A bombshell report has been referred to police, including allegations a state Labor government turned a blind eye to union corruption and cost taxpayers billions.

CFMEU administrator Mark Irving on Wednesday released the full report to authorities after suggestions it had initially been redacted to remove allegations that could potentially damage Victoria’s Labor government.

Mr Irving said barrister Geoffrey Watson’s final report into the militant construction union’s Victoria branch contained “serious allegations of criminal and improper conduct”.

“These matters have not been determined by a court or tested through criminal proceedings,” he said in a statement.

“For that reason, the report will be referred to the AFP, Victoria Police, the Fair Work Commission and other relevant law-enforcement agencies and regulators.”

Mr Irving said the report had been released so authorities could take “whatever enforcement action they consider appropriate” as the CFMEU entered a “new chapter”.

The full findings emerged amid calls for Mr Irving’s sacking after allegations the report was redacted to remove findings that suggested the state Labor government “cowed” to the CFMEU.

Entire chapters were ditched after reporting the government had a close relationship with the CFMEU and did nothing when union officials allegedly worked with organised crime figures at major projects.

The report claimed the CFMEU’s actions had increased costs, estimating it cost Victorian taxpayers upwards of $15 billion.

“This final Watson report on Victoria forms an important historical record,” Mr Irving said.

“It will provide an ongoing reminder of corruption that was harmful to workers, members, unions and the whole construction industry.”

Mr Irving took the reins of the union in 2024 when it was put into administration nationwide in 2024 amid claims it had been infiltrated by bikies and organised crime figures.

Mr Watson doubled down on the Victoria branch claims when he returned to give evidence at Queensland’s inquiry into misconduct in the construction industry in Brisbane on Wednesday.

“If somebody had stomped on this, they could have stopped it,” he told the probe.

“I’m going to prove that to you – because they’ve stopped it, the administration has stopped it – it’s largely fixed the problem in 12 months.”

Victoria’s Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny earlier refused to respond to the allegations until the federal report was released.

She said her government had not seen the report and was unaware of its contents.

“We are taking steps to eradicate this kind of … illegal behaviour on our construction sites,” she told reporters.

Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson accused the state government of turning a “blind eye” and suggested Premier Jacinta Allan was “utterly compromised”.

“She cannot continue to deny knowledge or fail to take responsibility,” she said.

Federal Liberal frontbencher Tim Wilson called for Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth to sack Mr Irving after reports the administrator asked Mr Watson to redact the report.

“The CFMEU administrator … has overseen the removal and redaction of sections of a report … that has highlighted the corrupt cartel network that sits between the CFMEU and the Labor Party,” he said.

Ms Rishworth said the administrator had done more to clean up the union than the coalition had during its entire time in government.

“Mr Irving has been clear and transparent about why parts of the report had been removed and it is because he was not satisfied that they were well-founded or properly tested,” she told parliament.

Labor’s long-running bid to increase taxes on wealthy superannuation accounts has taken a major step forward, but the Greens still stand in its way.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers introduced legislation to the House of Representatives on Wednesday morning which, if passed, will double the tax rate on superannuation accounts with balances between $3 million and $10 million to 30 per cent.

The tax rate on balances above $10 million will be increased to 40 per cent.

While super will still be taxed at a lower rate compared to income, the changes will reduce the magnitude of the concession, making the retirement savings scheme fairer and more sustainable, Dr Chalmers said.

“These changes will maintain concessional tax treatment for super across the board, but they make the system more sustainable by better targeting concessions for the biggest balances to help fund more super for people with the smallest balances,” he said in parliament.

Labor promised lowering tax breaks for high account holders in its previous term but failed to win the support of the coalition or the Greens to get the bill through the Senate.

In October, Dr Chalmers announced tweaks to the original legislation, which initially only included the $3 million threshold and also operated by taxing the increase in the value of assets that had not yet been sold.

The contentious unrealised capital gains component was removed in the new legislation, after a backlash by farmers and tax experts, who warned self-managed super funds could be forced to sell illiquid assets like property to fund tax liabilities.

Unlike the initial proposal, the thresholds will be indexed to limit the amount of people impacted by the higher tax rates over time.

As the same time as high account holders are taxed more, low-income workers will benefit from a boost to the low-income superannuation tax offset.

The threshold for the offset will be increased from $37,000 to $45,000 to match the top of the second income tax bracket, while the maximum payment will also increase to $810.

“Voting against this bill would be a vote against a fairer super system,” Dr Chalmers said.

Despite the axing of the unrealised gains component, the coalition has attacked the proposal as a money-grab while Greens are yet to offer their support to the changes.

With the Senate not due to sit until March 2, the Greens will use negotiations to press the government to extract more tax from wealthy superannuants, including by lowering the thresholds, increasing the tax rates or restoring the taxation of unrealised gains.

The changes to balances above $3 billion are set to come into effect from July 1, assuming the legislation passes parliament, while the offset changes are set to apply from mid-2027.

Labor’s long-running bid to increase taxes on wealthy superannuation accounts has taken a major step forward, but the Greens still stand in its way.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers introduced legislation to the House of Representatives on Wednesday morning which, if passed, will double the tax rate on superannuation accounts with balances between $3 million and $10 million to 30 per cent.

The tax rate on balances above $10 million will be increased to 40 per cent.

While super will still be taxed at a lower rate compared to income, the changes will reduce the magnitude of the concession, making the retirement savings scheme fairer and more sustainable, Dr Chalmers said.

“These changes will maintain concessional tax treatment for super across the board, but they make the system more sustainable by better targeting concessions for the biggest balances to help fund more super for people with the smallest balances,” he said in parliament.

Labor promised lowering tax breaks for high account holders in its previous term but failed to win the support of the coalition or the Greens to get the bill through the Senate.

In October, Dr Chalmers announced tweaks to the original legislation, which initially only included the $3 million threshold and also operated by taxing the increase in the value of assets that had not yet been sold.

The contentious unrealised capital gains component was removed in the new legislation, after a backlash by farmers and tax experts, who warned self-managed super funds could be forced to sell illiquid assets like property to fund tax liabilities.

Unlike the initial proposal, the thresholds will be indexed to limit the amount of people impacted by the higher tax rates over time.

As the same time as high account holders are taxed more, low-income workers will benefit from a boost to the low-income superannuation tax offset.

The threshold for the offset will be increased from $37,000 to $45,000 to match the top of the second income tax bracket, while the maximum payment will also increase to $810.

“Voting against this bill would be a vote against a fairer super system,” Dr Chalmers said.

Despite the axing of the unrealised gains component, the coalition has attacked the proposal as a money-grab while Greens are yet to offer their support to the changes.

With the Senate not due to sit until March 2, the Greens will use negotiations to press the government to extract more tax from wealthy superannuants, including by lowering the thresholds, increasing the tax rates or restoring the taxation of unrealised gains.

The changes to balances above $3 billion are set to come into effect from July 1, assuming the legislation passes parliament, while the offset changes are set to apply from mid-2027.

US car giant Ford has closed the last quarter with heavy losses of $US11.1 billion ($A15.7 billion).

The decisive factors were the restructuring of its heavily loss-making electric vehicle business, a fire at an aluminium supplier and US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs, according to results released on Tuesday.

The US carmaker had already announced a write-down of $US19.5 billion ($A27.6 billion) on battery-powered vehicles.

Ford had closed the same quarter last year with a profit of $US1.8 billion ($A2.5 billion).  

Sales fell by five per cent year-on-year to $US45.9 billion ($A64.9 billion). 

At the divisional level, the picture was similar to previous quarters: the electric car division posted an operating loss of $US1.2 billion ($A1.7 billion).

Meanwhile, cars with combustion engines brought Ford an operating profit of $US727 million ($A1 billion), and the commercial vehicle division earned about $US1.2 billion ($A1.7 billion) on this basis. 

Following Tesla’s success, the major US carmakers General Motors, Ford and Stellantis invested billions of dollars to add more electric cars to their model ranges.  

In the future, Ford intends to focus more on hybrid vehicles – and on smaller models in the electric car segment. 

The fully electric version of the large F-150 pickup truck has been discontinued. 

The US Food and Drug Administration is refusing to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology.

The news is the latest sign of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, particularly those using mRNA technology, which he has criticised before and after becoming the nation’s top health official.

Moderna received what’s called a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA that objected to how it conducted a 40,000-person clinical trial comparing its new vaccine to one of the standard flu shots used today. 

That trial concluded the new vaccine was somewhat more effective in adults 50 and older than that standard shot.

The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr Vinay Prasad said the agency doesn’t consider the application to contain an “adequate and well-controlled trial” because it didn’t compare the new shot to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study”.

Prasad’s letter pointed to some advice FDA officials gave Moderna in 2024, under the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t follow.

According to Moderna, that feedback said it was acceptable to use the standard-dose flu shot the company had chosen – but that another brand specifically recommended for seniors would be preferred for anyone 65 and older in the study. 

Still, Moderna said, the FDA did agree to let the study proceed as originally planned.

The company said it also had shared with FDA additional data from a separate trial comparing the new vaccine against a licensed high-dose shot used for seniors.

The FDA “did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with our product” and “does not further our shared goal of enhancing America’s leadership in developing innovative medicines”, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement on Tuesday.

It’s rare that FDA refuses to file an application, particularly for a new vaccine, which requires companies and FDA staff to engage in months or years of discussions.

Moderna has requested an urgent meeting with FDA, and noted that it has applied for the vaccine’s approval in Europe, Canada and Australia.

In the last year, FDA officials working under Kennedy have rolled back recommendations around COVID-19 shots, added extra warnings to the two leading COVID vaccines – which are made with mRNA technology – and removed critics of the administration’s approach from an FDA advisory panel.

Kennedy announced last year that his department would cancel more than $US500 million ($A707 million) in contracts and funding for the development of vaccines using mRNA.

A police boss has apologised to Muslim leaders after his officers dragged away men who were praying during a rally opposing the Israeli head of state’s visit.

Police were seen beating, pushing and pepper-spraying people at a protest in Sydney after Israeli President Isaac Herzog arrived in Australia on Monday.

Muslim men who were filmed kneeling and praying before being pushed and dragged away by police were not angry but instead “scared”, Australia’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia Aftab Malik said. 

The force’s actions were “disgraceful” and “appalling”, Mr Malik said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has repeatedly defended police, saying they faced “incredibly difficult” circumstances.

But Mr Malik said he was brought to tears when the premier failed to call out a controversial line of questioning in a television interview that suggested the men had been “baiting” police when praying.

“The premier should have pushed back and said … ‘I don’t agree with that characterisation’, and had he said that, things would have been different,” he told the Senate on Tuesday night.

“But unfortunately, he responded the way he did, and this is part of the normalisation in which day-by-day, Muslims are being degraded  … it’s the ordinariness of Islamophobia destroying the dignity of Muslims who are legitimate citizens like anybody else.”

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said he had apologised to senior members of the Muslim community for any offence caused.

But he also continued to defend the actions of police, who had been instructed to clear protesters from Sydney Town Hall.

Police could face legal action over their treatment of protesters. Footage of their behaviour has been widely circulating online and could cause reputational damage, one expert said.

“Civilians see this kind of violence so rarely in Australia, but when we do, it’s shocking,” University of Newcastle criminologist Justin Ellis told AAP.

“Police are going to have to deal with any reputational fallout.”

A message about safety, rather than officer tactics, could help reassure the public going forward, Dr Ellis said.

But the damage may already have been done.

Greens MP Abigail Boyd is considering legal action after she was struck by police.

Others could also take the police to court or make formal complaints, with video posted to social media showing a man with raised hands being punched repeatedly in the stomach by officers.

Former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas, who suffered a serious eye injury when she was arrested at a protest in 2025, had charges of resisting police dropped and an assault charge was laid against the constable who allegedly maimed her.

Lawyer Josh Bornstein said an independent probe into the protest policing was required.

“It’s difficult when police are the usual source of investigating criminal acts of violence, but we need some sort of independent investigation in this situation,” he told ABC TV.

Officers arrested 27 people on Monday and later charged nine with offences including behaving in an offensive manner in a public place and resisting police.

Five members of the public were hospitalised.

The violence has not deterred protesters in other parts of the nation from taking to the streets as Mr Herzog continues his Australian tour through Melbourne and Canberra.

Australia’s largest biopharmaceutical company has posted a massive slump in interim profit less than a day after the sudden retirement of its chief executive.

CSL’s first-half net profit fell 81 per cent to $US401 million, after government policy changes, one-off restructuring costs and impairments severely impacted its bottom line.

The healthcare giant’s underlying result, excluding those impacts, was down seven per cent to $US1.9 billion for the six months ended December 31.

“We are clearly not satisfied with our performance and have implemented a number of initiatives to drive stronger growth going forward,” CSL’s chief financial officer Ken Lim said in a statement on Wednesday.

“In the second half, we have an ambitious growth plan, driven by immunoglobulin, albumin and our newly launched products.”

The Australia-based CSL maintained its guidance for full-year revenue growth of between two to three pre cent and a four to seven per cent rise in underlying net profit.

Just as the Australian stock market was closing on Tuesday, CSL – which makes vaccines and blood plasma-derived therapies – suddenly announced chief executive Paul McKenzie was stepping down.

“When the board sat down recently and looked at our business and where we need to go in the future, we, in discussion with Paul, recognised he didn’t have the skills that we wanted for the future,” chairman Brian McNamee told analysts.

“We discussed this question of him therefore retiring.

“We need new and broader skills to improve performance commercially and also broaden our pipeline activities.”

Former CSL senior executive Gordon Naylor, a non-executive director of the company, has been appointed interim CEO and managing director.

CSL in October downgraded its 2025/26 earnings guidance due to falling US vaccination rates and reduced demand from China for the blood protein albumin.

Its shares were dumped in the final minute of trading after the Tuesday announcement, falling five per cent to $171.39, representing a 36.6 per cent drop over the past 12 months.

The shares had dipped in late September after President Donald Trump threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on pharmaceutical imports unless companies built manufacturing plants in the United States.

Ireland has rolled out a permanent basic income ‍scheme for the arts, pledging to pay 2000 creative workers more than $A500 per week following ​a trial that participants say eased financial strain and allowed them to spend more time ⁠on projects.

Ireland began the three-year trial in 2022 to help artists recover from COVID-19 shutdowns.

While similar pilots have been tried in San Francisco and New York, Ireland’s Culture Minister Patrick O’Donovan said the scheme was the first permanent one of its kind in the ‌world.

The move will “set ​Ireland apart from other countries with regard to how we value culture ‍and creativity,” O’Donovan said, launching the scheme in the James Joyce Room at Bewley’s Cafe, a Dublin cultural institution which hosts lunch-time theatre performances.

“This is a gigantic step forward that other countries are not doing.”

The randomly selected applicants will receive payments of 325 euros ($A550) a week for three years, after which they ​would not be eligible for the next three-year ‌cycle. 

O’Donovan said he would like to increase the number of recipients over time.

More than 8000 applicants applied for the ​2000 places in the pilot scheme.

A report on the trial concluded it lowered ‍the likelihood of artists experiencing enforced deprivation and reduced their levels of anxiety and reliance on supplementary income.

It also recouped more than the trial’s net cost of ​72 million ​euros through increases in ​arts-related expenditure, productivity gains and reduced reliance on ​other social welfare payments, according to a government-commissioned cost-benefit analysis.

“The scheme was a real-world test of what happens when people are given stability instead of precarity,” said composer and designer Peter Power, a member of the National Campaign for the Arts group.

“Artists on the scheme spent more time creating and less time trapped in unrelated jobs just to survive, and many became better able to ‍sustain themselves through their work alone.”

Liberal leadership aspirant Angus Taylor is expected to resign from the opposition frontbench to launch a spill against the party’s first female leader as pressure builds for a change at the top. 

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley escaped a challenge at Tuesday morning’s routine Liberal party room meeting but Mr Taylor will likely announce his intention to run for leadership as soon as Wednesday. 

A series of opinion polls revealing the coalition’s support hitting historic lows, including the most recent Newspoll on Monday, has prompted some Liberal MPs to privately push for a change. 

But Ms Ley’s backers, including moderate Liberal MP Maria Kovacic, have urged colleagues to publicly put their name to a petition calling for a spill so the party can move on. 

“We’ve had enough of what’s been going on over the past couple of months, it has spiralled out of control in the last few days,” she told ABC TV.

“Enough is enough. If you want this, put your name to it and get it over with.”

She said the ongoing turmoil was damaging the party’s credibility and ability to hold the Labor government to account.

“I don’t think (Australians) give a toss who the next leader is, because we haven’t actually showed them what we are going to do to make their lives better, and that is a failure,” Ms Kovacic said.

Liberal rules require anybody in a leadership position or in the shadow ministry to resign if they are part of a challenge. 

MPs can also request the leader call a special party room meeting to consider a leadership spill. 

If Ms Ley refuses to hold a meeting, Mr Taylor would need a petition endorsed by the majority of Liberal MPs and senators to force her hand.

In 2018, a petition was circulated to call for a party room meeting to resolve the leadership, which led to former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull being toppled by Scott Morrison.  

A special party room meeting is likely to be held on Thursday or Friday, once senators have finished with parliamentary committee hearings for the week.

Mr Taylor is confident he has the numbers to win a spill.

Mr Turnbull joined the calls for the conservative aspirant to “stand up and be counted”.

“This is a place where we vote in public right?” Mr Turnbull told reporters at Parliament House on Tuesday. 

“If Angus wants to be leader of the Liberal Party, he should stand up and say so and say why.”

Australia’s spy chief says his agency will own any mistakes following Bondi’s anti-Semitic terrorist attack as he revealed an external investigation cleared ASIO’s review of one of the gunmen in 2019. 

Naveed Akram and his father, Sajid, killed 15 innocent people and wounded dozens more during a shooting massacre at Bondi Beach in December during a Jewish Hanukkah festival.

Law enforcement alleges they were inspired by Islamic State ideology.

The father was shot dead by police at the time while the son faces terrorism and murder charges.

ASIO director general Mike Burgess said while ASIO and law enforcement partners had disrupted 28 major terrorism plots since September 2014, Australia’s intelligence agencies couldn’t catch everything.

He said the attack weighed heavily on him and his officers but this didn’t mean intelligence was ignored or people made mistakes. 

“The grim reality is, as I’ve said many times, ASIO is not all-seeing and all-knowing, we cannot stop every terrorist, just as we cannot catch every spy,” Mr Burgess told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday night.

“It appears the alleged terrorists demonstrated a high level of security awareness to hide their plot. In simple terms, they went dark to stay off the radar.

“If ASIO is found to have made mistakes, we will own them, and we will learn from them.”

The director general said an external investigator had “unfettered and unfiltered access” to the agency to review whether there were any intelligence shortcomings.

It follows the younger Akram having come across ASIO’s radar in 2019 due to his association with others, but the then-teenager wasn’t deemed to present any ongoing threat.

Mr Burgess said the highly classified review into his agency following the Bondi attack reaffirmed ASIO’s actions in 2019.

“I can say that we stand by our 2019 assessment the Akrams did not adhere to or intend to engage in violent extremism at that time,” he said.

“In other words, many of the claims and criticisms being made about ASIO’s handling of the case are baseless.”

His public comments following an ABC Four Corners program aired on Monday, during which a former ASIO agent claimed he shared intelligence about Naveed’s radicalisation with the agency in 2019.

ASIO said it investigated the information but couldn’t substantiate it.

The intelligence agency further denied accusations that it failed to act on the former agent’s intelligence, saying his comments to the ABC were untrue, as he had attributed things to Naveed that were said and done by another person.

Mr Burgess also cautioned against applying hindsight.

“Things that might appear obvious in retrospect may not have been obvious at the time, and when individuals made decisions in one context, it may not be fair to judge them in a different context,” he told senators in the Tuesday hearing.

“In the days and weeks after the Bondi attack, assumptions, assertions, hypotheticals and opinions quickly became accepted as facts by some.

“They were recycled and exaggerated in the following weeks. This resulted in calls for action that were not supported by any fact.”