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Teal MP Allegra Spender has said cultural diversity jobs are important, following remarks from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton today that the positions “do nothing to improve the lives of everyday Australians”.

During a speech at the Menzies Research Centre, Dutton criticised the government over budget forecasts that show an increase of 36,000 public service jobs over three years to June 2025.

Spender, the member for Wentworth told ABC Afternoon Briefing that she did think government spending needed to be cut down but diversity and inclusion jobs are necessary.

“We need to look at the efficiency of government services, absolutely. But I think … [Dutton’s comments are] pretty Trumpian, in terms of saying, ‘Oh, it’s cultural diversity, that’s the problem’ … I really see through that.”

“We have a culturally diverse country, and … I believe our public services, and frankly, our parliament, should reflect that.”

Two men abused by the late Cardinal George Pell in the 1970s have been granted compensation by the federal government’s National Redress Scheme, despite Pell being acquitted of separate criminal charges by the High Court in 2020.

One of the men was offered a payment just five weeks before Pell died, in January 2023, after it was accepted by the scheme that he was groped on the genitals by Pell at a public swimming pool in Ballarat, according to an investigation by the ABC and The Monthly magazine.

The man, who was just eight years old when he encountered Pell – who was archbishop of Melbourne and then Sydney, before being appointed by the pope to one of the Vatican’s most senior positions in Rome – received $45,000 from the scheme for the alleged abuse.

A National Redress Scheme report on Pell’s conduct said children could be thrown into the air without touching their genitals, and that it was “not incidental touching”, which was contrary to community standards of the time.

The other victim received compensation after the scheme was persuaded Pell had raped the then nine-year-old student at Ballarat’s St Francis Xavier Primary School. The rape occurred in the school’s gym after the boy had stolen Pell’s cardigan, but the late cardinal was never charged over the incident.

In his complaint to the scheme, according to the ABC report, the man wrote: “I remember him saying ‘pull your pants down’ … I thought he was going to whip me with his belt. He didn’t.”

“It was very painful. I was bleeding from my bottom afterward,” the victim wrote.

The man was granted $95,000 in compensation from the scheme, which is capped at $150,000, and none of his account was disputed, according to the ABC.

A woman who made a harassing phone call to a Sydney synagogue has been fined hundreds of dollars.

Ann Marie Cooper pleaded guilty in Kempsey Local Court on Friday to one count of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend over a phone call to The Great Synagogue on Castlereagh Street on New Year’s Eve.

The incident was reported to police on January 17.

She was arrested at a home in Hyland Park and taken to Macksville Police Station on the NSW Mid North Coast on Thursday where she was refused bail overnight and released today.

Cooper was convicted and fined $800.

Police, who have said they are taking “hate crimes seriously” have urged anyone who has experienced or witnessed a hate crime to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Regional music festival Groovin the Moo has been cancelled for a second consecutive year, as organiser’s face financial struggles.

“Groovin the Moo won’t be happening in 2025, while we work on finding the most sustainable model for Australia’s most loved regional touring festival,” it said in a statement on Instagram.

“We will really miss seeing the smiling faces of all our beloved Moo Crew – and that means YOU!”

It comes a week after one of Australia’s biggest festival’s, Splendour in the Grass, was also cancelled for the second year in a row last week.

The music festival industry at large is battling growing supply costs and artist fees, increased insurance premiums and changes in audience ticket buying behaviour.

The treatment of transgender children and adolescents will be subject to a thorough inquiry after the federal government announced a review on Friday.

Health Minister Mark Butler said advice on the use of puberty blockers will be completed in the middle of 2026.

Butler has appointed Australia’s peak medical body to develop new national guidelines in place of state guidelines that have seen an explosion in the number of young people transitioning their gender.

The review will examine the prescription of both puberty blockers, which stop young adolescents from developing secondary sex features, and also so-called “cross-sex” hormones used to transition young people, so their appearance matches their gender identity.

Butler’s review follows the Queensland government’s move, announced on Tuesday, to become the first state to pause puberty blockers for young people and order for public health facilities to cease offering such interventions to new patients.

Butler sought advice from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Therapeutic Goods Administration before launching the review and said it was imperative that “highly vulnerable children and adolescents” receive treatment based on the best available evidence.

“We want young people and their families to receive the best health care, led by the best available evidence and wrap-around support,” he said.

“It is imperative there is community confidence that Australian children, adolescents and their families are receiving the most appropriate care.”

The review will scrutinise the Australian Standards of Care and Treatment Guidelines for Trans and Gender Diverse Children and Adolescents.

While Queensland has barred puberty blockers, other states also offer hormone therapy as part of gender-affirming healthcare.

Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls said, in announcing the review, there was “widely contested international evidence” around the use of puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria.

The NHMRC will develop the guidelines with an expert committee that includes lived experience, public consultation, and international work.

Millions of Australians will avoid paying out-of-pocket fees at dozens of private hospitals after one of Australia’s largest private health funds ended its months-long funding stoush with hospital giant Healthscope.

Healthscope chief commercial officer Dhruv Gupta said the two-year agreement would give certainty to staff, doctors and Bupa customers, who were left furious by Healthscope’s decision to terminate its existing agreement with the insurer from February.

“This new agreement means we can continue to care for Bupa members in our hospitals across Australia, without the need for additional fees,” Gupta said.

Bupa acting managing director Kate Williams acknowledged the funding war had caused uncertainty for customers.

“I want to thank them for their patience and understanding during the past few months,” Williams said.

“Our priority throughout negotiations has been ensuring private health remains affordable for our customers while also acknowledging the cost pressures hospitals are facing.”

Health insurers are lobbying the federal government to allow them to raise premiums by up to 6 per cent ahead of the election, a proposal Health Minister Mark Butler said he was “not inclined” to accept.

Australia’s largest cybersecurity provider has urged government agencies and critical infrastructure providers to ban DeepSeek, the immensely popular Chinese generative AI app that unsettled global sharemarkets this week.

CyberCX issued a threat advisory on Friday, declaring that it is “almost certain” that DeepSeek and the user data it collects are subject to direction and control by the Chinese government and that the app should be banned on government devices.

“We assess with high confidence that the DeepSeek AI Assistant app produces biased outputs that align with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) strategic objectives and narratives and collects user personal information from their device and collects prompt information entered by users and stores this information in China,” the threat advisory reads.

“We recommend that all organisations, especially critical infrastructure organisations, democratic institutions and organisations storing or processing commercially sensitive or personal information, should strongly consider restricting access to DeepSeek applications on enterprise devices and consider advising staff members about the privacy and other risks of downloading and using DeepSeek AI Assistant.”

Katherine Mansted, CyberCX’s executive director, said she now expects Australian governments, government departments and agencies to ban DeepSeek, as TikTok and equipment from Chinese firm Huawei have been previously.

Several government ministers have publicly stated that they have real concerns about the app’s approach on data and privacy collection.

Read the full story here.

The Australian sharemarket has hung onto its morning gains on Friday, following the lead of Wall Street, which was pushed higher by Tesla, IBM and Meta Platforms after a rush of profit reports from some of the country’s most influential companies.

The S&P/ASX 200 was 44.4 points or 0.5 per cent higher at 12:37pm AEDT, with the gains driven by real estate and materials stocks (both up 1.1 per cent).

The miners are stronger, with BHP up by 1 per cent and Rio Tinto 0.6 per cent higher. Fortescue has advanced 0.3 per cent.

Most of the big four banks have lifted: NAB has risen 0.4 per cent and CBA is 0.3 per cent higher, followed by Westpac with gains of 0.2 per cent. ANZ has retreated 0.3 per cent.

Read our full market wrap here.

We’ll keep you updated when the market closes later in the day.

With AP.