Latest news with #Minns
Sky News AU
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Sky News AU
NSW Premier Chris Minns staffers facing potential arrests after skipping major inquiry into Dural explosives
Three of New South Wales Premier Chris Minns staffers could potentially be arrested after they failed to show up to a major inquiry into a 'fabricated terrorist plot' on the outskirts of Sydney. On Friday, five NSW government staffers, including three senior staff members of the Premier, snubbed a hearing of an inquiry looking into an incident in January when explosives were found in a caravan in Dural. Chair of the inquiry Rod Roberts expressed disappointment when the five staffers, who had been summoned to attend, failed to appear. 'The committee will now consider further action in relation to these witnesses,' Mr Roberts said on Friday, according to The Daily Telegraph. 'The committee seeks to question ministerial staff about who was present at the briefings held by the NSW Police, what was discussed and what records were kept', Mr Roberts said regarding the Dural caravan incident, the masthead reported. According to the NSW Parliamentary Evidence Act, any person who is not a member of the Legislative Council or Assembly can be summoned to attend and provide evidence at parliamentary hearings. Failure to attend without reasonable excuse can result in a certificate being sent to a judge of the Supreme Court, who has the power to then issue a warrant for the person's arrest. Mr Minns previously confirmed he is refusing to appear at the Dural caravan inquiry himself, citing time constraints and his lack of availability to attend such hearings. The Premier claimed the inquiry is a 'giant conspiracy' when he spoke to 2GB Sydney radio host Ben Fordham on Tuesday morning. 'It rests on the premise that the Dural caravan case was not a threat to the community... that we knew about the circumstances relating to the case from the very beginning, which is not true,' Mr Minns told the radio host. 'And lastly, that we used that circumstance to push through vilification laws to prevent antisemitism or try and confront antisemitism in the community. It's a giant conspiracy.' The inquiry comes months after a caravan with explosives, which was initially feared to trigger a mass casualty event, was discovered in Sydney's northwest on January 19. Australian Federal Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett told media in January that investigators 'almost immediately' realised the explosives were part of a 'fabricated terrorist plot'. 'I can reveal the caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,' the Deputy Commissioner said. Public Service Association (PSA) general secretary Stewart Little has chimed in on the hearing snub controversy, blasting the NSW upper house over the investigation. "Our members shouldn't be pawns in parliamentary parlour games with upper house MPs posturing to get media coverage," Mr Little said in a statement on Thursday. "If upper house MPs want to know the facts they need to concentrate on getting the Premier to appear before them, or the relevant Ministers.' Mr Little criticised the move to summon the staffers to the inquiry, calling it 'the pits'. '... Drag in ministers or the senior departmental heads by all means, but junior public servants and parliamentary staffers have no bearing or consequence or meaning on the political process,' the general secretary said.
ABC News
12 hours ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Dural caravan inquiry committee explore arrest warrants for NSW staffers over failure to give evidence
Five New South Wales government staffers face possible arrest warrants after defying a summons and not appearing before an Upper House inquiry into the Sydney Dural caravan plot. The five staffers asked to be excused from Friday's hearing in a letter, after being summonsed to give evidence about what and when the state government knew about the plot, after the caravan was found laden with explosives in January amid a spate of antisemitic vandalism. The ABC understands the committee will go to the president of the Legislative Council Ben Franklin to ask if he could request arrest warrants in the NSW Supreme Court. NSW Premier Minns had flagged the staffers — some of who worked for him — would not give evidence on Thursday, calling the inquiry into what the state government did or did not know about the alleged plot a "star chamber". At the state parliament's Macquarie Room on Friday morning, committee members waited to see if the five staffers would turn up, with their empty chairs carefully labelled. Inquiry chair and independent MP Rod Roberts said he was disappointed the witnesses had not turned up, describing it as a "very serious matter" and saying further action will be considered. "I am disappointed in the government's continued efforts to hinder and frustrate the work of this committee and ultimately the role of the legislative council to scrutinise the actions of government." Mr Roberts concluded the hearing with a short statement about the intention behind the staffers being summonsed to appear. "This committee was established to determine whether members of parliament debated and passed hate speech and protest laws through parliament based on misleading or incomplete information." During the committee, Mr Roberts revealed a letter dated June 19 undersigned by staffers and asking to be excused from appearing was received on Thursday. In the letter, the staffers said their giving evidence before the select committee would "be at odds with the principles of ministerial accountability and comity between the House of Parliament". The letter also stated that a separate parliamentary inquiry could also consider the compulsion of ministerial staff to give evidence, suggesting it infringed parliamentary privileged "or otherwise offends principles of our Westminster system of government". The letter ends with the request to be excused from the hearing. Mr Roberts told the hearing he objected to the arguments made in the letter. "It is a fundamental role of the Upper House to hold the government of the day to account." Before concluding the hearing, Mr Roberts said the witnesses scheduled to appear had failed to comply with the summons. The committee is believed to be considering its next step.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
The tax changes in NSW budget designed to boost housing
A mixture of measures to fast-track new parks and schools plus extended tax breaks for developers will be part of a budget boost for the NSW build-to-rent sector, as the state plays catch-up on the housing crisis. With NSW lagging other states in the emerging build-to-rent sector, the 50 per cent reduction in assessed land value that lowers tax bills for eligible developments, established by the previous Coalition government in 2020 with a 20-year sunset clause, will be extended indefinitely to support investor confidence. Anaemic housing supply has plagued the NSW government since it was elected in March 2023, and Premier Chris Minns has embarked on an ambitious suite of rezoning policies to address the state's sluggish planning process. The budget measures announced on Thursday are intended to help the government pick up the pace as NSW needs to build 378,000 homes by July 2029 under the National Housing Accord, targets hampered by inflationary pressure on construction costs and dampened consumer confidence. Australian Bureau of Statistics data released in late May showed housing approvals in NSW had fallen by 4 per cent compared to the previous 12-month period. 'You can't build new homes without roads, parks, and schools to match, and the community shouldn't have to wait for them,' Minns said in a statement. 'Whether it's new tax incentives, planning reforms or fast-tracking infrastructure, we're focused on making it faster and easier to build the homes and communities NSW needs.' Among the measures included in the state government's budget on Tuesday, developers will be able to dedicate land for public purposes or deliver infrastructure projects, rather than paying through a housing and productivity contribution. The government hopes this will improve the feasibility of greenfield developments, as developers will not be required to hand over significant amounts of cash before the issue of the first construction certificate or throughout the development approval process.
The Age
2 days ago
- Business
- The Age
The tax changes in NSW budget designed to boost housing
A mixture of measures to fast-track new parks and schools plus extended tax breaks for developers will be part of a budget boost for the NSW build-to-rent sector, as the state plays catch-up on the housing crisis. With NSW lagging other states in the emerging build-to-rent sector, the 50 per cent reduction in assessed land value that lowers tax bills for eligible developments, established by the previous Coalition government in 2020 with a 20-year sunset clause, will be extended indefinitely to support investor confidence. Anaemic housing supply has plagued the NSW government since it was elected in March 2023, and Premier Chris Minns has embarked on an ambitious suite of rezoning policies to address the state's sluggish planning process. The budget measures announced on Thursday are intended to help the government pick up the pace as NSW needs to build 378,000 homes by July 2029 under the National Housing Accord, targets hampered by inflationary pressure on construction costs and dampened consumer confidence. Australian Bureau of Statistics data released in late May showed housing approvals in NSW had fallen by 4 per cent compared to the previous 12-month period. 'You can't build new homes without roads, parks, and schools to match, and the community shouldn't have to wait for them,' Minns said in a statement. 'Whether it's new tax incentives, planning reforms or fast-tracking infrastructure, we're focused on making it faster and easier to build the homes and communities NSW needs.' Among the measures included in the state government's budget on Tuesday, developers will be able to dedicate land for public purposes or deliver infrastructure projects, rather than paying through a housing and productivity contribution. The government hopes this will improve the feasibility of greenfield developments, as developers will not be required to hand over significant amounts of cash before the issue of the first construction certificate or throughout the development approval process.
The Age
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Age
Threatened arrests in the premier's office? Now that's explosive
With federal Labor's thumping majority in the House of Representatives after its annihilation of the Coalition last month, it is easy to forget that there is a vastly different dynamic for the ALP in NSW. In Macquarie Street, NSW Labor has been clinging to power since March 2023, two seats short of a majority in the lower house and not in control of the upper house. For the first half of the state Labor government's term, it barely mattered. But the upper house crossbench – which includes a motley crew of ex-One Nation MPs, the Greens and a dumped Liberal – is flexing its muscles and creating headaches for Premier Chris Minns and his government. Tensions between the two houses had been simmering but have reached a new level of distrust and antipathy. This week, a group of upper house MPs hit the nuclear button. At the heart of their fury is an inquiry examining the so-called 'Dural caravan incident'. This was the alleged antisemitism terror plot the premier was quick to label a potential 'mass casualty event'. Minns has since acknowledged that, from the beginning, police briefed him that the explosives found in the caravan, along with a list of Jewish premises, were more likely the work of opportunistic organised crime gangs than an act of terror. Nevertheless, Minns called it thwarted terrorism. The upper house inquiry was established with a simple set of reasonable questions. Who knew what and when? And did the government push race-hate laws through the parliament under false pretences? At the time the laws were introduced, they were heavily criticised by faith and LGBTQ groups for being too narrow and too focused on race-based hate. Crossbenchers and Liberals were also unhappy that they had only 24 hours to digest the new laws before voting on them. The government maintained that time was of the essence. Loading Minns calls the inquiry a 'massive conspiracy', a bold claim given his government rushed through the laws based on the unfounded fear that Sydney had dodged a potentially devastating antisemitic attack. As is his right as a member of the lower house, Minns has refused to appear before the inquiry. So has Police Minister Yasmin Catley for the same reason. Speaking to 2GB's Ben Fordham this week, Minns maintained that he makes himself available for interrogation during parliamentary question time as well as twice yearly budget estimates hearings. That's enough, he reckons. Nonetheless, the upper house has upped the ante in its quest to hold the executive to account. If Minns and Catley will not show, then the inquiry wants their staff members to turn up and answer questions. According to police, political staffers sat in on the early Dural briefings. But Minns has told these staff to stay away.
