Australian news and politics live updates: NSW health workers stood down over vile anti-Semitic video

The Prime Minister has used Question Time in Parliament to reiterate his disgust over anit-Semitic comments made by two NSW nurses in a video circulating on social media.

“It is very clear to me that these people have commited what are crimes and they should face the full force of the law,” he said.

In huge news for homeowners, Westpac has become the second of Australia’s ‘big four’ banks to cut interest rates.

Canstar has revealed that Westpac has cut fixed rates for owner-occupiers by 0.40 percntage points, while investors will receive a 0.35 per cent reduction.

The move comes ahead of next week’s highly anticipated meeting of the Reserve Bank board.

“As a result, Westpac now has the lowest advertised fixed loan out of the big four banks; however, at the new lowest rate of 5.59 per cent it’s still unlikely to push many borrowers into fixing,” Canstar data insights director Sally Tindall said.

The move follows Nab’s announcement last week that they would also cut their interest rates.

It’s widely expected that the RBA will cut interest rates by around 0.25 percentage points when it meets next week.

The inspector general for the US Agency for International Development has been fired, a day after his office warned that the Trump administration’s actions had made it all but impossible to monitor $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian funds.

Inspector General Paul Martin’s office issued a report warning that the Trump administration’s freeze on funding and staff within USAID had left oversight of the humanitarian aid “largely nonoperational”.

That includes the agency’s greatly reduced ability to ensure none of the $8.2 billion in unspent unhumanitarian funds falls into the hands of violent extremist groups or goes astray in conflict zones, the watchdog said.

Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium, which go into effect on March 12, threaten to punish America’s allies more than its enemies — and will harm America’s own economy.

Read The Economist’s analysis and why it argues the tariffs are an act of self harm.

Katina Curtis and Nicola Smith have filed their full story on Peter Navarro’s comments, reported earlier here.

The long and short of it is that it’s still too soon to celebrate a tariff exemption for Australia, and we may be looking at more short term pain when it comes to aluminium.

​Read the story in full here.​

A NSW Health care worker stood down after he and another nurse allegedly threatened to kill Israeli patients in a video has been identified as a refugee from Afghanistan who aspired as a teenager to be a doctor.

7NEWS.com.au reports Ahmad “Rashad” Nadir and a female colleague have been stood down from Bankstown Hospital, in Sydney’s west, after a video of them allegedly “bragging about killing Israeli patients” went viral.

As a high school student Nadir was interviewed by SBS about disadvantaged youths aspiring to be doctors.

At the time, Nadir revealed he had fled from Afghanistan to Australia with his family when he was 12.

READ THE FULL STORY

It must have been bring your child to work day at the White House.

Elon Musk’s four-year-old son X Æ A-Xii joined his billionaire dad and Donald Trump in the Oval Office before the President signed off on an order to gut the federal government’s workforce.

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While Mr Ryvchin commended the quick response of authorites to stand down the two health workers in the video, he said “anti-Semitism has sadly taken root in Australia”.

He said the video showed why anti-Semitic attacks were escalating.

“I view it as an insight into the ideology that leads people to burn, to attack, to vilify, to harass, to threaten their fellow Australians because they’re the Jewish faith,” Mrryvchin said.

“So we’ve seen this for a long time now, the spread of this ideology throughout the professions. We’ve seen in the legal profession, we’ve seen in the humanities academia.

“This is obviously an extremely startling and troubling example, because it is so brazen, it is so open, it is so public, and it is in the medical profession. But this is happening across society.”

Jewish leader Alex Ryvchin says the vile anti-Semitic video that has provoked widespread condemnation this morning is “just the tip of the iceberg”.

“It always seems to take an extreme incident like this to bring some sort of clarity and action,” Mr Ryvchin, who is co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said at a press conference.

“But for a long time now, for months, I’ve been hearing from members of the community, from medical practitioners in the community, who have been warning about extreme content posted by other doctors and nurses online, about extreme content in social media chats.

“This is clearly the first time it’s gone to such a public, brazen level.

“But I think we’d be kidding ourselves if we thought that these were isolated individuals. I think that this is merely the tip of the iceberg.”

Officers from Strike Force Pearl will take carriage of the police investigation into a video showing Bankstown health workers spouting anti-Semitic threats.

“Officers attached to Strike Force Pearl have now taken carriage of the investigation,” NSW Police confirmed.

“NSW Health, believe they have identified the individuals involved and are currently assisting detectives with their investigation.

“A thorough investigation is underway.”