NSW Deputy Premier, John Barilaro, has announced he will step down as Nationals leader and resign from parliament.

“I have decided now is the right time for me to hand the reins over to new leadership, and resign as Deputy Premier of NSW,” he said in a media statement.

His announcement means there will be a by-election in the seat of Monaro.

It comes one day after Transport Minister Andrew Constance resigned, triggering a by-election for his seat of Bega.

On Friday, Gladys Berejiklian resigned as Premier and from parliament, which will trigger another by-election in her seat of Willoughby.

Mr Barilaro says he will call a party room meeting for this Wednesday where he will formally resign as the NSW Nationals Leader and call for a ballot to find a replacement.

In 2016, Mr Barilaro was elected leader of the NSW Nationals and Deputy Premier of NSW. He is currently Minister for Regional NSW, Industry and Trade.

He says he has worked with three of the Liberals’ “hardest working Premiers”; Barry O’Farrell, Mike Baird and Ms Berejiklian.

Last year, Mr Barilaro took time off after a month of mental health leave and admitted he thought he was “never coming back”.

Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has promoted key ally, Alex Hawke MP, in a broad ministerial reshuffle brought on by the resignation of Christian Porter earlier this month.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke has been promoted to cabinet to fill the vacancy left by Mr Porter.

“I’ll be promoting Alex Hawke, the Minister for Immigration, Multicultural Affairs, to the Cabinet,” Mr Morrison said at a press conference today.

“He will be retaining all of his existing responsibilities but joining the Cabinet to fill that vacancy, and it’s important, not only because of the strong performance he’s shown in the Ministerial portfolios I’ve entrusted him with, but it also brings back, pleasingly, the Immigration and Multicultural Affairs portfolios into the Cabinet.

“Minister Hawke did an absolutely extraordinary job most recently in the evacuation from Kabul. That was an incredibly complex exercise, and it was done with an enormous amount of effort and great skill and professionalism, and I’m very pleased to be welcoming Minister Hawke to the Cabinet.”

Ben Morton has also been involved in the reshuffle and will take on the responsibilities of Special Minister of State, Minister for the Public Service and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 

Federal Labor has leapt on the reshuffle, describing it as a reward for mates and without integrity.

Dr. Nina Paplia has been awarded a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) fellowship from the Australian Research Council to examine childhood maltreatment.

The fellowship will help Papalia identify links between child abuse and domestic violence with re-victimisation and offending.

“I’m hugely grateful to have received this award, which would not have been possible without the support of CFBS colleagues,” Dr. Papalia said.

“My hope is that the work will provide cues to orient more targeted initiatives to better prevent re-victimisation and offending in at-risk children, at the earliest possible point in the life-course.” 

“It also offers an important opportunity to inform the proposed expansion of child and adolescent forensic mental health services in Victoria.”

Approximately 170,000 children receive child protective services and over two million Australian adults say they witnessed domestic violence as children.

This often leads to a pattern of offending and delinquency which can carry through to one’s adult years. 

Dr. Papalia says reducing these trends is an urgent policy issue. 

“There is enormous potential to interrupt intergenerational patterns of violence and offending in our community,” she says.

“This project will provide new evidence to inform policy and assist services to better protect at-risk children and support them to navigate adolescence without becoming entrenched in the justice system.”

A parliamentary inquiry has heard Service NSW handed out $16.23 million in suspected fraudulent government grants but has only recovered $40,350.

Courtney Houssos MLC questioned why so little has been recovered from what is suspected as fraudulent applications for natural disaster grants. 

“Unfortunately it’s a very slow process, we do seek compensation orders wherever a conviction has made, the value of those compensation orders sits at just under a million requested,” Service NSW CEO Damon Rees said.

“We have certainly evolved the way we approach the delivery of grants, the more recent grants are delivered as act of grace payments and Revenue NSW performs the compliance and funds recovery role there.”

“It gives government additional options to use the powers of Revenue NSW for recovery of funds.”

The $16 million in grants were paid out to a total of 2,347 applicants. Mr. Rees says 74 people have been arrested and 33 people have been convicted. 

Chair of the Inquiry, Greens MLC David Shoebridge, put to Mr. Rees that it would take 400 years to recoup the money paid to fraudsters. 

Another $15 million worth of possibly fraudulent grants are being investigated by Service NSW. 

The inquiry heard that three Service NSW staff members had been reported for suspected fraud, two of which had been fully investigated and found to have no basis. 

Ms. Houssos asked about a staff member who used their Service NSW email to apply for bushfire grants 55 times, to the value of more than $700,000.

“That was found to be a customer service team member that was attempting to help customers with their applications, and incorrectly and inappropriately used their own email addressed in an effort to assist customers who were struggling to put in these applications,” Mr. Rees said.

“It was an example of procedures not being followed but it was not an example of any internal fraud.”

The third investigation into possible internal fraud is ongoing.

Source: ABC News