Australia politics live: Ed Husic says Coalition position on ICC arrest warrants is ‘staggering’; Plibersek in rogue microphone mishap during Sky News interview

Labor minister says Peter Dutton’s opposition ‘wants to pick what law and order it’ll follow’

Ed Husic details government’s new battery strategy

The industry and science minister, Ed Husic, has been speaking to ABC RN about the government’s newly unveiled national battery strategy. As Karen Middleton reports, the strategy is aimed at turning Australia from a “dig-and-ship” economy that sells off its critical minerals into a powerhouse manufacturer of better and safer renewable energy storage.

China is obviously the biggest producer [and] a lot of countries are recognising that their dependency on that concentrated supply chain isn’t in [their] national interest longer-term. If there are disruptions to that supply, either accidental or otherwise, we’re left vulnerable and these are in terms of the batteries themselves – they’re complex in nature. It’s also driven by software, so we need to have safe and secure batteries, energy storage systems, longer term.

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Without measles immunisation ‘little spot fire’ outbreaks may become harder to control, experts warn

People urged to check they are fully immunised after NSW and Victorian health authorities alert to three separate cases of virus in May

Australians are being urged to check they are fully immunised against measles after a number of outbreaks of the highly contagious virus.

Health authorities in New South Wales and Victoria alerted the public in May to three separate cases, all in travellers returning from overseas. There have been 35 confirmed measles cases across Australia so far in 2024, more than in all of 2023.

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NSW government extends life of Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station by two years to 2027

Deal struck with Origin Energy, owner of 2.88-gigawatt Eraring plant near Lake Macquarie, to limit risk of electricity shortages as renewables come online

Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station will remain operational for at least two more years after the New South Wales government signed a deal with its owner, Origin Energy, in an attempt to limit the risk of electricity shortages until more renewables are built.

The agreement, announced on Thursday, involves NSW taxpayers underwriting the 2.88-gigawatt Eraring plant near Lake Macquarie to keep generating power beyond the scheduled closure date of August 2025 Origin set two years ago.

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Inquest hears claim spiritual leaders conspired to mislead police about Jarrad Antonovich’s death after ‘kambo’ ritual

Antonovich died during a six-day retreat in NSW’s northern rivers after he took a cocktail of alternative ‘medicines’

A group of spiritual leaders at a retreat in the northern rivers conspired to mislead police about the death of a man who had just taken a cocktail of alternative “medicines”, a Bryon Bay courtroom has heard.

The inquest into the death of Jarrad Antonovich also heard that a Brazilian religious tradition fusing Christianity with Amazonian shamanic practices – including the drinking of hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca – gained increasing sway over an Australian community known as the “Church of Ayahuasca” in the lead-up to that fatal ceremony.

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Charlise Mutten murder trial: alleged killer’s ‘strange’ behaviour before nine-year-old went missing

Neighbour tells NSW court of conversations with murder accused Justin Stein shortly before schoolgirl disappeared

A man accused of murdering his partner’s daughter told a neighbour he was digging for “treasure” shortly before she went missing, a jury has heard.

“It seemed strange,” the neighbour told a court on Wednesday.

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Dutton won’t rule out a Coalition government quitting ICC – as it happened

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Chris Bowen says nuclear energy is ‘slow, expensive and risky’

Chris Bowen is also asked about the latest CSIRO report released today, showing electricity from nuclear power in Australia would be at least 50% more expensive than solar and wind.

CSIRO and Aemo have looked at large-scale nuclear for the first time. It finds that that would be far more expensive than renewables, despite claims from the opposition – quite inappropriate attacks on CSIRO and Aemo from the opposition, that they hadn’t counted the cost of transmission. The cost of transmission and storage is counted, and still renewables comes out as the cheapest.

And of course, CSIRO points out that nuclear will be … very slow to build. So nuclear is slow and expensive and is risky when it comes to the reliability of Australia’s energy system.

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Mother of murdered two-year-old shares grief over ‘evil’ act as NSW health minister condemns email to killer’s colleagues

Email sent to NSW Health staff remembering James Harrison as a ‘wonderful colleague and beloved friend’ labelled ‘unacceptable’

The mother of a two-year-old killed in a suspected murder-suicide by his father has expressed grief at the “evil and cowardly act of violence”, while the New South Wales health minister condemned an email describing the killer as a “wonderful colleague and beloved friend” .

The bodies of 38-year-old James Harrison and his two-year-old son, Rowan, were found three days ago in a unit in East Lismore, after the child’s mother, Sophie Roome, raised concerns after Harrison failed to hand over the child after an access visit. Police suspect the deaths were a murder-suicide.

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Claims for psychological injury at work surge in NSW at triple the rate of physical harm

Exclusive: SafeWork NSW promises to crack down on big businesses who fail to protect the wellbeing of staff

Claims for psychological injury at work are increasing at a rate far outstripping physical injury claims in New South Wales, prompting a warning from the state’s safety watchdog for businesses to expect compliance checks and prosecution if practices don’t improve.

Physical injury claims rose 11% over the four years to mid-2023, while claims of psychological damage jumped 30% over the same period, according to the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (Sira).

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Australia news live: Telstra announces 2,800 job cuts; mediation talks in Reynolds and Higgins defamation case

Liberal senator, and former political staffer expected to attempt again to resolve a pair of high-profile defamation cases. Follow today’s news headlines live

A High Court decision in Britain to allow Julian Assange to appeal his extradition to the US is a “small win” for the WikiLeaks founder but he should be freed now, the union for Australia’s journalists says.

As AAP reports, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance remains concerned there is no certainty an appeal will be successful, which would mean Assange could still be tried for espionage in the US.

Tonight’s decision by the High Court is a small win for Julian Assange and for the cause of media freedom worldwide.

MEAA welcomes the decision of the High Court, but we remain concerned that there is no guarantee of success.

We call on the Australian government to keep up the pressure on the US to drop the charges so Julian Assange can be reunited with his family.

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Australia news live: Melbourne university orders protesters to leave; AEC can’t ‘adequately deal’ with AI-generated election misinformation

AEC tells Senate of overseas examples of ‘deceptive content’ about polls. Follow the day’s news live

The NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, was on ABC News Breakfast earlier to discuss the state’s four-day domestic violence blitz.

She said it was the sixth operation in 18 months, with “thousands of arrests” in that time.

[The operations] are scheduled about every quarter, so police have been doing this for quite some time. NSW police [utilise] the DV registry, where they accumulate information about [alleged] high-risk offenders and it’s that intelligence that they use to then go out and undertake these operations.

We will debate it when we return. I would really urge the opposition to get behind it and support those bail laws that we have before the parliament.

Everything is on the table. We are all worried about this, I’m a parent as well myself. Social media companies are not doing enough and we need to seriously look if we need to change the law in order to keep your young people safe.

We need to get all the experts in one place. The premier [Chris Minns] has called this emergency summit. We are just seeing too many cases where the worst possible thing has occurred because of bullying online. We banned phones in schools in NSW and that has worked an enormous amount in the school day inside the school gates, but we need to look beyond that now.

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Police suspect murder-suicide after ‘tragic’ discovery of man and two-year-old’s bodies in Lismore home

Police say the boy’s mother raised concerns after the father failed to hand over the child for an access visit

A crime scene has been established after the bodies of a man and his two-year-old son were found in a home on the New South Wales far north coast overnight, in what police believe was a murder-suicide.

Police said officers attended a unit in East Lismore about 9.45pm on Sunday due to concerns for the welfare of a man and his son.

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New rules for NSW polluters to require ‘credible’ plan for mitigating climate impact

Exclusive: EPA chief executive says ‘foundational’ rule changes put climate impacts ‘front and centre' of planning process

New coalmines, gas fields and other big sources of greenhouse gases in New South Wales will need to provide more rigorous plans to minimise pollution and reduce carbon emissions before they are approved, under new rules imposed on Monday.

Revised assessment requirements and guidelines from the Environment Protection Authority mark a “foundational” tightening of rules for firms planning new projects or modifying existing ones that emit at least 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, said Tony Chappel, the NSW EPA chief executive.

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Police officer allegedly stabbed in the head in Sydney’s CBD

Paramedics treated an officer for non-life-threatening head injuries and police arrested a 33-year-old man

A police officer is said to be “doing fine” in hospital on Sunday after allegedly being repeatedly stabbed in the head with a 30cm kitchen knife in Sydney’s central business district.

Detective superintendent of the Sydney City Police Area Command, Martin Fileman, told reporters on Sunday afternoon that the male constable was stabbed in the back of the head a “number of times” before he and a female constable gave chase to the alleged attacker.

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Children’s author charged with online grooming in Sydney

Man, 41, arrested and charged with online grooming after allegedly sending inappropriate images to someone he thought was 13

New South Wales police have charged a children’s author for the alleged online grooming of children, under Strike Force Trawler.

The state crime command’s sex crimes squad force detectives launched an investigation early this month after receiving an interstate report a children’s author was allegedly communicating inappropriately with a child online.

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Chalmers says Dutton’s budget reply lacks economic credibility – as it happened

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Shorten and Dutton clash over reduced migration

Earlier this morning the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, clashed over Dutton’s promise to reduce Australia’s migration intake in his budget reply speech last night.

Well, Bill, a couple of points. One is that we say that, in the first year, 40,000 homes will be freed up. That includes the numbers who would be bidding at auctions this weekend against Australian citizens.

If the government had have adopted our policy over a five-year period, you would free up 325,000 homes. So the number of people who are foreign citizens, who are buying houses in our country is low, but nonetheless it contributes to an overall shortage of housing in our country.

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Police arrest three A-League men’s players from Sydney club over alleged betting corruption

NSW police allege a senior player was arranging ‘for yellow cards to occur during certain games’ in late 2023

Three A-League men’s players have been arrested in Sydney after an international investigation uncovered an alleged betting corruption scandal.

New South Wales police on Friday said they had arrested the three footballers following an investigation by the organised crime squad which began in December and was assisted by the UK gambling commission.

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Australia politics live: Speaker urges no political fundraising in parliament as Coalition MPs sell tickets to Dutton budget reply events

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‘We don’t think production tax credits is way to go’: Angus Taylor on Future Made in Australia

Is the Coalition going to vote against the Future Made in Australia policy, which was fleshed out in the budget and includes tax credits (in 2028) for things like critical minerals mining and green hydrogen?

We haven’t seen the act. We don’t think production tax credits is the way to go in order to have a strong manufacturing sector.

It’s about getting those fundamentals right whether it be approvals, whether it be getting rid of red tape or making sure the construction costs are competitive with the rest of the world.

Oh, but it’s also a drop in the ocean, you know. What are we saying? It’s a Band-Aid on a bullet wound compared to the pain that mum and dads in Australia are actually feeling.

I can tell you, they’ve paid a lot more than $300 under Mr. Albanese for their electricity. For the life of me, though, what it does show is Mr Albanese, [and the government] they’ve got their priorities all wrong.

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NSW premier sacks parliamentary secretary over criticism of police response to pro-Palestine protesters

Chris Minns said Labor MP Anthony D’Adam’s comments in a speech to parliament were ‘absolutely reprehensible’

A Labor politician who criticised the actions of New South Wales police officers towards pro-Palestinian protesters has been sacked from his role as parliamentary secretary by the premier, Chris Minns.

Minns took aim at the comments made by the upper house MP Anthony D’Adam, saying that D’Adam had never raised his concerns about the police commissioner, Karen Webb, and officers before making his speech in parliament on Wednesday night.

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Charlise Mutten’s alleged killer bought drugs and had sex with her mother after fatal shooting, murder trial told

Police allege that after murdering nine-year-old, Justin Stein drove to buy methamphetamine with her mother

The mother of Charlise Mutten and the schoolgirl’s alleged murderer drove to Sydney to buy drugs after the nine-year-old was fatally shot in the face and back, a court has been told.

Justin Laurens Stein, 33, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the girl on or around 12 January 2022, at Mount Wilson, in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

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Sydney council reverses ban on same-sex parenting books after fiery meeting

Cumberland councillors voted 13-2 to revoke the controversial ban amid angry scenes featuring crowds of rival protesters

A controversial ban on same-sex parenting books at libraries in part of western Sydney has been overturned at a marathon late-night meeting after large crowds of protesters clashed outside the council chambers.

Cumberland city councillors voted 13-2 in front of a crowded public gallery on Wednesday night to revoke the ban, two weeks after it was introduced.

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