Judge Paul Mabey found there was a ‘consistent pattern of fraud’ in the woman’s offending.

The staffer wanted $40,000 compensation.

Australia's leaders have agreed on an "extraordinary" energy price relief plan to help ease pressure on household budgets.

Anthony Albanese, premiers and territory leaders dialled in remotely for the national cabinet meeting today after the prime minister caught COVID-19 earlier in the week.

The main item on the agenda was the energy crisis as prices skyrocket due to the war in Ukraine and surging inflation.

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"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures," Albanese said.

"And we know with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, what we've seen is a massive increase in global energy prices."

Reduction in energy bills for all Australians 

National cabinet agreed on four components, with the most significant for consumers a nationally targeted power bill relief plan.

A $1.5 billion support package will be paid through state and territory governments to provide support to households and small businesses.

State and territory treasurers will work on their own packages to provide support to residents and the relief will come into effect next year.

"It will be temporary but will start in the second quarter of 2023," Albanese said.

Albanese emphasised this will not be cash payments, which would have an upward impact on inflation, but rather reducing power bills.

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The amount provided to states and territories will vary.

"In Western Australia, for example, because of the Carpenter government having the vision, frankly, to make sure there are domestic gas reservations, then impact on price in Western Australia as well as the Northern Territory, ACT and Tasmania is less than the states which are at the heart of the national energy market," he said.

Capping gas prices and coal prices

Other measures that were agreed on include the Commonwealth enforcing a mandatory code of conduct to cap gas prices at $12 a gigajoule for a year.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will monitor the enforcement.

The federal government will also work with New South Wales and Queensland to introduce a temporary coal price cap of $125 per tonne.

This is less than half the market rate but involves paying compensation of billions of dollars to major coal producers in the two states.

"New South Wales will be negotiating out a code but will also be legislating to ensure that this occurs," Albanese said.

"Queensland will be using its directionary powers under the Government Owned Corporations Act."

Both states collect billions in coal royalties every year and officials have been busy finalising a final compensation figure for the states.

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'Keep lights on'': Energy ministers agree on landmark deal

Leaders have also agreed on a plan to secure Australia's energy future.

The landmark deal was agreed to by the nation's energy ministers yesterday to bolster renewable energy to ensure there is enough supply in the national electricity grid.

It will involve bringing transmission networks up to date and increasing the capacity of the networks.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen said yesterday the deal aimed to "keep lights on".

"This is about bringing energy transmission into the 21st century," Albanese said today.

Reducing household power bills has become a political priority for the federal government after they skyrocketed this year.

Power bills have gone up 20 per cent on average in 2022 and they're predicted to rise another 30 per cent next year.

That would add around $1300 over two years to an average home's electricity and gas bills.

Grieving Australians have gathered in New Zealand for a dawn service to mark the third anniversary of the While Island volcanic eruption.

It is the first time the families have returned to New Zealand since the tragedy.

The Whakaari volcano eruption was the deadliest in over a century, killing 22 people including 14 Australians, on December 9 in 2019.

When the volcano erupted at 2.11pm, 47 people were on the island and many survivors were forced to leave their families behind.

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Australians had been unable to return to Whakatane on New Zealand's east coast for anniversaries in previous years due to the COVID-19 pandemic but many have attended a dawn service this morning.

Tracey Rhodes from Fire and Emergency New Zealand was one of the emergency services workers first on the scene.

She said it was nice to "finally see" some of the affected Australians because she didn't know how they had been going.

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"I just wanted them to know we were thinking of them… It was nice to see them," Rhodes said.

"For some reason today feels like it was quite a sad day, probably just meeting the families but it will be ok.

"It is lovely to see them (the Australian families) and I hope they get some comfort coming back and it is not to difficult for them."

The dawn service was for everyone effected to remember, reflect and talk about the eruption.

More services are being held in the town today.

Te Whatu Ora confirmed it trespassed someone this week as it supports family of baby

He said he was trying to make the woman dislike him.

The ACT attorney-general has confirmed allegations around police conduct in relation to the rape trial of Bruce Lehrmann have been referred to the law enforcement integrity body.

It comes after a letter written by the Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold to territory police complaining about their conduct during the case was made public.

In the letter, released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, Drumgold called for a public inquiry into "political and police conduct".

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"I am aware the matter has been referred to Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity," ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury said in a statement to 9news.com.au.

"As such, it is not appropriate to comment further at this time."

The Lehrmann trial was aborted in late October after 12 days of deliberation due to juror misconduct.

Lehrmann had pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent and has maintained there was no sexual contact between the pair.

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Last Friday the DPP made the decision not to proceed with a second trial, citing the impact on Higgins' mental health.

Yesterday the federal police union said it would refer the release of the letter to the Office of the Australian Information Commission and the ACT Ombudsman as a possible breach of FOI laws.

Today it was revealed the force was not consulted about the release of the letter, in a leaked email sent by ACT Police chief Neil Gaughan and obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Thousands of tonnes of soft plastics have been found in Melbourne warehouses as Victoria's environmental watchdog investigates a suspended recycling program.

The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has announced it has discovered about three thousand tonnes of soft plastics in six warehouses in Melbourne's northern and western suburbs while investigating the REDcycle program.

The EPA believes more bags of soft plastics could be being kept at other sites, with officers investigating a potential seventh warehouse in West Wodonga.

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REDcycle, a company that recycles soft plastics handed in at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets, announced last month that it would be halting its service after it was made public that it had been stockpiling plastics in NSW warehouses instead of recycling them.

REDcycle CEO Liz Kasell said at the time the company had been struggling to keep up with demand, with a 350 per cent surge in people recycling the plastic products.

"We are experiencing a huge challenge now because, thanks to the pandemic and everyone being at home and generating a lot of plastic packaging, we have seen increases of over 350 per cent in our network," Kasell said on November 9.

Today, EPA CEO Lee Miezis said it was believed "half a billion plastic bags" collected under the REDcycle program had recently been found in Melbourne, with many believed to have come from NSW and the ACT.

He said the EPA was mainly concerned about the fire risk of storing the plastics, with some being stored incorrectly.

He said officers were working with the warehouse managers to make the storage methods safe.

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"We will not allow unacceptable risks to Victoria's community or environment from pollution or waste," he said.

Miezis said REDcycle's operators had only told the EPA about some of the sites, warning other logistics companies: "If you have any of these soft plastic wastes at your warehouse, we need to know.

"For your safety and for the safety of your employees, business and local community, you must make sure that you're complying with our environmental laws."

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REDcycle this afternoon released a statement saying it had fully supported the EPA's investigations.

"REDcycle is assisting EPA's ongoing investigations regarding storage facilities used to store and sort soft plastics," the statement read.

"We have been and will continue to work closely with and fully support the work of the EPA.

"Our top priority is working to find solutions to convert this material into a desirable and needed resource for the greater good."

The EPA said the discovery of the six warehouses came after it found in May another REDcycle warehouse containing soft plastics in Williamstown North which was not compliant with regulations.

Students in China have reportedly created an "invisibility cloak" that disguises the wearer from security cameras.

Dubbed InvisDefence, the device was created by students at Wuhan University, the South China Morning Post has reported.

It is designed to disguise the user from cameras monitored by artificial intelligence.

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The coat uses a pattern to blind the cameras during the day, and puts out strange heat signals at night to confuse the AI monitor.

It's supposedly indistinguishable from a normal coat, and doesn't hide anybody from a human observer.

"Nowadays, many surveillance devices can detect human bodies," Professor Wang Zheng told the SCMP.

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"Cameras on the road have pedestrian detection functions and smart cars can identify pedestrians, roads and obstacles.

"Our InvisDefence allows the camera to capture you, but it cannot tell if you are human."

A single coat equipped with this technology would cost only 500 yuan (about $105) to make, the students who invented it estimate.

Wang said the coat could have military applications, including avoiding detection from drones.

The US Department of Justice has asked a judge to hold Donald Trump's office in contempt, over their purported failure to return all sensitive documents in the former president's possession.

Federal prosecutors have asked for the contempt charge after months of obfuscation from Trump's legal team, the Washington Post reported.

So far the judge, Beryl Howell of the DC District, has not issued a ruling over the request.

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Trump's office was handed a subpoena in May demanding the return of all classified documents.

This led to an FBI raid on Trump's Florida country club Mar-a-Lago, where at least 325 classified documents were recovered.

All presidential records must be handed over to the National Archive when a president leaves office, but Trump has not complied with the law.

Prosecutors have pushed the former president's legal team to appoint a custodian of records, who could swear, under penalty of perjury, that all documents have been returned.

So far none of Trump's lawyers have been willing to put their name to such a statement.

Trump has admitted the documents were in his possession, after taking umbrage at the inference they had been lying on the floor.

"There seems to be confusion as to the 'picture' where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see, as if that's what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong!" he wrote on his social media site earlier this year.

"They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big 'find' for them.

"They dropped them, not me."

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Yesterday it was revealed two more classified documents were found at a storage facility in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Whether Trump himself is indicted over the mishandling of classified documents is up to special counsel Jack Smith.

Smith, a veteran prosecutor, was tapped by Attorney-General Merrick Garland to be an independent investigator at the Department of Justice.

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Smith will recommend to Garland whether to press charges against Trump for this potential crime, among several others being investigated.

Smith has also issued subpoenas for records this week from three states where Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election results.

Trump launched another bid for the presidency last month, but has spent nearly all of his time since in Mar-a-Lago.

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