Michaelia Cash grilled about business grant scheme where funds flowed overwhelmingly to Coalition seats – politics live

9 months ago 69

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6.52am GMT

Australia’s mandatory data retention laws will be potentially overhauled to limit the number of government agencies with access to it.

The metadata laws, passed in 2015, require Australian telecommunications companies to retain records of calls, text messages and other forms of communications by their customers for two years to allow just over 20 government agencies including the state and federal police, Asio and others to access without a warrant for investigating criminal acts.

6.47am GMT

In estimates a little earlier, Labor sought to pressure the employment minister, Michaelia Cash, over a grants program that caused more than $4m in funds to flow overwhelmingly to Coalition seats.

The grant program for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Export Hubs, designed to support Australian exporters, has been run across two rounds, the first worth $4.5m and the second about $10m.

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