Category Archives: Australian economy

Sussan Ley ‘really disappointed’ with Elon Musk – as it happened

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Hundreds gather in Sydney for Anzac Day dawn service

AAP has the details on Sydney’s dawn service where hundreds of people – including veterans – gathered under a full moon and clear skies for a solemn service in the CBD.

You who have loved will remember the glow of their glad young years, as you stand today to salute them in silence, with pride and with tears.

The best thing about the ceremony this morning is to see the number of people that come early in the morning.

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Australia news live: Dfat issues Middle East travel advice; Nationals concerned after fire ants spotted near Murray Darling Basin

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Reports of explosions in Iranian city of Isfahan prompt sell-off of stocks in Australia – and in other markets such as Japan. Follow the day’s news live

The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, is speaking to the media after a 16-year-old was charged with a “terrorist act” for allegedly stabbing a bishop on Monday and is expected to appear at a bedside hearing today.

She said members of the joint counter-terrorism team interviewed the alleged offender at a medical facility last night, and he was subsequently charged with a commonwealth offence for terrorism and refused bail.

We expect he will be attending a bedside court hearing today to determine bail. This relates to the stabbing of the Bishop [Mar Mari Emmanuel, who] we allege on Monday night [was] stabbed up to six times.

We also allege that the boy had travelled for 90 minutes to attend that location from his home address.

We’ve got a crisis of male violence in Australia. We know that it’s a scourge in our society, we know it must end and I think it’s really clear women can’t be expected to solve violence against women although it is time for men to step up.

I don’t think debating definitions is the way to go … We need to act, we need to educate ourselves, men need to step up, we need to talk to our sons, to our colleagues, to our friends. We need to work together to a solution. And I think going down some kind of almost a wrong path to say let’s redefine – it’s not about definitions. This is about action. We need to shift the way in which we think about this …

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Seven boss departs – as it happened

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Marles continues breakfast rounds to discuss defence spending

The defence minister, Richard Marles, has been making the rounds this morning and has also spoken to ABC RN about yesterday’s defence announcement.

The reason why we make the observation that an invasion of Australia is a very unlikely scenario, no matter what happens, is because any adversary that wished to do us harm could do so much to us before ever setting foot on Australian soil – and disrupting those specific sea lines of communication, which I’ve described, would obviously achieve that. That that is where the risk of coercion lies, as one example.

And in order to protect ourselves in respect of that, we do need the ability to [project], because if you think about it, … the geography of our national security when seen through those lands is not the coastline of our continent. It in fact, lies much further afield.

We’re looking at a substantial increase on what’s already in the Online Safety Act. So not only a large amount – so for example, a $3m fine for an offence and ongoing fines, but a percentage of turnover as well.

We know that the revenues of some of these online platforms exceed those of some nations and so it needs to be a meaningful and substantial penalty system that’s put in place.

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Australia rises to second in world budget management rankings, IMF data shows

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Treasurer and finance minister hail ‘remarkable achievement’ as monitor finds balance to be behind only Canada among G20 countries

Australia’s overall budget balance is the second strongest among G20 nations, behind only Canada, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest fiscal monitor.

The IMF’s half-yearly update, released on Wednesday night, found Australia’s overall budget balance came in at -0.9% of gross domestic product in 2023, with only Canada’s budget position (-0.6%) faring better.

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Industry to face ‘strict tests’ for public funding to incentivise green energy, Jim Chalmers says

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Treasurer offers more detail on forthcoming Future Made in Australia plan after concerns raised by productivity commissioner

Tax breaks and subsidies may be offered to industry as part of the government’s yet-to-be-detailed Future Made in Australia plan – but Jim Chalmers says there will be “strict tests” on public funding for the green energy strategy.

The treasurer says there must be “generational change” in Australia to match similar major green economy programs being undertaken by other nations including the US.

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Many aged care workers may wait until 2026 for full pay increase as Albanese government requests phased implementation

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Commonwealth requests Fair Work Commission phase in full 23% increase over two years to prevent workforce shortages elsewhere

Aged care workers should wait until January 2026 for the full 23% pay rise ordered by the Fair Work Commission, according to the Albanese government.

The commonwealth has requested that the commission phase in the increase over two years, from January 2025 and 2026, to prevent “large one-off wage increases” that would add to workforce shortages elsewhere in the economy.

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Guardian Essential poll: voters back Coalition’s super for homes and Greens housing policy

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Australians want wide-ranging reform of ‘failing’ housing system and back the Greens’ public sector property developer, poll finds

Australians think the housing system is failing and support a range of more radical solutions, including the Coalition’s push to use super for housing and the Greens’ public sector property developer.

Those are the results of the latest Guardian Essential poll of 1,165 voters which sends a warning shot to the Albanese government and state governments to do more to combat falling home ownership and higher rents.

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On the state government’s role to “provide social housing and regulate rentals”, 50% said it was doing a poor job while 19% said it was doing a good job.

On the federal government’s role to “set policies on how homes should be taxed”, 47% said it was doing a poor job and 19% said a good job.

On the local government’s role to “establish planning rules for local communities”, 41% said it was doing a poor job and 23% said a good job.

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Australia weather live updates: more heavy rain forecast for NSW and Qld as SES issues flood warnings; Sydney downpours cause train delays and airport flight cancellations

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Dozens of flights cancelled at Sydney airport and drivers told to avoid non-essential travel as inland low and coastal trough combine

Helen Reid from the Bureau of Meteorology has just provided us with an update on the Sydney rain and said the city could very well receive a month’s worth of rain in one day.

She pointed to the Observatory Hill gauge and said on average in April, there is around 126.5mm of rainfall during the month. Since 9am yesterday morning, there has been 106mm of rain.

We are expecting rainfall over Sydney to increase during today … I would suggest that if we got more than the April average, that wouldn’t be too beyond too far beyond this stretch of imagination.

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Australia news live: PM says it ‘isn’t good enough’ to say Gaza strike on aid workers ‘just a product of war’

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Prime minister reiterates that has ‘demanded full accountability for what has occurred’ from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Follow the day’s news live

After a number of comments about the state of famine in Gaza, which Hyman appears to be disputing – it’s quite difficult to keep up with his comments, though they seem to include allegations that Hamas is stealing aid – he is asked by host Sally Sara if he’s rejecting UN concerns of hunger and starvation in Gaza. I will come back and check his comments shortly but the upshot seems to be that he is, more or less.

I’ll bring you more direct lines from this interview shortly, bear with me.

I mean, obviously, we know that this isn’t something that the IDF would do or the Israeli Air Force would do on purpose.

There’s a war going on. Wars are awful. Nobody wanted this war, we certainly didn’t want this war, but we’re forced to fight it because it’s a war for our very existence.

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Youth curfew ‘not the long-term solution’, MP says – as it happened

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Anthony Albanese has called a snap press conference in Canberra at 8.30am. We’ll have coverage of this for you soon.

A man has died in Melbourne’s south after being struck by a truck on a major highway near Frankston.

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Australia faces postwar-style reconstruction to reach net zero target, says Combet

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A ‘pipeline’ of clean projects is being assembled, says the head of the agency charged with multibillion-dollar transformation

Australia faces a postwar-scale reconstruction costing hundreds of billions of dollars in private and public investment to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, the former Labor climate minister and incoming Future Fund chair, Greg Combet, says.

Speaking at the National Press Club, Combet said the Net Zero Economy Authority – a new government agency proposed to help manage the country’s transformation from a dirty to a clean economy – was putting together a “pipeline” of clean industrial projects and would be “figuring out how to help bring them to concrete investment decisions”.

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Ten lawyers tell court Lehrmann may have leaked confidential material to Spotlight program – as it happened

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Aviation firefighters will walk off the job amid revelations many of the nation’s airports are ill-equipped to handle emergencies, AAP reports.

Leaked risk assessments carried out by Airservices Australia reveal travellers at 13 airports including Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide airports, were found to be at extreme risk if there was a fire or aircraft incident because of a lack of firefighting resources.

These leaked documents confirm that Australia’s air travellers face a dire risk every time they set foot on an aircraft in Australia.

Clearly, this significant and ongoing risk to all Australian air travellers is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue.

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Australian house prices hit record high for fifth consecutive month

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CoreLogic data shows prices rose 0.6% in March while separate index from PropTrack produces similar results

National home values set a record high for a fifth consecutive month in March as a resilient economy and the swelling population pointed to further increases to come.

The home value index compiled by data group CoreLogic showed prices rose 0.6% last month, matching February’s increase. Median home prices were $772,730, rebounding just over one-tenth since its recent nadir in January 2023.

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Senator Tammy Tyrrell quits Jacqui Lambie’s party to sit as independent – as it happened

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Local MP says government ‘had to do something’ about ‘weeks of unrest’ in Alice Springs

MP for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, says the government “had to do something” when asked if a youth curfew, imposed for Alice Springs from last night, was necessary.

That’s culminated in some of the riotous behaviours that we’ve seen played out in the streets of Alice Springs, which over a number of weeks, has gotten increasingly worse. The government had to do something.

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Australia politics live: Toyota boss says fuel efficiency standard ‘not a car tax’ as Labor defends secrecy around bill

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Renewed push to scrap activity level requirements for childcare subsidies

There was a lot of disappointment last budget when the government did not scrap the activity test as a way of making early child education more accessible and universal.

Zoe Daniel MP, Member for Goldstein

Georgie Dent, the CEO of the Parenthood

Sam Page, the CEO of Early Childhood Australia

Kate Carnell, the former Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and former ACT chief minister

Natalie Walker, the deputy chair of Goodstart Early Learning

Sue Morphett, a businesswoman and the former president of Chief Executive Women

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Australia politics live: Catherine King takes aim at Liberals over preselection of women at end of heated question time

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Chalmers: we can have cost-of-living relief and wage growth

Here is how Jim Chalmers was selling the wage submission (at least on ABC TV this morning). The treasurer said it wasn’t a binary choice between cost of living relief and wages growth:

We don’t see cost of living relief as ‘instead of’ decent wages growth. We want to see wages growth on top of the billions of dollars of cost of living relief that the Albanese government is rolling out.

… The tax cuts we’re rolling out for everyone, or cheaper childhood education or cheaper medicines - none of those are a substitute for getting wages growing in the economy once again.

I think if you’ve followed Tasmanian laws, and they’ve worked very well down there and actually your bill is based on that, you might have … a good good bit of airing out there and actually be able to settle this once and for all.

I think there’s a very fine line between having choices … and running … a business or a school or anything else.

People send their kids to faith based schools with expectations and I think we’ve got a walk a very, very fine line with all of that.

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Israel must allow humanitarian relief to reach Gaza, Australia and UK say in new joint statement – as it happened

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As part of the latest Aukus developments, Australia will send A$4.6bn to the UK to clear bottlenecks at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.

Richard Marles was asked why it costs so much, and why this component needs to be done in the UK. He told ABC News Breakfast:

We made clear a year ago that we wouldn’t be building the nuclear reactors in Australia. They will be built by Rolls Royce at its facility in Derby in the UK and once the sealed reactors are built, they will be taken here to the Osborne Naval ship yard and placed in the submarines which the rest of which will be built here at Osborne.

Building nuclear reactors is difficult to do and in order for this to play out, that facility in Derby, which is building nuclear reactors for Britain’s navy, that needs to be expanded and that is what this contribution is for.

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One in 20 Australian mortgage holders are spending more than they earn

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Reserve Bank says households are generally weathering the record run of interest rate rises but 5% of owner occupiers are in a dire financial position

About one in 20 mortgage holders are spending more than they earn because of higher interest rates and cost-of-living increases but that share should halve by the end of 2025, the Reserve Bank said in its latest financial stability review.

The semi-annual report, released on Friday, was generally upbeat about the financial health of households and businesses, finding “nearly all borrowers continue to service their debts on schedule” even though conditions are likely to remain challenging for many this year.

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David Shoebridge says Julian Assange ‘may not survive’ trial and extradition – as it happened

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Expect to hear a lot more on this today:

Southern Australia could face gas shortages during “extreme peak demand days” from 2025 as Bass Strait supplies dwindle, the Australian Energy Market Operator has said.

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Australia politics live: Peter Dutton claims PM ‘misrepresented’ earlier comments about Kevin Rudd’s performance as US ambassador

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The Republican candidate for the US presidency, former president Donald Trump, has had a few things to say about former Australian prime minister and current US ambassador Kevin Rudd.

Trump spoke to UK conservative Nigel Farage on GB News, saying if Rudd is hostile “he will not be there long”:

The Aukus deal that is in place, America, you know, the UK, Australia, very, very important deal, it is there to try and combat that huge growth in China. But now of course things have changed in Australia, we have a Labor government in Australia. The previous ambassador, Joe Hockey, I think was quite a good friend of yours, you got on pretty well with him. Now they have appointed Kevin Rudd. Former Labor MP, an he has said the most horrible things, you were a destructive president, a traitor to the west, and he is now Australia’s ambassador in Washington. Would you [take a phone call from him?]”

Yeah, well don’t know. He won’t there be long if that is the case. I don’t know much about him. I heard he was a little nasty. I heard he’s not the brightest bulb. I don’t know much about him, but he won’t be there long if he is at all hostile.

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