By Jake Evans



The training fund was committed in the federal government's 2024-25 Budget last term to pay for upgrades to equipment and facilities for apprentices training in wind, solar, pumped hydro, battery storage, hydrogen and other projects.

The funding is intended to be for training facilities already at capacity, preventing people from entering apprenticeships, and for regional communities at the coalface of the energy transition.

In budget papers from last year, money had been allocated over five years from 2023-24.

But even the eligibility guidelines for that funding are yet to be released, and there are no listings on the government's grants website.



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-01/federal-politics-live-oct-1/105836802

By 7.30 political editor Jacob Greber

Touted in some insider circles as future Labor leadership material, self-identified millennial Anika Wells has found herself in the midst of an ongoing storm over the nation's emergency triple-0 system.



A few moments later, challenged on whether telecommunications regulators have sufficient clout to enforce rules against phone companies, she drew attention to her inexperience in the portfolio, which she has held since the May election.

What began as a $2.7 million contract for Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to review the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) amid persistent reports of low morale and high staff turnover has stretched into an 11-month, multi-million-dollar engagement. It is one of several lucrative deals awarded to global firms as Labor promises to curb Canberra's reliance on consultants.

Former senior bureaucrat Dennis Richardson was separately commissioned to conduct a review into the ASA's governance, which was delivered to Defence Minister Richard Marles in the middle of this year.

An ASA spokesperson said the BCG review was commissioned after the agency's first year to ensure its operations were "fit-for-purpose".

"Australia is on track to seeing the establishment of Submarine Rotational Force-West in 2027, when US nuclear-powered submarines will begin rotating out of HMAS Stirling," they said.

"After the first year of operation, the ASA considered it timely and appropriate to consider how to optimise the ASA's ability to deliver the nuclear-powered submarine program."

They said the contract was extended in April and July 2025 and pointed to the body's progress on boosting its workforce and infrastructure since its creation in 2023.

"The ASA engages a range of externally sourced specialist expertise to assist implementation and delivery of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program," they said.

"The ASA is committed to developing Australia's broader submarine enterprise to safely build, operate and maintain Australian conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines. The ASA has transitioned from a Taskforce in a large Department to a growing Agency that is working to deliver the single biggest investment in defence capability in Australian history."

Beyond BCG's ballooning contract, the ASA has also inked multi-million-dollar deals with McKinsey, Deloitte, KPMG and EY. McKinsey alone secured $9.5 million to help draft an "industry plan" to boost Australia's submarine industrial base and workforce — a key tenet of delivering AUKUS.

The scale of outsourcing has fuelled fears the ASA is contracting out its core functions as it manages the most expensive defence project in Australian history.

Greens senator David Shoebridge said the ASA was "sucking in hundreds of millions of dollars" despite not having a submarine.

"While it doesn't have any submarines, it is producing review after review after review — at unknown public expense. It goes to show what a dangerous gamble this AUKUS project is and how much public money is being wasted on nuclear submarines we are likely never to get," he said.



https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-30/submarine-agency-consultant-review-blows-...

LNP are absolutely gone next election 

, which had provoked widespread condemnation. The Treasurer said the new plan was ‘better and fairer’.


Jim Chalmers says the superannuation tax increase proposal will be reworked. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has announced the federal government's stalled superannuation tax increases will be reworked after criticism over the plan.

Alongside the $3 million threshold at which the tax rate on earnings had been doubled, a new threshold of $10 million will also be created at which a 40 per cent tax rate will be applied.

But those thresholds will now be indexed, meaning it will no longer capture more people over time due to bracket creep.

The tax increase will also no longer apply to unrealised capital gains, a key criticism of the proposal.

The treasurer said the government was prepared to rework the bill to see it through parliament.

"We have always had in our back pocket indexation, or an indexation like this, in order to get it through parliament," Mr Chalmers said.

A tax offset for low-income earners would also be increased from $310 to $810, and would be offered to workers earning up to $45,000, which Mr Chalmers said would give those people about an extra $15,000 at retirement on average.

Mr Chalmers said the new plan would raise slightly less than the government's original proposal.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-13/treasurer-announces-rework-of-stalled-sup...

An "uptick" in unemployment?

The number of Australians out of work hit 684,000 in September – nearly 13 per cent higher over the year – pushing the unemployment rate to 4.5 per cent.

Good one Nemo.

Going by all this. The ALP is running on a renewable energy called thin air.

Exclusive by political reporter Maani Truu

In short:
The first member of the so-called NZYQ cohort has been quietly deported to Nauru under an opaque deal struck by the Australian government.

Both the Coalition and the Greens have taken aim at the "secrecy" of the removal, urging the government to share further details about the agreement that could end up costing Australia $2.5 billion.

What's next?
The timeline for the bulk of the deportations remains unclear.

The first member of the so-called NZYQ cohort has been quietly sent to Nauru, marking the start of the government's plan to deport hundreds of convicted criminals to the tiny Pacific island.

Nauruan President David Adeang told his parliament on Friday that the first person had arrived under the new deal.

It comes about eight months after the Australian government announced Nauru had agreed to take hundreds of former detainees released in the wake of a landmark High Court ruling that found indefinite detention was unlawful.

This third-country resettlement agreement — which the government has repeatedly refused to release publicly — is separate from a pre-existing and ongoing arrangement for Nauru to run Australia's offshore processing regime.


Nauruan President David Adeang and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in 2024. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)

"Nauru confirmed last Friday that the first transfer has occurred," Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told the ABC on Tuesday.

"When someone's visa is cancelled, they should leave."
Both the Coalition, which supports the deportation of the cohort, and the Greens, which have loudly opposed it, criticised the "secrecy" of the removal after it was revealed on Tuesday.

In a statement, Shadow Home Affairs Minister Jonno Duniam called on his counterpart to "be open with Australians about the rest of its plans for the NZYQ cohort".

"He must stand up and answer why it took so long and what its plans are to expedite further deportations, exactly how much it costs and whether the community is safe from these dangerous individuals," he said.

"The Coalition is urging the minister to deport all remaining NZYQ members as soon as possible. And it must not further bury any information that Australians deserve to know."

Greens senator David Shoebridge said it was shocking that deportations had begun before key details of the deal had been made public.

"This is part of a cruel $2.5 billion deal paid for by the Australian taxpayers and we get crumbs of information from the president of Nauru with nothing but contemptuous silence from Minister Burke," he said in a statement.

"Failing to treat our neighbours as friends and equals will come at a cost."

NZYQ cohort's visas cancelled
About 358 former detainees have been released into the Australian community since the High Court ruling in 2023, the bulk of whom have been convicted of crimes or had their visas cancelled on character grounds.

More than a dozen have since been re-detained in Australia after being issued visas by Nauru, but deportations have been delayed by legal challenges.


"When someone's visa is cancelled they should leave," Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said. (ABC News: David Sciasci)

Under the deal, members of the group are expected to be granted a 30-year visa that allows them to live and work in the community among Nauru's 12,000 or so residents, and to leave and re-enter the country.

Mr Burke said he had "personally" inspected the accommodation and health facilities that would be available to the deportees.

"The standard there is good," he previously told the ABC.



But human rights lawyers and advocates have fiercely denounced the government's deportation plan, warning it may breach Australia's human rights obligations.

Human Rights Law Centre associate legal director Josephine Langbien, whose organisation is representing members of the cohort, accused the government of wielding secrecy as a "deliberate tool".

"There have been widespread concerns raised about both the lawfulness and safety of this Nauru deportation plan … and some of those questions are still before the courts," she said.

"All the government has sought to do is legislate its way around these concerns, rather than addressing them."





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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-28/first-nzyq-member-deported-to-nauru/10591...