Australia news LIVE: NAB underpaid staff $127 million over 14 years; PM defends Australia as climate leader after UN boss pushes him to step up commitments

Updated November 12, 2026 — 11:03am,first published November 12, 2026 — 6:45am

Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of national and world news this Thursday, November 12. Here’s what you need to know today.

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted the country is playing its part as a climate action leader, as the head of the United Nations pressures Australia and COP31 host Turkey to push a more ambitious agenda on fossil fuels at this year’s climate conference.
• Tax breaks for electric vehicles and home batteries could be on the chopping block as Labor looks for billions in spending cuts to lower inflation after five rate hikes this year spurred by the war in Iran, the data centre boom, high federal and state spending and weak domestic productivity.
• David Jones told staff and suppliers yesterday that half its stores would close after the Christmas trading period as receivers attempt to make the business viable again.
• And Spanish workers have voiced their fury at rising prices and soaring rents in a general strike that brought thousands of people onto the streets to demand better wages and government services.

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Back to ANZ CEO Numo Matos, and he has said that any reduction in government spending would take pressure off inflation.

But he has also noted that inflationary pressures around the world have lifted because of a big lift in spending on renewable energy, defence and AI.

The Reserve Bank last week lifted interest rates for a fifth this year, taking it to an 18-year high of 4.85 per cent. Financial markets are betting the bank holds the cash rate steady all through 2027.

Matos, pressed by Liberal MP Simon Kennedy on whether spending cuts in the upcoming mid-year budget update would reduce inflation and lower interest rates, said it would help.

The reviewer who led the investigation into Cricket Australia in 2018 following the sandpaper cheating scandal in South Africa says he is doubtful he was told the full story at the time, and that Khawaja’s claims have left “a dark shadow” over the playing group.

Simon Longstaff, executive director at The Ethics Centre, told ABC TV this morning while he did not believe Cricket Australia orchestrated a cover-up of the ball tampering plot, it was his view that an “agreement” had been reached among players not to tell the truth.

“It was only whispers at the time. They were faint, there were few but enough for me to go back and check with one or two key individuals who were offered the opportunity to alter what they had said and they chose not to do so,” Longstaff said.

“We still don’t know what happened. There’s completely radically different accounts being given by Khawaja, by Warner and then by the other players at the time.”

The head of the ANZ has warned a global spending “super-cycle” has pushed up the cost of money at the same time as low productivity had left many Australians feeling they were not getting ahead.

CEO Nuno Matos told a parliamentary committee this morning that there were several factors that had pushed up inflation and interest rates that in turn were fuelling challenges to “western social cohesion”.

“Global competition for capital to fund AI infrastructure, defence spending, the energy transition and government deficits has intensified, in addition to increased energy costs from the Middle Eastern war, this expenditure super-cycle has pushed the price of money higher globally,” he said.

“Western social cohesion is being challenged because of concerns about living standards among other issues.

Scott Colom will become Mississippi’s first Democratic senator in more than four decades and the first black US senator since America’s post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

Colom defeated Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith in the state’s closely contested Senate race after a prolonged ballot-counting process.

His narrow victory marks a seismic shift in Mississippi, a deep-red state which has been controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations, and it will echo through the country as well.

The outcome adds to a decisive midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, whose party suffered defeats in several Republican-controlled states, and it will bolster some Democrats’ argument that their future runs through the American South.

Read our North American correspondent Michael Koziol’s breaking news report here.

AP

Independent senator David Pocock says the housing market downturn is necessary if Australia wants to recalibrate its treatment of housing as primarily an investment vehicle.

“The whole point of these changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax discount was to ensure that we can get investors out of the market that are competing with first home buyers for existing homes, and I think that is clearly working,” Pocock told Radio National. “Investor loans are down 30 per cent, while owner-occupier loans fell just 5 per cent.”

He said improving housing accessibility was something Australia had to do as a country.

“For too long, housing has just been seen as this investment vehicle, this asset class, rather than as something that is fundamental to human flourishing,” he said.

“I do think there is a role for the government to now really step up with a renewed focus on the supply of public, social, and genuinely affordable housing. But I think, big picture, this is a change that had to happen.”

Washington: A guard at Arlington Cemetery had to reprimand a group that included US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth for laughing outside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during a Veterans Day ceremony.

Hegseth, his wife and several others posed for a photograph outside the tomb, before some members of the party – it was not clear who – briefly spoke and laughed.

The sentinel on duty immediately barked: “All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence – and respect – at all times.”

The incident, which was captured on video, took place as Hegseth and other administration figures, including President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, were at the emetery for official commemorations.

In a statement to this masthead, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said: “The secretary and the entire Department have always honoured – and will always honour – the sacrifices our military men and women have made to keep America safe. While commemorating this solemn day, a soldier correctly and respectfully reminded everyone to maintain decorum.”

The Pentagon would not clarify, when asked, who was responsible for the breaking of decorum.

A Singapore Airlines passenger jet made an emergency landing in Rockhampton, Australia, after smoke in the cabin.

SQ236 heading from Brisbane to the city-state was diverted to Rockhampton Airport “after smoke was detected in the cabin,” the company said in a statement. The aircraft landed uneventfully at 4.09pm local time and all customers disembarked normally, it said.

“SIA is investigating the cause of the smoke,” it said. Passengers were being provided with assistance, including refreshments, arranging for a relief flight, and re-booking onward travel where necessary, it added.

The type of the aircraft involved was not given in the statement, although it was identified by flight-tracking website Flightradar24 as an Airbus SE A350.

Bloomberg

The National Australia Bank has formally conceded it underpaid 66,000 of its workers $127 million over 14 years, with some workers owed more than $87,000 each.

The bank will repay a total of $169 million to staff, including superannuation and interest. It will make a $2 million “contrition payment” to the Fair Work Ombudsman to effectively settle the legal side of the issue.

In a statement, the ombudsman said the issue stemmed from NAB’s failures to check it was paying staff at least the legal industry minimum under its pay deal with workers, tracking staff hours and correctly applying entitlements such as penalty rates.

The bank first reported the issues to the regulator in 2019, but failed to fully fix them and the problems continued until this year.

“NAB’s underpayments highlight the serious, long-running problems that can arise when an employer fails to coordinate key business functions to meet their workplace obligations, including payroll, industrial relations, technology, risk management, audit and legal,” said the ombudsman, Anna Booth.

Numerous other major institutions, including universities, law firms and retailers, have confessed to large-scale underpayments. NAB made $6.1 billion in profit on $22 billion in revenue last financial year.

Minister for Employment Amanda Rishworth has avoided committing to net savings in the December budget update, downplaying the government’s role in fuelling inflation while saying Labor would be economically responsible.

“When it comes to what government can do for inflation, we are taking responsible measures to take prudent budget management,” Rishworth told Radio National.

Asked whether the government took responsibility for more people losing their jobs because of its inability to curb inflation, after the Reserve Bank indicated unemployment was expected to rise, she said: “I don’t accept that characterisation at all”.

“I’m not going to comment on the Reserve Bank,” she said. “But let’s be really clear: there are a number of global factors that are impacting across the globe, including the war in the Middle East.”

Labor frontbencher Amanda Rishworth says fewer investors buying existing homes is a good thing, as she defends the government’s budget tax changes and the plunge in investor loans that has followed.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released yesterday showed loans to investors dropped by 30.6 per cent in the three months to September.

Rishworth said many factors affected the cyclical housing market, and that Labor was committed to getting first home buyers into the market.

“When it comes to this data that we’ve got in front of us, what we’ve seen, if you drill down into it, is a concentration of that reduction being in investors buying existing houses,” the employment minister told Radio National.

“There’s been a shift to investors investing in new housing, and that’s a good thing because that does add to supply.”