AAP Rolling News Bulletin for May 20 at 0430
Budget (CANBERRA)
Holly Nebauer is waiting for a call from a real estate agent as her daughter, three-year-old Indy, plays at her ankles.
The 31-year-old and her fiance are hoping to secure their forever home in Bungendore, about 40 kilometres out of Canberra.
It will be the third property the couple has bought since 2020, having sold their first one. They expect to list their current house on the market soon.
Their first home, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouse in Canberra's north, cost $466,000 at the start of the pandemic and sold for almost $200,000 more a year-and-a-half later.
Ms Nebauer says she had invested in the share market as a way to buy property and is now coaching her little sister to do the same, despite federal budget changes to the capital gains tax and negative gearing.
Housing (CANBERRA)
Australian taxpayers could be missing out on billions of dollars a year while wealthy landowners make out like bandits, amid efforts to tackle housing affordability.
The Albanese government's fifth budget attempted to reshape Australia's tax settings in favour of owner-occupiers over property investors.
But it neglected to address a "deep unfairness" at the heart of the nation's housing policy, according to a report released by think tank Prosper Australia on Wednesday.
In recent years, state and territory governments have been easing zoning laws, like raising maximum building height limits, in a bid to boost housing supply and ease affordability pressures.
While upzoning is widely lauded by economists as an effective measure to boost supply, report authors Tim Helm and Henry Williams estimated it was also giving away $11 billion per year in windfall gains to property owners.
Legal: Latham (SYDNEY)
Firebrand MP Mark Latham and his ex-partner are set to go head to head in court over claims he subjected her to sustained abuse and manipulation.
Nathalie Matthews, 38, is applying for a private apprehended violence order to protect her from the former federal Labor leader, who she accused of emotional and physical abuse.
Apprehended violence orders can be taken out by police or private citizens, as Ms Matthews has opted to do.
Mr Latham - who is an independent in the NSW upper house - denied the allegations and has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing.
The 65-year-old is set to fight the order during a three-day hearing in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday.
He will call two witnesses and play video evidence in support of his argument while Ms Matthews will call one witness, the court was previously told.
Ukraine (VILNIUS/RIGA)
Ukraine has blamed Russia for steering one of its drones into Estonian airspace where a NATO jet shot it down, the latest cross-border drone incident that has caused a political uproar in the Baltic states.
Latvia issued a first air threat alert over a possible drone entering its airspace on Tuesday, telling residents near the Russian border to stay indoors, with NATO Baltic Air Police jets summoned to the area. It later said it found no evidence that a drone had entered its air space.
It declared a second air threat alert after that, over two counties bordering Russia, leading to a fresh deployment of NATO fighter jets.
"Russia continues to redirect Ukrainian drones into the Baltics with the use of its electronic warfare," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said on X.
Iran (WASHINGTON/DUBAI)
President Donald Trump says the US may need to strike Iran again and that he had been an hour away from ordering an attack before postponing it.
Trump was speaking to reporters at the White House a day after saying he had paused a planned resumption of hostilities following a new proposal by Tehran to end the US-Israeli war.
"I was an hour away from making the decision to go today," Trump said on Tuesday.
Iran's leaders are begging for a deal, he said, adding that a new US attack would happen in coming days if no agreement was reached.
"Well, I mean, I'm saying two or three days, maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, something, maybe early next week, a limited period of time, because we can't let them have a new nuclear weapon."
Ebola (BUNIA)
Twenty-six more suspected Ebola deaths have been recorded in 24 hours in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the head of the World Health Organisation has expressed deep concern about the outbreak's spread.
The new deaths bring to 131 the fatalities associated with the outbreak in eastern DRC.
There have been 516 suspected cases and 33 confirmed cases in DRC, according to a daily bulletin published by health authorities, and two confirmed cases in neighbouring Uganda.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus a public health emergency of international concern on Saturday, the first time a WHO chief has done so before convening an emergency committee.
The outbreak has alarmed experts because it was able to spread for weeks undetected across a densely populated area ravaged by widespread armed violence.
Obit Hollingworth (CANBERRA)
Former governor-general Peter Hollingworth, who resigned over his handling of child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church, has died.
Dr Hollingworth, who devoted much of his life to fighting poverty, served as the Anglican archbishop of Brisbane for 11 years from 1990.
He died on Tuesday, aged 91.
Appointed governor-general in 2001 by former Liberal prime minister John Howard, Dr Hollingworth used his position to advocate for Indigenous rights and disadvantaged people.
But he spent less than two years in the role before being forced to resign.
In 2003, a board of inquiry into the handling of complaints of sexual abuse in the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane found that Dr Hollingworth, as archbishop, failed to act on knowledge of abuse.
Legal: Vlassakis (ADELAIDE)
Images of Snowtown killer James Vlassakis can be published for the first time after a court lifted a suppression order made 25 years ago.
On Tuesday, the South Australian Court of Appeal revoked the order that strictly banned publication of Vlassakis' image and description.
The decision followed an application by media outlets, who submitted the order was no longer valid.
It was imposed to protect Vlassakis' identity after he gave crucial evidence against the two other convicted Snowtown killers, John Bunting and Robert Wagner.
The court's ruling came as it considered arguments over whether Vlassakis, 46, who pleaded guilty to four of the 11 murders between 1992 and 1999, should be released on parole.
Last August, the Parole Board agreed to Vlassakis's release but Attorney-General Kyam Maher requested a review of the decision.
In finance ...
Economy (CANBERRA)
Australian businesses and consumers have been urged to keep their inflation expectations in check as the Reserve Bank warns "self-fulfilling prophecies" may lead to a recession.
Conflict in the Middle East has shocked economies, disrupting oil and gas markets and driving inflation in Australia and elsewhere.
It is costly for businesses to change their prices every time expenses increase, which leads many to try account for future expected costs when setting prices in the present.
But the RBA's chief economist Sarah Hunter, speaking at the Bloomberg Forum in Sydney, warned inflation expectations must be kept tethered.
"If businesses and households expect high future inflation, this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as these expectations get baked into contracts for goods, services and wages," she said on Tuesday.
Anglo (BRISBANE)
It is not every day a mining deal comes with houses, childcare centres and the town water supply thrown in.
But in central Queensland, a big slice of country town Middlemount has been included in a deal struck to sell off a multinational company's Australian steelmaking mines.
However Anglo American's mega deal has come under fire from a local mayor, warning it amounts to the sale of "entire communities".
Anglo American is set to leave Queensland after selling its five Australian steelmaking mines to Dhilmar Limited in a move worth about $5.8 billion.
The deal is far more than a routine change of hands in the coalfields, with purpose-built mining town Middlemount set to be impacted.
Dhilmar is expected to take control of about 600 houses in Middlemount set aside for mine workers and essential staff such as teachers, nurses and police officers, making the new owner one of the town's biggest landlords.
In entertainment ...
Legal: Gillham (MELBOURNE)
Cancelled pianist Jayon Gillham's commentary on Palestine during a classical music concert was a "middle finger" to those who had helped him build a stellar career, a court has been told.
Gillham performed Connor D'Netto's composition Witness at a Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert in 2024, introducing the piece with comments about Israel killing journalists in Gaza.
The orchestra responded by cancelling his next appearance, and the performer is suing the MSO for unfair dismissal in the Federal Court.
The case is expected to test the limits of political speech for contractors in Australian workplaces.
On the second day of a 15-day trial, the court heard details of senior orchestra management's handling of the crisis in the days after Gillham's concert.
Eurovision (VIENNA)
Austrian police recorded about 500 cyber attacks targeting the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, authorities say.
Michael Takàcs, head of Austria's federal police, said the attempted acts of cyber sabotage were thwarted.
They targeted not only the Eurovision website but also access control systems at the venue.
The perpetrators sought to disrupt, slow down or disable systems, Takàcs said at a press conference on Monday, adding that no details were available on those responsible or their motives.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said the goal had been to ensure a safe and peaceful event.
"We succeeded," he said, noting that no serious incidents were reported at live broadcasts, public viewing events or related demonstrations.
Austria's Interior Ministry State Secretary Jörg Leichtfried said authorities closely monitored potential threats from Islamist extremists and violent groups linked to Iran.
In sport ...
Soc Aust (MELBOURNE)
Cash-strapped Football Australia (FA) is set to cut more than 20 per cent of its staff in response to a looming second-straight record financial loss.
But chief executive Martin Kugeler is adamant the serious belt-tightening won't impact the Socceroos or Matildas, who are preparing for their respective World Cups.
Kugeler on Tuesday confirmed FA would undergo a "significant reset and restructure" to allow it to work within its financial means, in response to a loss that would exceed last year's record $8.5 million deficit.
"Two significant losses, and increasing losses year-on-year, is obviously not a situation that is sustainable or acceptable," Kugeler said.
FA held an all-staff meeting on Tuesday morning regarding the financial news and separate meetings were held with affected staff throughout the day.
Ath Oceania (DARWIN)
Rising sprint sensation Aidan Murphy has gone within a whisker of breaking one of the oldest records in Australian athletics with a stunning 400m run of 44.44 seconds at the Oceania championships in Darwin.
With countrymen Thomas Reynolds and Luke van Ratingen pushing him all the way on Tuesday, the 22-year-old Murphy took full advantage of the hot conditions at Arafura Stadium.
He stripped 0.37 off his personal best to move to second on the Australian all time list, just six hundredths of a second shy of Darren Clark's national record, which has stood untouched since the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
"We're right there," said Murphy.
"If the national record isn't broken this year, it's just a matter of time.
"Depending on who it is I don't know, but we're all just around the corner and slowly chipping away at that milestone."
Ends Bulletin
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