Category Archives: Australia news

Anthony Albanese pledges to lower cost of PBS medicines and boost EVs at Labor campaign launch

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Opposition leader also vows to make gender equity an objective of the Fair Work Act if ALP wins federal election on 21 May

Labor has promised to reduce the cost of medicines on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, roll out new charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and focus on improving pay equity for women if Anthony Albanese defeats Scott Morrison on 21 May.

The Labor leader used the party’s official election campaign launch in Perth on Sunday to unveil a promise to reduce the cost of drugs on the PBS by $12.50. Albanese told the party faithful gathered at Optus Stadium that meant the maximum price for medicines for millions of Australians would be $30.

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Coalition criticises Labor’s housing policy because government could profit from price rises

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Scott Morrison argues Labor is ‘looking to make money out of this’ as Anthony Albanese pledges to cut cost of some mortgages by up to $380,000

The finance minister, Simon Birmingham, says Australians don’t want Anthony Albanese at the table with them sharing equity in their homes after Labor announced a policy to make homeownership more affordable for low and middle income earners.

Birmingham told the ABC on Sunday the Morrison government’s affordable housing initiative was the preferred model.

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Vulnerable Australians missing out on healthcare as insufficient Medicare rebate drives GP shortage

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Fee-for-service funding model cannot keep up with cost of complex primary care needs, community organisations say

Vulnerable Australians are missing out on adequate healthcare because the Medicare rebate is failing to keep up with the costs of providing services, leading to a critical GP shortage, community health organisations say.

Not-for-profit community health organisation Cohealth has not been able to operate its street doctor service in Melbourne’s CBD – which provides a GP to people sleeping rough – for more than nine months, because it cannot find a doctor to work there.

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LNP preferences could be ‘deciding factor’ for One Nation in Queensland

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Opponents say preference decision is a strategic move that could alienate moderate voters within the party

The Liberal National party’s decision to direct Queensland voters to place One Nation second on their Senate ballots could be “the deciding factor” that sees Pauline Hanson re-elected, experts say.

It is a strategic move which political opponents have seized on as one which could alienate moderate voters within the party and see a backlash against Liberals in marginal seats.

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Labor and the Liberals are waging an election meme war – but what is the point?

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The major parties have turned to internet jokes as they fight for attention, but some experts think it’s a big waste of time

You wouldn’t normally expect political parties to prioritise messages about The Simpsons, SpongeBob SquarePants and Judge Judy in the midst of an election campaign. But as Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese duke it out on debate stages with their competing visions for Australia, there’s a battle of a different kind happening online; a battle for attention, eyeballs and shares.

A fascinating meme war is being waged, and it might be more important than you think.

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Labor to help low and middle income earners buy home with shared ownership scheme

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Anthony Albanese will unveil $329m Help to Buy housing initiative as the centrepiece of Labor’s campaign launch in Perth

Anthony Albanese will provide help for Australians on low and middle incomes to buy houses by giving eligible applicants a commonwealth equity contribution of up to 40% of the purchase price of a new home, and up to 30% for an existing home.

The Labor leader will unveil the new $329m housing initiative as the centrepiece of Labor’s official campaign launch in Perth on Sunday. If Albanese wins on 21 May, Labor’s new shared equity housing policy will be implemented in addition to the Morrison government’s First Home Guarantee scheme.

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‘Uniquely qualified’: John Coates drafted letter of praise for himself to Brisbane Olympics organisers

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  • Outgoing AOC president drafted compliments of his own work
  • ‘Hard to think of anyone better qualified in the world of sport’

John Coates, the outgoing president of the Australian Olympic Committee, drafted his own letter of recommendation stating that it was “hard to think of anybody better qualified in the world of sport” to be appointed to the organising committee of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

Coates is Australia’s most celebrated official in the Olympic movement and a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee. He stood down on Saturday as president of the AOC after 32 years. He will become the AOC’s inaugural honorary life president after the 2024 Paris Olympics, when he stands down from the IOC. The life presidency role was written into the AOC’s constitution at last year’s AGM and Coates was formally awarded the position in March 2022.

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Albanese and Morrison to face off in second leaders’ debate of federal election, Nine says

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News of debate which will employ a panel of three journalists comes as Labor pledges robodebt royal commission and Coalition promises cheaper medicines

Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison will go head to head in a second leaders’ debate less than a fortnight out from the federal election, the Nine network has announced.

It follows days of backroom negotiations between the two major parties while the opposition leader recovered from his recent bout of Covid-19.

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AOC elects Ian Chesterman to succeed John Coates as president

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Coates uses outgoing address to announce Australian Olympic Committee support for Ukrainian athletes to resettle in Australia

Stepping into the shoes vacated by the most influential figure in Australian Olympic history, new Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman wants to inspire the next generation of Olympians.

Chesterman was elected to succeed John Coates as AOC president, convincingly defeating triple Olympic medallist Mark Stockwell 67-26 in a vote of AOC delegates at Saturday’s annual general meeting in Sydney.

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Labor pledges royal commission into ‘human tragedy’ of robodebt if elected

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Anthony Albanese vows to find those responsible for the scheme as Morrison says ‘the problem has been addressed’

Labor has promised to launch a royal commission into the discredited robodebt scheme if it wins government.

The automated matching of tax and Centrelink data to raise debts against welfare recipients for money the Coalition government claimed to have overpaid ran between 2015 and November 2019, and saw the government unlawfully raise $1.76bn in debts against 443,000 people.

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Coalition pledges to cut medication costs; 53 Covid deaths – as it happened

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Prime minister announces a $10 cut to PBS scripts from next year in an attempt to tackle cost-of-living pressure, while Labor vows to hold a royal commission into the robodebt scandal. This blog is now closed

Now some questions on China’s security deal with the Solomon Islands.

Morrison, asked about the timing of the announcement, says:

We’re very aware of the influence that the Chinese government seeks to have in this country. We, in fact, introduced laws to prevent it. So any suggestion that the Chinese government doesn’t seek to interfere in Australia – well, we didn’t put that legislation in for no reason. We put it in there to ensure that Australian security could be safeguarded from foreign influence in our own country.

The Chinese government would say that, wouldn’t they?

There are temporary measures that we put on the budget, longer term measures in the mid-year statement. It is a fairly common way that we do budgets …

This is a longer term measure and it will start next calendar year. So the reason that we’re talking about it now, normally we would make an announcement like that later in the year.

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Clive Palmer’s campaign pledge to cap home loan rates ‘utterly irresponsible’, experts say

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United Australia party plan to combat rising rates an ‘just an attention grabber’ and not genuine policy, critics say

Clive Palmer’s centrepiece campaign pledge to cap homeowners’ interest rates for five years has been dismissed by economists as “radical”, “crazy” and “utterly irresponsible” even though it will probably appeal to some gullible voters.

According to the United Australia party’s website, the mining billionaire’s “economic plan for freedom and prosperity” pledges to set a maximum 3% interest rate for all home loans to head off a looming mass default as lending rates start to rise.

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‘They were tiny’: the Indonesians still fighting their conviction as adults in Australia

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Anto and Samsul Bahar were 15 when they were jailed in a maximum security facility in Western Australia

Staring at the camera, Anto’s face, wide-eyed and child-like, invites a simple question.

How could anyone, let alone Australia’s federal crime fighting agency, see an adult gazing back at them?

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Victoria’s government quietly prepares an election budget while attention is diverted

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Analysis: In the days before last year’s budget, $4.2bn in commitments were announced. Just $277m has been announced ahead of Tuesday’s

With all eyes fixed on the federal election campaign, you’d be forgiven for nearly forgetting Victoria’s treasurer, Tim Pallas, is set to hand down a state budget in a couple of days.

So far, all we know is that health will be a main theme of the pre-election budget. Improving lengthy ambulance wait times, emergency department overcrowding and the state’s triple zero call-taking system are front of mind after several much-publicised deaths, including that of a 72-year-old man who waited more than three hours for a bed at a regional hospital earlier this month.

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New Murray-Darling Basin Authority boss fails to mention environment in all-staff memo

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Staff raise concerns after incoming chief executive Andrew McConville emphasises agricultural outcomes in introductory letter

The new chief executive of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Andrew McConville, has caused consternation after sending an all-staff memo outlining his approach to the job which failed to mention the regulator’s environmental role.

A former chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Producers & Exporters Association (APPEA), McConville was appointed to the top job at the MDBA by the Morrison government just days before the federal election was called.

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Independent MP drops threat to withdraw supply to Perrottet’s minority government

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Sydney MP Alex Greenwich says he will continue work with NSW government after meeting with premier and transgender advocates

Sydney independent MP Alex Greenwich has dropped a threat to withdraw supply from the New South Wales government, which is dependent on the crossbench for support.

Greenwich had threatened to leave the minority government out in the cold as a public debate over transgender people’s participation in sport dragged on.

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Solomon Islands PM suggests Australia’s reaction to China security deal is hysterical and hypocritical

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Manasseh Sogavare says he wasn’t told about Aukus pact until it was public while Scott Morrison accuses counterpart of parroting China’s lines

The prime minister of Solomon Islands has accused the Australian government of hypocrisy over his country’s security deal with China, saying the Aukus pact was far from transparent but he “did not become theatrical and hysterical”.

Manasseh Sogavare said Solomon Islands and other countries in the region “should have been consulted to ensure that this Aukus treaty is transparent since it will affect the Pacific family by allowing nuclear submarines in Pacific waters”.

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Scott Morrison suggests ‘remarkable similarity’ between China and Solomon Islands rhetoric – as it happened

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Prime minister responds after Solomon Islands PM says he heard about Aukus pact through media; Labor leader heads to Perth after week in Covid isolation as deputy Richard Marles tests positive; at least 26 coronavirus deaths recorded. This blog is now closed

I’m not sure if voters care about all this debate about debates, but it goes on:

Anthony Albanese agreed to debate Scott Morrison anytime. Morrison wants a debate on Seven and on Nine. The ABC has been cut out, as has the National Press Club.

Well, I think the national broadcaster can have a role here as well and the prime minister thinks that he is the only person who has a say in this.

The national secretaries of the Liberal party and Labor party should sit down, work these issues through, like adults.

I’m up for more debates.

... But I’m not up for the prime minister deciding when, who, how that all occurs. We both need to be involved in this process and the Labor party needs to be engaged so I’m certainly up for more debates.

Well, it’s all relative, I guess, in in terms of what I have to do. So today, this morning, I’ve got a round of interviews. Just the doctor’s advice that when I’m feeling tired – which he advises, and others [are] telling me is the case, that I’ll continue to feel tired and a bit fatigued, particularly over the next week – that I need to be conscious about that, I need to rest when I can and just be a bit sensible.

It’s no use not looking after your health. There’s still three and a bit weeks to go in this campaign. He’s advised that each and every day, if I get that rest, I’ll feel better, and I certainly feel much better today than I did yesterday.

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Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial: police feared witness would destroy phone evidence

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Former soldier appeared ‘intoxicated, acting in a belligerent manner’ when confronted with a search warrant, court documents say

Police feared one of Ben Roberts-Smith’s SAS witnesses in his defamation case was going to destroy evidence on his phone when they confronted him with a search warrant in a city hotel late on Tuesday night.

The former soldier, who hours earlier had finished giving evidence to the defamation trial, appeared “intoxicated, acting in a belligerent, unreasonable and aggressive manner”, court documents say.

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Sarah Ferguson to replace Leigh Sales as host of ABC’s 7.30 program

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Former Four Corners presenter has won five Walkley awards in a career with the ABC stretching back to 2008

Investigative reporter Sarah Ferguson will replace Leigh Sales as the presenter of ABC nightly current affairs flagship, 7.30, in July.

Ferguson, who has been reporting from Washington DC for two years, is a forensic long-form reporter and a tough interviewer whose work made headlines when she fronted 7.30 for six months in 2014.

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