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Qantas to pay $105m to settle Covid flight credit dispute
Jonathan Barrett
Qantas will pay $105m to settle a class action lawsuit over its Covid credit scheme, ending a long-running dispute with some of its affected customers.
Qantas said in a statement there was no admission of liability and that the settlement was subject to federal court approval.
The legal action, run by Echo Law, alleged that Qantas had breached its contracts with customers by failing to provide timely cash refunds for cancelled flights during the pandemic. It provided travel credits instead, with expiration dates.
The airline’s policy generated significant debate, with consumer groups raising concerns over the credit redemption rules.
Qantas later removed the expiry dates on the credits.
The affected flights caught by the class action were scheduled to depart between 1 January 2020 and 1 November 2022, but were cancelled.
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Angus Taylor slams government over soaring petrol prices, but doesn’t offer alternative solutions
Opposition minister Angus Taylor is speaking in Sydney about ongoing cost of living struggles amid surging petrol prices.
He said:
If you have an economy that’s not working any more, where inflation is crashing households and businesses, where your standard of living is going backwards, then frankly you can’t get ahead.
Taylor claimed energy minster Chris Bowen is “asleep at the wheel”. When asked what the Coalition would do differently, Taylor didn’t provide a concrete answer besides saying you needed to “admit there’s a problem”.
First of all, recognise that there’s a problem. I don’t know how many questions we asked where we laid out issues where people were trying to get fuel. …
The first thing you’ve gotta do if you’re going to fix a problem, is admit there’s a problem. Sadly the real problem here is Chris Bowen.
Bowen said yesterday Australia would relax petrol standards for 60 days in hopes of injecting an extra 100m litres a month into the system.
Qantas to pay $105m to settle Covid flight credit dispute
Jonathan Barrett
Qantas will pay $105m to settle a class action lawsuit over its Covid credit scheme, ending a long-running dispute with some of its affected customers.
Qantas said in a statement there was no admission of liability and that the settlement was subject to federal court approval.
The legal action, run by Echo Law, alleged that Qantas had breached its contracts with customers by failing to provide timely cash refunds for cancelled flights during the pandemic. It provided travel credits instead, with expiration dates.
The airline’s policy generated significant debate, with consumer groups raising concerns over the credit redemption rules.
Qantas later removed the expiry dates on the credits.
The affected flights caught by the class action were scheduled to depart between 1 January 2020 and 1 November 2022, but were cancelled.
Benita Kolovos
‘My heart sank,’ minister says after boy killed in crash
The Victorian minister, Nick Staikos, commented after a teenage boy was killed in the crash after an alleged attempted carjacking. He said:
My heart sank when I read the police statement this morning, I grieve the loss of any young Victorian life. I don’t know any more than what was in Victoria police’s statement, but what I would say to young people is, this risky behaviour is just not worth it.
I know Victorians have had enough of it and it can have tragic consequences.
Teen dead after fatal crash after alleged attempted carjacking
Victoria police are investigating a fatal crash in the Melbourne suburb of Hoppers Crossing that took place early this morning.
Officials said an allegedly stolen grey Skoda sedan was chasing another vehicle in what appears to be an alleged carjacking, just after 12am. The Skoda collided with the rear of the other vehicle, which managed to flee.
Shortly afterwards, the Skoda collided with two other cars, rolling several times.
Police said a teen boy inside the Skoda died at the scene. Two other teens, a boy and a girl, were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries under police guard.
Another teen girl was arrested and taken to hospital with minor injuries. She has since been released and is expected to be interviewed later today. The occupants inside the other vehicles suffered minor injuries.
No charges have been filed.
Luca Ittimani
More airlines hike flight prices as Iran war continues to disrupt oil supply
Cathay Pacific, AirAsia and Thai Airways are among a growing number of airlines hiking air fares as conflict in the Middle East boosts oil prices and sends travellers flocking to alternative stopover destinations in Asia.
The US and Israel’s war on Iran has sent the price of oil soaring while restricting access to refineries, with experts predicting air fares could be elevated for months even if the conflict ends.
Some airlines have locked in the price of a portion of their crude oil purchases but not the costs of refining that into jet fuel, leaving them exposed to price shocks.
Cathay Pacific planned to increase fuel surcharges for travellers as it had hedged none of the refiner’s margin and only 30% of its fuel costs.
Read more here:
Jillian Ambrose
Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in the history of oil markets’
Oil markets are facing the “largest supply disruption in history” as the war in Iran continues to block tankers from shipping millions of barrels of crude each day, the world energy watchdog has warned.
The Energy Agency (IEA) said the supply shock ignited by Iran’s effective blockade of the strait of Hormuz meant the world faced a deeper crisis than after the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and the 2022 outbreak of war in Ukraine.
The warning came as Iran issued a statement that was said to be the first from its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to call for the vital trade artery to “remain closed”, in a blow to hopes of a resolution to the crisis.
In response, global oil prices passed US$100 a barrel on Thursday as widespread Iranian attacks on energy facilities in the Middle East overshadowed a vast release of government reserves.
Read more here:
Queensland police searching for man missing in flood waters
Queensland police are searching for a man reported missing after he went into the water in Burnett Heads this morning.
Officials said police and emergency services were called to the area around 1am amid reports the man had gone into the water from a houseboat and had not been seen since.
The river reached a major peak flood of 7.4 metres on Wednesday morning, bursting its banks and flooding major parts of Bundaberg.
The search for the man is ongoing.
Resources minister to meet with US, Japanese and other counterparts amid oil crisis
Australia’s resources minister is heading to Japan for talks with her global counterparts about shoring up fuel supplies in the face of oil market chaos that’s being driven by the war in the Middle East, AAP reports.
The price of brent crude, the US oil benchmark, surged to more than US$100 a barrel on Friday (AEDT) amid reports Iran had been laying mines in the strait of Hormuz – a key trade route for oil from the region.
The resources minister, Madeleine King, said she would meet her counterparts from the US, Japan, South Korea, Timor Leste and other countries at the Indo-Pacific Energy Security Forum, where petrol and diesel supplies would be on the agenda.
“I’m hoping to achieve good discussions about where everyone else is sitting in addressing the fuel supply or demand issues they’re facing in their countries,” she told ABC TV on Friday morning.
Benita Kolovos
New laws would require sold prices be made public in Victoria
Agents and homeowners will no longer be able to withhold the sale price of properties as part of a Victorian government bid to stamp out underquoting.
The consumer affairs minister, Nick Staikos, is holding a press conference to announce “Australian-first laws” to be introduced to parliament in June that would mandate sold prices be made public immediately after the sale contract becomes unconditional.
He says the change will give a clearer idea of the actual market:
The price of a home in large part is based on the property sales of comparable properties in the area and that is why non-disclosure of the sale price can distort the market. It means that it makes it more difficult to tackle underquoting.
Resources minister says Iran war will have lasting effects across the world, but Australia still well supplied with fuel
The federal resources minister, Madeleine King, said the longer the war in Iran lasts, the worse the effects will hit “the whole global economy”.
King spoke to ABC News Breakfast earlier this morning, saying:
The ripple effects reach everybody’s shores, including Australia’s. I want to take this opportunity to reassure Australians around the country that we are well supplied with fuel …
We are still seeing ships come in and deliver refined fuel on the west coast and the east coast and we have no indication that that will be delayed in any sense.
King said she couldn’t predict when the conflict will end, but Australia hopes it de-escalates soon.
Patrick Commins
Capital gains tax discount ‘overwhelmingly’ benefits investors in Australia’s richest electorates, analysis shows
Investors who live in the wealthy electorate of Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs claimed about $1.8bn from the 50% capital gains tax discount, according to new research. It reveals how a handful of rich enclaves in Australia’s two biggest cities account for a fifth of the annual benefit from the tax break.
The Australian Council of Social Services is lobbying for a halving of the CGT discount and has used analysis of Australian Taxation Office data from 2022-23 to highlight how the benefits “flow overwhelmingly to a small number of high-income, inner-city electorates in the eastern states”.
In Wentworth, where the average taxable income is $162,561, the average annual capital gains tax break is $13,450 per person, and in total accounts for 7.5% of the $20bn in total benefits.
In contrast, in Blaxland in Sydney’s west, where the typical income is $53,542, people received an average CGT concession of just $333, the report showed.
Read more here:
Joyce cagey on One Nation’s tax policy
Barnaby Joyce was also asked about One Nation’s tax policies in the lead-up to the South Australian election and the Farrer byelection in NSW.
Joyce said the party’s tax policy would be centred around “proper assessment” of expenses, but he wouldn’t be announcing anything concrete yet as there’s no upcoming federal election.
It’s just like saying to the Labor party or to the Liberal party or to the s: what’s your tax policy for the coming election? Well, If you asked any of them, Sally, you’re going to get exactly the same answer as what I’m giving you. We will cost it.
RN host Sally Sara pressed Joyce for details. The MP responded that it was the “game people are going to play” that would only “confirm the votes of those who are never going to vote for us”. Joyce went on:
We will have a properly costed policy, like every other party has a properly costed policy.
