Cait Kelly

Former secretary paid almost $900k after being sacked after welfare debacle

Former DEWR Secretary Natalie James was paid an $828,980 “termination benefit” after being sacked by the Albanese government in February.

James’ contract was cut short by 18 months after two Commonwealth Ombudsman reports found the Targeted Compliance framework was operating unlawfully and cancelling people’s welfare payments when it should not have been.

Despite this controversy, and the huge amount of stress and financial concern for some of the most vulnerable Australians, it was just revealed in Senate estimates that James’ got paid almost $900,000 on her way out the door.

The payment was part of DEWR’s $12.9 million redundancy costs for the 2025-26 financial year.

Cait Kelly

Compensation for at least 50,000 people for illegal welfare payment cancellation

The head of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Simon Duggan, has defended the decision to turn the majority of the Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF), the automated system that issues welfare penalties, back on.

The TCF was operating unlawfully, cutting off or reducing the income of an estimated 310,000 people between 2020 and 2024. Payment cancellations related to compulsory activities have now resumed.

Opening Senate estimates this morning, Duggan said the government had begun the process of offering compensation but that anyone who believes they are affected should apply:

The department will be proactively inviting 50,652 people to apply for compensation, who have been identified through data analysis as most likely to be eligible for compensation under the requirements of the CDA scheme.

He said the deponent is monitoring the system as payment cancellations begin to roll out. Duggan also said there were four other elements which have not been turned on yet:

The remaining four paused elements of the TCF, all of which relate to ensuring that legally required human discretion is supported in decision-making, will remain paused until further safeguards and assurance arrangements are in place.

At this stage, those elements are expected to resume in the first quarter of 2027, subject to completion of comprehensive system decision-making and assurance work.

Patrick Commins

Treasury boss blames higher interest rates for property slump

Jenny Wilkinson, the secretary of the Treasury, says the government’s tax reforms to capital gains and negative gearing have had “some effect” on property prices, but said the recent slump had more to do with “higher interest rates, heightened global uncertainty, and weak consumer sentiment”.

Wilkinson, speaking at Senate estimates this morning, said it was “important to distinguish between the cyclical and structural drivers of the housing market”.

“Interest rates have a particularly strong cyclical effect because Australia’s high share of variable rate mortgages means monetary policy passes relatively quickly to existing and new borrowers,” she said.

The budget tax reforms are expected to have a more structural effect through their impact on the relative attractiveness of housing to investors, as outlined in the budget papers, the impacts of the tax measures on house prices and rent are expected to be modest over the medium term, while shifting the ownership of the housing stock towards owner-occupiers.”

Home values were down 5.2% from their March peak, but they were still 6% higher than “a couple of years ago”, Wilkinson said.

The price declines have been sharper than in the early stages of most other housing slowdowns over the past 20 years, but the run-up in house prices was also more significant.

Catie McLeod

Woolworths claims demand for Ooshies assisting in 6.9% increase in revenue

Woolworths, Australia’s largest supermarket, has had a strong start to the financial year, with almost $15bn in grocery sales amid cost-of-living pressures.

The company posted its results for the first quarter of the financial year (July to September) to the ASX a short time ago, ahead of separate inflation data being released by the government later this morning.

Woolworths has attributed its strong results to growth in customer demand for groceries amid the ongoing success of its Ooshies collectable campaign rather than rising shelf prices.

Across the Woolworths group, which includes stores in New Zealand, the company sold $19.4bn worth of products, an increase of 4.7% from the same three-month period last year.

Most of the revenue came from Australian food sales, which amounted to $14.8bn, a 6.9% increase compared with the corresponding period.

Woolworths will hold two calls with journalists and investors this morning, and we’ll bring you more updates after that.

Sarah Basford Canales

Continued from the previous post …

At a brief appearance late last night, the Australian federal police commissioner, Krissy Barrett, revealed the force had received 785 protective security reports regarding adverse content against federal parliamentarians in the first six months of this year.

Barrett said women politicians were three times more likely to report receiving offensive or threatening contact that was sexualised or gender-based in nature while those from culturally and linguistically diverse communities were also more likely to experience “frequent and varied offensive contact”.

Sarah Basford Canales

Death threat emails received during Senate estimates, WA senator reveals

The Western Australian senator, Fatima Payman, revealed she had received yet another threatening email in a Senates estimates hearing last night, causing her to cancel a local event this weekend.

Federal politicians are continuing to sound the alarm about safety fears after the brutal alleged attack against Helen Haines last week.

Payman said her office had received an email yesterday evening, saying “watch your back, c***. You’re going to die very, very soon. You dog c***.”

Now, this is something we receive daily, but this weekend we were due to hold a community stall at a local market. We have had to cancel it because my staff told me they don’t feel safe after the AFP advised us, and I quote: “An assessment of all available information has been undertaken, and unfortunately, at this stage, the AFP won’t be in attendance to assist.” Can you please tell me how this assessment was made and with what rationale?

The AFP’s deputy commissioner, Scott Lee, responded he could not go into operational details but said:

I know our team is certainly looking to talk to your office and your staff as a matter of priority on that assessment.

Australia Post chief paid ‘mind-blowing’ $1.2m bonus

Josh Taylor

The outgoing chief executive of Australia Post, Paul Graham, was paid a $1.2m bonus on top of his $1.64m base salary in the last financial year, after the $139.4m sale of property owned by Australia Post pushed the organisation into a profit for the year.

Graham, who announced this month he will retire after five years at the helm in June next year, confirmed to Senate estimates on Tuesday night he had been paid the bonus based on two performance components, with one component related to the “property strategy we had to execute”.

He said the strategy was critical to Australia Post’s transformation:

We do have the great fortune of sitting on property that has been in the network for some time, and it was important for us to get an articulated, clear strategy … releasing those non-core properties from our portfolio and ensuring that they provided the cashflow that not only got us back into a profitable position, but enabled us to make the substantial investments we’re making as part of our transformation.

Liberal senator Sarah Henderson told Graham it was a “mind-blowing amount of money”.

Australia Post reported a profit before tax of $31.8m, but had the property sales been excluded, Australia Post would have reported a loss before tax of $107.6m, as the letter volumes fell a further 14.7% in the 2026 financial year.