Jean Nassif tells Icac ‘I’m going to speak my heart’
Penry Buckley
Leaving question time for a moment, and the propery developer Jean Nassif is now appearing on screen at the NSW Icac, wearing a white, open-collared shirt.
Although the video connection with Nassif, who has said he is appearing from his bedroom in Beirut, has occasionally been interrupted, presiding commissioner Fabian Gleeson SC has been able to explain to Nassif that he has not been compelled to give evidence, and has the right to silence.
Gleeson: “And as I understand it, you have nevertheless indicated that you would like to give evidence before the commission. Is that correct? Is that correct, Mr Nassif?”
Nassif: “Yes, your honour.”
Gleeson asks Nassif, who does not have legal representation, if he would like to take legal advice. Nassif says:
I don’t wish to have legal advice. I’m going to speak my heart, and I’m going to say exactly what happened with me in my whole entire career for 25 years in Australia. I’m willing to answer any question … I have no issues.
Key events
The opposition is continuing its line of attack on the $6m grant to a golf club in the prime minister’s electorate that he’s an honorary member of.
Liberal frontbencher Tony Pasin asks why the PM failed to declare the membership.
The PM says that he didn’t know until last week that he had the membership, and says that a two year social membership of the club is $5.
I make no apologies for the fact that I stand up for every organisation in my electorate. That’s what good local members do.
Albanese omits the fact that a full membership of the club is $1100 a year.
Last week during QT the opposition brought their own receipts, including a Daily Telegraph article from 2019 that reported that Albanese was an honorary member.
Tim Wilson booted from the chamber
As Labor MP Alicia Payne stands up to ask the next dixer, Milton Dick kicks out shadow treasurer Tim Wilson from the frontbench for interjecting too much.
‘Not so much a question as a smear’: Coalition goes on the attack over golf club grant
The Coalition is sniffing around and trying to find something that stinks.
The Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell asks if a decision to give the Marrickville golf club in the prime minister’s electorate $6m to fix a sewage problem as part of an “invite-only” grants program has helped to “increase the value of his investment property down the road?” Anthony Albanese holds an honorary membership at the club which he says he didn’t know about.
The leader of the House, Tony Burke, is up from his seat at lightning speed and then there’s a bunch of back and forth over whether the question is in line with parliamentary standards.
It takes more than five minutes of argy bargy before the PM answers, and criticises the question himself.
That wasn’t so much a question as a smear, and its imputations are completely false.
And the opposition, of course, made election commitments worth $1.6bn – over 1,000 of them. We’re happy to go through them.
He’s about to say that none of those commitments were for Sydney’s inner west, but as Bell gets up to protest the line of attack, Albanese sits down and indicates he’s finished his answer.
Labor ‘failing at aged care’, says independent Rebekha Sharkie
Why won’t the government concede that they’re “failing at aged care”, asks independent MP Rebekha Sharkie. She says in her state of SA, in October 2022 state hospitals reported 60 older patients waiting for residential aged care – a figure that has now ballooned to 487.
Sharkie also says 5,000 people have died waiting for support at home packages.
The aged care minister, Sam Rae, says things are improving, and more money has been provided to states for hospitals and to increase the number of aged care beds.
We’ve got 830,000 Australians receiving care under the commonwealth home support program and roughly 400,000 Australians receiving care under support at home. That support at home system has nearly tripled since 2020 under our government, and the investments that we’ve made. Wait times are coming down under support at home.
Jean Nassif tells Icac ‘I’m going to speak my heart’
Penry Buckley
Leaving question time for a moment, and the propery developer Jean Nassif is now appearing on screen at the NSW Icac, wearing a white, open-collared shirt.
Although the video connection with Nassif, who has said he is appearing from his bedroom in Beirut, has occasionally been interrupted, presiding commissioner Fabian Gleeson SC has been able to explain to Nassif that he has not been compelled to give evidence, and has the right to silence.
Gleeson: “And as I understand it, you have nevertheless indicated that you would like to give evidence before the commission. Is that correct? Is that correct, Mr Nassif?”
Nassif: “Yes, your honour.”
Gleeson asks Nassif, who does not have legal representation, if he would like to take legal advice. Nassif says:
I don’t wish to have legal advice. I’m going to speak my heart, and I’m going to say exactly what happened with me in my whole entire career for 25 years in Australia. I’m willing to answer any question … I have no issues.
‘I know what he thinks of you’, Coalition challenges Albanese on criticism from Labor luminary
There’s nothing worse than being criticised by your own, which is why the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, has now pounced on comments from former union leader and Labor luminary Bill Kelty that Labor is presiding over falling housing affordability and a drop in real wages.
Anthony Albanese tries to brush off the burn, and says to the opposition:
We all know Bill Kelty. I’ll make that point. I know Bill Kelty. And I know what he thinks of you.
Maybe he would have a quote for you, but it would be unprintable. We know that Australians are under cost–of–living pressure. We know that.
He then takes a more personal shot at Wilson’s book (“not a book I have read, I must say. But I’ve heard enough quotes from it,” he says) that said capital gains tax discounts were making the system unfair.
Question time begins
It’s question time!
Angus Taylor begins and says that new modelling from Aussie Home Loans shows 20% of Australians who have purchased a home in the past three years are “now trapped in mortgage prison” and asks the prime minister to admit that it was Labor’s plan to smash the housing market.
Anthony Albanese brings some receipts, and says according to the latest Reserve Bank data, less than 1% of all mortgage holders are in negative equity (meaning they owe more than what their home is currently worth).
He suggests that the housing market is still moving, and people are still buying up properties.
ABS data shows an unprecedented 8,468 investors signed up to build a new home in the June quarter. This was 454 more than the previous record set in the previous three months … More than 660,000 new homes were built under this Labor government, and a further 244,000 are now under construction.
It’s a slow start to QT.
Fugitive developer Jean Nassif appears at NSW Icac inquiry
Penry Buckley
The property developer Jean Nassif has begun his appearance at the NSW Icac this afternoon, via video link from Lebanon.
Before the commission wrapped for lunch, this morning’s witness, Strathfield councillor Matthew Blackmore was asked to wait until 2.15pm, with presiding commissioner Fabian Gleeson SC saying he was not sure if an overseas telecommunications link with Nassif would be established this afternoon or not. Blackmore is expected to continue giving evidence tomorrow morning.
Nassif, who withdrew from a scheduled appearance on 4 September after providing a medical certificate, left Australia for Lebanon in 2022 after an investigation found dozens of defects in three separate residential developments constructed by his company Toplace.
As part of its investigation into allegations against people associated with the NSW Liberals, Icac is examining the allegation that Liberal figures anticipated receiving $2m in prohibited donations from Nassif in exchange for political outcomes, including damage to the career of NSW Liberal minister David Elliott and the removal of the building commissioner David Chandler.
He has previously denied any wrongdoing.
The House pays tribute to Mary Gaudron
Before we get into question time, Anthony Albanese and Angus Taylor pay tribute to Mary Gaurdron, the first female justice of the Australian high court who passed away aged 83.
They describe her incredible journey from growing up in a working class family in Moree in regional NSW to one of the most senior public and legal figures in the country.
Albanese says:
Even if you were to just add up a list of firsts to which her name is attached, it’s like looking at the peaks of a mountain range.
She was the first woman to be appointed Queen’s Counsel in New South Wales, the first woman to serve as a state Solicitor–General for any state. Our youngest federal judge ever. And the first woman appointed to the High Court of Australia. Mary was also foundation chair of the New South Wales Legal Services Commission. She successfully argued the Whitlam government’s equal pay case.
Taylor says:
Quick–witted, sharp, analytical, audacious – it was no wonder that, at age 44, she was appointed to the High Court. Throughout her career and in her judgements, she was driven by a deep sense of social justice and a desire to right the wrongs of the past. She was one of seven judges who heard the landmark Mabo case recognising the existence of native title in Australian law.
Hastie says expected closure of Whyalla steelworks is a ‘brutal blow’
The shadow industry minister, Andrew Hastie, says the expected closure of a blast furnace at the Whyalla steelworks is a brutal blow for hundreds of workers and the country.
The shutdown, which will soon be announced, may see as many as 500 Australian workers lose their jobs, as well as 100 contractors working at the site.
Hastie is doing a doorstop ahead of question time and blamed the government’s energy transition:
This is a brutal blow for 500 Aussie workers, a brutal blow for the town of Whyalla and a brutal blow for Australia as much sovereign capability. What we have seen now as the closure of 75% of Australia’s capacity of structural steel making.
It is a future made overseas, not a Future Made in Australia, and this is all caused by Labor and its relentless ideological pursuit of a net zero climate targets.
Australia must reject Pauline Hanson’s ‘toxic agenda’, Indigenous Australians minister says
Pauline Hanson has spent her entire career pedalling racism, says Malarndirri McCarthy, in response to resurfaced comments from the One Nation leader calling First Nations Australians “primitive”.
The minister for Indigenous Australians took to social media to disparage the remarks, and said someone trying to incite hatred isn’t fit to be a leader.
McCarthy is a Yanyuwa and Garrwa woman and represents the Northern Territory in the Senate. She writes:
Senator Hanson has peddled racism and division her entire career. Anyone seeking to be prime minister should not divide Australians and incite hatred … I am proud to represent First Nations people who come from the oldest continuous culture on the planet.
We must reject senator Hanson’s toxic agenda now and all the way to the next election.
Coalition still unhappy about digital duty of care bill
Labor is still yet to win over the Coalition to support its digital duty of care bill despite Anika Wells yesterday saying that she was prepared to water down some of the ministerial powers in the bill.
Angus Taylor at his press conference earlier today said it still read like a “big brother” bill.
The legislation would put the onus on tech platforms to remove harmful content for adults and children or face fines of tens of millions of dollars.
Taylor said:
This is the big brother bill, frankly … they should put forward an alternative. But right now, that’s what we’re seeing, and we can’t support that.
‘There’s no group in society that Pauline Hanson isn’t prepared to kick down’, Plibersek says
The social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, has defended Anthony Albanese against Pauline Hanson’s comments about his upbringing and his mother, and said the criticisms show the One Nation leader knows nothing about public housing.
Plibersek tells News24 that Albanese is a “big boy” and copping criticism for things he does is fair game, but attacking his family is not. She says she personally knew Albanese’s mother before she became an MP.
Come on, like, I’m all for free speech, but attacking someone’s dead mum, is that really what we’ve come to when it comes to free speech in this country?
Anthony was her carer from a very young age. He was cooking the meals, he was cleaning the house. He was helping her do up her buttons, he was her carer, and to pretend for a second that she could have gone out and found private rental, and that she was clogging up public housing, I think that says a lot more about Pauline Hanson and what she thinks of people who live in public housing today than it says about Maryanne Albanese.
Hanson is also under fire for more resurfaced comments where she called First Nations Australians the “most primitive race on earth”.
Plibersek says:
I think this proves that there’s no group in society that Pauline Hanson isn’t prepared to kick down on … We’re really lucky in this country, to have 65,000 years of history and culture to learn from.
‘Wall of Tears’ exhibition outside Parliament House mourns children killed in Gaza
An exhibition out on the front lawns of Parliament House today has named the 18,457 children that were killed in Gaza between the 7 October 2023 attack and July 2025.
The Wall of Tears installation by artist Phil Buehler also includes the photographs and stories of some of the children.
Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, spoke at the exhibition this morning.
It is inconceivable that anyone can see this loss of innocent life and not feel their heart break. With every child killed, our hearts break a little bit more.
Our government calls Israel a friend and continues to sell weapons parts that are used to murder children. This exhibition being brought to Canberra is a necessary reminder of our leaders’ complicity in these crimes. I hope that all Labor MPs will take the time to view the exhibit and reflect.
Unicef estimates more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza since October 2023.
Ukraine and Venezuela among countries barred from coming to Australia under One Nation plan
Migration from 26 countries on the government’s do not travel list will be banned by One Nation under their plan, which will include countries such as … Ukraine and Venezuela.
Most nations on the list are in the African continent and the Middle East, due to on-the-ground conflict.
Other nations include Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Chad, South Sudan, Russia and Belarus.
This might be sounding somewhat familiar to you, and that’s because One Nation had announced this a little earlier this year, and will go some way to reduce some of the temporary visas they’ve promised.
Douglas Smith
Labor’s Yiwarr McGrath wins NT seat of Mulka
Labor has won the seat of Mulka in the Northern Territory’s north-east Arnhem Land in a byelection over the weekend, after 35-year-old Yolngu man Yiwarr McGrath secured the victory.
McGrath, a registered nurse and 2021 NT Young Australian of the Year, won 77.5% of the vote on Saturday amid a low voter turnout.
Labor’s victory comes after the resignation of long-time Independent Yiŋiya Guyula from the seat of Mulka, previously known as Nhulunbuy last month, in protest of the Country Liberal party’s policies, calling them “dehumanising, oppressing and destroying our communities and our people”.
In Nhulunbuy after his win, McGrath told the ABC that he was inspired by his upbringing to make a difference for his people.
So, I’m going to come here to the parliament with real-life experiences and influence policy for my people and everyone else in this region.
NT Labor leader, Selena Uibo, congratulated McGrath:
As a Yolŋu man and registered nurse, Yiwarr has seen first-hand the impact of overcrowded houses on families.
He will fight for more housing, reliable local health services, better roads and economic opportunities for people across the electorate.
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I’m biased of course – but it’s pretty damn good!
