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NSW premier Dominic Perrottet says there is no place for disruptive climate change protests after climate protestor Violet Coco’s imprisonment was appealed yesterday.

Perrottet said he wasn’t aware of the court’s decision until questioned today, AAP reports. He told reporters:

I’ll make this point – there’s no place in our state for that type of behaviour.

If you want to protest in NSW, you’re free to protest. But when you protest, you do not inconvenience people across NSW.

That’s exactly what occurred in that situation.

A 15-month jail sentence was imposed on Coco for blocking a lane on the Sydney Harbour Bridge with a truck amid morning traffic in April last year. Yesterday she was placed on a 12-month good-behaviour bond after a district court judge Mark Williams overturned the jail term.

Williams noted that she had been initially imprisoned on false information provided by the NSW police.

Coco was one of the first people charged after the NSW parliament introduced greater penalties and reach of laws targeting those who block traffic on major routes.

Chalmers says 3.5% unemployment rate a ‘pleasing result’

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has also responded to the jobs figures released today saying the fact more Australians are in work and the unemployment rate is around historic lows is a “pleasing result”.

Since the Albanese government came to office, 278,000 jobs have been created.

We’ve got a lot coming at us but we’ve got a lot going for us, including unemployment at 3.5%.

A slowing global economy and higher interest rates will inevitably impact our own economy and labour market.

We expect employment growth to moderate over coming months on the trajectory we outlined in the budget.

The temperature is rising in Sydney, with the CBD hitting over 35C as of 2.40pm, and even higher in western Sydney where Penrith has hit 37C.

According to the bureau of meteorology the hot air is being dragged over eastern Australia from heat building inland.

The hot, dry and windy conditions are also bringing elevated fire danger, especially in Western NSW.

Chalmers says ‘expanded research agenda’ can produce productivity commission suited to the times

As Chalmers flagged in his essay in the Monthly (which Dutton continues to lampoon for its length as recently as his press conference today), the treasurer wants to see the productivity commission itself improved and made more relevant for contemporary challenges.

Chalmers says an expanded research agenda should be essential in this reform:

To elevate the economic reform discussion, we need to ensure we’ve got a productivity commission suited to the times.

This could mean a more strategic focus on how we maximise opportunities in areas of economic transformation, including the shift to net zero. It could mean building a better understanding of how we measure productivity and the magnitude of the challenge.

What it must mean, is the evolution of a more meaningful, expanded research agenda and a stronger reform blueprint. This is something I’m giving further thought to, and will have more to say about, later in the year.

We all want to turn headwinds into tailwinds. We all want better living standards. We all recognise the central role of productivity growth in that effort.

How we go about it is contested, as it should be when so much is at stake. That’s why so much of our government’s time and effort has been spent building a serious reform agenda here – one that can pair better productivity with a full employment economy that offers more opportunities, to more people, in more parts of the country.

Chalmers ends on the note that improving productivity is not only the government’s task but a collective one which involves business, investors, all levels of government, workers and their unions, “pulling together in meaningful ways on multiple fronts to move further and faster towards our destination and collective mission”:

Improved living standards for our people, decent incomes – and a better, more secure and productive future, built together.

Government implementing two thirds of productivity commission’s reform directives

Chalmers says “Obviously, no government is expected to pick up and run with every recommendation of the productivity commission,” calling out the previous Coalition government for implementing “precisely zero” recommendations from the last five yearly review.

He says the Albanese government is working on more than two-thirds of the 29 reform directives outlined in the report and is “methodically” considering the specific recommendations.

Thirty-six lie at least in part with the states – and I’ll be discussing these with my counterparts at our next meeting in June.

We already have a really comprehensive reform agenda to grow our economy and lift living standards by investing the right way in productivity growth.

(Chalmers gives a whole lot of examples but I will spare you the entire list.)

Chalmers highlights there are more ways than one to satisfy the objectives in the productivity report.

We don’t believe productivity gains come from scorched earth industrial relations, for example, or from abolishing clean energy programs.

Instead, we’ll get productivity gains from investing in our people and their abilities, from fixing our energy markets, from making it easier to adapt and adopt technology so it works for us, not against us – and by creating the stability and certainty necessary for capital to flow towards areas where we have advantages and opportunities to underpin a more modern industrial base.

We want to maximise opportunities in energy, not just minimise costs. We want more cooperative workplaces, not more insecurity and conflict. But I hope these points of difference don’t dominate the coverage, especially when there is so much common ground to be recognised and progress to be made.

Ageing population and move to net zero will require investing in workforce: Chalmers

Chalmers expands on these challenges and how the workforce needs to adapt in order to overcome them:

In the [productivity commission’s] view, the non-market services sector, including the care economy – which has averaged zero productivity growth since 2000 – will naturally expand and drag on productivity as our population ages.

That transition will be happening in the context of another – a move towards net zero that will require billions of investment by 2050. This will help us avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change and help create new sources of growth that will lift our productivity performance over time.

These transformations will require investments in a highly skilled workforce. For that, we’ll require better education and training systems that can supply the skills and labour we need, and which can enable the digital revolution to happen in a way that enhances rather than just replaces work – helping to diffuse ideas and digital technology across more of our economy.

The productivity commission report proposes five ways to respond, Chalmers says:

• One, building an adaptable workforce to supply the skilled workers for Australia’s future economy.

• Two, harnessing data, digital technology and diffusion to capture the dividend of new ideas.

• Three, creating a more dynamic economy through fostering competition, efficiency and contestability in markets.

• Four, lifting productivity in the non-market sector to deliver high quality services at the lowest cost.

• And five, securing net zero at least cost to limit the productivity impact caused by climate change.

Chalmers optimistic economic headwinds can be turned into tailwinds

The report I’m releasing tomorrow refers often to the headwinds in our economy that contribute to this – and it’s true that much of what we confront can be problematic if mismanaged or ignored.

But in a spirit of optimism, I want to suggest to you today that we can turn the headwinds identified by the [Productivity Commission] into tailwinds.

Chalmers says the report identifies five key trends and transitions:

• One, the large and growing services sector.

• Two, the costs of climate change.

• Three, the need for a more skilled and adaptable workforce.

• Four, our use of data and digital technology.

• And five, economic dynamism in a changed world of geopolitical tension and uncertainty which is putting up barriers.

Chalmers acknowledges:

These are hard areas for a reason. All are complex, and none will respond to quick-fix, easy win, whack-a-mole policymaking.

Last decade’s productivity growth slowest in 60 years, treasurer says

Treasurer gives address on productivity performance review

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is giving a major economic address at the meeting of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (Ceda) in Brisbane.

Chalmers welcomes the guests in the audience, including “somebody who is more important to me than the prime minister, the chairman of the Broncos, Karl Morris”, who is sitting in the front row.

There are a number of reasons why now is an absolutely perfect time to share some thoughts and perspectives about the national economy. One of those reasons is that tomorrow, I will be releasing the Productivity Commission five yearly review of Australia’s productivity performance.

Today I wanted to tell you what to expect with that important report, how the Albanese government is grappling with its major themes and directions, what we are interested in progressing and where we think we already have a better way forward when it comes to satisfying some of these important economic objectives.

I wanted to warn you when you see tomorrow this report it’s almost a thousand pages long, there are nine volumes and 71 recommendations. I received last month, I have been getting my head around it and briefing my ministerial colleagues on it since then.

I’m not obligated to release until after budget … but I’m putting it out there a couple of months early because I want you to be able to work your way through it as well, to engage with it and make your own mind up about its key conclusions.

Gladys Berejiklian joins NSW Liberals’ campaign trail

The endangered long-footed potoroo is bouncing back since the black summer Bushfires, the Victorian environment department says:

The endangered long-footed potoroo has been detected at around 80% of the sites they were found pre-fires.

Chinese officials attend Australian government Aukus briefing

Daniel Hurst

Wong tells Keating to look at UN evidence of China’s treatment of Uyghurs

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, has responded to former prime minister Paul Keating’s comments on China’s treatment of the Uyghur community.

In a National Press Club address yesterday, as my colleague Paul Karp reported, Keating brushed aside human rights concerns about China by arguing there are “disputes about what the nature of the Chinese affront to the Uyghurs” is, in reference to documented abuses that the UN has said are likely to be “crimes against humanity”.

Wong today said:

[Keating] may have his views but the government has … we have raised our concerns about the treatment of Uyghurs, with the PRC, with China, at all levels.

I would say to Mr Keating to consider the evidence that was presented to the UN through the UN report on this matter but I do want to say something to the Australian Uyghur community.

I understand this would have been distressing and I recognise the trauma many of them have suffered.

Burke accuses Coalition of ‘hysteria’ over unemployment

Employment minister Tony Burke says liberal senator Michaelia Cash and the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, contributed to “hysteria” around unemployment figures.

I put all of this against some of the hysteria that both my counterpart, Senator Cash, and the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, put out a month ago in terms of what the test of the previous figures were.

A month ago we were told by Senator Cash the reason the unemployment figures had gone up was because of the new industrial relations legislation. That being the case, I don’t know how she explains they have now gone down now the legislation has been in for longer and that we also have the improvements with underemployment, the improvements in terms of the total number of hours worked.

The unemployment rate has improved in every state and territory, with the exception of Queensland. But you might remember a month ago, the Queensland figure was actually really strong and so what has come back a bit there is more of a correction as to what happened in the previous month.

Tony Burke says drop in unemployment due to summer holiday breaks

As unemployment dropped from 3.7% to 3.5%, the employment minister, Tony Burke, says the numbers reflect Australians who decided to “take a well earned break over January”.

“As a result we saw an uptick in the unemployment figures over January, and that’s now returned back to 3.5%,” he said.

Burke says the numbers will moderate over time:

Full-time employment is up. The total hours worked is up. The participation rate is up. Of all of that, the unemployment rate is down, and the underemployment rate is down.

Even as there is some moderation, there’s still a situation where we’re talking about a very good labour market where people who want to find jobs should be able to find them.

The pathway to better wages will be through the legislation in the system that the government has been putting into place. The unemployment is not irrelevant to what happens with wages but on its own a low unemployment figure doesn’t do the job.

Burke says he is not worried about a wage price spiral.

A wage price spiral is driven by high wages growth. Australia does not have high wages growth. That’s how I know it’s not driving inflation.