Climate activists Rising Tide have filed a legal challenge to a Minns government decision to cut off access to Newcastle harbour during a four day “people’s blockade”.

Transport for NSW imposed a marine exclusion zone last week that makes the harbour off limits for four days from 5pm Thursday.

Rising Tide activists planned to paddle into the port on kayaks and rafts this weekend to stop coal exports from leaving and highlight the climate damage the burning of coal causes. Those that defy the exclusion zone could face a maximum penalty of a $1,100 fine.

It came after earlier this month, the NSW police won a legal challenge in their attempt to stop the protest, which intended to block the port for 30 hours. But the protesters vowed to go ahead, despite the court ruling meaning they would no longer be protected from being charged with obstruction and unlawful assembly offences.

Alexa Stuart, Rising Tide organiser and plaintiff in the supreme court challenge to the exclusion zone, said:

The legal challenge to this draconian exclusion zone is arguing that the marine exclusion zone is an improper use of the Marine Safety Act which is designed to ensure that events taking place on water, like yacht races can proceed safely, not to prevent an event from taking place.

The NSW government is attempting to criminalise peaceful protest, but real criminals here are the coal and gas [companies] who are continuing to put profit above all else and burn my future and the futures of all young people.

NSW transport minister Jo Haylen’s office said NSW Maritime enacted the exclusion zone on the request of NSW Police after the earlier supreme court ruling:

It’s been done to ensure the safety of users on the waterway and safe passage of vessels.

Coles chief defends supermarket’s expanding profit margins during time of strain on shoppers and suppliers

The Coles chief executive, Leah Weckert, has defended the supermarket’s expanding profit margins recorded during a period of increasing strain on shoppers and its suppliers.

Weckert told the government-ordered inquiry into the supermarket sector today that it was important for a food retailer “to continue to be profitable and sustainable for the long term”.

When times do get tough and you do get cost increases coming through, you want the business to continue to be able to do what it needs to.

Profit margins at Coles and rival Woolworth are now well above pre-pandemic levels, and have jumped ahead of most of their international peers. This compares with the more fiercely competitive UK sector, where margins for the grocery businesses of the top supermarkets are at or below 2020 levels.

Under questioning at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission hearing, Weckert was asked if she agreed that “there’s nothing low” about the supermarket’s profit margins. She said:

Low is a relative number and so you have to compare gross margins across other types of businesses and other retailers.

She said Coles’ profit margins were “significantly lower than you would see, for example, at an apparel retailer or general merchandise retailer”.

The ACCC’s deputy chair, Mick Keogh, noted that a supermarket business would typically generate more stable revenue streams than a company involved in non-essential retailing.

Moves afoot on Senate crossbench to get public inquiry on social media age limit bill

Staying on the social media ban for under-16s, we hear there are moves afoot on the Senate crossbench to try to get some kind of public inquiry into the bill – before the government seeks to rush it through, perhaps as soon as next week.

As we have reported, there is some disquiet in the parliament about the bill being rushed through before the end of the year, as the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has demanded.

We hear the government might try to get it done by the end of next week, but even some members of the Coalition opposition have been calling for an inquiry into the consequences of the bill (which could include all Australians, not just those under 16, having to give over more of their data to verify their age).

We’re watching for some moves in the Senate to try to force an inquiry, which could see a hearing early next week with some experts and senators questioning. Watch this space.

We’ve been thumbing through the explanatory memorandum and the legislation for the under-16s social media ban, and can give you a little more about how the government proposes it will work.

But we still don’t know what kind of data people will have to give to the social media companies – with the government kicking that can to the big tech firms themselves, essentially asking Facebook, Snapchat and X to come up with their own systems instead.

As Emily already brought to you from Michelle Rowland’s speech, we’re told the laws aren’t meant to apply to messaging services like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, and will give some exemptions to products used for educational purposes like YouTube or Google Classroom.

The bill appears to seek action on under 16s being “logged in” on services – young people would be able to view YouTube videos while being logged out of the platform, as well as viewing Facebook pages used for a business in a logged-out state – the explanatory memorandum concedes that some Facebook pages “such as the landing page of a business or service that uses social media as their business host platform” would be able to be viewed.

In terms of penalties for the platforms, those big $50m fines splashed in the papers today will only apply for a “systemic failure to take action” on age assurance. It won’t apply to “individual instances where young people circumvent any reasonably appropriate measures put in place by the platform”.

On to privacy and the important issues of actually implementing or enforcing the ban. The legislation does not say how platforms should comply with the age obligation, and the government seems to be keeping it open to the platforms to come up with their own ideas – but the EM states “it is expected that at a minimum, the obligation will require platforms to implement some form of age assurance, as a means of identifying whether a prospective or existing account holder is an Australian child under the age of 16 years”.

The EM also claims there are “robust privacy protections” in the bill, including explicit bans on platforms using age verification data for any other purposes – with penalties of up to that $50m for repeated breaches.

The government concedes that complying with the age assurance framework “may require the collection, use and disclosure of additional personal information”.

Once the information has been used for age assurance or any other agreed purpose, it must be destroyed by the platform (or any third party contracted by the platform).

North Sydney MP Kylea Tink has urged voters to consider their local federal member’s behaviour in question time at the polls, saying her first-term in the chamber had been marked by a lack of respect.

Tink was one of a number of teal and crossbench MPs to air concerns in August after a number of tense moments between the aisles. Tink said:

At the time, we came to this place in 2022 because our community sent us here to try and make a difference in how it operates, and I think we’ve done that with the help the crossbench. We finally have a parliamentary code of behaviour, which, until this term, didn’t exist. Crazy. We have called out behaviour consistently. We’ve stood in shaking knees to say that this isn’t what Australians expect, but it was never going to be fixed in three years.

Tink was joined by Zali Steggall, who has been critical of the opposition’s behaviour in the chamber. Steggall said “Australian taxpayers are paying for question time” and should therefore get more out of it beyond “spin and bad behaviour”.

There’s no doubt I’ve been the subject of much heckling from the opposition, and the leader of the opposition certainly takes every opportunity he can to turn his back on the Speaker and make plenty of snide remarks. But if he thinks that is going to intimidate me or change my determination to improve politics in Australia, he is sorely wrong.

Steggall says social media age limit a distraction from ban on gambling ads

Independent MP Zali Steggall has accused the prime minister of being “very selective” on dealing with harms to children after more details emerged about the proposed social media age ban overnight.

At a press conference in Parliament House earlier, the Warringah MP described the move to ban under-16s from social media platforms as “tokenistic” and “superficial”.

Steggall said it was a convenient distraction from pressure to ban gambling advertising:

Forgive me for being cynical, but the timing of the government announcing a social media age ban of under-16s was the very time that they were absolutely under pressure to ban all gambling advertising … he’s been very selective about which harms he wants to protect our children from.

He’s doing a tokenistic age ban, which is getting him the headlines, but what he’s not addressing is the real harms underneath, and that comes from banning gambling advertising.

Crossbenchers criticise government after Australia slips two places on global climate action ladder

Earlier this morning, crossbenchers stood up to criticise the Albanese government for letting Australia slip two places to 52nd on the global climate action ladder.

The annual Climate Change Performance Index compares 63 countries – which account for more than 90% of global emissions – on their climate action performances.

Independent MPs, Zali Steggall, Kylea Tink and Monique Ryan called on the federal government to “get real” about its action and announce a 2035 midterm target before the next election.

Tink said Australia had “an addiction as a nation to fossil fuels” and that “we are absolutely gambling with our future by continuing to kowtow to that predilection”. She continued:

Australia has no right to call ourselves a green energy superpower right now. We are a petro-chemical state. We need to step back from the edge and say to those people that are profiting from this, that our kids and our grandkids matter more than their economic returns.