Liberal senator Jane Hume has expressed concern that Peter Dutton’s submissions to the party’s election review were made public. Hume was responding to a report outlining Dutton’s views about Liberal MP Andrew Hastie’s performance last term.
“It’s very disappointing to see that what is a confidential submission to a review has somehow become public,” she said. “As a former election reviewer myself, I know it’s really important for those submissions that we retain their confidentiality to ensure people can feel candid.”
Hume added that it was preposterous to blame any one figure for the historic loss, emphasizing that it was never about a single person or issue.
—
Communications Minister Anika Wells is set to meet with the heads of Australia’s three largest telcos in Canberra tomorrow. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss how they will prevent a Triple Zero outage during the upcoming bushfire season, especially amid growing concerns following a fatal Optus outage in September.
“These meetings will be laying down the law, and we’ll be bringing more laws to parliament later this week,” Wells told Seven’s Sunrise this morning. “Australians must have confidence in the reliability of our Triple Zero system. And telcos need to do better.”
She continued, “They’ll be getting together with me in Canberra tomorrow to make sure that we are all, from our individual positions in the system, doing everything we can to make sure that Australians do and can have confidence in Triple Zero ahead of the natural disaster season.”
—
Deputy Liberal leader Ted O’Brien has supported leader Sussan Ley’s version of events concerning her feud with Liberal MP Andrew Hastie. O’Brien claimed Hastie never raised his grievances with Ley before quitting the frontbench.
Hastie, the former spokesperson for home affairs, quit last week. He said he believed Ley had stripped him of responsibility for immigration policy in a “letter of expectations” she sent him on Friday. Ley, however, stated that Hastie never brought up the issue when they spoke twice last week.
“My understanding is there was no discussion about the immigration portfolio at all,” O’Brien said on Nine’s Today show this morning. “If he believes he can make a better contribution from the backbench, it’s absolutely his right to do so. And I’m not going to criticise that.”
O’Brien also mentioned that he was unaware of former leader Peter Dutton’s scathing submissions about Hastie’s performance last term until reading about it in the media, commenting, “You know more than me.”
—
Defeated opposition leader Peter Dutton has placed significant blame for the Coalition’s election loss on Liberal MP Andrew Hastie in explosive, previously secret submissions to the party’s election review.
Dutton accused Hastie of “going on strike” and fumbling key policies. Hastie’s unexpected exit from Sussan Ley’s frontbench on Friday has sparked speculation about Ley’s leadership as MPs return to Canberra on Tuesday. This development is likely to soften the opposition’s attacks on the government concerning the recent Optus saga and the repatriation of so-called ISIS brides.
Hastie’s social media posts on net zero by 2050 and migration have excited some colleagues but led others to question his strategic judgement and commitment to keeping the party unified.
Dutton, who worked closely with Hastie as senior leaders of the Right faction before losing his seat, was particularly critical of Hastie’s last term performance in his submissions to the Liberal Party’s election review.
“It was inconceivable to Dutton and his senior colleagues that Hastie effectively went on strike during the last term,” said a source familiar with Dutton’s submissions but not authorized to speak publicly.
Read the full exclusive by chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal.
—
In related news from the United States, President Donald Trump has deployed 300 National Guard troops to break up immigration protests in Chicago. California Governor Gavin Newsom has vowed to fight this deployment in court.
Newsom described the deployment as “a breathtaking abuse of the law and power” in a statement.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson confirmed that the president authorized the deployment of Illinois National Guard members, citing what she described as ongoing violent riots and lawlessness.
The deployment follows frequent rallies near an immigration facility outside Chicago and a recent statement by the Department of Homeland Security. The department confirmed that federal agents had shot a woman in Chicago on Saturday morning after Border Patrol agents were allegedly ambushed by domestic terrorists who rammed federal agents with their vehicles.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-news-live-telco-heads-to-face-government-for-triple-zero-meeting-tomorrow-trump-sends-300-national-guard-troops-to-chicago-to-break-up-protests-20251006-p5n0a7.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed