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Australian borrowing personal loans in record amounts
Australians are borrowing record amounts in personal loans as a long-term buildup in living costs wipes out savings buffers.
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Extra negative gearing limits could hurt market and family budgets, Labor says
Clare O’Neil has rejected calls from the Greens and others to put further limits on negative gearing access, saying the government should not interrupt “immediate arrangements”.
There’s people in the debate who want to see the government go further. I really understand that but I just think we need to step back.
Negative gearing is a very immediate impact on a household and family budget and it’s not something that governments, when they’re making tax changes, should do, to interrupt people’s immediate arrangements.
We need to land this. We’ll do that in the appropriate time given the need … This is not a political timeline. It is a policy timeline … It’s important this gets resolved speedily and that’s what the government is working towards.
I think there’s a range of things that are on the table in those conversations and I won’t speak about them in detail …
The government wants to get the right outcome here and we are not going to be driven by the politics of the moment. It’s really important we reach the right landing point for this and I think I have spoken in previous interviews this week about some of the issues we see.
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Climate activists say they have blocked two coal ships from entering Newcastle port
Climate activists say they have stopped two coal ships from entering the Port of Newcastle this morning after kayakers and a small boat entered the channel.
I grew up in the best years economically in Australia’s history, and I can’t sleep at night thinking about my 5 great-grandkids trying to live on a dead planet if we keep mining coal. I want to see more people my age standing up for what’s right.
There’s plenty of conversations going on all the time.
I think there’s so many people in politics for the right reasons and, when you’re in there, you want to say, well, how do we actually ensure that people can elect people that are going to come here and really deal with the root causes of the problems that we’re facing, because we haven’t seen that.
How do you be part of changing our country for the better? For me at the moment, that is serving people in the ACT, engaging on each issue, bringing solutions, using whatever power I have in the Senate to actually work on behalf of the people that have sent me there. As to what that looks like in the future, who knows?
Continue reading...Exclusive: Australia faces a ‘pronounced political fault line’, Giridharan Sivaraman tells Brisbane seminar on human rights
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One Nation and the federal opposition are “dehumanising” and “scapegoating” immigrants while drawing on a “deep vein of racism”, Australia’s federal race discrimination commissioner says.
Giridharan Sivaraman made the comments as part of a panel discussion at a Brisbane seminar on human rights, hosted by the state’s human rights commission.
Continue reading...Meanwhile treasurer says next week’s budget will save more than it spends. Follow today’s news live
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Jim Chalmers says next Tuesday’s budget will not extend the 26 cent fuel tax cut beyond June.
But with Australia “hostage” to the wild swings in global oil prices amid the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran, the treasurer said there was “a range of contingencies” prepared to help support households and the economy from any escalating damage as a result of the Middle East conflict.
The budget will be calibrated for the conditions, but it will also still be consistent with our ambitions.
The election began a year of delivery, and the budget will begin a year of more ambitious reform, reform which is made more not less, urgent by global inflation and global economic uncertainty.
Continue reading...Parents of Australian who was detained by IDF call for stronger government response. Follow updates live
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Canavan defends Coalition decision to preference One Nation ahead of independent in Farrer: ‘Socialists and communists always go last’
Matt Canavan said he understood why voters in Farrer, set for a byelection next Saturday, were disillusioned with the federal opposition.
I‘ve been down there for 20 days, 15 nights – and 10 of those I’ve been in a swag – over the past month.
I’m doing everything I can to fight for them. I’d love to fight for that great part of our country again, it’s a wonderful part of our nation where we pioneered the use of irrigation and dams. It still produces 40% of our food, 60% of our fruit.
Under my leadership, [in] my view, socialists and communists always go last.
I think we need to really see how the overseas conflict evolves, how prices evolve for oil. But I think, you know, it is doing what it was intended to do. It’s not a silver bullet, but it is providing material support for people. And as I said, it’s providing support for people who are really doing it tough when they can’t shift away from using petrol.
Continue reading...Albanese defends plan forcing Meta, Google and TikTok to make deals with Australian news publishers through a levy
The Trump administration has described Australia’s moves to make big tech companies pay for news online as “extortion” but Anthony Albanese defended the plan by saying it was about protecting and rewarding media outlets for the work they produce.
Labor’s plan to encourage Meta, Google and TikTok to make deals with Australian news publishers, or face a 2.25% levy, is likely to be supported by the Coalition and Greens in parliament. But a bigger problem may be the ire of Donald Trump, who has strongly opposed extra regulation being imposed on US-based tech companies. A major tech industry lobby group on Wednesday urged the White House to consider retaliatory trade measures.
Continue reading...Jenny Ware says party is ‘at crisis point’ and cannot be competitive at election time unless it selects candidates who better reflect the makeup of Australia
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The former Liberal MP Jenny Ware says her party must implement gender quotas for candidates for office, warning the opposition “cannot get back into government” without putting forward candidates who are more reflective of the broader community.
Ware, who lost her seat of Hughes at the 2025 election, said it was “deeply embarrassing” that the Liberal party executive had not released its own review of the electoral wipeout, and which was then tabled in parliament by Anthony Albanese this week.
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The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says Australia was not told in advance about the bombing of Iran but won’t say whether intelligence facilities here were used.
“We weren’t told advance. You wouldn’t expect us to be but you would see there’s obviously been a lot of discussion,” she said.
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Exclusive: Taxpayers subsidise rising specialist fees as spending on Abbott-era Medicare safety net ‘explodes’
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Welcome to Guardian Australia’s Sunday live blog.
The Jetstar Airbus A320 planes that were recalled yesterday (leading to more than 90 domestic flights being cancelled) have all received the necessary software update and services have resumed as normal this morning.
Continue reading...Opposition claims key diplomatic role at next year’s conference in Turkey would make Bowen a ‘part-time minister’ while Australians face inflated energy prices
Experts have dismissed claims Chris Bowen cannot remain a senior minister while playing a leading role in international climate negotiations, with one describing the argument as evidence of an Australian “culture cringe”.
Australia failed in its long-running bid to co-host the Cop31 climate summit with Pacific nations next year after Turkey refused to withdraw from the consensus process despite limited support.
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Continue reading...As Liberals join Nationals in abandoning a 2050 emissions target, we unpick some of the opposition’s talking points
Are you trying to make sense of some of the big claims made by Liberal and National party MPs for abandoning their support for Australia reaching net zero emissions by 2050?
We’re here to help.
Continue reading...Research which polled a representative sample of 2,000 people also found over a third of Coalition voters believed the climate would not change at all
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About 40% of Australian women without kids say they are hesitant to have children because of climate change, a new survey suggests.
The survey, on attitudes about the impacts of global heating, also found that half of Australians were very or extremely concerned about climate change and two in five believed the climate would be “much hotter” in 2050.
Continue reading...Opposition faultlines have opened up over net zero and immigration, but the data shows there’s more to gain targeting moderate electorates
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Recent moves by prominent Coalition figures Andrew Hastie and Barnaby Joyce have highlighted a major faultline within the Coalition between conservatives who want to scrap net zero and curtail immigration and moderates who believe they need to regain voters in urban seats where there is strong support for action on the climate emergency.
That fault line ominously shook further on Sunday afternoon, with David Littleproud announcing the National party was officially abandoning its commitment to reach net zero by 2050.
Continue reading...Meanwhile PM says he’d like ‘more cooperation’ between China and US on artificial intelligence. Follow updates live
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Watt says Labor doesn’t have a policy to end native forest logging
Asked if he wanted native forest logging to continue (it’s not banned in the legislation, despite the significant negative environmental impact that it has), Watt dodges the question by saying the party doesn’t have a specific policy of ending native forest logging.
What we have said, though, is that we will follow the recommendation from Graeme Samuel to apply national environmental standards to the regional forestry agreements that are used for native forestry, so what that means in practice is that native forestry would need to meet higher environmental standards than are currently required under the legislation. That’s a big step forward in terms of the environmental management of native forestry. But it doesn’t go as far as what the Greens party is seeking in being an all-out ban.
Not in its own right. We haven’t taken the approach of saying that particular projects are altogether banned. Every project will be assessed on its merits whether it be a coal and gas project, whether it be a housing and renewable project, they have all got to demonstrate they’re not having a significant impact on one of the nine matters of national environmental significance under the act.
If a coal or gas development was seeking approval, then it would need to meet the national environmental standards. It would need to avoid and minimise its environmental impacts and offset them to achieve a net gain. So they would be improvements compared to the criteria that apply to a project at the moment. If it was considered to have an unacceptable impact on the environment then it would get knocked back as would a housing development or a renewable project.
We’re not trying to sort of put in particular criteria for particular sectors. What we’re trying to do is put in a balanced package for all sorts of projects, for all industries, that deliver environmental and business gains.
Continue reading...Policy position diverging from senior Coalition partner expected to be formalised at Nationals partyroom meeting on Sunday morning
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The Nationals’ grassroots members have voted to ditch net zero, setting the scene to formally scrap the target at a meeting on Sunday morning.
“We believe in reducing emissions, but not at any cost,” the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, told the party’s federal council on Saturday.
Continue reading...Labor government loses control of chamber and threatens to strip Coalition members from parliamentary committees
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In chaotic Senate scenes, Labor has set a 125-year record by keeping question time running for more than three hours, after the government lost control of the chamber and threatened to strip Coalition members from parliamentary committees in a fight over transparency.
Senator David Pocock led a push to dramatically extend question time and force ministers to answer more questions, with the Coalition, Greens and crossbench defying the government to force changes to long-held conventions and rules in the upper house. It was a rare move which Labor minister Murray Watt labelled a “dummy spit”.
Continue reading...The former deputy prime minister staying out of the Nationals party room is the latest sign some in the Coalition are in no rush to finish their ugly airing of grievances
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The Nationals are once again, in the words of Chris Bowen, “having a normal one”.
Another Monday, another parliamentary week, another chapter in the seemingly never-ending story of the Coalition putting its fingers in its ears and screaming as they debate whether to ignore global momentum, scientific consensus and pleas from the business community, and seek to relitigate a position on net zero reached four years ago by the Morrison government.
Continue reading...Liberal minister Jane Hume earlier described calls for the former prime minister to be removed as ambassador as a ‘little bit churlish’
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Sussan Ley has walked back her calls for Kevin Rudd to be sacked as Australia’s ambassador to the US, after earlier saying his position was “untenable” after comments from the US president.
The former Australian prime minister sat across from Donald Trump on Tuesday as he inked a deal on critical minerals with Anthony Albanese in a bid to break China’s stronghold on the market.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Looming overhaul of protections should also include definition of ‘unacceptable impact’ on environment, Murray Watt says
The Albanese government wants the power to strip companies of any financial gains made from breaking environment laws, as part of a package of landmark reforms to be put before parliament in the next two weeks.
In an interview with Guardian Australia, the environment minister, Murray Watt, also revealed he wants a definition of “unacceptable impact” to be part of the nation’s new environment laws.
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