notice, enforceable undertaking or public Platform Provider Notification against any platform under the minimum-age law."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Then, on 28 June 2026, the Prime Minister announced the maximum would double, 'from $49.5 million to $99 million'. Parliament made it law. The Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2026, Act No. 83, received assent on 11 September and took effect on 12 September. It lifts the penalty for failing to keep under-16s off a platform from 30,000 to 60,000 penalty units, and a company can be ordered to pay five times that: 300,000 units. At $364, the value of a penalty unit since 1 July 2026, that is $109.2 million, on our calculation; the announced $99 million is the same 300,000 units at the old value of $330. Sit with that sequence. A maximum that doubles while the count of actual fines holds at zero is not deterrence being sharpened. It is justification being maintained. The unenforced number does the political work of seriousness, while the checks rolling out across search boxes and app stores do the practical work of normalisation."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 25 September 2026. This article first reported the doubled penalty as a plan announced 'around 30 June 2026' at 'about A$99 million'. The announcement was made on 28 June 2026 and the increase is now law, in force from 12 September 2026. The higher ceiling applies only to conduct on or after that day. Anything the five named platforms did before it is measured against the old ceiling of 150,000 penalty units for a company: $49.5 million for conduct before 1 July 2026, and $54.6 million for conduct from 1 July to 11 September 2026, after the penalty unit rose from $330 to $364. The Act also lets the Commissioner demand information from anyone who holds it, not only platforms, which the government says includes 'third parties, such as age assurance or app-store providers', and lets eSafety examine a person on oath about a platform's compliance."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"f","x":"0 fines","t":"Fines reported under the under-16 minimum-age law as of 25 September 2026, while its maximum penalty for a company doubled in law from 150,000 to 300,000 penalty units, for conduct from 12 September 2026.","src":"eSafety, 31 March 2026; Clayton Utz (May 2026); Online Safety Amendment Act 2026 (No. 83)"},{"a":88,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"One precision the headlines routinely skip: a maximum is not a fine. The minimum-age penalty attaches directly to a platform's failure to take reasonable steps to keep under-16s off it; no prior direction is needed. But it is a ceiling a court may impose, not a sum anyone has been ordered to pay, and zero is a count for this law only. Under other parts of the Online Safety Act, eSafety has penalised platforms: Telegram received an infringement notice for $957,780 in February 2025, and on 21 May 2026 the Federal Court ordered X Corp, by consent, to pay $650,000 for not fully complying with a transparency notice about child sexual exploitation material. That notice was given to Twitter in February 2023. The judge said 'A penalty near the maximum is appropriate.' From notice to penalty took more than three years."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 25 September 2026. This article previously said the existing A$49.5 million code penalty attaches to breach of a direction to comply, not to the code breach itself. The A$49.5 million figure was the maximum for the under-16 obligation for conduct before 1 July 2026, and for that obligation the chain is wrong: the penalty in section 63D of the Online Safety Act attaches directly to a platform's failure to take reasonable steps, and eSafety lists civil penalties among its enforcement powers under that law without any direction step. The article also quoted eSafety as 'gathering evidence'; its words were that it 'is continuing to gather evidence necessary to inform potential enforcement action.'"},{"a":88,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The last date on the timetable is the one to sit with. At the end of 2026, AGDIS, the Australian Government Digital ID System, starts taking applications from private business, to join as a provider or as a relying party that asks you to prove who you are. The Finance Minister says 'from 30 November 2026'; the system's own website says 'from December 2026'. It arrives with scale already built: by the Minister's count in December 2025, there are '15 million myIDs', and verified transactions through AGDIS 'have more than tripled to reach 80 million'. Every rung before it built demand: platforms that must exclude under-16s, search engines that must assess logged-in users, app stores that must check ages from September. AGDIS supplies the other side of the market: the government's own way for private companies to have you prove who you are."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Digital ID Act has its own safeguard for that moment, and its own gap. A business that joins the government system generally may not make a digital ID the only way to use its service. But the Digital ID Regulator may grant an exemption where the business 'provides services, or access to services, solely online', which describes every platform in this article. Until private businesses can join, the safeguard does not reach them at all."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Follow the sequence as a build order. September 2025, the codes are registered. December 2025, the ban lands and the search code commences. February 2026, Apple locks unverified 18+ downloads. March 2026, six codes take effect. June 2026, logged-in search users face age assurance. September 2026, the app stores, and a doubled penalty becomes law. November and December 2026, the government's own identity rails open to business applications. Demand first, supply last. That is not a conspiracy. It is a construction schedule, and it is on time."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"So name the whole thing plainly. A protection nobody could oppose was the wedge. The wedge normalised checks that handed an age-assurance industry a legislated customer base, running technology whose own government trial measured error in years. And the enforcement that justified the entire structure has, on the public record to 25 September 2026, issued no fines under the ban, even as Parliament doubled its maximum penalty. Three mechanisms, one architecture, and no vote, at any point, on the architecture itself."},{"a":88,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"So when a service asks you to prove your age, or your identity, in the months after the end of 2026, remember the order of events, because the order is the story. The children were the reason. The adults were the market. And the fine that made it all sound like law enforcement had not been issued on the last count: this outlet's search of eSafety's enforcement releases and compliance updates found no fine under the minimum-age law to 25 September 2026, and a repeat search on 7 October 2026 found none either. [10] [11]","r":[10,11]},{"a":88,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the fine under the ban had 'never been issued', and the subtitle said enforcement 'has issued zero fines'. Both were stated as absolutes. They now give what was checked: this outlet's search of eSafety's enforcement releases and compliance updates found no fine under the minimum-age law to 25 September 2026, and a repeat search on 7 October 2026 found none. eSafety's own pages describe investigations into five platforms as continuing. [10] [11]","r":[10,11]},{"a":89,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Optus’s outage on 8 November 2023 left 2,145 unsuccessful emergency calls, ACMA found, and Optus then failed to make 369 welfare checks it was required to make.","r":[1]},{"a":89,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"ACMA’s chair said its findings indicated the outage should have been preventable.","r":[2]},{"a":89,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Three Optus companies paid infringement notices totalling $12,000,420, ending the matter without a court case. The Optus Mobile notice says payment is not an admission of liability.","r":[3]},{"a":89,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Twenty-two months later a second major outage hit. ACMA has gone to the Federal Court, alleging 1,005 contraventions, which are untested.","r":[4]},{"a":89,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Optus's nationwide outage on 8 November 2023 left 2,145 unsuccessful emergency calls, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found, and Optus then failed to carry out 369 welfare checks it was required to make [1].","r":[1]},{"a":89,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"It took just under a year to reach an ending. Three Optus companies paid infringement notices totalling $12,000,420, dated 4 November 2024 and announced four days later [2][3]. An infringement notice is a penalty set by the regulator, which a company can pay to end the matter without going to court. \"Payment is not an admission of liability,\" the notice for Optus Mobile states [3]. This article sets out what ACMA found, how it ended, and the same duty enforced elsewhere in the same period, before the record returns to Optus twenty-two months later.","r":[2,3]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Access to Triple Zero is not left to a telco's discretion. In a media release of 30 July 2026 about the second major Optus outage, of 18 September 2025, ACMA described the duty in its own words [4].","r":[4]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"q","t":"Giving access to the emergency call service is not optional, it is a fundamental legal obligation and the most important public safety responsibility telecommunications providers have","x":"ACMA, media release, 30 July 2026"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That is the duty ACMA found Optus had failed in November 2023."},{"a":89,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Of the 2,145 unsuccessful emergency calls ACMA counted, 2,144 were made to 000 or 112, the calls ACMA treats as access failures: 2,091 on Optus Mobile, 41 on Optus Networks and 12 on Optus Internet. One further call went to 106 [1].","r":[1]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"2,145 unsuccessful emergency calls","t":"ACMA's count for 8 November 2023, by company: Optus Mobile 2,091, Optus Networks 41, Optus Internet 12 to 000 or 112 (2,144 in total), plus one call to 106.","src":"ACMA investigation report, November 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"ACMA also found that Optus failed to carry out 369 welfare checks it was required to make after unsuccessful emergency calls, a count taken after legal exceptions removed 1,593 calls: 361 for Optus Mobile and 8 for Optus Networks [1]. ACMA's chair said its findings indicated the outage should have been preventable [2].","r":[1,2]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Our findings indicate that Optus failed in the management of its network in a number of areas and that the outage should have been preventable.","x":"ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin, 8 November 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The three infringement notices covered 4,698 alleged contraventions of section 148(1) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act: Optus Mobile $11,098,980, Optus Networks $676,080 and Optus Internet $225,360, adding to $12,000,420 [3]. The notices ended the matter without a court case. They are dated 4 November 2024, just under a year after the outage, and ACMA announced them on 8 November [2][3].","r":[3,2]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"$12,000,420","t":"Three infringement notices, dated 4 November 2024: Optus Mobile $11,098,980, Optus Networks $676,080, Optus Internet $225,360, covering 4,698 alleged contraventions.","src":"ACMA infringement notices, 4 November 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Optus did admit part of it. Before the notices were issued, it acknowledged in writing that it had breached the welfare-check rule [1].","r":[1]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"In Optus' 24 September 2024 response, Optus acknowledged that it contravened subsection 28(1) of the Determination by failing to undertake a welfare check.","x":"ACMA investigation report, November 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The notices covered all 4,698 alleged contraventions between them. The notice for Optus Mobile states that payment carries no admission [3].","r":[3]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Payment does not equate to a finding that the contraventions occurred. Payment is not an admission of liability.","x":"Infringement notice, Optus Mobile, 4 November 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The same rules were enforced against Telstra the next month. ACMA said Telstra, the Emergency Call Person, paid a penalty of more than $3 million, announced on 11 December 2024, for what it said were 473 breaches, with 127 calls not transferred, during a disruption at its own Triple Zero call centre [5].","r":[5]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Telstra Limited (Telstra) has paid a penalty of more than $3 million for failing to comply with emergency call rules during a technical disruption at its Triple Zero emergency call centre.","x":"ACMA, media release, 11 December 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The disruption lasted about 90 minutes, on 1 March 2024 [5].","r":[5]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In the same period, a separate ACMA action turned on a different part of the Triple Zero system. On 6 March 2024, ACMA announced that Optus Mobile had paid $1,501,500 after failing to upload data for close to 200,000 Coles Mobile and Catch Connect customers to the Integrated Public Number Database between January 2021 and September 2023, the database Triple Zero uses for caller location [6]. The database also feeds the Emergency Alert warning system.","r":[6]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"f","x":"$1,501,500","t":"Optus Mobile's penalty, announced 6 March 2024, for failing to upload data for close to 200,000 Coles Mobile and Catch Connect customers to the Integrated Public Number Database, which Triple Zero uses for caller location.","src":"ACMA, media release, 6 March 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"ACMA also accepted a court-enforceable undertaking requiring an independent review of Optus's compliance with the database, and directed Optus to comply with the industry code that governs it."},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"q","t":"If the ACMA finds Optus fails to comply with the direction or the enforceable undertaking, it may commence proceedings in the Federal Court, which can order penalties up to $10 million per breach.","x":"ACMA, media release, 6 March 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"ACMA said it was not aware of anyone directly harmed by the failure."},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"q","t":"While we are not aware of anyone being directly harmed due to the non-compliance in this case, it's alarming that Optus placed so many customers in this position for so long.","x":"ACMA member Samantha Yorke, 6 March 2024"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"ACMA added that over the past 18 months it had taken action against five telcos for breaches of the same database rules, with financial penalties totalling more than $2 million [6].","r":[6]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s3-b10","s":3,"k":"p","t":"THE REPORTING RORT has already set the $12 million Triple Zero notices beside the country's privacy-breach enforcement record."},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Twenty-two months after the first outage, it happened again. On 18 September 2025, a second major outage hit Optus's Triple Zero calls. On 30 July 2026, ACMA began Federal Court proceedings against Optus Mobile, alleging 1,005 contraventions of two emergency call obligations. Those allegations are, at this point, untested [4].","r":[4]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"f","x":"22 months","t":"From the first Optus outage, 8 November 2023, to the second major outage, 18 September 2025.","src":"Computed from ACMA and Optus dates"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"ACMA said the recurrence, so soon after the first outage, was one of its reasons for going to court [4].","r":[4]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"q","t":"The recurrence of a major network outage affecting emergency calls so soon after the November 2023 outage is a significant concern and one of the reasons the ACMA has decided to take this matter to court.","x":"ACMA, media release, 30 July 2026"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Optus, in its submission to the Senate committee examining the second major outage, said improvements had been made since November 2023 and more was needed [7].","r":[7]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Despite improvements implemented since that time, the 2025 outage shows that further action is required by industry and government to collaboratively ensure the resilience of the Triple Zero ecosystem.","x":"Optus, submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee, 2025"},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"What ACMA alleges about the second major outage, and what a court might do with it, is the next part of this case."},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Questions have not yet been put to ACMA or Optus; any answers will be added as dated updates."},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. When this article was published on 25 September 2026, no questions had been put to ACMA, Optus or Telstra. THE RORT emailed all three on 2 October 2026, and a response was requested by 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. Any response, or its absence, will be added as dated updates."},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. Optus's media team replied by email on 8 October 2026 to the questions THE RORT emailed on 2 October. The email is signed Optus Media Team and carries no request that it be kept off the record. It says: \"Optus’s position on these matters is on the public record, including our submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee following the September 2025 Triple Zero outage.\" That submission is quoted above [7]. The email also says: \"Matters currently before the Federal Court will be addressed through the appropriate legal process.\" It links a release that Optus dated 21 September 2026 [8]. The reply does not directly answer the questions. It does not say whether Optus contests the allegations in ACMA's Federal Court proceeding, and its Federal Court sentence names no matter, so this article does not say which matter it refers to. It does not say whether Optus accepts the other alleged contraventions covered by the November 2024 infringement notices, and it does not answer the question on the enforceable undertaking in the Integrated Public Number Database matter. In the release, Optus says its welfare check processes have been strengthened for customers affected by Triple Zero outages; that is Optus's statement, and the findings above on the November 2023 outage are unchanged. THE RORT's questions to ACMA and Telstra carry the same reply time, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026, and any answers, or their absence, will be added as dated updates.","r":[7,8]},{"a":89,"at":"at-s4-b10","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. THE RORT emailed six questions on 2 October 2026 to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, on this case's two published articles. The Department's media team (Media Services) replied by email on 8 October 2026, on the record. The email says the response \"can be attributed to a spokesperson from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts\". The response reads, in full, in three paragraphs: \"The Australian Government is continuing its priority work to strengthen the Triple Zero system and improve oversight and accountability of the telecommunications sector to ensure it delivers for the Australian community.\" \"We have completed a number of significant reforms, including increasing maximum penalties for telcos who fail to follow Triple Zero rules to $30 million per breach, mandating real time reporting of outages to ACMA and emergency services, and ensuring Triple Zero calls fall back to other networks.\" \"The Triple Zero Custodian is leading a review of the legislation and regulations underpinning the Triple Zero system, focused on identifying and addressing gaps in the framework and working towards a future model for Triple Zero that meets public expectations.\" The reply does not say whether the $30 million maximum applies to any conduct before 31 October 2025, including the 18 September 2025 outage (question 1). It does not say whether the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill would change the maximum penalty for any breach of the Triple Zero rules (question 2). It does not say which 12 of the 18 Bean Review recommendations were in place when the government said, as the ABC reported on 22 September 2025, that 12 had been put in place, which six were not, or whether the position was the same on 18 September 2025 (question 3). It does not say as at what date the other 17 Bean Review recommendations were complete (question 4). It does not say when the government will respond to the Senate report of 21 September 2026 and to its recommendation for an independent review of ACMA (question 5). It does not say whether the caution of Labor senators on the committee against reviewing ACMA until an analysis of the Triple Zero framework and the ACCC's inquiry were completed, as the ABC reported on 21 September 2026, is the government's own position (question 6). No response was received from ACMA by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. No response was received from Telstra by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026."},{"a":90,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On 27 November 2023 ACMA told Optus its notice would be $1.5 million to $3 million, at the lower end if it offered an enforceable undertaking on terms acceptable to ACMA.","r":[1,2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"On 4 December 2023 Optus said it would offer the undertaking and asked for the final amount. On 6 March 2024 ACMA announced Optus had paid $1,501,500.","r":[2,3]},{"a":90,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"ACMA sent Optus its draft announcement on 29 February 2024. Optus had no comments.","r":[2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"In February 2026 ACMA's Chair told a Senate committee that in future ACMA will not consult on media releases before they go public.","r":[4]},{"a":90,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Nothing examined shows the Triple Zero penalties were handled this way.","r":[2]},{"a":90,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 27 November 2023, the day it met Optus Mobile to discuss the findings of a public-safety investigation into its Integrated Public Number Database uploads, the communications regulator emailed the company. Documents the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) released under freedom of information, published in its Disclosure Log 153 on 3 February 2025, record what it said, sent at 5:11pm that day: \"we will give Optus an infringement notice in the range of $1.5 [to] $3 million [,] the amount being at the lower end if Optus offers an EU with terms acceptable to the ACMA\" [1][2]. EU is an enforceable undertaking, a written promise a company offers and the regulator accepts, enforceable in court.","r":[1,2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"On 6 March 2024, ACMA announced that Optus Mobile had paid a $1,501,500 penalty [3], at the lower end of the range ACMA had stated about three months earlier: $1,500 above the floor and $1,498,500 below the ceiling, computed.","r":[3]},{"a":90,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"In February 2026, almost a year after it defended the practice at Estimates, ACMA's Chair told a Senate committee: \"in future we will not be consulting on media releases before they go public\" [4].","r":[4]},{"a":90,"at":"at-lede-3","k":"p","t":"This article lays ACMA's own documents beside its account to Senate Estimates and the ABC's reporting of the same practice, then records what ACMA has said since about that practice and the replies THE RORT sought. It centres on one matter, the IPND penalty, and not the outage this case has already covered."},{"a":90,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The $1,501,500 penalty is not the Triple Zero outage penalty this case has covered elsewhere. It follows a separate matter: the failure ACMA found, that Optus Mobile had not uploaded customer data to the Integrated Public Number Database, the database Triple Zero uses to locate an emergency caller [3]. ACMA's release of 6 March 2024 states: \"Optus Mobile Pty Ltd (Optus) has paid a $1,501,500 penalty after the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found large-scale breaches of public safety rules\" [3]. ACMA found Optus had failed to upload data for close to 200,000 Coles Mobile and Catch Connect customers between January 2021 and September 2023. Alongside the penalty, ACMA accepted a court-enforceable undertaking requiring an independent review of Optus's IPND compliance, and directed Optus to comply with the industry code. If ACMA finds Optus has failed to meet either, its release states, it may commence proceedings in the Federal Court, which can order penalties of up to $10 million per breach [3].","r":[3]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"No known harm","t":"ACMA member Samantha Yorke, in the same release: \"While we are not aware of anyone being directly harmed due to the non-compliance in this case, it's alarming that Optus placed so many customers in this position for so long.\"","src":"ACMA, 6 March 2024"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The documents ACMA released under freedom of information, published in its Disclosure Log 153 on 3 February 2025, lay the sequence out in the regulator's own words and, for one step, Optus's, and match the account the ABC had already reported [1][2]. On Monday 27 November 2023, the day it met Optus to discuss the findings of its IPND investigation and enforcement, ACMA emailed Optus: \"Thank you for meeting with us today to discuss the IPND investigation findings and enforcement. The final investigation report is now attached\" [2]. ACMA's email to Optus that day, sent at 5:11pm, invited Optus to consider offering an enforceable undertaking: \"we invite Optus to consider offering an enforceable undertaking (EU)\" [2]. For an EU to likely be accepted, it suggested a two-year term including \"an acknowledgement of the ACMA's investigation findings\" [2]. It also set out the range and the condition quoted above, and recorded what ACMA said it had weighed: \"previous enforcement action against a related Optus entity, and Optus' statements that the contraventions were Prvidr's fault\", Prvidr being the data provider involved in the matter. The same email goes on: \"we've also noted the remediation of the services, and steps Optus has taken to increase its oversight of Prvidr\" [2]. According to the documents, the email asked Optus to respond by 4 December 2023 and planned to issue the notice by 8 December [2]; the penalty was announced on 6 March 2024 [3].","r":[1,2,3]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Optus answered on the day ACMA had set, Monday 4 December 2023. An email from Optus to ACMA, sent at 5:33pm with its writer's name redacted, begins \"Further to our meeting this afternoon\" and says: \"I confirm that Optus agrees to offer an Enforceable Undertaking in the Prvidr IPND matter. If you could confirm the final amount of the Infringement Notice, it will be appreciated, so that I can update our Executive Committee.\" It adds: \"We will work on a draft EU to provide to the ACMA in the coming days\" [2]. The released document does not contain a reply from ACMA to that request.","r":[2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The next day, on 5 December 2023, an internal ACMA email, written \"following a meeting with Optus yesterday and its email below\", recorded Optus's answer and the amount the regulator was preparing: \"Optus has confirmed it will offer an EU along the lines we proposed and intends to provide us a draft before Christmas shut down. On this basis, we're preparing an IN of about $1.5m\" [2]. IN is an infringement notice.","r":[2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Almost three months after that, on Thursday 29 February 2024 at 4:02pm, ACMA emailed Optus an embargoed draft of the announcement it planned to publish: \"please find attached an EMBARGOED copy of the media release scheduled to be published on 6 March with the investigation report, infringement notice, enforceable undertaking, and direction to comply\", inviting a response by the close of business the next day: \"If Optus has comments on the factual accuracy of the release, please provide a response by COB Friday 1 March 2024\" [2]. Optus replied at 4:36pm the same day: \"Thanks [redacted] we'll review accordingly. [redacted] has asked that you send the media release only to him\" [2].","r":[2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Optus did not, in the end, have comments. An internal ACMA email sent on Monday 4 March 2024, after the Friday deadline had passed, records: \"FYI, I spoke with [redacted] at 4.30pm and she confirmed there were no comments on the MR\" [2]. Two days later, on 6 March 2024, ACMA announced the $1,501,500 penalty, the enforceable undertaking and the direction to comply [3].","r":[2,3]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"f","x":"76 documents, 61 fully exempt","t":"Of 76 documents within scope of the FOI request answered in Disclosure Log 153, 61 were fully exempt. Three released in part were, as at the disclosure page, still marked as awaiting third-party review. The page gives 3 February 2026 as its date of removal; the page and the documents were still online on 8 October 2026.","src":"ACMA, FOI Disclosure Log 153"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"ACMA published its own account of the practice these documents show. On a page last updated 31 January 2025, and still carrying that date on 8 October 2026, it says: \"The ACMA will only consider making changes to media releases which go to the accuracy of the facts contained in the release\" [5]. On sending companies draft releases in advance of publication, it says: \"We consider this practice is consistent with the position set out in our Regulatory Guide No 6 and with the law, including the legal principle of procedural fairness\" [5]. It describes its engagement with a regulated entity as \"robust in nature, is conducted with complete independence and is standard practice for regulators\" [5]. On the same page, ACMA states its own reading of the law it relies on: \"Section 518 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 also specifically requires the ACMA to provide a person a reasonable opportunity to comment on a report that may adversely affect their interests before it is published\" [5]. The page goes on: \"This includes findings of regulatory non-compliance and associated enforcement actions which are contained in our investigation reports and media releases about those reports\" [5]. The Act's own text, in the compilation dated 4 June 2026, says in section 518(2): \"The ACMA must not publish the report or the part of the report, as the case may be, until the ACMA has given the person a reasonable period (not exceeding 30 days) to make representations, either orally or in writing, in relation to the matter\" [6]. Section 518(1) applies where publication of a matter in a report \"would, or would be likely to, adversely affect the interests of a person\" [6]. The section speaks of a report and does not use the words \"media release\"; ACMA's page applies it to media releases about reports. This article does not decide whether the section reaches a draft release.","r":[5,6]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The same page opens by saying recent reporting is inaccurate: \"Recent public comments and reporting about the ACMA's approach to telecommunications industry compliance and enforcement contain a range of inaccuracies and ill-informed assertions\" [5]. It does not name Optus's IPND matter, the $1.5 million to $3 million range, the \"lower end\" wording or \"willingness to pay\". On that page, ACMA does not identify any specific fact in the reporting as wrong.","r":[5]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ABC reported that ACMA told it the regulator \"engaged with companies to test their 'willingness to pay' an infringement notice\" [7]. That phrase does not appear in the released FOI documents or in the Senate Estimates transcript examined for this article; it is the ABC's account of what ACMA said, and this article attributes it to the ABC throughout. The ABC also reported that ACMA told it the regulator made some changes to draft releases for accuracy but does not negotiate their content [7].","r":[7]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"f","x":"\"Willingness to pay\"","t":"ACMA, as reported by the ABC, said it determined penalty amounts based on a range of factors, some of which included the seriousness of the conduct and whether it was deliberate, reckless or inadvertent, and that it engaged with companies to test their 'willingness to pay' an infringement notice. The phrase is not in the FOI documents examined and not in the 25 February 2025 Estimates transcript.","src":"ABC, 28 January 2025"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The ABC reported that Optus, in a statement, described ACMA's practice this way: \"The ACMA consults with the party entering into an EU in relation to the terms that the ACMA would consider appropriate\" [7]. It also reported Optus saying: \"If there are any factual inaccuracies in a statement, we would seek to have those rectified\" [7]. The ABC also reported Optus saying it apologised for the public safety breaches and had introduced \"audits and checks over its supplier's performance\" [7]. The documents show ACMA proposing the terms of the IPND undertaking [2].","r":[7,2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"At Senate Additional Estimates on 25 February 2025, ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin gave the regulator's account of the practice, describing it as fact-checking, not drafting: \"We also provide a short period of time for them to factually check a media release. It is not a drafting exercise between us\" [8]. She said: \"Really, it is just a risk mitigation exercise to make sure we get the facts right before we make something public\", and called it routine: \"It occurs regularly, not just in the telco area; we also do the same due diligence with things like broadcasting investigations\" [8].","r":[8]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"O'Loughlin answered the ABC's report directly:"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"q","t":"We consider that ABC report misconstrued and misunderstood the role of the regulator and how we go about our business.","x":"Nerida O'Loughlin, ACMA Chair, Senate Estimates, 25 February 2025"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"We reject the fact that it's a deal. It is a negotiated outcome.","x":"Nerida O'Loughlin, ACMA Chair, Senate Estimates, 25 February 2025"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Senator Sarah Hanson-Young put the range directly to ACMA: \"What about when you offer Optus a fine from $3 million down to $1.5 million? How many times have you done that?\" [8] The committee chair intervened. The senator said O'Loughlin was not answering the question, and O'Loughlin replied to that charge: \"That's incorrect. We don't believe that's\", before the chair stopped the exchange [8]. The chair told the senator: \"You're not enjoying the answers. That doesn't mean that is not the answer that is appropriately provided by the witness\" [8]. When the question was put again, she said: \"As I indicated at the outset, these are negotiated outcomes. They also involved the negotiation of enforceable undertakings which require investment by the company to make sure they ensure future compliance\" [8]. She neither confirmed nor disputed the $1.5 million to $3 million figures at that hearing. Those figures stand on ACMA's own email, not on this exchange [1][2].","r":[8,1,2]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Asked on notice for the draft and final releases in the cases the ABC reported, O'Loughlin answered: \"Certainly\" [8]. Asked on notice \"in how many instances you have struck an agreement where the fine has been reduced\", she said only: \"We will consider that\" [8]. Asked how much industry had \"avoided\", she gave no figure: \"That is completely speculative and would require us to think about what a court might decide\" [8]. On the same point she said: \"The company can choose to accept the infringement notice or not pay it\", and \"That's the way infringement notices work right across the Commonwealth\" [8]. ACMA has since answered the first two in writing, on the Parliament's questions-on-notice database [9]. For the first, it supplied the embargoed drafts and the published releases for the Optus matter and for two Telstra matters. THE RORT compared the Optus pair: apart from the embargo line, the date, the release number and the media contact line, the draft and the published release carry the same text. For the second, it gave no count. Its answer, SQ25-000063, says: \"Infringement Notice penalties are an agreed outcome between a regulated entity and the regulator to achieve compliance by the entity.\" It also says: \"In considering the appropriateness of any infringement notice penalty amount, the ACMA considers whether any complementary enforcement action will be taken, including whether a court-enforceable undertaking is also being offered by the entity.\" And it says: \"While the payment of all infringement notice penalties reflects the outcome of an agreement, the ACMA alone decides the amount to be specified in all cases and there are no instances where the ACMA has given an infringement notice for an amount less than it considers appropriate in the circumstances\" [9].","r":[8,9]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In February 2025 O'Loughlin also told the committee ACMA had reviewed its processes after the criticism and judged them appropriate: \"We would say that with the criticisms that came forward, we've gone back and looked at our processes. We think they're appropriate\" [8]. She added: \"We have taken on board the criticisms. We've looked at our practices, but we think they're appropriate\" [8]. A year later she told the same committee that ACMA would change it, as the next section records.","r":[8]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"ACMA has since said it will stop consulting on media releases. At Senate Additional Estimates on 10 February 2026, after senators asked about its release on Sportsbet, Nerida O'Loughlin said: \"I've instigated a review to look at the way we approach our media releases and stepped back from those processes. We found that we had quite inconsistent processes across the organisation.\" She said ACMA would \"amend those processes, and in future we will not be consulting on media releases before they go public\" [4].","r":[4]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Asked by Senator Sarah Hanson-Young what the process would be now, she said: \"I expect we will not be giving people an opportunity to check any full press releases.\" She drew a line between releases and reports:"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"q","t":"In terms of the report, we're obliged under procedural fairness to provide that opportunity. What I'm saying is that, in terms of media releases, we will not be providing that opportunity in the future.","x":"Nerida O'Loughlin, ACMA Chair, Senate Estimates, 10 February 2026"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"In its written answer to a question on notice from that hearing, SQ26-000107, ACMA said it \"has agreed a new agency wide process for the publication of investigation and enforcement outcomes\" and \"will inform the investigated entity of the ACMA's intention to publish investigation and/or enforcement outcomes no more than 1 business day prior to the ACMA's publication\" [9].","r":[9]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"f","x":"No more than 1 business day","t":"How far ahead of publication ACMA says it will now tell an investigated entity of its intention to publish an investigation or enforcement outcome.","src":"ACMA, answer to question on notice SQ26-000107"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Senate committee's report on the Triple Zero outage, released on 21 September 2026, records the criticism that ACMA \"had shared embargoed media releases with companies such as Sportsbet, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Optus and Telstra before publication\", and records ACMA's account that it \"generally advises an investigated entity of its intention to publish an investigation or enforcement outcome no more than one business day before publication\" [10].","r":[10]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On 27 May 2026, at Senate Estimates, Senator David Pocock asked: \"did you give Entain an opportunity to comment on the media release that you released on 6 May?\" O'Loughlin answered: \"No.\" Senator Henderson said: \"ACMA's changed its practices in that regard.\" Asked by Senator Pocock whether that was true, O'Loughlin said: \"Yes.\" [11]","r":[11]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"These are statements about ACMA's process in 2026. They do not change what the documents record for November 2023 to March 2024, and ACMA's \"Correcting the record\" page, quoted above, was last updated on 31 January 2025 [5].","r":[5]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The Optus release is not the only one the ABC found ACMA sent to a company in advance. The ABC reported three other instances of draft enforcement releases sent to providers before publication, two of them to Telstra: \"The ABC has discovered three other instances where draft media releases about enforcement outcomes were sent to providers [:] two went to Telstra\" [7]. Neither of the two Telstra instances concerned Triple Zero. The third is not identified in the material available to this desk, and this article does not guess at it.","r":[7]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The ABC reported that ACMA told it Telstra asked for changes to its drafts, that some factual changes were made, and that some requests about \"tone and messaging\" were declined [7]. Separately, and this is a documented fact rather than the ABC's account, both of the two Telstra drafts differ from the releases ACMA finally published. The draft of ACMA's 6 December 2023 release on Telstra overcharging customers carried the headline \"Telstra pays $20 million in penalties and refunds after wrongly charging customers\" [2]. The release ACMA actually published put the figure at $24 million: \"Telstra has paid a $3,010,320 penalty and refunded over $17.7 million to thousands of customers ... A further $3.4 million is to be refunded by the end of the year\" [12], about $21.1 million in refunds, computed. The draft said 7,404 customers; the final release said 6,532 [2][12]. The documents released do not show who asked for the changes, or why [2]. The ABC reported that ACMA altered this release to reflect \"the exact number of affected customers and the amount of refunds\" [7].","r":[7,2,12]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"f","x":"$20 million to $24 million","t":"The Telstra overcharging draft ACMA sent in advance of its 6 December 2023 release put the headline penalty and refund figure at $20 million; the release ACMA published put it at $24 million. The documents do not show who asked for the changes.","src":"Documents ACMA released under freedom of information"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The second of the two Telstra drafts concerned a separate scam-rule matter: in July 2024 ACMA announced that Telstra had paid a $1,551,000 penalty, also unrelated to Triple Zero: \"Telstra has paid a $1,551,000 penalty after failing to perform required customer ID authentication processes\" [13]. That draft differs from the published release too, in wording rather than in the headline figure. As ACMA supplied it to the Senate, the draft said Telstra \"failed to use multi-factor ID checks for more than 168,000 high-risk customer interactions, including for SIM-swap requests and password resets\" [9]; the published release says Telstra \"failed to use the required ID authentication processes for 168,000 high-risk customer interactions, such as for SIM-swap requests and password resets\" [13]. ACMA told the ABC that it made a \"small number\" of changes to that release, that Telstra \"provided feedback on what it referred to as factual matters to do with how the nature of the breaches were described\", and that these changes improved the release's accuracy [7]. Telstra told the ABC it had provided \"feedback\" to ACMA to ensure accuracy [7].","r":[13,9,7]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), which the ABC says represents phone and internet consumers, called the practice inappropriate. Its chief executive, Carol Bennett, told the ABC in January 2025: \"It is the regulator acting like a lap dog to industry, it is completely inappropriate\" [7]. The ABC reported that Anthony Whealy KC, a former New South Wales Supreme Court judge, said the practice threatens the transparency at the heart of good regulatory governance [7]. These are the critics' views, as the ABC reported them. The ABC reported that ACMA rejected those concerns, saying its handling of the Optus penalty and its sharing of draft releases were consistent with its regulatory powers and were about making sure the information was accurate [7]. At the February 2025 hearing, when Senator Hanson-Young put it to O'Loughlin that people were asking whether ACMA was \"more of a lapdog than a watchdog\", she began her reply with \"I reject that\" and was interrupted [8].","r":[7,8]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"An industry-facing commentary site, Telco Central, argued on 5 February 2025 that trading a lower penalty for an enforceable undertaking is documented ACMA practice, and that undertakings are onerous, not lenient. On draft releases, it wrote: \"Of course it asks the subject telco to point out any factual errors in a draft media release\" [14]. That is the site's opinion, not a finding.","r":[14]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"p","t":"ACMA states its own enforcement tally for the year to September 2024: 23 enforcement actions, two accepted enforceable undertakings, and payment of close to $7 million in penalties. In ACMA's words: \"for the period September 2023 to September 2024 the ACMA undertook 23 enforcement actions which resulted in the ACMA issuing 12 formal warnings, 2 remedial directions and 20 directions to comply with registered codes\", and \"We also agreed to accept 2 enforceable undertakings and accepted payment of close to $7 million in penalties in that period\" [5]. The outcomes ACMA lists there, 12 warnings, 2 remedial directions and 20 directions to comply, total 34; ACMA does not say how many of them each of its 23 actions produced. This article states ACMA's figures as ACMA's own, not as a verified count.","r":[5]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"f","x":"23 actions, 34 listed outcomes","t":"ACMA says it undertook 23 enforcement actions from September 2023 to September 2024, resulting in outcomes it lists as 12 formal warnings, 2 remedial directions and 20 directions to comply, which total 34. ACMA does not say how many outcomes each of the 23 actions produced.","src":"ACMA, correcting the record"},{"a":90,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"An ACCAN-commissioned study by the UTS Centre for Media Transition tallied a different, earlier and narrower set of enforcement figures: 24 infringement notices worth $6,143,160 and three court penalties of just over $1 million, from 2010 to 30 June 2023, across four sources of consumer protection rules only, in its report \"The Enforcement of Telecommunications Consumer Protections\" [15]. That period ends before either of the Triple Zero penalties this case examines, and the study says nothing about Triple Zero.","r":[15]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT emailed questions on this article to Optus, ACMA and Telstra on 2 October 2026 and asked for a response by 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. What came back is set out here."},{"a":90,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"Optus's media team replied by email on 8 October 2026. The email is signed Optus Media Team and carries no request that it be kept off the record. It says: \"Optus’s position on these matters is on the public record, including our submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee following the September 2025 Triple Zero outage.\" The email also says: \"Matters currently before the Federal Court will be addressed through the appropriate legal process.\" It links a release that Optus dated 21 September 2026, which the email describes as its response to the Senate inquiry report, including an update on the changes Optus has made since the outage [16]. The reply does not directly answer the questions THE RORT put to Optus on this article. THE RORT asked whether Optus knew, when it offered the enforceable undertaking in the IPND matter, that the undertaking would put the notice at the lower end of the stated range, and whether Optus sought changes to any other ACMA draft enforcement release it was sent, and if so which releases and what changes. The reply addresses neither. Its Federal Court sentence names no matter, so this article does not say which matter it refers to. The release it links does not mention the Integrated Public Number Database, enforceable undertakings or draft releases.","r":[16]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"p","t":"No response was received from ACMA by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. The questions THE RORT put to ACMA on this article's subject included the range and condition in its 27 November 2023 email, the ABC's report that it tests companies' \"willingness to pay\", its \"Correcting the record\" statement, the changes between the draft and the published version of its 6 December 2023 release on Telstra's overcharging, and whether draft releases on the Triple Zero penalties were sent to the companies. ACMA's published answers to Senate questions on notice, and its Chair's evidence at Estimates, are quoted above."},{"a":90,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"No response was received from Telstra by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. THE RORT asked which changes Telstra requested to the draft ACMA releases it was sent, and which were made. Telstra's earlier statement to the ABC, as the ABC reported it, said: \"Where appropriate, we provide feedback about findings to ensure that they are accurate and contribute to the drafting of things like enforceable undertakings to help ensure they are clear and can be given effect\" [7].","r":[7]},{"a":90,"at":"at-s8-b0","s":8,"k":"p","t":"Nothing in the documents examined for this article shows that the $12 million in Triple Zero infringement notices against Optus, or the Triple Zero penalty against Telstra, were previewed or discussed in advance, as the documents show for the IPND matter. The 27 November 2023 email and the 29 February 2024 draft concern the IPND matter only; the two identified Telstra drafts concern scam-rule breaches and overcharging, not Triple Zero. THE RORT put to ACMA the question whether any draft release on those penalties was sent to the company before publication; what came back is recorded under Right of reply. This article draws no line between the practice described here and the Triple Zero penalties themselves."},{"a":90,"at":"at-s8-b1","s":8,"k":"p","t":"THE REPORTING RORT set the $12 million Triple Zero notices and the $1,501,500 IPND penalty beside a different regulator's privacy record. THE CARTEL SWITCH examined a new ACCC power to authorise coordination between competitors that would otherwise be cartel conduct."},{"a":91,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Optus says a firewall upgrade went wrong on 18 September 2025, cutting Triple Zero access for over 14 hours in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and far west New South Wales.","r":[1]},{"a":91,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"By Optus’s own count, 605 service numbers tried to reach Triple Zero and 455 did not get through.","r":[1]},{"a":91,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"On 30 July 2026 ACMA took Optus Mobile to the Federal Court, alleging 1,005 contraventions, with a maximum penalty of $250,000 each. None of it is proved.","r":[2]},{"a":91,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"After the 2023 outage ACMA issued infringement notices. It says the recurrence so soon after is one of the reasons it went to court this time.","r":[2]},{"a":91,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"At 00:17 AEST on 18 September 2025, twenty-two months after Optus's first major Triple Zero outage, Optus says a firewall upgrade went wrong. Optus's own account, given to a Senate committee and not an independent finding, states that \"a technical failure during a network upgrade impacted 605 unique service numbers connecting to emergency services in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and far west New South Wales\" [1]. The outage lasted, in Optus's revised figure, over 14 hours, from 00:17 to 14:34 AEST [1]. By Optus's count, of the 605 service numbers that tried to reach Triple Zero, 150 got through. The other 455 did not [1].","r":[1]},{"a":91,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This time the regulator did not issue an infringement notice. On 30 July 2026 the Australian Communications and Media Authority began proceedings in the Federal Court against Optus Mobile Pty Limited, alleging 1,005 contraventions of two obligations: to give end users access to the emergency call service, and to ensure those calls were carried to the relevant termination point [2]. None of it is proved.","r":[2]},{"a":91,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"What happened, what Optus says caused it, what ACMA alleges and one of the reasons it chose court over a notice this time, and what is still not settled: this article sets it out below."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Optus's submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee, its own account and not an independent finding, sets out what it says went wrong. A \"soft lock\", which Optus describes as an action that \"drains the traffic and prevents new traffic entering the SBG\", was put in place at 00:17:27 AEST on 18 September 2025 on a session border gateway (SBG) during a firewall upgrade [1]. Optus says the change had been brought forward 24 hours from its planned date, and that the outage began because the traffic had not first been moved off the device. Optus says the wrong procedure was used [1].","r":[1]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"605 numbers, 150 through","t":"By Optus's own count: 605 service numbers tried to reach Triple Zero during the outage; 150 got through; the other 455 did not."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Optus told the committee: \"Optus accepts accountability for its failures that led to this interruption of Triple Zero services\" [1]. That is Optus's public statement to a parliamentary committee, not a plea in the Federal Court case now before the court. Optus also told the committee that the improvements made since 2023 were not enough on their own: \"Despite improvements implemented since that time, the 2025 outage shows that further action is required by industry and government to collaboratively ensure the resilience of the Triple Zero ecosystem\" [1].","r":[1]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"q","t":"Optus accepts accountability for its failures that led to this interruption of Triple Zero services.","x":"Optus, submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee, 2025. A statement to Parliament, not a plea in the court case."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"iTnews reported that on 28 September 2025, ten days after the outage, a smaller Optus failure at Dapto, New South Wales, again left customers unable to reach emergency services: \"Optus has experienced another, albeit smaller-scale, incident where nine customers could not get through to emergency services\" [3].","r":[3]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Dapto, 28 September 2025","t":"iTnews reported that nine customers could not reach emergency services in a smaller, separate Optus failure ten days after the 18 September outage."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On 30 July 2026 the Australian Communications and Media Authority began Federal Court proceedings against Optus Mobile Pty Limited over the 18 September 2025 outage. ACMA alleges Optus Mobile breached two obligations under the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2019 on 1,005 occasions: failing to give end users access to the emergency call service, and failing to ensure those emergency calls were carried to the relevant termination point [2]. ACMA is seeking declarations of contravention and pecuniary penalties. \"The maximum penalty available to the court is $250,000 per contravention,\" its release states [2]. None of it is proved.","r":[2]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The difference from the first outage is what the regulator did next. After the 2023 outage, ACMA issued infringement notices, which three Optus companies paid, and payment was not an admission of liability, as this case's first article recorded. This time it went to the Federal Court, and it gave one of its reasons. \"The recurrence of a major network outage affecting emergency calls so soon after the November 2023 outage is a significant concern and one of the reasons the ACMA has decided to take this matter to court,\" said ACMA Chair Nerida O'Loughlin [2].","r":[2]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"q","t":"The recurrence of a major network outage affecting emergency calls so soon after the November 2023 outage is a significant concern and one of the reasons the ACMA has decided to take this matter to court.","x":"Nerida O'Loughlin, ACMA Chair, 30 July 2026"},{"a":91,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"ACMA describes the duty in plain terms. \"Giving access to the emergency call service is not optional, it is a fundamental legal obligation and the most important public safety responsibility telecommunications providers have,\" the regulator said in the same release [2].","r":[2]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Six hundred and eighty days, about twenty-two months, separate the first major outage on 8 November 2023 from this one on 18 September 2025. This case's first article recorded that the 2023 outage took just under a year, 362 days on our count, to reach its infringement notices. From this outage to ACMA's Federal Court filing is 315 days, just over ten months [2].","r":[2]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Minister for Communications, Anika Wells, welcomed ACMA's decision to go to court and declined further comment while the matter is before it. \"I welcome the action being taken by the independent regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, in the Federal Court. These are serious alleged failures by Optus,\" she said [4].","r":[4]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Optus would not discuss the case with the ABC. \"An Optus spokesperson said it would not be appropriate to comment on the legal proceedings, but the telco remained focused on 'building a stronger and better Optus',\" the ABC reported [5]. The same spokesperson added: \"We continue to invest in network resilience, strengthen our systems and processes, build and foster a culture of transparency and accountability\" [5].","r":[5]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In September 2026, the ABC reported that Optus declined to say how many customers it had compensated after the September 2025 outage, or by how much, citing the \"confidential nature of customer arrangements\" [6].","r":[6]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On THE RORT's reading of the timeline, the second major outage came before the government's own deadline for its reforms had passed. The government accepted all 18 recommendations of the Bean Review into the 2023 outage on 17 May 2024, saying it intended to implement them over 12 to 18 months [7]. Four hundred and eighty-nine days, about 16 months, passed between that response and the 18 September 2025 outage: inside the window the government had set itself [7].","r":[7]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"That does not mean nothing had been done. Four days after the outage, the government said 12 of the 18 recommendations were in place, with the rest underway [8]; the three addressed to Optus and other carriers were found implemented by Optus's own assessment, agreed by a consultant it engaged [9].","r":[8,9]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"f","x":"16 months","t":"The government accepted all 18 Bean Review recommendations on 17 May 2024 and said it would implement them over 12 to 18 months. The second major outage came 16 months later, inside that window."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A separate review commissioned by the Optus board and led by Kerry Schott AO, released 18 December 2025, found the outage came from a series of at least ten mistakes by Optus employees and a contractor, and listed 21 possible improvement measures, which Optus calls recommendations [9]. Optus chairman John Arthur said the board was \"taking further action in relation to individual accountabilities flowing from the incident, which will extend from financial penalties through to termination in appropriate cases\" [10].","r":[9,10]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A Senate inquiry prompted by the outage, chaired by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, reported on 21 September 2026 with 11 recommendations, among them an independent review of ACMA itself and, separately, new powers for ACMA to compel information and evidence [6].","r":[6]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"One thing this article does not state is how many people, if any, died because of the outage. Deaths have been reported in connection with it. No coroner has yet made a finding on any of them, and police in Western Australia have said one death first linked to it appears, on preliminary investigation, not to be connected. \"It would not be accurate if I gave a final answer before those investigations were complete for the coroner,\" WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said in November 2025 [11].","r":[11]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 30 September 2026. The line above that no coroner has yet made a finding rests on one source and date: ABC News, 24 November 2025 [11], when WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said the investigations were not complete for the coroner. That report covers the Perth death only: it does not say whether any coroner had made a finding on the South Australian deaths. THE RORT has not found a later public finding and is putting the question to the South Australian and Western Australian coroners; any answer, or its absence, will be added here.","r":[11]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. THE RORT put the question to the South Australian and Western Australian coroners by email on 2 October 2026. An automatic reply came back from South Australia; that is not a response. Any answer, or its absence, will be added here."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"p","t":"We have not located a file number, hearing date or judge for ACMA v Optus Mobile Pty Limited. Until the court decides the case, ACMA's allegations remain allegations."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Questions have not yet been put to ACMA or Optus; any answers, or their absence, will be added here as dated updates."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. When this article was published on 25 September 2026, no questions had been put to ACMA or Optus. THE RORT emailed both on 2 October 2026, and a response was requested by 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. Any response, or its absence, will be added here as dated updates."},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. Optus's media team replied by email on 8 October 2026 to the questions THE RORT emailed on 2 October. The email is signed Optus Media Team and carries no request that it be kept off the record. It says: \"Optus’s position on these matters is on the public record, including our submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee following the September 2025 Triple Zero outage.\" That submission is quoted above [1]. The email also says: \"Matters currently before the Federal Court will be addressed through the appropriate legal process.\" It links a release that Optus dated 21 September 2026 [12]. The reply does not directly answer the questions. It does not say whether Optus contests the allegations in ACMA's Federal Court proceeding, and its Federal Court sentence names no matter, so this article does not say which matter it refers to. It does not give the date on which, by its own assessment, Optus implemented each of the three Bean Review recommendations addressed to Optus and other carriers, does not say how many of the 21 Schott Review measures are implemented, does not say whether the figure of 605 counts callers, service numbers or call attempts, or how many Triple Zero calls were attempted in total, and does not say whether compensation was offered to customers after the outage. In the release, Optus says it accepted all 21 recommendations of the review led by Kerry Schott AO and that many have already been completed or embedded into business-as-usual operations. Those are Optus's statements, not findings; the release gives no number of completed recommendations and no completion dates. THE RORT's question to ACMA carries the same reply time, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026, and any answer, or its absence, will be added here as a dated update.","r":[1,12]},{"a":91,"at":"at-s5-b7","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Update, 8 October 2026. THE RORT emailed six questions on 2 October 2026 to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, on this case's two published articles. The Department's media team (Media Services) replied by email on 8 October 2026, on the record. The email says the response \"can be attributed to a spokesperson from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts\". The response reads, in full, in three paragraphs: \"The Australian Government is continuing its priority work to strengthen the Triple Zero system and improve oversight and accountability of the telecommunications sector to ensure it delivers for the Australian community.\" \"We have completed a number of significant reforms, including increasing maximum penalties for telcos who fail to follow Triple Zero rules to $30 million per breach, mandating real time reporting of outages to ACMA and emergency services, and ensuring Triple Zero calls fall back to other networks.\" \"The Triple Zero Custodian is leading a review of the legislation and regulations underpinning the Triple Zero system, focused on identifying and addressing gaps in the framework and working towards a future model for Triple Zero that meets public expectations.\" The reply does not say whether the $30 million maximum applies to any conduct before 31 October 2025, including the 18 September 2025 outage (question 1). It does not say whether the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill would change the maximum penalty for any breach of the Triple Zero rules (question 2). It does not say which 12 of the 18 Bean Review recommendations were in place when the government said, as the ABC reported on 22 September 2025, that 12 had been put in place, which six were not, or whether the position was the same on 18 September 2025 (question 3). It does not say as at what date the other 17 Bean Review recommendations were complete (question 4). It does not say when the government will respond to the Senate report of 21 September 2026 and to its recommendation for an independent review of ACMA (question 5). It does not say whether the caution of Labor senators on the committee against reviewing ACMA until an analysis of the Triple Zero framework and the ACCC's inquiry were completed, as the ABC reported on 21 September 2026, is the government's own position (question 6). A maximum of $30 million for each contravention of subsection 148(1) or (3) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 was set by the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Act 2025, which inserted it into the Telecommunications Act 1997 and commenced on 31 October 2025, the day after Royal Assent [13]; the $250,000 per contravention above is the maximum ACMA's release states for its Federal Court case over the 18 September 2025 outage [2]. No response was received from ACMA by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. No response was received from the South Australian courts media address (media@courts.sa.gov.au), to which the question for the coroner was sent, by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026; the only mail received was an automatic out-of-office reply from a Courts Administration Authority staff member. No response was received from the Western Australian Department of Justice (media@justice.wa.gov.au), to which the question for the Coroners Court of Western Australia was sent, by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026.","r":[13,2]},{"a":92,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Two Optus outages, 22 months apart, share one emergency call duty.","r":[10,7]},{"a":92,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The first ended in paid infringement notices totalling $12,000,420 (not an admission of liability). ACMA's Federal Court case over the second alleges 1,005 contraventions, untested, at up to $250,000 each.","r":[6,7]},{"a":92,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The maximum has been $30 million per contravention since 31 October 2025, six weeks after the second outage.","r":[8]},{"a":92,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"A Senate committee reported 11 recommendations on 21 September 2026; the government said it would consider them. No formal response had been located as of 8 October 2026.","r":[4,5]},{"a":92,"at":"at-br-4","k":"b","t":"Optus says it accepted all 21 Schott Review recommendations and that many are completed or embedded into business-as-usual operations. It gave no dates.","r":[29]},{"a":92,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Two major Optus outages sit 22 months apart, on 8 November 2023 and 18 September 2025. Between them, and since, the system around Triple Zero has been reviewed, legislated and re-priced. This article asks one question of all of it: when the duty fails, who answers, and for how much?"},{"a":92,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"After the first outage, a government-commissioned review made 18 recommendations, and the government accepted every one [1]. Four days after the second major outage, the government said 12 of the 18 were in place, with the rest underway [2]; Optus's own assessment, agreed by a consultant it engaged, was that the three recommendations addressed to Optus and other carriers had been implemented [3]. A review commissioned by the Optus Board afterward found the second major outage came from a series of at least ten mistakes by Optus employees and a contractor [3]. A Senate committee has now recommended the government consider a statutory authority to take over the Emergency Call Person function, now performed by Telstra, and commission an independent review of the regulator itself [4][5].","r":[1,2,3,4,5]},{"a":92,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"The penalty story is one duty, three price tags. The same rule, requiring compliance with the emergency call service determination, ended in paid infringement notices for the first outage [6]. The Federal Court case over the second major outage runs under a $250,000 cap per contravention, in the regulator's own words [7]. Since 31 October 2025, a breach of the same rule can cost up to $30 million per contravention [8].","r":[6,7,8]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The government-commissioned Bean Review into the 8 November 2023 outage delivered 18 recommendations on 21 March 2024. On 17 May 2024 the government accepted all 18 and said it would implement them over the next 12 to 18 months [1].","r":[1]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"18 recommendations","t":"The Bean Review's total, delivered 21 March 2024. The government accepted all 18 on 17 May 2024 and said it would implement them over 12 to 18 months."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"q","t":"The response to the review will see the Government implement all 18 of the recommendations... The Government intends to implement the recommendations over the next 12-18 months.","x":"Department of Infrastructure, 17 May 2024"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The 18 were not addressed to Optus alone. Nine were changes for government to carry out, six were joint changes for government and Optus and other carriers, and three were directed specifically at Optus and other carriers, a split the Optus-commissioned Schott Review sets out [3].","r":[3]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"q","t":"Nine relate to changes for Government to carry out; six are changes for both Government and Optus (and other carriers); and three are specifically directed at Optus (and other carriers).","x":"Schott Review, on the Bean Review's recommendations"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The government's acceptance carried two qualifications. It accepted all 18, but noted that Recommendation 2, a Triple Zero Custodian, needed further investigation, and it agreed only in principle to extend the roaming work to temporary roaming during outages, Recommendation 14, noting that implementation may not be feasible due to mobile network capacity [3]. The second major outage, on 18 September 2025, fell 489 days after that acceptance, inside the 12 to 18 month window the government had set for itself [1].","r":[3,1]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"q","t":"The Government accepted all eighteen recommendations, though they did note that the recommendation to establish a Triple Zero Custodian needed further investigation.","x":"Schott Review, on the government's response"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"q","t":"They also agreed only in principle to extend the work on roaming to temporary roaming during outages.","x":"Schott Review, on the government's response"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s0-b8","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The same Senate committee that would go on to report on the 2025 outage had already reported on the 2023 one, in a separate inquiry, in September 2024 [9].","r":[9]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Four days after the 18 September 2025 outage, the government said 12 of the 18 Bean recommendations had been put in place, with the rest underway. That is the government's own claim, not a verified count as at the date of the outage [2].","r":[2]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"q","t":"The government says 12 of the 18 recommendations have been put in place, with the rest underway.","x":"ABC, Michael Atkin, 22 September 2025"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Department, for its part, says one recommendation remains outstanding. Recommendation 18, a review of all Triple Zero legislation and regulation, is, on the Department's own undated page, the final outstanding recommendation; its public consultation ran from 26 May to 30 June 2026, and its report is due to the Minister, via the Triple Zero Custodian, by March 2027 [10].","r":[10]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"q","t":"Recommendation 18 proposed a review of all legislation and regulation relating to Triple Zero and is the final outstanding Optus Outage Review recommendation.","x":"Department of Infrastructure"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"f","x":"Recommendations 3, 4 and 16","t":"The three Bean Review recommendations addressed specifically to Optus (and other carriers). Optus's own internal assessment, agreed by its consultant Kearney, found them implemented; that is Optus's assessment and its consultant's, reported in a review Optus commissioned, not a regulator's finding."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"q","t":"They agree with the internal assessment that the recommendations have been implemented but note that further improvements are possible to go beyond the regulated requirement.","x":"Schott Review, on Optus's Recommendations 3, 4 and 16"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"In its own Senate submission, Optus put the wider position differently: \"Despite improvements implemented since that time, the 2025 outage shows that further action is required by industry and government to collaboratively ensure the resilience of the Triple Zero ecosystem\" [11].","r":[11]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"All three counts, the government's 12 of 18, the Department's naming of Recommendation 18 as the last outstanding, and Optus's assessment of its own three, are claims made by the parties whose own work is being assessed. None of them is a regulator's finding."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The Optus Board commissioned Kerry Schott AO to review the 18 September 2025 outage, and her report, dated 12 December 2025 and released on 18 December 2025, found the failure came from a series of at least ten mistakes by Optus employees and a contractor [3].","r":[3]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"These mistakes can only be explained by a lack of care about a critical service and a lack of disciplined adherence to procedure.","x":"Kerry Schott AO, Independent Report: The Triple Zero Outage at Optus: 18 September 2025"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Two network alerts, the report found, were noted as related to a firewall upgrade underway and not investigated further: one was checked by the contractor; the second, in the Network Operations Centre, was notified to Optus; and both were simply noted as related to the upgrade [3].","r":[3]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The report itself calls its improvement list a checklist: 21 items under the heading \"Checklist: Possible Improvement Measures\", numerous measures which the Board and management \"may wish to consider and implement\" [3].","r":[3]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"f","x":"21 items, two labels","t":"The Schott Review's own name for its appendix: \"Checklist: Possible Improvement Measures.\" Optus, in its FY26 results, calls the same 21 items recommendations and says its Board accepted all of them."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Optus's own account, in its FY26 results, gives the same 21 items a different label [12].","r":[12]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"q","t":"The Board accepted all 21 recommendations, and implementation is well underway","x":"Optus, FY26 results, reported by iTWire"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b7","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Optus chairman John Arthur said, as the ABC reported on the day of release, that the board was acting on individual accountability [13].","r":[13]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s2-b8","s":2,"k":"q","t":"The board is taking further action in relation to individual accountabilities flowing from the incident, which will extend from financial penalties through to termination in appropriate cases.","x":"John Arthur, Optus chairman, 18 December 2025"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The Senate Environment and Communications References Committee's inquiry, \"Triple zero service outages\", was referred on 28 October 2025, and its reporting date changed six times [14]. There is no dissenting report; Labor senators and Coalition senators each filed additional comments [15]. The committee handed its report down on 21 September 2026 [5], with 11 recommendations [4].","r":[14,15,5,4]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"One recommendation goes to the Emergency Call Person function, currently performed by Telstra; the committee recommends the government consider a statutory authority to take it over [4][5].","r":[4,5]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The committee recommends that the Australian Government consider establishing a statutory authority to assume responsibility for the Emergency Call Person function.","x":"Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, Chapter 10"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"A second recommends turning scrutiny on the regulator itself."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The committee recommends that the Australian Government commission an independent review of the Australian Communications and Media Authority's (ACMA) role, powers, resourcing, technical capability and regulatory approach in relation to Triple Zero, including whether the current institutional arrangements remain appropriate for the regulation of an essential public safety service.","x":"Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, Chapter 10"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Labor senators cautioned against acting on that recommendation before other work is finished."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Labor senators cautioned against reviewing the watchdog until an analysis of the Triple Zero framework and the ACCC's inquiry were completed.","x":"ABC, 21 September 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b7","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Eight of the other nine recommendations, paraphrased from the committee's own chapter: use the government's current review to modernise the Telecommunications Act 1997 and recognise Triple Zero as an essential public safety service (Recommendation 1); have the Custodian review how welfare checks are carried out (Recommendation 3); build a reliability framework with mandatory standards, civil penalties and automatic compensation (Recommendation 4); and give ACMA substantiation notice powers to compel information and evidence, a separate power from the review of ACMA itself (Recommendation 6). The remaining four: require a text-based option for contacting Triple Zero (Recommendation 8); have ACMA work with operators and manufacturers on a public register of compliant, tested devices (Recommendation 9); have the ACCC develop a framework for sharing technical specifications between operators and device makers (Recommendation 10); and require more transparency, including outage data in telcos' annual reports (Recommendation 11) [4].","r":[4]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b8","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The framework should include mandatory reliability and performance standards applying to carriers and carriage service providers, substantial civil penalties for non-compliance, and a comprehensive automatic compensation scheme for those directly or indirectly affected by service outages.","x":"Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, Chapter 10, on Recommendation 4"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b9","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Recommendation 7 would have the government legislate to mandate domestic mobile roaming."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b10","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The committee recommends that the Australian Government amend the telecommunications legislation to mandate domestic mobile roaming for both voice calls and text messages.","x":"Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, Chapter 10, Recommendation 7"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b11","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Labor senators had reservations about that recommendation too."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b12","s":3,"k":"q","t":"The Labor senators on the committee said they supported most of the recommendations, but had reservations about some, including mandating domestic roaming.","x":"ABC, 21 September 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b13","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The committee's chair, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, framed the report as a turning point."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b14","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Australian telcos are now on notice. This is the end of the era of self-regulation.","x":"Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, committee chair, 21 September 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b15","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Triple Zero is an essential service. It is often a matter of life or death for people. We can no longer allow it to be left to private companies.","x":"Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, committee chair, 21 September 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b16","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 21 September 2026, a federal government spokesperson said the government would consider the committee's recommendations [5]. Telstra said it takes the report seriously and will carefully consider its findings and recommendations, and that its position on mandated roaming is unchanged [5].","r":[5]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b17","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Our concern is that mandated roaming could reduce infrastructure diversity and resilience over time.","x":"Telstra spokesperson, 21 September 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b18","s":3,"k":"p","t":"On 1 October 2026 the ABC reported that, from that day, Telstra, Optus and TPG will activate temporary disaster roaming when one network goes down during a severe weather event, giving customers access to a rival network, with the telcos deciding when to activate it. The ABC said it is different from domestic roaming, which the ACCC is currently reviewing to see whether it should be mandated on a permanent and more widespread basis [16].","r":[16]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b19","s":3,"k":"p","t":"No formal government response had been located as of 8 October 2026."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b20","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Separately, ACMA announced on 11 December 2024 that Telstra, which performs the Emergency Call Person function, had paid more than $3 million for failing to comply with emergency call rules during a technical disruption at its Triple Zero call centre on 1 March 2024 [17].","r":[17]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b21","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Telstra Limited (Telstra) has paid a penalty of more than $3 million for failing to comply with emergency call rules during a technical disruption at its Triple Zero emergency call centre.","x":"ACMA, 11 December 2024"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s3-b22","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The same release says ACMA member Samantha Yorke acknowledged that Telstra \"has historically had a strong record of compliance in its role as the national Triple Zero operator\", and quotes her saying \"Telstra has been open and apologetic about the outage, communicated effectively to the public and took a variety of immediate actions when problems were identified.\" [17]","r":[17]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Both outages turn on the same legal duty: section 148(1) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999, which requires compliance with the emergency call service determination. The 2023 outage ended in infringement notices for alleged contraventions of that section [6]; the 2025 case seeks declarations under the same Act [7].","r":[6,7]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The notices themselves, dated 4 November 2024, show ACMA issuing three infringement notices under section 572E of the Telecommunications Act 1997, each for alleged contraventions of section 148(1) of the TCPSS Act, each amount calculated under section 572G(1)(b): Optus Mobile, $11,098,980; Optus Networks, $676,080; Optus Internet, $225,360. No court was involved [6][18][19].","r":[6,18,19]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"q","t":"In accordance with paragraph 572G(1)(b) of the Act, the penalty payable under this Notice is $11,098,980.","x":"ACMA infringement notice, Optus Mobile, 4 November 2024"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Optus Networks notice states the alleged contraventions as the officer's belief, and says what payment does not mean [18].","r":[18]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"q","t":"I have reasonable grounds to believe that, on 8 November 2023, Optus Networks committed multiple contraventions of subsection 148(1) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999","x":"ACMA infringement notice, Optus Networks, 4 November 2024"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Payment does not equate to a finding that the contraventions occurred. Payment is not an admission of liability.","x":"ACMA infringement notice, Optus Networks, 4 November 2024"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"f","x":"$12,000,420","t":"$11,098,980 plus $676,080 plus $225,360, the total the three Optus companies paid in infringement notices for the 2023 outage, computed."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This case's first article, \"The calls that did not connect\", sets out that record in full."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"ACMA's Federal Court case, announced 30 July 2026, seeks declarations that Optus Mobile contravened the TCPSS Act on 1,005 occasions, for alleged failures under sections 15 and 19 of the Emergency Call Service Determination. ACMA's own account states the maximum available to the court [7].","r":[7]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"q","t":"declarations that Optus Mobile contravened the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 on 1,005 occasions","x":"ACMA, 30 July 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b10","s":4,"k":"q","t":"The maximum penalty available to the court is $250,000 per contravention.","x":"ACMA, 30 July 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b11","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The 1,005 contraventions are alleged, not established; the allegations are untested. \"One thousand and five\", this case's account of the 2025 outage, sets out ACMA's choice to go to court rather than issue a notice, and its stated reason, which this article does not repeat."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b12","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Since 31 October 2025, the maximum for the same duty has been far higher. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Act 2025, Act No. 50 of 2025, passed both Houses on 28 October 2025 and received assent on 30 October 2025, commencing the next day. Its Part 4 inserted new penalty provisions into the Telecommunications Act 1997 setting a maximum of $30 million for each contravention of section 148(1) or (3) of the TCPSS Act, the same duty in both Optus outages, and of section 151D, ACMA's own emergency call service directions [8].","r":[8]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b13","s":4,"k":"q","t":"(ad) in the case of a contravention of subsection 148(1) or (3) of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 - $30 million for each contravention","x":"Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Act 2025, as passed"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b14","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The bill's own record on the Parliament's website puts the same two dates in one line [20].","r":[20]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b15","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Finally passed both Houses 28 Oct 2025 Assent Act no : 50 Year : 2025 30 Oct 2025","x":"Parliament of Australia, bill record"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b16","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The court case over the 18 September 2025 outage runs under a $250,000 cap per contravention, in ACMA's own words. The $30 million cap for the same duty commenced on 31 October 2025, six weeks after that outage."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b17","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Department describes the same figure for breaching an emergency call service (ECS) direction [21].","r":[21]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b18","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Failure to comply with an ECS direction may incur a civil penalty of up to $30 million for each contravention.","x":"Department of Infrastructure"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b19","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The Minister's release of 28 October 2025 put the same figure in different words [22].","r":[22]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b20","s":4,"k":"q","t":"It will also increase the maximum penalties faced by telcos for failing to follow the Triple Zero rules to $30 million.","x":"Minister for Communications, media release, 28 October 2025"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b21","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The figure grew as the bill moved through Parliament. The Parliamentary Library's Bills Digest, written on the bill as introduced, gave a lower ceiling for failing to comply with ECS directions [23].","r":[23]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b22","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Failure to comply with these directions attracts a maximum civil penalty of $250,000 for each contravention","x":"Parliamentary Library, Bills Digest on the bill as introduced"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b23","s":4,"k":"p","t":"By the time the bill passed, that figure was $30 million."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b24","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Set the three periods side by side, on the one duty and nothing else. This article does not state the maximum available for the 2023 notices."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b26","s":4,"k":"f","x":"$30 million","t":"The same maximum applies to breaching an ACMA emergency call direction under section 151D of the TCPSS Act, since 31 October 2025."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b27","s":4,"k":"f","x":"$10 million","t":"A separate, existing figure: up to $10 million per breach if Optus fails to comply with ACMA's 2024 direction or its enforceable undertaking on the Integrated Public Number Database. Nothing located shows any such breach alleged [24]."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b28","s":4,"k":"q","t":"If the ACMA finds Optus fails to comply with the direction or the enforceable undertaking, it may commence proceedings in the Federal Court, which can order penalties up to $10 million per breach.","x":"ACMA, 6 March 2024"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b29","s":4,"k":"p","t":"A second $10 million figure comes from a bill, and it is not the Triple Zero penalty. The Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill would raise the maximum for breaching industry codes and standards from $250,000 to the greater of 30,300 penalty units, about $10 million, three times the benefit obtained or, where that cannot be determined, 30 per cent of adjusted turnover, for conduct occurring wholly on or after commencement. It was first introduced on 12 February 2025 [25][26].","r":[25,26]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b30","s":4,"k":"q","t":"increase the maximum civil penalty for breaching industry codes and standards from $250,000 to $10 million, aligning penalties across telecommunications industry codes, standards","x":"Corrs Chambers Westgarth"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b31","s":4,"k":"p","t":"It lapsed at the end of the 47th Parliament [27]; it was introduced again in the House on 28 August 2025, passed the House on 14 May 2026 and was introduced in the Senate on 22 June 2026. The Parliament's bill record, read on 8 October 2026, shows it still before the Senate [28].","r":[27,28]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s4-b32","s":4,"k":"q","t":"Status Before Senate ... Second reading agreed to 14 May 2026 Third reading agreed to 14 May 2026 Senate Introduced and read a first time 22 Jun 2026","x":"Parliament of Australia, bill record"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Telstra told the ABC it gave almost $1 million in credits to 33,000 customers and businesses that lodged complaints after its own outage in July 2026. Optus declined to tell the ABC how many customers it compensated, or by how much, after its September 2025 outage [5].","r":[5]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"q","t":"Optus declined to answer how many customers it had compensated and by how much following its September 2025 outage, citing the 'confidential nature of customer arrangements'.","x":"ABC, 21 September 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"THE RORT emailed questions on this article's subjects on 2 October 2026 to the media team of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, to ACMA, to Optus and to Telstra, and asked for a response by 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. The email to the Department asked that it be passed to the office of the Minister for Communications as relevant."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The Department's media team replied by email on 8 October 2026, saying the response could be attributed to a spokesperson from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts. The reply says:"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"q","t":"The Australian Government is continuing its priority work to strengthen the Triple Zero system and improve oversight and accountability of the telecommunications sector to ensure it delivers for the Australian community. We have completed a number of significant reforms, including increasing maximum penalties for telcos who fail to follow Triple Zero rules to $30 million per breach, mandating real time reporting of outages to ACMA and emergency services, and ensuring Triple Zero calls fall back to other networks. The Triple Zero Custodian is leading a review of the legislation and regulations underpinning the Triple Zero system, focused on identifying and addressing gaps in the framework and working towards a future model for Triple Zero that meets public expectations.","x":"A spokesperson from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, reply of 8 October 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The reply does not answer the six numbered questions. It does not say whether the $30 million maximum applies to any conduct before 31 October 2025, including the 18 September 2025 outage. It does not say whether the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill would change the maximum penalty for any breach of the Triple Zero rules. It does not say which 12 of the 18 Bean Review recommendations were in place when the government said so on 22 September 2025, which six were not, or whether the position was the same on 18 September 2025, and it does not give the date by which, on the Department's account, the 17 recommendations other than Recommendation 18 were complete. It does not say when the government will respond to the Senate report of 21 September 2026, or to its recommendation for an independent review of ACMA. It does not say whether the caution the ABC reported Labor senators expressing about reviewing ACMA is the government's own position. The statements on real time reporting of outages and on calls falling back to other networks are the Department's; this article has not tested them."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Optus's media team replied by email on 8 October 2026. The email is signed Optus Media Team and carries no request that it be kept off the record. It says:"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"q","t":"Optus’s position on these matters is on the public record, including our submission to the Senate Environment and Communications Committee following the September 2025 Triple Zero outage.","x":"Optus Media Team, email of 8 October 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"That submission, quoted above [11], also says that Optus \"apologises to all those who sought help that day but could not rely on Optus to access that help\", and lists changes Optus says it has made since the outage, among them daily Triple Zero test calls in every state and territory. The email also says:","r":[11]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"q","t":"Matters currently before the Federal Court will be addressed through the appropriate legal process.","x":"Optus Media Team, email of 8 October 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b8","s":6,"k":"p","t":"It links a release that Optus dated 21 September 2026 [29]. The reply does not directly answer the questions put to Optus on this article's subjects. It does not say whether Optus contests the allegations in ACMA's Federal Court proceeding, and its Federal Court sentence names no matter, so this article does not say which matter it refers to. It does not give the date on which, by its own assessment, Optus implemented each of the three Bean Review recommendations addressed to Optus and other carriers, does not say how many of the 21 Schott Review measures are implemented, and does not say whether compensation was offered to customers after the September 2025 outage, to roughly how many, or why totals cannot be published.","r":[29]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b9","s":6,"k":"p","t":"In the release, Optus says it accepted all 21 recommendations of the review led by Kerry Schott AO and that \"many recommendations have already been completed or embedded into business-as-usual operations\" [29]. Those are Optus's statements, not findings; the release gives no number of completed recommendations and no completion dates.","r":[29]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b10","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The questions to ACMA included the file number of ACMA v Optus Mobile Pty Limited and whether directions or a hearing have been listed, whether the amount of the infringement notices for the November 2023 outage was the maximum an infringement notice could impose for those contraventions, and ACMA's response to the Senate committee's Recommendations 5 and 6, the independent review of ACMA and substantiation notice powers. No response was received from ACMA by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026. ACMA said on 30 July 2026 that, as the matter is before the court, it will not be making any further comments at this time."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b11","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The question to Telstra on this article's subject was its response to the Senate committee's Recommendation 2, that the government consider a statutory authority to take over the Emergency Call Person function. No response was received from Telstra by the deadline, 5pm AEDT on Thursday 8 October 2026."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s6-b12","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Any later response will be added here as a dated update."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s7-b0","s":7,"k":"p","t":"The Department says the Triple Zero Custodian was established within the Department in March 2025 and that the Custodian's legislative function was confirmed by Act No. 50 of 2025 [21], the Act that carries the $30 million penalty and which the government says it fast-tracked [5]. The review of the whole legal and regulatory framework around Triple Zero is the Department's Recommendation 18 review, reporting to the Minister via the Custodian by March 2027; the government has also said, through a spokesperson, that new outage reporting and public registers have been introduced [5].","r":[21,5]},{"a":92,"at":"at-s7-b1","s":7,"k":"p","t":"This outlet did not locate a file number or listing date for ACMA's Federal Court case against Optus Mobile. ACMA says it will not comment further at this time while the matter is before the court."},{"a":92,"at":"at-s7-b2","s":7,"k":"q","t":"As this matter is now before the court, the ACMA will not be making any further comments at this time.","x":"ACMA, 30 July 2026"},{"a":92,"at":"at-s7-b3","s":7,"k":"p","t":"THE REPORTING RORT's \"Fourteen days\" cites the Triple Zero infringement notices among its examples of duties Parliament wrote and regulators have enforced."},{"a":93,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"On 23 March 2026, oil and stock futures spiked on no announced news in the sixteen minutes before Trump posted that strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure would pause.","r":[11]},{"a":93,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The Justice Department and the CFTC are examining at least four oil-futures trades that together made more than US$2.6 billion betting prices would fall right before they did.","r":[33,35]},{"a":93,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Trump’s accounts bought energy and defence stocks through the war. White House spokesman Davis Ingle said there were “no conflicts of interest”, The New Republic reported.","r":[6,10]},{"a":93,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"No finding of insider trading has been made. The only penalty so far, US$172,000, fell on a White House teleprompter operator who bet on Trump’s speeches.","r":[24]},{"a":93,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On 23 March 2026, in the sixteen minutes between 6:49 a.m. and 7:05 a.m. New York time, oil and stock futures moved on no announced news, and Donald Trump then posted that strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure would pause. Those minutes have drawn a Senate letter, a House member’s regulator request, and a CFTC probe. They have not drawn a finding that anyone traded on inside information."},{"a":93,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The sixteen minutes are one entry in a longer, dated record: accounts in the president’s name buying oil, gas and defence stocks through the war his administration was fighting; prediction markets that took bets on the war’s timing before it began; and the only person penalised so far for trading on nonpublic government information, a former White House teleprompter operator who bet on Trump’s own speeches. This article sets out the dates and sizes, with every denial printed beside the allegation it answers. The prediction market that took those bets is the subject of the next article; what the same record shows in Australia is the subject of the three that follow it."},{"a":93,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel struck Iran in an operation code-named Operation Epic Fury. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed. [1] The Pentagon records the operation as launched at 1:15 a.m. on 28 February, a Saturday; this article dates the war from those strikes. [38] Trump followed the strikes from a ballroom, not a briefing room, hosting a children’s charity gala at Mar-a-Lago in formal attire before moving behind heavy curtains into a makeshift situation room set up with classified phone lines and monitors. He announced the operation from Mar-a-Lago’s press room in the early hours of Saturday, then went on to a Republican fundraiser, while Vice President Vance watched from the White House Situation Room. [1]","r":[1,38]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"q","t":"disappeared behind a curtain into a temporary situation room to watch the attacks unfold.","x":"Trump, according to the Daily Beast","src":"1 March 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The fundraiser held as the strikes began was priced at US$1 million per person, attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff. Within twenty-four hours, three US service members had been killed and five seriously wounded, according to military officials. [2]","r":[2]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Some reports give 27 February 2026, the Friday night on which Trump hosted the Mar-a-Lago gala, as the start of the war. This article dates it from the strikes, which the Pentagon records as launched at 1:15 a.m. on Saturday 28 February 2026 [38]; the first paragraph now says so, and every date in the article and its image is 28 February.","r":[38]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Prediction markets moved before the missiles did. US$529 million was traded on Polymarket contracts tied to the timing of the strikes, a Bloomberg figure reported by TechCrunch. Analytics firm Bubblemaps identified six newly created accounts that together profited about US$1 million betting the strike would happen by 28 February. Bubblemaps chief executive Nicolas Vaiman said information “involving war or conflict” combined with “Polymarket’s anonymity, can create incentives for informed participants to act early.” [4]","r":[4]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"AFP reported a different figure for the same six accounts: US$1.2 million staked in the hours before the bombing began, comparable to more than US$400,000 wagered on Polymarket in January on Nicolas Maduro’s ouster, hours before US forces seized him. The profit and stake figures describe the same accounts measured two ways; neither is a finding, and no charge has followed either one. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"“This is unbelievable corruption”","t":"Senator Chris Murphy’s assessment of the pattern of trades around the Iran war, echoed by Jordan Libowitz of CREW, who called it “the kind of thing that makes people wonder if their government is acting in their best interest,” and Michael Lynch of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, who called it “a little suspicious.”","src":"AFP via Malay Mail, 28 March 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Accounts in Donald Trump’s own name traded through the same months, buying gold, treasuries and emerging-market ETFs through early March, then energy and defence stocks by 23 March, before moving into cash the following week. Across the war’s first three months the account made about 3,642 trades, US$220 million to 750 million of volume. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"q","t":"I’ve gone through every president. I don’t think we’ve had any president trade in the stock market.","x":"Richard Painter","src":"Fortune, 18 May 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A Trump Organization spokesperson said third-party institutions held “sole and exclusive authority” over the decisions through “automated investment processes”. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"A separate CNBC reconstruction adds detail to the same dates: eight oil and gas companies bought on 2 March, and sixteen energy purchases on 23 March, the same day Trump postponed threatened strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure before the market opened, and an Exxon sale on 7 April hours before a ceasefire announcement. CNBC estimates the president’s nine largest oil and gas holdings gained US$1.5 million to 4.4 million between the eve of the war and 31 August. [7]","r":[7]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"f","x":"“A smokescreen, not a blind trust”","t":"Scott Greytak of Transparency International US, on the discretionary trading account structure. The White House maintains that Trump and his family are not involved and that independent managers make every decision.","src":"CNBC, 9 September 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s2-b5","s":2,"k":"p","t":"CBS News puts first-quarter trading at about 3,600 trades worth US$212 million to 695 million, and cites the Joint Economic Committee Democrats for a rise in the disclosed value of the oil and gas holdings through mid-August. White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the portfolio is independently managed with no family input; others called the pattern tax-loss harvesting, or raised the concern of profiting from instability the president had a role in creating. [8]","r":[8]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s2-b6","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Trump and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian signed remotely a fourteen-point framework memorandum on 17 June to end the war. [9] An OGE filing dated 12 August records more than 1,000 trades in June, including Lockheed Martin bought, sold and bought again on 15, 16 and 23 June; the memorandum falls between those trades, and no inference beyond that is drawn. Davis Ingle said there were “no conflicts of interest” and that the assets sit in a trust managed by the president’s children. [10]","r":[9,10]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Every trading time here is New York time. At 6:49 a.m. on Monday 23 March 2026, S&P 500 e-mini futures and WTI May futures both spiked in volume with no announced catalyst. About sixteen minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Trump posted on Truth Social that talks with Iran were progressing and strikes on energy infrastructure were paused; S&P futures rose more than two per cent. [11]","r":[11]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Bloomberg measured the same minutes differently: at least six million barrels of Brent and WTI crude were sold in the two minutes from 6:49 a.m., against a five-day average of about 700,000 barrels. [12]","r":[12]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Senator Chris Murphy pointed to US$1.5 billion of S&P 500 futures bought while US$192 million of oil futures was sold in the moments before the pause was announced. [13]","r":[13]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"q","t":"Mind blowing corruption.","x":"Senator Chris Murphy","src":"The Hill, 25 March 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s3-b4","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Rep. Ritchie Torres, on 8 April 2026, put the crude futures bets at more than US$500 million in the roughly fifteen minutes before the post, about nine times the average volume for that time of day, and asked the SEC and CFTC to investigate; crude fell more than 10 per cent. [14]","r":[14]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"These are three measurements of one event, Bloomberg’s barrel count, Murphy’s dollar figures, Torres’s crude-futures total, not to be added together. AFP reported a market operator’s calculation that put the profit on the Monday trades at US$ tens of millions. [5] No regulator has said the trading was illegal.","r":[5]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s3-b6","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The year has been added to the date of Rep. Torres’s request (8 April 2026); nothing else in this section has changed."},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"On 7 April 2026, about US$960 million was bet on oil prices falling before Trump announced a two-week ceasefire that evening, Washington time, which was the morning of 8 April in Australia; oil fell about 15 per cent. That was the trade visible at the time. It turned out to be one of four. [15][33][37]","r":[15,33,37]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"q","t":"This pattern raises serious questions about whether there has been recurring misappropriation of material nonpublic government information and about the extent to which individuals inside or outside the government have acted on such information.","x":"Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse, letter to the CFTC","src":"Senate Banking Committee minority, April 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Reuters reported on 15 April 2026 that the CFTC is investigating oil futures trades on CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange platforms placed shortly before Trump’s Iran policy shifts, at least the 23 March and 7 April instances, and that investigators requested Tag 50 identifications of the entities behind the trades. The CFTC declined to comment; its enforcement director said the agency was “watching” for insider trading, focused on “policing market misconduct and manipulation, especially in energy markets.” [16]","r":[16]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"By May 2026, the inquiry had names, and a size. The Wall Street Journal reported that the CFTC was examining three firms over the 23 March trades, which were worth more than US$800 million: Qube Research and Technologies, a London investment manager, on about US$5 million in gains; Totsa, the trading arm of the French energy company TotalEnergies, on about US$200,000; and Forza Fund, a fund associated with the China-based Metabit Trading, on about US$10 million. All three denied knowledge of the matter: Qube and the Metabit-linked Forza Fund said they had not been contacted by the regulator, and Totsa said it was unaware of any investigation into its crude oil trading and was firmly committed to complying with all applicable market regulations. [34]","r":[34]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"And it was not one bet, or two. By 7 May 2026 the Justice Department had joined the CFTC, and the two were examining at least four oil-futures trades that together made more than US$2.6 billion betting prices would drop right before they did. The Justice Department’s side, ABC News and NBC News reported, was led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The four trades were dated 23 March 2026, more than US$500 million, about fifteen minutes before Trump’s post delaying strikes on energy infrastructure; 7 April 2026, US$960 million, before the ceasefire; 17 April 2026, US$760 million, about twenty minutes before Iran’s foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz was reopening, the one trade timed to an Iranian statement rather than a Trump one; and 21 April 2026, US$430 million, about fifteen minutes before Trump extended the ceasefire, as Brent fell from US$100.91 to US$96.83 a barrel. The market data the reporting relied on does not identify who placed the trades, and does not prove anyone traded on inside information. [33][35][36]","r":[33,35,36]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b5","s":4,"k":"f","x":"More than US$2.6 billion","t":"The combined value of at least four oil-futures trades the Justice Department and the CFTC are examining, each betting prices would fall shortly before they did, on 23 March, 7 April, 17 April and 21 April 2026. The Justice Department investigation is led by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. No trader has been identified, and no finding of insider trading has been made.","src":"ABC News and NBC News, May 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b6","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The war did not end there. Trump and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian signed a fourteen-point framework memorandum on 17 June, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and extending the ceasefire for talks. [9] On 2 and 3 August, Trump called off renewed strikes, citing allied pressure and the “perimeters of a deal” to reopen Hormuz; Brent fell eight per cent to about US$83. [17]","r":[9,17]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b7","s":4,"k":"p","t":"After a month-long lull, the US bombed a Hormuz island on 30 August and struck further targets on 1 September. Trump called the strikes “large and powerful”; the IRGC struck US bases in Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan in response. [18]","r":[18]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b8","s":4,"k":"p","t":"By 9 September, Brent stood at US$100.72 a barrel and WTI at US$95.25, with US diesel at a record US$5.94 a gallon, following US strikes on five Iranian tankers and Houthi attacks on Saudi facilities. [19]","r":[19]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s4-b9","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. Years have been added to the dates in this section (15 April, May, 7 May, and the four trade dates, all 2026), and the 7 April ceasefire announcement is now marked as the evening of 7 April in Washington, which was the morning of 8 April in Australia; this case’s Australian articles date the ceasefire’s market effect to 8 April for that reason. Reference [37] has been added for the timing of the announcement. No fact has changed.","r":[37]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. A passage here set out a Financial Times report of 30 March 2026, relayed by Al Jazeera, about the defence secretary, with the Pentagon’s reply and the letters it drew from members of Congress. The report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. Under this station’s method an adverse claim resting on an anonymous source alone is cut. The passage has been removed, along with the sentences elsewhere in the article that relied on it."},{"a":93,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The only financial penalty imposed by any regulator over trading tied to Trump’s own words or the war fell instead on Gabriel Perez, a White House teleprompter operator who bet on Kalshi between December 2025 and February 2026 on words in Trump’s speeches, using speech texts he had access to before delivery. The CFTC ordered him on 28 August 2026 to repay US$107,500 of profits and pay a US$65,000 civil penalty, US$172,000 in all, with a three-year trading ban. [24]","r":[24]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"f","x":"US$172,000","t":"The CFTC found he “had access to presidential speeches prior to delivery and misappropriated that information, in breach of his duty of trust and confidence”. Kalshi’s own surveillance froze his account, which held more than US$90,000, and referred him to the regulator. The White House issued guidance to staff in March warning against betting with nonpublic information.","src":"CBS News / AP, 28 August 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Trump Media announced on 16 July a paid feed called Truth API, delivering posts from influential Truth Social accounts, above all the president’s, faster than a regular push notification, aimed at trading firms. “Markets already move on Truth Social posts,” said chief executive Kevin McGurn. [25]","r":[25]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"The feed went on sale on 1 August for up to US$100,000 a month. Renee Jones, a former senior SEC official, said the offering appeared to run afoul of insider trading laws, and Democratic senators asked the SEC to investigate. [26]","r":[26]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b2","s":6,"k":"q","t":"Truth API offers customers the fastest way to ingest publicly available Truth Social data. Critics must have invented a new theory of ‘insider trading’ based on publicly available information.","x":"Shannon Devine, Trump Media spokeswoman","src":"NPR, 1 August 2026"},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b3","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Separate from the trading, the president’s family had substantial crypto income in 2025. His disclosure, released 1 July 2026, reports more than US$1.4 billion of crypto income, its largest lines memecoin royalties of more than US$635 million and World Liberty Financial token sales of more than US$550 million, the token sales up ninefold from US$57 million in 2024, alongside sales of World Liberty business interests and a stablecoin equity sale. “There’s nothing illegal” and “nothing wrong,” Trump told CNBC. [27]","r":[27]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b4","s":6,"k":"p","t":"World Liberty sold 5.9 billion WLFI tokens privately to undisclosed investors; the Trump family entity DT Marks DEFI is entitled to 75 per cent of token sale proceeds after reserves and expenses, and family members hold 22.5 billion tokens, which have traded about 89 per cent off their peak. [28] The family was entitled to roughly US$500 million from a 2025 deal with the company then called Alt5 Sigma, whose stock has since fallen more than 90 per cent; CNBC found no evidence anyone in Alt5’s August stock sale exploited the relationship. [29]","r":[28,29]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b5","s":6,"k":"p","t":"Public Citizen put the family’s total stake at about US$1 billion, with Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Barron Trump each adding about US$133 million to their net worth from it; a UAE entity bought 49 per cent of World Liberty four days before the inauguration, routing US$187 million to the family, and Steve Witkoff, the administration’s Iran negotiator, added US$280 million. [30] Forbes valued Barron Trump at about US$150 million on his presumed WLFI holding; nothing in the record examined for this article shows he has sold or cashed out any of it. [31]","r":[30,31]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b6","s":6,"k":"p","t":"On 15 August 2026 the OCC granted World Liberty Trust Co. conditional approval for a bank charter, the first time a sitting president’s family company has been granted bank status. “The most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said. [32]","r":[32]},{"a":93,"at":"at-s6-b7","s":6,"k":"p","t":"None of this is a finding that Trump or anyone around him traded on inside information (corrected 7 October 2026: a name was removed from this sentence; see the correction in the section “The only man who paid”). It is a dated record of trades, letters, a joint Justice Department and CFTC investigation into more than US$2.6 billion of oil-futures bets, and one penalty, paid by a teleprompter operator, not by anyone who traded oil or crude futures. The prediction market where the same war was bet on in yes-or-no shares is where this case turns next; from there it crosses to Australia."},{"a":94,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Polymarket took real-money bets on the turns of the 2026 Iran war. At least 50 brand-new accounts bet on the 7 April ceasefire in the hours and minutes before Trump announced it.","r":[2]},{"a":94,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"One wallet was created twelve minutes before Trump’s post; it staked US$31,908 and is estimated to have earned about US$48,500.","r":[3]},{"a":94,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"A nonpartisan group found 152 accounts that profited about US$8 million on the war markets with a 97 per cent win rate.","r":[4]},{"a":94,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Polymarket has referred dozens of accounts to the Justice Department. No account holder has been named, charged or found to have traded on inside information.","r":[4]},{"a":94,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Polymarket is a prediction market. Users bet real money on yes-or-no questions about the future, and the price of a ‘yes’ share, between zero and one dollar, moves with the crowd’s estimate of the odds. Through the 2026 Iran war it ran contracts on the things the war turned on: whether the United States would strike, whether Iran’s Supreme Leader would survive, whether a ceasefire would be reached and whether it would hold. Some accounts bet on those questions as though they already knew the answer."},{"a":94,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This article is about the accounts that were right too often, and too early. It is not a finding that any of them traded on inside information; none has been charged, and the platform is anonymous by design. It is a record of the bets, their timing, the win rate a nonpartisan group measured across all of them, the referrals the company has since made to the Justice Department, and the letters two members of Congress sent in response. What the same war looked like in the oil futures market, where a separate probe is now open, is the subject of this case’s first article."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The pattern was there from the war’s first days. When the United States and Israel struck Iran on 28 February 2026, about US$529 million had already traded on Polymarket contracts tied to the timing of the strikes, and an analytics firm identified six newly created accounts that together profited about US$1 million betting the strike would happen by that date [1]. In January, before the war, more than US$400,000 was wagered on Polymarket on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro being removed, hours before United States forces seized him [8].","r":[1,8]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The clearest case came at the other end of the fighting, on the ceasefire. On the evening of 7 April 2026, Washington time (the morning of 8 April in Australia), President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran [9]. In the hours and minutes before he did, a cluster of accounts bet that it was coming.","r":[9]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"At least 50 accounts","t":"The number of brand-new Polymarket accounts that placed substantial ‘yes’ bets on a US-Iran ceasefire in the hours and minutes before Trump announced it, several of them making that single bet and nothing else through their accounts, despite what public reporting described as signs that negotiations had collapsed.","src":"OPB / NPR, 10 April 2026"},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"One wallet placed roughly US$72,000 in bets at an average price of about nine cents on the dollar and cashed out for a profit of about US$200,000. Another, a third wallet, had been created just twelve minutes before Trump’s post; it staked US$31,908 at around thirty-three cents and is estimated to have earned about US$48,500 [3].","r":[3]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Representative Ritchie Torres put the arithmetic bluntly."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b5","s":0,"k":"q","t":"What is the statistical likelihood that of anyone other than an insider trader placing a winning bet 12 minutes before a market-moving presidential announcement. There are two answers: God, or an insider trader.","x":"Rep. Ritchie Torres","src":"OPB / NPR, 10 April 2026"},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b6","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Polymarket did not immediately reply to a request for comment [2]. None of the accounts has been named, and none of these figures is a finding; they are the timing and the size of bets that anonymous accounts placed and were paid on.","r":[2]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s0-b7","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The ceasefire announcement is now marked as the evening of 7 April 2026 in Washington, which was the morning of 8 April in Australia, so that this date matches the Australian market dates in this case’s fourth article. Reference [9] has been added for the timing of the announcement. No fact has changed.","r":[9]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"For months the ceasefire bets were a set of anecdotes: a wallet here, a cluster there, each striking on its own but none of them a measurement of the whole. In August a nonpartisan research group, the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, supplied the measurement."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The group analysed a large body of publicly available Polymarket data and found 152 accounts that had profited about US$8 million on the war markets, with what the reporting called a staggering 97 per cent win rate [4].","r":[4]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"97 per cent","t":"The win rate the Anti-Corruption Data Collective calculated across 152 accounts that profited about US$8 million on the Iran-war prediction markets. A win rate near 97 per cent, sustained across scores of accounts and millions of dollars on questions with roughly even odds, is not what chance produces; the group treated it as a signature worth handing to investigators.","src":"CNN via KVIA, 21 August 2026"},{"a":94,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The company was already ahead of the report. A senior Polymarket official told CNN that the platform had referred dozens of accounts showing signs of possible military insider trading to the Justice Department for investigation, and that those referrals predated the group’s findings [4].","r":[4]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"That is the turn this article records. The prediction market that took the bets is now the source of the referrals against them, and the figure that drew the referrals is not any single wallet’s winnings but the win rate of the field as a whole."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Two members of Congress had already written, in April, over the ceasefire bets."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Representative Ritchie Torres wrote to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Michael Selig, ‘calling for an immediate investigation into suspicious trading activity on Polymarket in the hours before President Trump announced a US-Iran ceasefire’, in the words of the report of his letter. In a companion request over the oil futures market he wrote that the pattern raised serious concerns that certain market participants may have had access to material nonpublic information regarding a market-moving geopolitical event [5][2].","r":[5,2]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote to Polymarket’s founder and chief executive, Shayne Coplan, on 9 April, framing the platform itself as the risk."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"q","t":"Polymarket has become an illicit market to sell and exploit national security secrets unlike any in history, and by extension a potential honeypot for foreign intelligence services watching for those same suspicious bets and wagers.","x":"Senator Richard Blumenthal, letter to Polymarket","src":"OPB / NPR, 10 April 2026"},{"a":94,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The concern in that sentence is not only that someone with advance knowledge might cash in. It is that a public, anonymous market in exactly-timed bets is a place where a foreign service could read the same signals, or plant them. Neither letter is a finding, and neither compels the platform to do anything; they are requests, on the public record, from members of the minority."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Everything above rests on data anyone can pull. Polymarket’s ledger is public: the wallets, the bets, the timestamps and the payouts are visible to anyone who cares to read them, which is how an analytics firm, a research group and reporters were able to count what they counted. That openness is why the win rate can be measured at all, and it is also why nothing here is secret enough to have been misappropriated on the platform itself. The question the referrals and the letters raise is what the accounts knew before they bet, and that lives off the ledger, where no chart can reach."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"So the record stops where the evidence stops. Anonymous accounts placed well-timed, winning bets on the war’s turns; a nonpartisan group put the field’s win rate at 97 per cent; the company referred dozens of accounts to the Justice Department; two members of Congress asked regulators and the company to look. No account holder has been named, charged or found to have traded on inside information."},{"a":94,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The one financial penalty imposed anywhere over trading tied to the president’s own words did not fall on a Polymarket account. It fell in a rival prediction market, Kalshi, on Gabriel Perez, a former White House teleprompter operator who bet on the wording of Trump’s speeches using texts he saw before delivery; the CFTC ordered him in August to repay his profits and pay a penalty, US$172,000 in all, with a three-year ban [6]. He is the only person who has paid. The winning ceasefire accounts, and the field the Anti-Corruption Data Collective measured, remain anonymous.","r":[6]},{"a":94,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"In the futures market, where the same war was traded in oil rather than in yes-or-no shares, the numbers are larger and the inquiry is further along: the Justice Department and the CFTC are examining at least four oil trades that together made more than US$2.6 billion betting prices would fall right before they did [7]. That is the subject of this case’s first article. This one stays with the prediction market, and with the ninety-seven per cent.","r":[7]},{"a":95,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"In the war’s first quarter, Hancock Prospecting’s US filings show a reported US$133 million shift toward defence stocks and gold, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.","r":[4]},{"a":95,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"In the June quarter Hancock bought 8 million SpaceX shares and its US portfolio reached US$5.71 billion, up 72 per cent on the quarter.","r":[1]},{"a":95,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Canberra asked Treasury to model a gas levy on 20 March 2026, then dropped it on 10 May, while forecasting a A$38 billion lift in export income from the war.","r":[11,15,16]},{"a":95,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Instead it cut fuel excise, a package the Budget costed at A$2.9 billion. Both ledgers are lawful; no filing connects the trades to one another.","r":[19]},{"a":95,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"Hancock Prospecting files a report with United States regulators every quarter because it holds more than US$100 million in American shares. Read against the calendar of the war the United States and Israel opened against Iran on 28 February 2026, those filings describe a private portfolio that grew heavier in defence contractors, gold and, in the second quarter, SpaceX, over the same months the Australian government was tallying what the same war would do to its own accounts."},{"a":95,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The public ledger runs on a separate but parallel track. The Commonwealth forecast a A$38 billion lift in export income from the war, considered and then abandoned a new levy on the gas exporters who gained most from it, and instead cut the fuel excise, a package the Budget costed at A$2.9 billion."},{"a":95,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Both ledgers are lawful. Hancock’s trades are disclosed under US securities law, and nothing in the record examined for this article suggests otherwise. What connects them here is proximity: overlapping dates, and a set of company names that recur in Rinehart’s own filings and in accounts trading in the president’s name."},{"a":95,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"United States securities law requires any investor holding more than US$100 million in US-listed shares to disclose the full portfolio every quarter on a Form 13F. That is the rule that puts Rinehart’s buying and selling on the public record [1].","r":[1]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"f","x":"US$100 million","t":"The threshold in US securities law above which an institutional investor must disclose its full US portfolio each quarter. Hancock Prospecting’s US holdings have stood well above it since at least mid-2025.","src":"The Nightly (Danielle Le Messurier), 15 August 2025 [2]"},{"a":95,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The quarter that set the baseline was built around American technology and mining names close to US policy. In the June 2025 quarter, Hancock lifted its stake in Donald Trump’s Trump Media and Technology Group by 67 per cent, a position then worth about US$4.5 million, inside a US portfolio worth about US$3.1 billion. Hancock also held a 7.8 per cent stake in MP Materials, valued at more than US$1 billion after the US Defense Department deal, along with Lynas, Teck, Hudbay, NexGen, Nvidia and Dell [2]. Rinehart had celebrated Donald Trump’s election-night win at Mar-a-Lago in November 2024, and has advocated his agenda for Australia [2].","r":[2]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"That was the position she held when the United States and Israel opened their war on Iran on 28 February 2026 [3].","r":[3]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Hancock’s next disclosure, covering January to March 2026 and filed in May, shows the change the war brought. In March, after the strikes had already begun, Hancock added CrowdStrike, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and RTX, part of what Reuters reported as a US$133 million shift toward defence stocks and gold [4].","r":[4]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"US$133 million","t":"The size of Hancock’s reported shift toward American defence stocks and gold in the March 2026 quarter, the first quarter of the war.","src":"Reuters (Melanie Burton) via US News, 17 May 2026 [4]"},{"a":95,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The same quarter, Hancock added the gold miner Newmont, bought a 6.3 per cent stake in Rare Earths Americas, lifted its Hudbay position by about 10 per cent and sold its entire holding in SQM. By the end of March its US portfolio was worth about US$3.3 billion, with the Invesco QQQ Trust and MP Materials together making up 47 per cent of the total weighting [4].","r":[4]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The June quarter, filed on 14 and 15 August, went further. Hancock bought 8 million shares of SpaceX during the quarter, worth US$1.37 billion at 30 June and her single largest US holding; it doubled its Trump Media stake in the same three months; it held about US$260 million in an S&P 500 exchange traded fund; and it increased its defence and energy holdings again. The full US portfolio reached US$5.71 billion across 42 positions, up 72 per cent on the quarter. Hancock had disclosed in June only ‘a significant investment’ tied to SpaceX’s 12 June initial public offering, without a figure [1].","r":[1]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"In the weeks before the SpaceX purchase, Hancock spent US$130 million on Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, RTX and L3Harris. SpaceX itself priced its shares at US$135 and closed its first day of trading at US$160.95. Hancock’s chief executive, Garry Korte, said: ‘SpaceX is years ahead in launch capability, and critically, satellite communications.’ Rinehart’s net worth was reported at US$32.4 billion; she is 72 [5].","r":[5]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Every one of these trades sits inside a regulatory filing. Nothing in the record suggests they are unlawful, and this desk makes no such claim: the question here is what else was happening, in the same country, on the same calendar."},{"a":95,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Rinehart’s role in Australian politics runs on a separate, but overlapping, timeline. Reuters reported that she donated a Cirrus G7 aircraft worth about A$1.5 million to One Nation, and that two executives of her own companies, Hancock Agriculture chief executive Adam Giles and Hancock Energy executive director Ian Plimer, each donated A$500,000 to the party. She hosted multiple events a week aimed at converting Liberal Party donors to One Nation, including dinners priced at A$15,000 a seat, and arranged a fundraiser that culminated in a March 2026 visit to Mar-a-Lago. She flew Hanson and other One Nation figures on her Gulfstream G700 and other private aircraft about 20 times, including at least once to Florida. Her fortune was put at about A$40 billion. She had previously given Peter Dutton private flights before the 2025 election. A spokesperson’s statement criticised green energy spending and immigration policy [6].","r":[6]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Hanson and Barnaby Joyce billed taxpayers for their own travel to fundraising and donor events aboard The World, the residential cruise ship on which Rinehart owns a penthouse, according to Guardian Australia reporting carried by Crikey [7].","r":[7]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Article 1 of this case set out a separate, American record: trades in accounts bearing the president’s own name. Read next to Hancock’s filings, a small number of company names recur in both."},{"a":95,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This desk assembled the table below, from separate public filings. No document read for this article states that any of these purchases are connected."},{"a":95,"at":"at-s4-b3","s":4,"k":"p","t":"No filing, report or letter connects these purchases to one another. This table is this desk’s own reading of separate public records: Hancock’s SEC filings and the disclosures of accounts held in the president’s name."},{"a":95,"at":"at-s4-b4","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section previously carried a fourth column, headed “Defence fund”, and sentences linking the table to a report about the defence secretary that article 1 of this case has removed (see its correction of the same date). That report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. Under this station’s method an adverse claim resting on an anonymous source alone is cut. The column, the sentences that relied on it and reference [10] have been removed; the other columns are unchanged.","r":[10]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b0","s":5,"k":"p","t":"While Hancock was buying, the Commonwealth was tallying what the same war would do to its own books, and weighing, then dropping, a way to capture some of the gain."},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b1","s":5,"k":"p","t":"On 20 March 2026, the Prime Minister’s department asked Treasury to model a new levy on gas companies, along with further reform of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax and other corporate tax changes. ‘Energy producers should not benefit from high international prices at the expense of domestic customers,’ the department said. Gas companies made about A$100 billion in windfall profits during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Greens leader Larissa Waters said Middle East earnings would be ‘many multiples’ higher: ‘Millions of Australians are doing it tough, and these rich corporations should not get a free ride.’ The week before, Labor, the Coalition and One Nation had together voted down a Greens amendment for a gas levy. Chalmers said: ‘Our task is not just to respond to shocks, but to position Australia to succeed through them.’ [11]","r":[11]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b2","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Ten days later, on 30 March 2026, the government halved the fuel excise, 26.3 cents a litre, effective from 1 April, as crude oil passed US$116 a barrel. ‘We understand the cost pressures for people are very real as the impact of the war on the other side of the world plays out right here,’ Albanese said. Australia imports about 80 per cent of its refined fuel; petrol had risen 8 per cent and diesel 10 per cent in the week to 25 March, more than 500 service stations ran short amid panic buying, and the country held 39 days of petrol, 30 of diesel and 30 of jet fuel in reserve. The heavy vehicle charge was suspended for three months [12].","r":[12]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b3","s":5,"k":"f","x":"A$2.9 billion","t":"The Budget’s costing, on 12 May 2026, of the enlarged fuel excise package. The Commonwealth excise was halved from 1 April 2026, 26.3 cents a litre, with the states funding a further 5.7 cents; it later became a 16-cent discount from 1 July and ended on 2 August. Transport Minister Catherine King said on 10 June that people ‘should at this stage expect that it’s coming off at the end of June’; the government separately announced a A$10 billion energy and fertiliser security package, including onshore fuel reserves of at least 50 days and a permanent government-owned reserve of about one billion litres.","src":"Budget Paper No. 1, Statement 1, 12 May 2026 [19]; The Nightly (AAP, Tess Ikonomou), 10 June 2026 [13]; ABC News, 28 July 2026 [17]; ABC News, 2 August 2026 [20]"},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b4","s":5,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article gave the cost of the fuel excise cut as A$2.5 billion, in the subtitle, the introduction, the fact box, the table, the key facts, the diagram and its description, the note on reference [13], and the 10 September desk record. That figure was a press report’s, and this desk could not trace it to a source, so it has been replaced throughout with the A$2.9 billion at which the 12 May 2026 Budget costed the enlarged package [19].","r":[13,19]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b5","s":5,"k":"p","t":"A Senate inquiry into gas taxation, initiated by the Greens and chaired by Senator Steph Hodgkins-May, opened hearings on 21 April 2026, reporting ahead of the 12 May budget. Its proposals ranged from a flat 25 per cent tax on gas exports to a higher Petroleum Resource Rent Tax on windfall profits. The chief executives of Woodside, Santos, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell all declined to appear, sending other executives instead; Hodgkins-May said they were ‘hiding’. Industry put its own tax and royalty payments at about A$21.9 billion for 2024-25. Industry Minister Tim Ayres said: ‘The best thing to do is for us to work on those issues carefully with the industry and make announcements when the time is right.’ Albanese pledged that existing gas contracts would not be affected [14].","r":[14]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b6","s":5,"k":"p","t":"On 10 May 2026, the Prime Minister killed off both the windfall tax and the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax changes, citing the risk of upsetting the trading partners Australia relies on for fuel. The tax had raised A$1.42 billion in 2024-25 and was forecast in December at A$1.5 billion for 2025-26, with ‘a bit of an upgrade’ expected in the budget. ‘I know that people would like us to go further but there are good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation,’ Chalmers said. The cross-party Senate committee recommended the government revisit the issue once the conflict ends, without setting a date; the government adopted an east coast gas reservation policy instead, which Chalmers called ‘reform not revenue’ [15].","r":[15]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s5-b8","s":5,"k":"p","t":"The scale of what was being weighed became clearer on 3 July 2026, when the Department of Industry, Science and Resources forecast a A$38 billion, or US$26 billion, lift in export income because of the war, with resources exports rising almost 3 per cent to A$416 billion in the year to June 2027. Liquefied natural gas, the product at the centre of the dropped levy, was the single biggest beneficiary, with about A$20 billion of the extra revenue. The forecast assumed disruption ending by the close of June, with a further A$7 billion if it ran through August. The department had forecast a fall as recently as December, and had withheld its March report for uncertainty [16].","r":[16]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s6-b0","s":6,"k":"p","t":"On 28 July 2026, Treasury told Chalmers that ‘economic risks from the continuation of the war in the Middle East are increasing’. The May budget’s own scenario had oil peaking at US$200 a barrel in September, with headline inflation of about 7.25 per cent under it. The fuel discount was about 16 cents a litre for July after the three-month halving; the government put A$4 million toward a feasibility study for a refinery at Karratha. ‘From an economic point of view, a proper and permanent end to the war can’t come soon enough,’ Chalmers said. ‘The longer war in the Middle East goes on the greater the impact on Australia will be,’ Albanese said. No decision had been made on extending the fuel discount beyond 2 August [17].","r":[17]},{"a":95,"at":"at-s6-b1","s":6,"k":"p","t":"As at 9 September 2026, Brent crude was trading above US$100 a barrel [18]. The Senate committee’s recommendation to revisit the dropped windfall levy once the war ends carries no date and remains unresolved; this desk records it as open, not as a date to watch.","r":[18]},{"a":96,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"When the war closed the Strait of Hormuz, Australian gas producers jumped: on 2 March 2026 Santos rose 7.8 per cent and Woodside 7.7 per cent.","r":[1]},{"a":96,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"On the ceasefire Woodside plunged 11.4 per cent and Santos shed 5 per cent, giving up all their war gains.","r":[2]},{"a":96,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"Defence makers rose when the fighting did: DroneShield climbed 19.4 per cent the day Iran rejected a US ceasefire proposal.","r":[3]},{"a":96,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Every move was lawful and disclosed. The market gave its war gains back in six weeks. The A$38 billion lift in national export income reported over the same months is a forecast of export earnings, not money received.","r":[6]},{"a":96,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"When a war closes the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas moves, the price of energy rises, and so does the price of the companies that sell it. The Australian share market read that within a day. What it gave, it later took back just as fast."},{"a":96,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This article follows four Australian-listed companies through the seven months of the 2026 Iran war: two gas producers that rose on the war and fell on its ceasefire, and two defence manufacturers that rose whenever the fighting escalated. Every move here is a lawful, disclosed price change on a public exchange, and this article accuses no one of anything. It is a record of the round trip the war made through the market, and of who was holding the right names on the way up."},{"a":96,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The war began on 28 February 2026, a Saturday. The Australian market’s first chance to price it was Monday 2 March, and it priced it hard. With the Strait of Hormuz, the channel for about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas, shuttered by the conflict, Santos and Woodside, the two biggest names on the local energy board, opened sharply higher."},{"a":96,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Santos shares were up 7.8 per cent, changing hands for A$7.29 each. Woodside came in a close second, up 7.7 per cent at A$30.50. Brent crude had closed the previous Friday up about 3 per cent at US$73 a barrel, and the market was pricing the disruption to come, not the disruption already arrived [1].","r":[1]},{"a":96,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"There is nothing improper in any of this. A shipping lane closes, energy gets scarcer, and the companies that pump and ship gas are worth more; the market does in an hour what the news does over a weekend. The point is only the direction, and the speed: within one session, the war was already money on the board."},{"a":96,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Then it ran in reverse. On 8 April 2026, the first Australian trading session after President Trump announced a ceasefire on the evening of 7 April in Washington [7], the same board that had risen on the war fell on its end.","r":[7]},{"a":96,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Woodside, Australia’s biggest producer and the North West Shelf operator, plunged 11.4 per cent; Santos shed 5 per cent. Falling oil prices after the ceasefire meant both had now given up all their gains from six weeks of volatile trading since the conflict began on 28 February [2].","r":[2]},{"a":96,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"p","t":"That is the round trip. A holder who bought Woodside on the war and sold on the ceasefire caught the whole move; a holder who simply held through both watched the gain arrive and leave. Nothing was taken from anyone, and nothing here was hidden; the exchange published every tick. What the two prices mark, six weeks apart, is how completely a single foreign war can be priced into a domestic market and then priced back out."},{"a":96,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said President Trump announced the ceasefire on 8 April 2026. He announced it on the evening of 7 April in Washington, as this case’s first two articles record; that was the morning of 8 April in Australia, and 8 April was the first Australian session to trade on it, the day of the Woodside and Santos falls [2]. The text and table now say so, and reference [7] has been added for the timing of the announcement.","r":[2,7]},{"a":96,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Where the energy names tracked the oil price, up on the war and down on the ceasefire, the defence names ran on a different signal: they rose when the fighting did."},{"a":96,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"On Wednesday 26 March 2026, the day Iran rejected a United States ceasefire proposal, calling it unreasonable and putting its own conditions instead, the counter-drone maker DroneShield rocketed 19.4 per cent, closing at A$4.26 a share [3]. Two weeks earlier, on 13 March, Electro Optic Systems had risen 3.3 per cent to A$10.25 after telling the market it had secured two unconditional orders for counter-drone systems worth a total of US$45 million, one of them an order for its Slinger remote weapon system from a customer in the Middle East [4].","r":[3,4]},{"a":96,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"f","x":"US$45 million","t":"The value of two new counter-drone orders Electro Optic Systems announced on 13 March 2026, one of them a Slinger remote weapon system for a Middle East customer. The company’s shares rose 3.3 per cent to A$10.25 on the day. DroneShield, in the same trade, closed up 19.4 per cent at A$4.26 on the day Iran rejected a US ceasefire proposal.","src":"The Motley Fool Australia, 13 and 26 March 2026"},{"a":96,"at":"at-s2-b3","s":2,"k":"p","t":"These are small companies beside Woodside and Santos, and their moves are ordinary in kind: a defence manufacturer wins an order or reads a worsening conflict, and its shares rise. The mirror is the point. The energy names were long the war ending badly for oil supply; the defence names were long the war continuing. Between them they covered both ways the fighting could go, and both made money while it did."},{"a":96,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"None of these moves is under inquiry, and none should be; they are the market doing exactly what a public market is built to do. That is also why they appear in this case. A war is, among other things, a set of prices, and the prices moved in plain sight, examined by no regulator, because ordinary trading on public news is examined by no one."},{"a":96,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"What the case can show is who was positioned. Over the same months these Australian names were moving, the largest Australian portfolio on the United States market, Hancock Prospecting’s, was buying the American version of the same trade: a reported US$133 million shift into US defence contractors and gold in the war’s first quarter, set out in full in this case’s third article [5]. Those trades, like these, are lawful and disclosed, and no filing connects them to one another; the only thing they share is a direction, taken early.","r":[5]},{"a":96,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"And over the same months again, a Bloomberg report put the forecast lift in Australia’s export income from the very disruption that moved Woodside and Santos at A$38 billion, a figure this case takes up in its third and fifth articles [6]. The share market caught the war in a day and gave it back in six weeks. The A$38 billion is a different kind of number: a forecast of what exports will earn, not money anyone has received.","r":[6]},{"a":96,"at":"at-s3-b5","s":3,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said “the Commonwealth’s own department” forecast the A$38 billion and that the national accounts “caught the same war as a windfall” that no one had been asked to give back. The A$38 billion is a Bloomberg report’s figure for the forecast lift in export income, a forecast of export earnings, not money received by anyone, as this case’s fifth article was corrected to say on 29 September 2026. The text, pull quote and key facts now say so. [6]","r":[6]},{"a":97,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Parliament spent two days on the Prime Minister’s undeclared five-dollar golf club membership. The forecast A$38 billion lift in export earnings from the war drew nothing at all.","r":[1,9]},{"a":97,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The A$38 billion is a reported forecast of export income, which is revenue, not profit and not tax.","r":[9]},{"a":97,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"A Senate committee on gas taxation tabled its report on 7 May 2026 without a majority position on reform. Its cross-party call to revisit once the conflict ends carries no date.","r":[11,6]},{"a":97,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"The windfall levy the government asked Treasury to model was dropped, and the petroleum resource rent tax was revised down by A$100 million.","r":[6,12]},{"a":97,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"In one September sitting week, the Parliament of Australia spent two days on a five-dollar golf club membership. The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, held an honorary membership of a club in his own electorate, granted about 2012 and never declared, and the club had been promised A$6.05 million from an invitation-only fund. The detail of that grant, and the fund behind it, is a rort in its own right, and this masthead covers it as one in a separate case, THE PORK BARREL."},{"a":97,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"This article is about what the same fortnight did not touch. Set the five-dollar membership at one end of a single scale and the forecast A$38 billion lift in export earnings from the war at the other, and the point is not the size of the numbers. It is that the smallest figure drew a two-day parliamentary argument, and the largest drew nothing at all."},{"a":97,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The five-dollar membership and the A$560 million fund behind it are documented in this masthead's separate case, THE PORK BARREL, and they are worth exactly the attention Question Time gave them across two days. They are also the smallest items on the scale this case has assembled. Read against the other four articles in THE WAR TRADE, the golf club membership sits at one end of a single scale that runs from five Australian dollars to thirty-eight billion."},{"a":97,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The pattern in that list is not the size of the numbers. It is what happened at each size. The smallest figures produced a resignation and a two-day parliamentary argument. The middle figures produced an open regulatory investigation with no finding yet reached. The largest figures, in both countries, produced a phrase, a deferral and a forecast, and nothing that examines them any further."},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The register of interests and Question Time between them found a five-dollar membership, traced its history back to 2012 and put the Prime Minister and several opposition frontbenchers on the record, all inside about twenty-four hours. That capacity is real, and it is not this case’s problem."},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The problem is what the same machinery does not reach. Australia did convene an inquiry into the windfall: the Senate Select Committee into the taxation of Australia's gas resources. It tabled its report on 7 May 2026 without a majority position on reform of the gas tax system. A cross-party recommendation that the government revisit the question once the conflict in the Middle East had concluded carries no date. [6][11]","r":[6,11]},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"No majority","t":"The Senate Select Committee into the taxation of Australia's gas resources tabled its report on 7 May 2026 without a majority position on reform of the gas tax system. Its chair, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, said the overseas conflict was being used as an excuse to avoid the question.","src":"Australian Greens media release, 7 May 2026"},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The committee's chair, Senator Steph Hodgins-May, put it plainly: “Pointing to conflict overseas is a convenient excuse to delay action while billions in gas profits continue to flow offshore.” The windfall levy the government had asked Treasury to model was, in the ABC's words of 10 May, “killed off”, two days before the 12 May Budget, and nothing has replaced it; the Treasurer said there were “good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation”, and the Prime Minister had said on 29 April that “the middle of a global fuel crisis is the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships”. Two days after that Budget, as SBS reported on 14 May, the Prime Minister dismissed a gas export tax rise as “a slogan”, and the petroleum resource rent tax was revised down by A$100 million, to A$1.4 billion for this financial year, even as war-driven oil prices held. [6][11][12][14]","r":[6,11,12,14]},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Update, 29 September 2026. This article now gives the government's stated reasons for not taxing gas exports further [6][14].","r":[6,14]},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article said the windfall levy “was killed off in the 10 May budget”. The 2026-27 Budget was delivered on 12 May 2026 [16]; 10 May is the date of the ABC report, and “killed off” is that reporter's characterisation (the ABC reported the Prime Minister “killed off the move, concerned it could upset the trading partners Australia is relying on for fuel”), not a government statement. It also said the Prime Minister's “slogan” remark came four days after the Budget; SBS reported it on 14 May, two days after the Budget. The levy is also now described as one the government had asked Treasury to model, which is what the reporting supports. All are corrected above and in the key facts. [6][12]","r":[16,6,12]},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b6","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The petroleum resource rent tax that inquiry might have changed raised A$1.42 billion in 2024-25, against a forecast lift in export earnings from the war that Bloomberg reported the department expects at A$38 billion. [6][9] That figure is export income, which is revenue, not profit and not tax. It assumes the war’s disruption ends by the close of June, with a further A$7 billion added if it runs through August, and it expects total resource exports to rise almost 3 per cent to A$416 billion for the year. [9]","r":[6,9]},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b7","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 29 September 2026. This article said the government had “booked” the A$38 billion “from the war” (subtitle) and called it “the Commonwealth's A$38 billion war windfall” (lede), and repeated the framing in the scale table, key facts, body, image and alt text. It is a forecast of export earnings, not money received by the government, and export earnings are revenue, not profit or tax. The A$38 billion comes from a Bloomberg report carried by the South China Morning Post [9]. The department's own June 2026 Resources and Energy Quarterly raised its 2026-27 forecast for all resource and energy export earnings by A$42 billion on its December 2025 figure, driven by Middle East energy prices and gold; A$20 billion of it was in liquefied natural gas, “due to the outbreak of the Middle East conflict” [15]. The A$38 billion is consistent with that Quarterly's scenario of disruption to the end of June: nearly A$8 billion in 2025-26 and A$30 billion in 2026-27, a gross figure that does not net off dearer imported oil and diesel [15]. That match is THE RORT's arithmetic; the Bloomberg report does not say it drew on the scenario. Read the A$38 billion as the report's figure for the forecast lift, not a sum the government has collected. [9]","r":[9,15]},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b8","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Nothing in Australia is examining the Marrickville-scale disclosure question in tandem with the war-trade-scale one, because nothing in Australia is examining the war trade at all. The single open inquiry into any figure on this scale is American, and it does not run through Canberra. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, joined since May by the Justice Department, is investigating oil futures trades placed shortly before the president’s own Iran policy shifts, among them a US$960 million bet before a ceasefire announcement and, in all, at least four trades worth more than US$2.6 billion. [5][13] Senators Warren and Whitehouse wrote to the regulator that the pattern “raises serious questions about whether there has been recurring misappropriation of material nonpublic government information...” [10]","r":[5,13,10]},{"a":97,"at":"at-s1-b9","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Hancock Prospecting’s trades are lawful, disclosed in routine securities filings, and under no inquiry anywhere; say so plainly, because nothing in the record says otherwise. [4][8] The comparison this case draws is not an accusation against the filer. It is a measurement of what gets looked at, and what does not.","r":[4,8]},{"a":98,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"Two lawful steps on one Bondi Junction block built development potential no single decision granted: a council rezoning, then a state approval on top.","r":[1,3]},{"a":98,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"The 2019 rezoning lifted floor space from 1.5:1 to 3.5:1, raised the height limit from 15 metres to 36 metres and removed the heritage listing on four terraces.","r":[1]},{"a":98,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"In 2025 the state approved up to 17 storeys and 85 apartments, using the Housing SEPP affordable-housing bonus to upscale an 11-storey, 70-apartment consent.","r":[2,3]},{"a":98,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"Of 125 submissions, 118 objected, and the Heritage Council of NSW objected too. The approval was granted anyway.","r":[2]},{"a":98,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"The NSW Planning Portal records the first move on this block as a pair of numbers. On 18 September 2019 a planning proposal for 194-214 Oxford Street and 2 Nelson Street, Bondi Junction, was gazetted. It more than doubled how much building the site could hold and it deleted a heritage listing."},{"a":98,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"That was step one. Step two came from the state. Neither step, on its own, is unusual or unlawful. Read together, on the same title, they are a method: a way to manufacture development potential that no single decision would have granted, and, at the second step, to carry it through over the objections of the community and the state heritage body."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Waverley Council covers Sydney's eastern beaches, Bondi Junction its dense retail spine. The NSW Planning Portal's decision page for the Oxford Street and Nelson Street site sets out the first step in plain figures. A planning proposal, PP-2020-315, was gazetted on 18 September 2019. It lifted the site's floor space ratio from 1.5:1 to 3.5:1 and raised the height limit from 15 metres to 36 metres. In the same instrument, local heritage listing was removed from Item I212, a group of four terraces."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"A word on the jargon, because it is where the value is created. Floor space ratio is simply how much building floor you may put on a block relative to the block's area. At 1.5:1 you may build one and a half times the site area in floor space. At 3.5:1 you may build three and a half times. That is the multiplier that a valuer prices. This is a land reclassification in effect: the same dirt, given a much larger permitted envelope."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"f","x":"1.5:1 to 3.5:1","t":"The 2019 rezoning more than doubled the permitted floor space ratio on the site and raised the height limit from 15m to 36m.","src":"NSW Planning Portal, LEP decision page for 194-214 Oxford Street and 2 Nelson Street, Bondi Junction"},{"a":98,"at":"at-s0-b3","s":0,"k":"p","t":"The heritage delisting is the quieter half. A local heritage listing is a control that constrains what can be demolished or altered. Removing Item I212 lifted that constraint from four terraces. Once the listing is gone, the terraces are, in planning terms, ordinary developable frontage. The enlarged envelope now has clear ground beneath it."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The second step did not come from Waverley Council. It came from the state. The 2025 approval was a State Significant Development, a class of larger project that is assessed and determined by the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure rather than by the local council. The NSW Planning Portal's major-projects page records the pathway."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The extra scale was enabled by the Housing SEPP. A State Environmental Planning Policy is a state planning instrument that can sit over the local rules. The Housing SEPP's infill affordable-housing bonus can grant additional height or floor space in return for a component of affordable housing. Here it supplied the uplift on top of the already enlarged envelope. To be precise about the framing: this was a state SSD approval, enabled by the Housing SEPP bonus, over council and heritage objections. It was not a case of one instrument overriding a council rejection. The determining hand was the state's from the start of that pathway."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"up to 17 storeys, 85 apartments","t":"The approved development is an approximately A$80 million project of up to 17 storeys and 85 apartments, described as a 14 to 17 storey two-tower composition.","src":"The Urban Developer"},{"a":98,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Say the height plainly. Up to 17 storeys, in a two-tower composition running from 14 to 17 storeys, on a spine where the local limit set in 2019 was 36 metres. The state approval reached above what the rezoning alone contemplated."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The 2025 approval did not land on a bare site. The NSW Planning Portal's major-projects page records that the block already carried a consent for an 11-storey, 70-apartment building. The 2025 approval upscaled that consent."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"f","x":"11 storeys to up to 17","t":"The site already carried an 11-storey, 70-apartment consent, which the 2025 State Significant Development approval upscaled.","src":"NSW Planning Portal, major-projects page"},{"a":98,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"This is the two-step visible in a single line. From 70 apartments to 85, from 11 storeys to as many as 17. Each figure is the product of a lawful decision. But the sequence matters: the rezoning built the platform, and the state approval built higher on it. Neither step, examined alone, looks like a transformation. Stacked, they are one."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The public record is not ambiguous about how the second step was received. The Urban Developer reports that of 125 submissions on the development, 118 objected. The Heritage Council of NSW, the state's own heritage advisory body, also objected."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"f","x":"118 of 125 objected","t":"118 of 125 submissions objected to the development, and the Heritage Council of NSW also lodged an objection.","src":"The Urban Developer"},{"a":98,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"The approval was granted notwithstanding those objections. This is not an allegation against any officer, councillor or the lawful applicant, and there is no misconduct finding here. It is a description of an outcome that the documents record: a state approval delivered over the weight of community submissions and over the state heritage body's own objection. The people who lodged the 118 and the Heritage Council are, in the ledger of this decision, on the paying side. They lose the four terraces and the amenity. The yield created by the two steps accrues to the applicant that builds it."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s3-b3","s":3,"k":"p","t":"We name the developer only as the lawful applicant, because that is all the record supports. The mechanism, not the applicant, is the story."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s4-b0","s":4,"k":"p","t":"This is the pattern THE PATCH will keep returning to, the one we file under The Democratic Bypass: an outcome that no single accountable vote produced, assembled instead from a chain of separate, lawful steps, each of which absorbs only part of the change. A rezoning here. A state instrument there. A bonus on top. At no point is there one decision a resident could point to and say, that is where the streetscape was traded."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s4-b1","s":4,"k":"p","t":"The two-step is one route through that bypass. There are others in the planning toolkit, and it is worth naming them so the method is legible. A voluntary planning agreement lets an applicant offer a public benefit in exchange for planning changes. A deemed refusal, where a council fails to decide inside the statutory clock, can open a path to the Land and Environment Court. The Sydney Eastern City Planning Panel determines certain regional applications in place of the council. Each is a lawful lever. None of those levers is what happened on this block: here the route was rezoning, then a State Significant Development approval carrying the Housing SEPP bonus. The point is that the levers exist, and that value can be moved along any of them without a single decision ever bearing the full weight of the result."},{"a":98,"at":"at-s4-b2","s":4,"k":"p","t":"Currency note: the rezoning figures are as at the gazettal of 18 September 2019; the height, apartment and value figures are as at the 2025 State Significant Development approval recorded on the NSW Planning Portal and reported by The Urban Developer. Figures may move with later modifications."},{"a":99,"at":"at-br-0","k":"b","t":"When Waverley Council does not decide a development application in time, the applicant can treat the silence as a refusal and ask the Land and Environment Court to decide instead.","r":[4]},{"a":99,"at":"at-br-1","k":"b","t":"Clutch’s A$57.4 million Curlewis Street project in Bondi is before the court on that basis, in appeals 2024/71549 and 2024/71554.","r":[3]},{"a":99,"at":"at-br-2","k":"b","t":"The court approved the Orosi Rose Bay assembly, reported at about A$250 million, and Pearl Bondi, about A$150 million, after the council missed its deadlines.","r":[1,2]},{"a":99,"at":"at-br-3","k":"b","t":"On this desk's reading, the council loses its leverage to negotiate, condition or refuse, and nothing in the public record suggests intent: it is a capacity story, not a conspiracy.","r":[3]},{"a":99,"at":"rk-lede","k":"p","t":"On the Land and Environment Court's file, two appeals sit under the numbers 2024/71549 and 2024/71554. They concern a A$57.4 million residential project on Curlewis Street, Bondi. The applicant is the developer Clutch. The respondent is Waverley Council."},{"a":99,"at":"at-lede-1","k":"p","t":"The council did not determine the development application inside the time the law allows. So the applicant was entitled to treat that silence as a refusal, and to ask the court to decide instead. This is a lawful, statewide tactic. In Waverley, a run of large eastern-suburbs projects has taken the same path, and the pattern is what is worth watching."},{"a":99,"at":"at-lede-2","k":"p","t":"Figures below are as at the source dates shown; court matters are as at their decision dates."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s0-b0","s":0,"k":"p","t":"NSW planning law gives a council a set period to determine a development application [4]. If that period passes with no decision, the applicant is entitled to treat the application as if it had been refused [4]. This is a deemed refusal. It is a technical event triggered by time, not a judgment on the proposal. It does not mean the council said no. It means the council did not say anything inside the statutory window.","r":[4]},{"a":99,"at":"at-s0-b1","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Once a deemed refusal exists, the applicant can appeal to the Land and Environment Court. The court then re-exercises the council's own function. It weighs the proposal on the planning merits and, in effect, stands in the council's shoes. The elected body, and the residents who elected it, are no longer the ones holding the pen."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s0-b2","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Ordinarily a large residential application in this part of Sydney is settled either by the elected council or, above certain thresholds, by a panel such as the Sydney Eastern City Planning Panel, working within state policy including the Housing SEPP. A deemed refusal routes the same decision to a court instead. This is the shape THE RORT files under The Democratic Bypass: a lawful pathway by which a decision residents expect their representatives to make is made somewhere else."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s0-b4","s":0,"k":"p","t":"Update, 7 October 2026. The deemed-refusal rule in the opening paragraph is now cited to its source: section 8.11 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW) and the assessment periods in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021, 40 days for most development applications and 60 days for designated, integrated and concurrence development [4].","r":[4]},{"a":99,"at":"at-s1-b0","s":1,"k":"p","t":"The Curlewis Street matter is not isolated. Several substantial eastern-suburbs projects have reached the Land and Environment Court on Waverley's failure to decide within time."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s1-b1","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$250 million","t":"The Orosi four-site assembly at Rose Bay, reported at approximately A$250 million, was approved by the Land and Environment Court after a deemed refusal.","src":"The Urban Developer, December 2025"},{"a":99,"at":"at-s1-b2","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$150 million","t":"Central Element's project known as Pearl Bondi, reported at approximately A$150 million, was court-approved in May 2025 following the council's failure to decide within the statutory period.","src":"The Urban Developer, May 2025"},{"a":99,"at":"at-s1-b3","s":1,"k":"f","x":"A$57.4 million","t":"Clutch's Curlewis Street project, the subject of appeals 2024/71549 and 2024/71554, is a A$57.4 million matter. The figure belongs to Curlewis Street. The separate 7-19 Bondi Road matter in the same run carries no stated dollar value and should not be conflated with it.","src":"NSW Land and Environment Court records"},{"a":99,"at":"at-s1-b4","s":1,"k":"p","t":"Two further matters round out the picture, and both are already resolved. NB Capital's DA-455/2025 was decided on 12 May 2026 by conciliation, reported as [2026] NSWLEC 1268. It is a closed file, not an ongoing dispute. And Hanave v Waverley, [2025] NSWLEC 19, sits in the same class of proceeding. In each case the applicant is named as what it is: a party to public proceedings that it was lawfully entitled to bring."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s1-b5","s":1,"k":"p","t":"None of this is a finding against anyone. There are no misconduct findings here, and lodging a deemed-refusal appeal is not wrongdoing. What the file records is a mechanism working exactly as the statute permits, repeatedly, in one council area."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s2-b0","s":2,"k":"p","t":"The applicant gains a decision. When the council clock runs out, an applicant who might otherwise have faced conditions, negotiation, or refusal can instead put the proposal to a court that assesses it on the merits. Consent obtained this way is as valid as consent granted across the council chamber."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s2-b1","s":2,"k":"p","t":"What the elected council loses is leverage. The window in which councillors and officers can shape a project, extract public benefit through a voluntary planning agreement, seek a land reclassification, or refuse outright, is the window that closes when the application is not determined in time. Once the matter is before the court, the council's role narrows to arguing its position as one party among others."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s2-b2","s":2,"k":"p","t":"And there is a bill. Under the Land and Environment Court Rules, the Court is not to order payment of costs in Class 1 development appeals unless it considers an order for the whole or any part of the costs fair and reasonable in the circumstances, so the default is that each side carries its own costs. [5] This is a structural feature of the pathway, not a penalty for any particular decision.","r":[5]},{"a":99,"at":"at-s2-b4","s":2,"k":"p","t":"Correction, 8 October 2026. This section said the council's defence 'is funded by ratepayers, whether the outcome favours the council or not'. No source we read says how the council pays for its defence, so the claim is cut here and in the figure, as it was earlier from the brief. The section now says only what the Land and Environment Court's published guidance carries: under rule 3.7 of the Land and Environment Court Rules 2007 the Court is not to order costs in Class 1 cases unless it considers that fair and reasonable, so the default is that each side carries its own costs. [5]","r":[5]},{"a":99,"at":"at-s3-b0","s":3,"k":"p","t":"It matters what this is and what it is not. This is a missed-statutory-timeframe story. A council that does not determine an application in time is not a council that deliberately loses cases, and nothing in the public record supports that reading. Determination windows are tight, complex eastern-suburbs applications are dense, and a backlog is a question of capacity and workload, not intent."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s3-b1","s":3,"k":"p","t":"It also matters that the tactic is ordinary. Deemed-refusal appeals are used across NSW, by applicants of every size, wherever a statutory window lapses. Waverley is not unique in facing them. What is worth documenting is the concentration: a cluster of nine-figure and multi-million-dollar projects in one small, high-value council area, each decided by the court rather than by the body residents elected."},{"a":99,"at":"at-s3-b2","s":3,"k":"p","t":"THE PATCH will keep the Waverley file open, and watch the neighbouring registers in Randwick City Council and beyond, because the pattern, not any single matter, is the thing. When enough decisions drift out of the council chamber and into the courtroom, the drift itself becomes the story."},{"a":-1,"at":"airline-rort","k":"c","x":"The Airline Rort","t":"A duopoly for most of 35 years. Eight challengers tried to break it; every one failed or was absorbed. Fares stay above pre-COVID levels while the regulator names fixes no one implements."},{"a":-1,"at":"cartel-switch","k":"c","x":"The Cartel Switch","t":"Coordination between competitors in a crisis was already lawful, and the regulator authorised it in two days when the fuel majors asked. A statute passed in thirteen days kept the coordination and removed what surrounded it: the public benefit test, the conditions, and the requirement that anyone see the authorisation while it is in force."},{"a":-1,"at":"compliance-machine","k":"c","x":"The Compliance Machine","t":"A welfare compliance provision ran automated cancellation decisions unlawfully for two years, a finding the Commonwealth Ombudsman's first report confirmed in August 2025; a second report in December 2025 examined the fairness of the resulting compensation process. Two other powers under the same framework are due to restart in October 2026 under a process neither report investigated."},{"a":-1,"at":"consultancy-rort","k":"c","x":"The Consultancy Rort","t":"A public crackdown cut the Big Four's share, yet the total federal consultancy bill still climbed to a near-billion-dollar high. The money still leaves the public purse; only the name on the invoice changes."},{"a":-1,"at":"gambling-rort","k":"c","x":"The Gambling Rort","t":"A unanimous parliamentary committee said phase the ads out. The government's own analysis said a full ban delivers double the benefit at half the enforcement cost. The law that passed makes exposure the default and hands the citizen a register to ask, platform by platform or name by name, to be left alone."},{"a":-1,"at":"gas-rort","k":"c","x":"Australia's Gas Heist","t":"One of the largest LNG exporters on earth, and Australians pay more for their own gas than the countries it's shipped to. The public tax take is measured in fractions."},{"a":-1,"at":"inflation-rort","k":"c","x":"The Inflation Rort","t":"Four rises in 2026 have taken the cash rate to 4.60 per cent, the highest since late 2011. The first rise, on 3 February, came before the war began. In its 29 September statement the Reserve Bank puts the Middle East war and global oil and energy prices first among its reasons, on top of domestic capacity pressure, and its Governor said in May that the rises would do nothing about the oil shock itself. Its answer is a squeeze on domestic demand, meant to stop high inflation becoming embedded, that falls on borrowers and job seekers; renters feel little direct effect from a rate change, but the RBA's own stability review found their financial stress about twice as common as owner-occupiers' in 2024. The Governor says \"we had an inflation problem before\" the oil shock, and inflation was above the 2 to 3 per cent band before the war began. The government's own 2026-27 Budget says fiscal policy is \"better suited than monetary policy\" to supply shocks such as the oil shock; the IMF says fiscal policy \"should avoid broad-based subsidies, tax cuts, and price controls\"."},{"a":-1,"at":"media-ownership","k":"c","x":"Media Ownership","t":"Three billionaires and a US conglomerate control almost everything Australians read, watch and hear. The people who wrote the media laws went to work for the media companies."},{"a":-1,"at":"nature-rort","k":"c","x":"The Nature Rort","t":"National nature laws are being wired to an offset market that holds three projects and has issued zero certificates. Developers get a cheque-book pathway to clear habitat now, against restoration that is years away or may never arrive."},{"a":-1,"at":"pork-barrel","k":"c","x":"The Pork Barrel","t":"A A$560 million federal fund handed public money out by invitation, not by merit, and sent nearly three-quarters of it to seats the government already held. The only golf club on the list sat in the Prime Minister's own electorate, was promised A$6.05 million, and shared its name with an honorary membership he had held for years and never declared. The same disclosure rule ended a minister's career in 2020. Named as pork barrelling by design, and not, on any record read here, as unlawful."},{"a":-1,"at":"prison-contract-rort","k":"c","x":"The Prison Contract Rort","t":"A privately run prison operates under a deed that prices failure by the incident, with an unnatural death in custody charged at $500,000. The law requires a monitor to report on that prison every year and requires the report to be published. It is published, as a list of notice types and months with no amount against any of them."},{"a":-1,"at":"privacy-rort","k":"c","x":"The Privacy Rort","t":"Since 2018, businesses and Commonwealth agencies covered by the Privacy Act have had to report data breaches likely to cause serious harm. In 2025 the privacy regulator received 1,205 notifications, the most since the scheme began. The first civil penalties ever ordered under the Act came on 8 October 2025: $5.8 million against Australian Clinical Labs, which admitted the contraventions and consented to the orders. Up to 24 September 2026 we have found no other. Only a court can order a civil penalty, and the regulator's other outcomes have been findings, declarations, a negotiated payment, or nothing yet: Kmart's scanning of every shopper in 28 stores was found unlawful, a finding the law does not allow to carry a fine and one Kmart has asked the Administrative Review Tribunal to review, further action against Clearview AI was judged not warranted nearly three years after it was found in breach, and the Optus and Medibank penalty cases, filed over 2022 breaches, have no outcome we have found. A joint investigation of Latitude, opened in May 2023, has published none."},{"a":-1,"at":"randwick","k":"c","x":"Randwick","t":"Beds instead of homes, and height sold through planning agreements with the affordable-housing return banked as cash: how state incentives reshape the eastern suburbs."},{"a":-1,"at":"reporting-rort","k":"c","x":"The Reporting Rort","t":"The reporting runs one way. A Centrelink recipient given a notice has 14 days to report a change, and failing to comply is an offence; agency officers, not judges, signed 357,864 criminal-law authorisations for telecommunications data in 2024-25. When an OpenAI agent got inside a Services Australia portal on 18 June 2026, by the government's account, no Australian law we could find required the company to tell anyone. OpenAI told CNN it became aware of the access only in August, and its own 28 September post dates the finding to mid-August; on 10 September, 84 days after the access, it emailed a vulnerability disclosure inbox, the kind of channel the state requires every agency to run, and the government says that email is how it found out. OpenAI's 28 September post named four Australian government bodies, and the NSW Government's statement adds a fifth, the National Parks and Wildlife Service: by its account, OpenAI reported on 1 October that its model had entered an NPWS web application in June. On the Guardian's account, OpenAI told NSW after a 48-hour review that began when it became aware. Both sides say no personal information has been found, and OpenAI says it also notified the Australian Signals Directorate. OpenAI's chief executive, Sam Altman, wrote of the company's wider review, in a post that as reported does not mention Australia: 'We have not been as fast as we would have liked but we are trying to balance our desire for transparency with gaining a clear understanding from petabytes of agent activity logs, and working with impacted organizations.' The Commonwealth holds its own agencies to 'as soon as possible'; NSW gives its agencies 24 hours from detection and classification. The case does not rest on harm: the Opposition's James Paterson rated the breach 'at the bottom end of the spectrum of seriousness' and said 'it is to OpenAI's credit that they told us'. OpenAI's own submission to Parliament's AI committee, dated 14 September, says 'Shared definitions, severity levels and reporting thresholds for significant AI incidents would also help countries respond together.' Where Parliament has written corporate reporting duties, they have been enforced, if slowly; for frontier AI firms it has never written one. A review announced on 24 September will inform recommendations on reporting requirements for AI-driven cyber incidents and on AI firms' notification requirements, with no due date in its terms of reference. In an ABC report published on 25 September, Cabinet Secretary Andrew Charlton said the government wants to introduce legislation mandating AI safety standards by the end of 2026 and hopes to pass it in early 2027, the passage date the Prime Minister gave for Australian standards for AI on 15 July, before the government knew of the incident; on 1 October the Prime Minister said the government looks forward to 'at least an exposure draft' of that legislation by the end of the year. As of 3 October no draft has been published that we could find, and whether it will put a reporting duty on AI developers is not yet known."},{"a":-1,"at":"roads-rort","k":"c","x":"The Roads Rort","t":"One company started with a single toll road in 1996 and now holds full or partial ownership of every major toll road in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane: a legal monopoly created and maintained by government."},{"a":-1,"at":"shellharbour","k":"c","x":"Shellharbour","t":"A council that is also a property developer, on a budget that only balances on a winding-down development dividend, and the recorded votes over who gets to oversee it."},{"a":-1,"at":"smear","k":"c","x":"The Smear","t":"In Australian politics, reputation is the weapon. The traitor smear, the defamation writ, the character-assassination campaign: aimed at witnesses, veterans and the courts, and paid for by everyone downstream."},{"a":-1,"at":"suppression-rort","k":"c","x":"The Suppression Rort","t":"Open justice with a price of admission. Interim secrecy is most available to those with the resources to assemble it, the orders that matter escape the Act that is supposed to govern them, and nobody can even say how many exist."},{"a":-1,"at":"surcharge-rort","k":"c","x":"The Surcharge Rort","t":"From 1 October 2026 the card networks banned surcharges, but the cost of taking cards stayed. The $1.6 billion ministers framed as a saving is the RBA’s estimate of surcharges already paid, which it expects shoppers to keep paying in prices. The Tax Office chose to stop taking credit cards instead."},{"a":-1,"at":"surveillance-rort","k":"c","x":"The Surveillance Rort","t":"The safeguards on Australia's surveillance powers are theatre: sunsets that get moved instead of triggered, omnibus bills that bury the extensions, and a ledger of use that nobody reads. The powers grow; the reckonings never arrive."},{"a":-1,"at":"triple-zero-rort","k":"c","x":"The Triple Zero Rort","t":"The regulator calls access to Triple Zero the most important public safety responsibility a telco has. Optus failed it twice in 22 months. After the November 2023 outage, which ACMA found left 2,145 emergency calls unsuccessful and 369 required welfare checks undone, three Optus companies paid infringement notices totalling just over $12 million, and payment was not an admission. On a separate public-safety matter in the same period, emails obtained by the ABC under FOI show ACMA told Optus its notice would sit at the lower end of a $1.5 million to $3 million range if it offered an enforceable undertaking on terms acceptable to ACMA, and sent it the draft announcement to check for accuracy. ACMA said procedural fairness required this and that it does not negotiate release content; Optus made no comments. In February 2026 ACMA’s Chair told a Senate committee that in future it would not consult on media releases before they go public. After the second major outage, on 18 September 2025, ACMA went to the Federal Court, alleging 1,005 contraventions. Those allegations are untested."},{"a":-1,"at":"war-trade","k":"c","x":"The War Trade","t":"The 2026 Iran war was run from Mar-a-Lago and is being traded around in the president's own accounts, in oil futures minutes before his posts and in prediction markets hours before the bombs, with one CFTC probe open and one teleprompter operator penalised. Australia's richest person moved into the same defence names while the Commonwealth booked an A$38 billion war windfall and dropped the levy on it; the one inquiry that looked reached no majority position, and Parliament spent its energy instead on a five-dollar golf membership."},{"a":-1,"at":"waverley","k":"c","x":"Waverley","t":"Manufactured development potential and towers approved by the court, not the council: how the biggest calls in Bondi and Bronte leave the elected chamber."}]}