Labor under renewed pressure to axe stage-three tax cuts as Australia’s budget woes mount

The party voted in support of tax cuts while in opposition and went to the election promising no changes to the policy

Warnings from the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, that Australia’s economy is slowing and that the population is ageing have prompted calls to scrap the stage-three tax cuts.

Chalmers said the latest Australian population data showed an ageing population continues to present a demographic challenge for Australia and the budget, with the government having to keep one eye on current challenges, while the other focuses on longer term needs in health, pensions and support services.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

Labor flags wastewater tests on inbound planes as mandatory Covid checks for China arrivals resumes

Health minister defends country-specific testing as necessary due to ‘absence of comprehensive information’ on Covid’s spread in China

Australia is planning to introduce wastewater testing for incoming flights in an attempt to gather more information about the possible entry of new Covid variants.

The health minister, Mark Butler, announced the measure on Monday in a round of interviews defending the decision to reimpose pre-flight Covid testing for passengers from China as necessary because of a “absence of comprehensive information” about the disease in China.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

The Albanese government has had a solid start. Now comes the hard part

Labor has grown in popularity since its election in May, and ticked off a number of campaign promises. But harder decisions await in 2023

The year ended on a high for the Anthony Albanese, with opinion polls showing the Labor government and its leader are only growing in popularity, across all states.

The new government spent its first seven months ticking off election promises and recalibrating Australia’s standing on the world stage. Albanese aimed to keep politics off the front page as much as possible. In that, it has been somewhat successful, with the biggest headlines featuring his predecessor, Scott Morrison. But every honeymoon must come to an end and as we head into 2023, the domestic political challenges for the Albanese government will soon loom large.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

Australia’s fertility rate rebounds to pre-Covid levels but Jim Chalmers issues warning on ageing population

Federal government’s population statement forecasts births for 2021-22 will be 1.66 babies per woman

Australia’s fertility rate rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in 2020-21, according to a snapshot from the federal government’s latest population statement.

In 2020-21, the fertility rate was 1.66 babies per woman, similar to the rate recorded in 2018-19. In 2019-20, the rate had fallen to 1.61 babies per woman.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australia imposes mandatory Covid tests for travellers from China amid fears of diplomatic backlash

Health minister Mark Butler argues decision ‘will not come as any surprise to the Chinese government’

Australia will impose mandatory Covid-19 testing for travellers arriving from China after a spike in cases in the tourism and business market.

The Australian health minister, Mark Butler, announced on Sunday that travellers from China would need to take a Covid test within the 48 hours before travel and show evidence of a negative result before entering Australia, starting from 5 January.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Linda Burney reveals draft timing for Indigenous voice to parliament vote

Indigenous Australians minister says yes campaign likely to begin in late February with vote held as early as August

Australians could vote as early as August on whether an Indigenous voice to parliament should be constitutionally enshrined.

The Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney, told Nine newspapers the government plans to introduce legislation to parliament in March to set up the referendum.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

John Howard’s government considered letting offshore detainees into Australia in 2002

Cabinet papers 2002: records show there were growing concerns about management of asylum seekers in Australia’s offshore detention centres

The year 2002 started with traumatised asylum seekers sewing their lips together in protest at their incarceration, and ended with the federal government urgently planning a detention centre on Christmas Island.

John Howard and his cabinet were facing growing criticism over long-term detention as they increasingly enforced boat turnbacks and offshore detention in an effort to stop asylum seekers reaching the mainland.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

John Howard overrode George Pell’s objections to allow research using surplus IVF embryos

Cabinet papers 2002: PM lifted ban despite opposition of conservatives and religious leaders, including then Archbishop Pell

John Howard’s decision to allow stem cell research using surplus IVF embryos might surprise people “who saw Howard as only a rightwing person”, the former senator and cabinet minister Amanda Vanstone has said.

Despite opposition from conservative and religious groups, and despite seeking advice from the then Catholic archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, the former Liberal prime minister lifted the national ban in 2002.

Continue reading...

Complaints about gambling ads almost double, Australian media regulator says

Acma calls for more power to restrict advertisements on Facebook, YouTube and Google

The number of complaints about gambling advertisements almost doubled last financial year, prompting Australia’s media regulator to warn current restrictions are failing to meet community expectations.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority called for more power to restrict unlicensed gambling advertisements on Facebook, YouTube and Google to better protect children and vulnerable Australians.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

PM’s China dialogue comments ‘sneaky’, opposition says – as it happened

This blog is now closed

Authorities to crack down on taxi and rideshare rip-offs

The Point to Point Commissioner is expecting a busy New Year’s period, after a “landslide of complaints” to the taxi industry hotline in the lead-up to the holiday period.

Businesses in the hospitality, tourism and retail industries heavily rely on a transport system that is safe, reliable and cost-effective to get Sydneysiders around our city.

If the system fails on delivering this service then people will not come into the city, which in turn will have an adverse knock-on effect on other businesses as a result.

Yes we have to continue to pursue them but the easiest way they could be resolved is by the Chinese government ending the sanctions on barley and wine. If they did that, then obviously, those disputes we no longer need to continue to take them – that would be the best thing that could occur, although I see no sign of that at the moment.

I see we’re dangling carrots out in front of the Chinese ... accession to CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership], which was something we never talked about, I see the new government is talking about it. This is very concerning – that they would offer access to that incredibly important trade arrangement to try and get the Chinese [government] to move.

Continue reading...

Labor to impose streaming content quotas and boost funding for writers and musicians

Arts minister Tony Burke reveals policy that will also put ‘First Nations first’ and ensure artists get more ‘fair remuneration’

Streaming services will get Australian content quotas, artists will receive more “fair remuneration” for their work and musicians and writers will have access to more public funding, the arts minister, Tony Burke, has announced.

Burke revealed details of a new national cultural policy, to be released on 30 January, at the Woodford folk festival on Friday, promising to end 10 years of “culture wars” on the arts.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Advocates call for urgent action after two ‘incredibly tragic’ Aboriginal deaths in custody

Linda Burney says rates of Indigenous incarceration and deaths in custody 30 years after royal commission are a ‘national shame’

Advocates say the “heartbreaking” deaths of two Aboriginal people in custody within days of each other in Western Australia over Christmas should jolt state and federal governments into urgent action.

A 41-year-old First Nations woman died in a Perth hospital on Christmas Eve after suffering a “medical episode” in Wandoo rehabilitation prison 13 days earlier.

Continue reading...

Up to 1800 homes evacuated so far in SA floods – as it happened

This blog is now closed

A fourth child in the space of two days has been airlifted to hospital from K’gari (Fraser Island) with suspected Irukandji jellyfish stings.

The RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter airlifted the young boy from the island after he was stung on the upper leg just after 2.30pm on Wednesday.

Continue reading...

Police say stabbing murder investigation could take weeks – as it happened

This blog is now closed

Two teenagers are dead and a man has been hospitalised after a crash in South Australia’s mid-north.

Emergency services were called to the Augusta Highway at Lochiel at 7.30pm on Tuesday after a northbound car left the road and crashed into a tree.

Continue reading...

Claims Labor lacks detail on Indigenous voice are ‘rubbish’, Linda Burney tells Woodford folk festival

‘We’re going to succeed with the referendum,’ Noel Pearson tells crowd ahead of 2023 vote

Linda Burney has rejected as “rubbish” suggestions that Labor has not released enough detail about the Indigenous voice to parliament, as the Liberals continue to call for a free vote in the referendum.

The Indigenous Australians minister and Anthony Albanese both gave major speeches at the Woodford folk festival on Wednesday, countering claims from the Liberal National Coalition that the body would not help improve outcomes for First Nations people.

Continue reading...

Australian taxpayers footed $87m bill for maritime surveillance for planes that ‘weren’t even flying’

Surveillance Australia handed six-year extension just three months after auditor general found home affairs’ management of contract ‘not effective’

The home affairs department must hand over a list of all expiring contracts due for renewal after it extended a contract for civil maritime surveillance for six years, just months after a critical report found it had paid for flight time when no planes were in the air.

The auditor general in October 2021 found the department’s management of the contract with Surveillance Australia was “not effective” and “as a result, while surveillance services have been provided, the quantum and range of those services has fallen short of the contractual requirements”.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

Shortfalls in Australia’s food pesticide residue monitoring raised almost a decade ago

Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal government has no real idea about agricultural chemicals’ impact on environment

Serious shortfalls in Australia’s monitoring of pesticide residues in food, particularly food destined for the domestic market, were identified by the federal agriculture department nearly a decade ago, documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal.

Bureaucrats in the department expressed concern about Australia’s food monitoring as early as 2014, the documents, obtained under freedom of information laws, show.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Peter Dutton lets Christmas take a back seat to bad news in Yuletide address as Anthony Albanese expresses ‘gratitude’

The PM, an election winner in 2022, starts his festive address noting Christmas is ‘such a special time of year’

When George V decided to broadcast a Christmas message to his British subjects in 1932 he started a tradition that leaders across the world continue to embrace. Some more successfully than others.

The recipe for the Christmas message is fairly simple – one part reflection on challenges from the past year, one part acknowledgment of current events and one part hopeful throw forward (with a dash of unity).

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Qantas sends back up plane to Azerbaijan after passengers fume – As it happened

Qantas has apologised to passengers and thanked them for their patience after a Singapore to London flight was forced to land at Baku airport – This blog is now closed

Job agencies join calls to scrap elements of ParentsNext program

Job agencies running the contentious ParentsNext program have called on the Albanese government to scrap compliance from the scheme, with one suggesting the current system is “morally questionable”.

Continue reading...

‘Morally questionable’: compliance element should be scrapped from controversial ParentsNext scheme, MPs told

Human Rights Commission says aspects of ParentsNext program have the ‘effect of penalising parents, overwhelmingly mothers’

Job agencies running the contentious ParentsNext program have called on the Albanese government to scrap compliance from the scheme, with one suggesting the current system is “morally questionable”.

In submissions to a parliamentary inquiry looking at the employment services system, the Human Rights Commission has also argued stopping social security payments under the program was “contrary to Australia’s human rights obligations”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...