Yes campaign failing to counter opponents’ targeted tactics despite spending more, experts say

Supporters of the Indigenous voice to parliament urged to hone their strategy in bid to convince undecided Australians to vote yes

The yes campaign for the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum is outspending voice opponents on social media, but critics say its broad approach is failing to counter the no camp’s more targeted tactics.

Yes campaigners have spent approximately $180,000 more on Facebook ads than the no campaign since 1 January, Guardian Australia analysis has found.

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Labor launches inquiry into home affairs procurement after ‘serious issues’ with Nauru contracts

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, says revelations about contracts with company linked to a foreign bribery case ‘merit detailed and thorough examination’

Labor has announced an independent review of the management of regional processing procurement by the Department of Home Affairs after revelations it granted contracts to a company linked to the subject of a bribery investigation.

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, announced the inquiry citing “serious issues” with the governance of offshore processing contracts which she said “merit detailed and thorough examination”.

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News live: economists wary ahead of RBA rates decision; agriculture minister says Australia is free of lumpy skin disease

Anthony Albanese says increasing the income-free area for jobseeker would have ‘unintended consequences’. Follow live news updates today

PM says he would ‘rather not have’ double dissolution trigger as housing bill to be reintroduced

Anthony Albanese has spoken to ABC Sydney and FiveAA about Labor’s $10bn housing Australia future fund bill, which is going to be reintroduced to parliament, possibly providing a trigger for a double dissolution election.

That doesn’t necessarily provide for an early election, it could go into 2025 – but what it does is mean that can be a focus and you have a joint sitting after a double dissolution is held, but I just want this legislation to be passed … Their spokesperson [Max Chandler Mather] put this in writing in an opinion piece in a magazine, essentially saying that if this is just waved through and happens we won’t be able to continue to door knock and campaign on it. Well, I don’t want to play politics with this – I want to get this done. We have a mandate for it, and the Senate should pass it.

The truth is you do need appropriate development, particularly along public transport corridors … But it’s true sometimes local government can get in the way because people want to oppose anything at all that looks like development. But the truth is we do need to increase housing supply, that’s the key.

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Noel Pearson urges voters to ‘let go of your political party affiliations’ and vote yes for Indigenous voice

Yes campaigners will target Liberal, National and teal voters ahead of the referendum

Liberal, National and teal voters across New South Wales will be targeted by campaigners for the Indigenous voice to parliament, as its biggest advocates urge voters against following party politics on the issue.

Advocates will push the values underpinning the proposal and the need to listen to Indigenous people over political leaders for the next three months, after polling suggested support had softened.

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Missing ADF personnel involved in Queensland helicopter crash identified – As it happened

Families grant permission to name the four service members who went missing during military exercises off the coast of Whitsundays on Friday – this blog is now closed

Asked about the surplus the government now finds itself overseeing, Rishworth is asked whether there will be any further assistance in the next budget.

Of course, the changes we’re making - whether it’s to rent assistance, jobseeker - are structural changes. They’re ongoing increases that will be applied. So when you talk about the surplus from last year, that’s a very different circumstance to the reforms that we’ve made which are ongoing and structural. We have calibrated these to be responsible to help people that are doing it tough. But also, that they’re sustainable into the long-term.

The economic inclusion committee was providing a very specific advice on the level of jobseeker to inform the budget process. Of course, the budget process has to take in a range of different factors, including a responsible structural adjustment. But also, of course, as the treasurer has said, making sure that we’re not adding to inflation. So there is a lot of issues that we do have to weigh up in a budget process.

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Australian military helicopter crash: missing crew identified as Albanese pays tribute

Taipan helicopter was taking part in joint military training exercise Talisman Sabre when it crashed in waters off Queensland’s Whitsunday Islands on Friday night

The four missing crew of a helicopter which crashed during a military training exercise in waters off Queensland have been identified, as navy divers and allies assisted with the search on Sunday.

Lt Gen Simon Stuart, chief of the Australian army, said the families of the men had given permission to name the four soldiers: Capt Daniel Lyon, Lt Maxwell Nugent, WO Class Two Joseph Laycock and Cpl Alexander Naggs.

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Julian Assange: US rejects Australia’s calls to end pursuit of WikiLeaks founder during Ausmin talks

Ministers’ meeting focused on military cooperation and agreed to increase ‘tempo’ of US nuclear-powered submarine visits to Australia as part of Aukus pact

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has pushed back at the Australian government’s calls to end the pursuit of Julian Assange, insisting that the WikiLeaks founder is alleged to have “risked very serious harm to our national security”.

After high-level talks in Brisbane largely focused on military cooperation, Blinken confirmed that the Australian government had raised the case with the US on multiple occasions, and said he understood “the concerns and views of Australians”.

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Home affairs may have misled Senate over Nauru contracts linked to man convicted over bribery

Exclusive: Department claimed accommodation contracts with companies linked to Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani could not be cancelled – despite containing termination clauses

The department of home affairs appears to have misled the Senate over controversial contracts it signed with a company linked to a man under investigation for foreign bribery.

In a written response this month, the department told the Senate it had no power to cancel Nauru accommodation contracts with Radiance International Inc – linked to Mozammil (Mozu) Gulamabbas Bhojani, ultimately convicted of bribing politicians on the Pacific island state – but the department’s contracts explicitly allowed it to tear up the contracts for any reason.

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Marles says aircrew ‘yet to be found’ after military helicopter crash – as it happened

Four feared dead after Australian army helicopter crashes into waters off Hamilton Island. This blog is now closed

Tasmania police use cadaver dog in search for missing Belgian tourist

AAP reports Tasmania police hope an interstate cadaver dog can reveal where a missing Belgian tourist ended up after weeks of fruitless searches.

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Greens insist they won’t back down on housing bill despite Albanese’s double dissolution threat

Minor party plans to door-knock Labor electorates in a ‘national day of action’ as it continues to call on the prime minister to include rent relief in package

The Greens remain defiant in the face of Anthony Albanese’s double-dissolution threat over his housing bill, insisting the minor party will continue to push for rent relief to be part of the package.

Queensland Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather said the party remained willing to negotiate but would not be pushed into supporting Labor’s $5bn housing Australia future fund (Haff).

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WeChat user numbers plummet nearly 30% in Australia amid concerns of Chinese interference

Owner gives parliamentary inquiry no reason for fall over three years but says China’s government could not conduct surveillance on app

WeChat has said its user numbers in Australia have declined almost 30% in the past three years, amid questions being raised about foreign interference on the app.

Tencent-owned WeChat told a parliamentary committee examining foreign interference on social media that as of July 2023, the communications app favoured by Australia’s Chinese diaspora community had fewer than 500,000 daily active users in Australia. The company told the committee in 2020 that its user base was 690,000.

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Birmingham says opposition doesn’t ‘fear’ early election – as it happened

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Housing bill squabble to bring back possibility of double dissolution election

Parliament resumes next week after a five-week hiatus over winter, which means all the squabbles and fights we left in June are starting to whirl up again – chief among them housing. As Daniel Hurst reported this morning, Labor is going to bring back its housing bill to the house in October, where it will pass. Once it hits the Senate, things get a little more dicey. If it’s rejected by the Greens, who so far aren’t seeing what they want from the government, then the government has a double dissolution trigger.

The early indications are that there was a 50m exclusion zone around the deceased.

All efforts had been made to cover the body but at certain stages of the forensic examination, that body did need to be uncovered so the forensic police could do their work for the coroner and unfortunately, those children did walk past.

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NSW police reject suggestion ‘racism is rife’ in force and say ‘lessons learned’ after Bowraville murders

Police act ‘with respect’ to victims and people in custody, federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and children hears

A senior NSW police officer has rejected suggestions “racism is rife” within its ranks and has told a federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and children that lessons have been learned after the Bowraville murders.

The parliamentary inquiry has held hearings around the country, hearing from experts, government and police agencies, and families of those murdered and disappeared.

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NSW police taskforce to investigate spate of shootings – as it happened

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Wholesale power prices down from a year ago but still at elevated levels

Emissions from Australia’s main electricity grid dropped more than 6% in the June quarter from a year ago to a record-low for the period, and wholesale prices stabilised, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) said.

I think some of the people who are raising issues in the US Congress about this are saying ‘look the US has its own issues about its industrial base, its capacity to up its submarine production.’

But you know, what Aukus is about is actually augmenting the capacity to supply submarines in the region. And we Australia will be injecting money into the US industrial base.

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Australia news live: rental pressure ‘most concerning’ aspect of inflation picture, Jim Chalmers says

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The minister for sport and aged care, Anika Wells, says her focus is on people in sport, not the infrastructure, following the announcement Victoria was pulling out of hosting the Commonwealth Games.

Wells has told ABC Radio she was not warned by Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, ahead of time about the decision, and found out along with the rest of the country when he stood up to make the announcement.

I care for our athletes. I think that that dream of competing on home soil for your country is one of the most potent dreams that motivate our high performance athletes and possibly our kids as well to go from from playground to podium.

But given how many events that Australia does already have on the green and gold runway and the World Cups – we’re hosting four Women’s World Cups across the next five years, including the one that is on right now – as long as we have opportunities for people to go from playground to podium.

Governments continue to make decisions that disregard or contradict the Agreement.

… Overall progress against the priority reforms has been slow, uncoordinated and piecemeal.

Here is potential for the proposed Voice to the Australian Parliament (as well as state and territory representative bodies), together with current treaty processes and justice commissions, to strengthen accountability for matters covered by the Agreement.

But regardless of the outcomes of these processes, governments will still be responsible for adopting a fundamentally new way of developing and implementing policies and programs that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as they have committed to do in the Agreement.

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Julie Bishop backs Indigenous voice as ‘step in the right direction’

Former Liberal deputy leader tells National Press Club she supports the referendum, but stops short of saying she will actively campaign for yes vote

The former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop has called for Australians to support the Indigenous voice referendum, warning that existing policies are not working to close the gap.

Bishop, who was deputy leader of the Liberal party for 11 years, said many Indigenous people she respected greatly “have put a lot of thought into this and they believe that it is a step in the right direction”.

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Turnbull government’s $33m grant went to company part-owned by mental health commissioner after lobbying

Exclusive: Funding to Innowell in 2017 without competitive tender was for mental health app and followed months of lobbying by Prof Ian Hickie. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Hickie

The former government led by Malcolm Turnbull awarded a $33m grant to a company that was developing a mental health app after months of lobbying from one of its own mental health commissioners who was also a shareholder in the months-old startup.

The one-off grant was awarded in 2017 without a competitive tender to Innowell for a series of collaborative research trials into a digital mental health platform. Its shareholders include PwC, the University of Sydney and former mental health commissioner Prof Ian Hickie.

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How a viral Channel 7 clip that had nothing to do with the voice was co-opted by the no camp

Confusion over Western Australia’s new cultural heritage laws is being co-opted by the no campaign and far-right opponents of the voice

The two-minute clip never mentions the Indigenous voice to parliament, but a now-viral Channel 7 news story about cancelled tree planting ceremonies in Western Australia was quickly seized upon last week by the no campaign and far-right opponents of the voice.

The video has now reached more than 1.5m views on Twitter, largely thanks to a significant boost from opponents of the voice, who have attempted to co-opt controversy over the state’s updated planning laws since at least early July.

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‘Get it back on track’: NSW minister calls for voice yes campaign reset while praising Matt Kean’s support

Exclusive: David Harris says ‘cheap politics’ has skewered the debate but expects support to rise before the vote

The campaign for the Indigenous voice to parliament needs a reset in New South Wales, according to the state’s Aboriginal affairs minister David Harris, as polling shows support in the state is slipping.

But Harris praised the efforts of former treasurer and senior Liberal MP Matt Kean for his support for the yes campaign.

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Labor push for publicly owned plantations to end native forest logging

Party’s environment lobby group wants forestry policy focused on restoring native forests, arguing they have more value as a carbon and biodiversity sink

More than 300 Labor branches have backed a push by the party’s environmental arm for the Albanese government to fund an expanded, publicly owned plantation industry to ensure the country gets the timber it needs and end native forest logging.

A report by the Labor Environment Action Network (Lean), the ALP’s largest internal lobby group, calls for the party’s national conference next month to support an industry policy focused on restoring native forests. It says they have greater value if treated as a carbon and biodiversity sink than if logged to produce mainly low-value products such as wood chips, pallets and power poles.

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Increased public funding for forest protection and restoration, recognising that scientists have estimated $1.69bn a year is needed to arrest species loss.

Training and support for existing native forest industry workers and Indigenous custodians to work in new conservation and plantation roles.

A government-owned national natural capital corporation to manage the national plantation estate and help farmers take part in carbon and biodiversity markets.

A nationwide restoration program focused on 252 ecosystems identified as having less than 30% of vegetation remaining. It says this would require 13,000 workers for 30 years.

Investment in a national landcover database and vegetation mapping, based on the system used in Queensland, which has reported higher levels of land-clearing than reflected in national accounts.

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