Essential poll: three-quarters of voters believe cost-of-living crisis will worsen but majority give Albanese thumbs up

More than 60% also say they support the Indigenous voice to parliament, with the Liberal party at risk of alienating younger voters if it backs the Nationals’ position

Australians are bracing for increased consumer prices, expensive power bills and higher interest rates in the year ahead, but 40% of Guardian Essential poll respondents think 2023 will be better than 2022.

The nascent optimism as the summer break approaches comes ahead of a special sitting of federal parliament on Thursday to pass new legislation capping gas prices, which is the first tranche of an intervention to reduce power bills.

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Chinese ambassador hails ‘very successful’ meeting – as it happened

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The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, is up next.

Austin says there will be an increase rotational presence of US navy and army troops in Australia. It will see more US air, land and sea forces in Australia.

Our mateship will stand as a bedrock of future peace and security.

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Bid to make key robodebt documents public blocked – as it happened

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Fans frustrated at last-minute World Cup arrangements

As fans and supporters made their way out of the Darling Harbour viewing site for the Socceroos’ round of 16 loss to Argentina, many expressed their frustration at the hastily organised event.

Lots of us got locked outside. It would have been good if they let some more people in. There were so many up there on stairs, it could’ve been more dangerous if they jumped around too much.

Six thousand people for a major sporting event is just not good enough. It looks like triple that number have turned up. It feels like they underestimated the number of people who would turn up today.

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Coalition MP’s ‘grassroots’ nuclear power survey linked to consulting firm

Exclusive: Ted O’Brien’s Time to Talk Nuclear website was registered by business that helps US reactor company

A Coalition frontbencher conducting a “grassroots” survey about nuclear power is using a website registered by a business that helps an American small modular reactor company, records reveal.

Ted O’Brien, the shadow minister for climate change and energy, issued a statement on Friday saying he was “launching a grassroots community engagement program” under the banner “Time to Talk Nuclear”.

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Bill Shorten reveals review into Stuart Robert ‘lobbying scandal’ claims

The former Coalition minister denies he influenced government contracts, declaring in parliament he had ‘zero involvement’

Revelations that Stuart Robert met consultants who facilitated access for a company bidding for lucrative contracts in his portfolio of government services are “concerning”, Bill Shorten has told federal parliament.

Shorten, the government services minister, revealed after question time on Thursday that Services Australia and the National Disability Insurance Agency had agreed to establish a “joint review” into the “Synergy 360 lobbying scandal”.

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2 October 2018: the ECE tender opened – three companies including Infosys were shortlisted.

29 May 2019: the member for Fadden was appointed minister for human services and the NDIS.

26 June 2019: leaked emails reveal the minister met Infosys and his good friend Milo, a paid consultant to Infosys, in Sydney.

2 July 2019: final valuation was submitted – negotiations on value and period of contract continued for another four months.

8 November 2019: Infosys was awarded the first of four contracts valued at $18m.

19 November 2019: the minister met Infosys.

30 December 2019: the minister met his friend Milo on the Gold Coast, which triggered an email from Milo saying “minister gave insights on progress of Infosys and future opportunities”.

1 February 2020: the minister was guest speaker at an Infosys conference at Melbourne Park on the afternoon of the Australian Open tennis finals.

1 July 2020: Infosys was awarded a further $142m contract.

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‘Eroded public trust’: text of Scott Morrison censure motion revealed as colleagues back former PM

But one opposition MP, Bridget Archer, says she is ‘inclined’ to support Labor push against the former prime minister

Scott Morrison has thanked colleagues for their support resisting a censure motion over his multiple ministries scandal, but at least one Liberal MP will join the push against the former prime minister.

On Tuesday, the Liberal MP, Bridget Archer, told Guardian Australia she was “inclined” to support the censure and took a veiled swipe at the Liberal leadership team for deciding to oppose it without proper consultation in the party room.

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Australia politics live: Dutton says Coalition won’t support motion to censure Morrison – but Archer says she is ‘inclined to’

The censure motion against Scott Morrison over multiple ministries scandal will be debated in House of Representatives tomorrow. Follow the day’s news live

Bipartisanship cedes to brinkmanship in battle over integrity commission

Meanwhile, Mark Dreyfus is preparing to stare down the Liberals and the Greens over an amendment to the national anti-corruption commission legislation which Dreyfus says risks establishing the commission and the Liberals and Greens say will ensure it won’t be political.

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‘Naccflip’: Greens back down on threat to overhaul national anti-corruption commission bill

Minor party resolves to support a crossbench amendment instead of Coalition on key appointment

The national anti-corruption commission bill is set to pass after Labor successfully stared down a Greens threat to support a Coalition amendment on the appointment of the Nacc commissioner.

On Monday Guardian Australia revealed the Greens’ threat to combine with the Coalition to require a super majority of three-quarters of the Nacc oversight committee to appoint a commissioner, in a move that could have derailed the bill.

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Australia politics live: Dodson ‘taken aback’ by Nationals’ call on Indigenous voice but doesn’t see it as a setback

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Coalition is alienating young voters, PM says

Over on ABC radio Melbourne, Anthony Albanese has been asked what he thinks about the Victorian election and the lessons for the Liberal party.

One of the things that we’re seeing, I believe is an alienation from younger voters from the Coalition.

When you have a position where you have senior members of the Coalition [who] can’t say that climate change is real in spite of the floods and bushfires and all of the evidence of the heating of the planet that we’re seeing, let alone any time something is put up to take action on climate change. They dismiss it.

[It] depends where you work. There will be some businesses, for example, which refuse to bargain with their staff where they used to and their staff where they used to and the better-off-overall test became too complex. Getting rid of the red tape we got there will bring some of the businesses back to the table straight away.

Also, any businesses that are concerned, like ... that actually don’t want to be involved in multi-employer bargaining, the simple fix for them is for them to negotiate with their staff now.

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Climate concern the main reason voters swung to independents at federal election, study finds

Nearly half of voters who switched to an independent candidate at 2022 election did so because of climate fears, researchers say

Concern about the climate crisis was the No 1 issue that prompted Australians to switch their vote to an independent candidate at this year’s federal election, according to in-depth social research.

It was the No 2 issue that led to people to swing to Labor, behind concern about the cost of living – including affordable housing.

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Victoria’s Liberals need to define who they are before deciding who can lead them back from oblivion

With a primary vote sitting on 29.7% – its lowest result since 1952 – it’s clear the party’s problems run deep

Victoria’s Liberals might be searching for a new leader but it’s clear from Saturday’s emphatic election loss that the party needs more than a new face to become electorally competitive in the state once more.

On Sunday the opposition leader, Matthew Guy, announced he would step down after leading his party to a second crushing defeat, with this loss arguably worse than the 2018 “Danslide”.Despite Liberal party headquarters reporting in the latter stages of the campaign that it had “narrowed the gap” on Labor, at the time of writing, the Liberals were on track to win 16 seats – a net loss of one.

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Scott Morrison and other conservatives flock to hear anti-political correctness culture warrior Jordan Peterson

Canadian internet celebrity speaks to packed room of rightwing politicians including Pauline Hanson and Matt Canavan at Parliament House

As the prime minister and opposition leader attended a Parliament House barbecue for prostate cancer awareness, a red meat advocate of a different kind was addressing a packed room of conservative MPs just metres away.

The Canadian psychologist and internet personality Jordan Peterson, fresh off being unbanned from Twitter, drew a lunchtime crowd of Liberal, National and One Nation politicians for an hour-long lecture touching on energy, climate and opportunities for the political centre-right.

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Dutton given official warning by Speaker – as it happened

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How can strengthening federal laws stop the destruction of sacred heritage sites?

Tanya Plibersek:

I think I think it’s really worth having a look at the two inquiries that the the parliament undertook into the Juukan Gorge destruction because it describes not just the failure of laws, but the failure of process and the failure of people to listen and that happened at the commonwealth level and it also happened at the West Australian state government level.

The other thing that it describes is a company that paid lip service to consultation and really, you know, really didn’t do what it should have done when Aboriginal people said you can’t blow up caves that are 46,000 years old, that have examples of continuous use and habitation that you know, the site of finds like a 4,000-year-old hair belt, and tools that are tens of thousands of years old.

There’s absolutely a sense of urgency to ensure that this sort of cultural heritage destruction doesn’t happen again.

I completely agree with that, but a very strong message from the the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance is also that they genuinely want to sit at the table to work through these issues in partnership and cooperation.

Yeah, I’m not going to put I’m not going to put a timeline on it yet. I think that’s something that we determined as we work through the complexity of these issues, and there are a lot of complexities involved.

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Australia politics live: Albanese accuses Dutton of ‘dog-whistling’ over Cop27 climate damage fund

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Buy now, pay later review has been coming for a while

The last time the issue was examined, under the previous government, it was decided the industry could regulate itself.

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PM’s meeting with Chinese president confirmed – as it happened

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Andrews rules out deal with the Greens and independents in event of minority government

Dan Andrews was also asked what would happen if Labor finds itself in a minority government situation – will it do a deal with the Greens?

No deal will be offered and no deal will be done.

And independents – no deals with independents?

No deal will be offered and no deal will be done.

So if you’re in a minority situation and you hold more seats than the Liberal party, what happens? You go back to another election?

Well, I think what the best thing to do, and what happens, Michael, is we work hard for the next 13 days, we work hard to put a positive and optimistic plan out there, and we’ll see what the verdict of Victorian voters is. I’m arguing, I’m urging people to vote for a strong, stable majority Labor government, to vote for your local Labor candidate.

The new SEC – government-owned, not private for-profit, but government-owned electricity, so owned by every single Victorian – creates nearly 60,000 jobs – 6,000 of those will be apprentices. It will be 100% renewable electricity. These companies can’t be relied upon to replace themselves. They’ll just put another profit machine in place. We need to make sure that we’re looking after pensioners, we’re looking after families and, indeed, businesses. And without electricity, there is no economy, so we have to replace them. And we choose to replace them with a public option – a government-owned option. An option that’s owned by every single Victorian.

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Medibank hack: Clare O’Neil says new cybercrime operation will hunt down ‘Russian thugs’

Officials drawn from AFP and the Australian Signals Directorate to form ‘joint standing operation’ against cybercriminal syndicates

Australia has awoken from a cyber “slumber” and will “day in, day out hunt down the scumbags” who have stolen the health data of nearly 10 million Australians, home affairs minister Clare O’Neil has said.

After the Russian embassy complained it had not been informed the Australian government would publicly accuse Russian cybercriminals of being behind a hack on private health insurer Medibank, O’Neil did not resile from publicly blaming Russians for the hack.

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Inquiry consensus to pave way for Labor’s anti-corruption body

Integrity bill likely to be legislated before end of 2022 despite crossbench and Coalition disagreements on some issues

The national anti-corruption commission inquiry will recommend parliament pass the government’s bill, paving the way for Labor’s model for the integrity body to be legislated in the final parliamentary sitting fortnight of 2022.

The joint select committee will report consensus on Thursday, underscoring support across the political spectrum for the integrity body, despite crossbench and Coalition attempts to amend Labor’s model.

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Indigenous voice referendum should be sooner rather than later, Uluru statement co-chairs say

Pat Anderson and Prof Megan Davis urge Labor to not waste momentum and call on the media to ‘rise to this occasion’

The Uluru Statement from the Heart co-chair Pat Anderson has urged the federal government to not waste “momentum” for the Indigenous voice to parliament, calling for a referendum on the constitutional change sooner rather than later.

Anderson said the national vote could occur in October 2023, the most recently proposed of many mooted dates, as she called for the nation’s media to “rise to this occasion” in reporting on Indigenous constitutional recognition.

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Australia politics live: $591m cost of cancelling French submarines revealed in Senate estimates; Bob Brown charged with trespass

Tony Burke is also being quite conciliatory about David Pocock’s concerns about the bill.

Asked by Patricia Karvelas if he is prepared to make more amendments to the IR bill, Tony Burke says that is standard after a senate inquiry process.

I suspect there’ll be more to come.

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Mark Dreyfus says AAT has ‘unacceptable’ record on bullying and condemns appointment process

Attorney general says Liberal party should be ‘tarnished forever’ over appointments to administrative appeals tribunal

The administrative appeals tribunal has a “completely unacceptable” record of bullying complaints on top of the Coalition’s “miserable record” of stacking the body, the attorney general has said.

Mark Dreyfus made the comments in question time on Tuesday, seizing on the latest controversy involving the tribunal to bolster Labor’s case to reform or replace it due to partisan appointments made by the Coalition.

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