Plibersek says polls ‘not great’, but government focused on taking pressure off Australians
Tanya Plibersek says the Labor party isn’t focused on polling, despite the results. She told Sunrise this morning:
The polls are obviously not great, but we are not focused on the polling. What we’re focused on is making a real difference in people’s lives. We know that they’re doing it tough. We hear that. …
In every part of our government, we are wholly focused on taking pressure off Australians. We know they’re feeling it because they tell us.
Plibersek said the government needs to remain focused on cost of living and taking pressure off Australians while making sure wages grow.
We want Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn through lower taxes. … It’s those sorts of practical things that make a difference to people’s lives. That’s what we need to focus on as a government and that’s what we’ll keep doing.
Albanese and Labor hit record low popularity in latest Newspoll
Anthony Albanese is the most unpopular he has ever been since becoming prime minister in 2022, a new poll shows.
AAP reports The Australian’s closely watched Newspoll tally has slugged the prime minister with a minus 27% net satisfaction rating, with only about a quarter of Australians now saying they would cast their vote for Labor – the lowest in nearly 15 years.
The week before receiving a record-breaking belting in the 2025 election, former Liberal leader Peter Dutton scored minus 24% on the same metric.
The major parties combined performed abysmally in the latest poll, with 54% of those surveyed now supporting someone other than Labor or the Coalition.
One Nation is continuing to dine out on the mass exodus with a leading 30% of the primary vote share, but Australians still prefer Albanese to Pauline Hanson as prime minister.
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Way Dynamic, the Australian folk-pop musician with fans including Elton John
It’s been a huge couple of years for Way Dynamic, the Melbourne multi-instrumentalist whose real name is Dylan Young. His 2025 album Massive Shoe is about to be re-released internationally after Young signed with the indie giant Jagjaguwar. The likes of Elton John, Djo, Zane Lowe and Elijah Wood have sung his praises.
Have a read about the musicians’s rise above, and take a listen to his music below on this fine Monday morning:
Australians will no longer be hit with card surcharges from 1 October
Debit and credit card surcharges will be eliminated from 1 October, as part of Reserve Bank reforms that will do away with extra checkout fees on Visa, Mastercard, and Eftpos payments.
The RBA estimates the changes will save consumers about $1.6bn a year in surcharges, but the big banks and credit companies are likely to recoup the costs of processing transactions in other ways, including through fewer perks for cardholders.
What will happen now?
Coalition plans to use cut in tobacco excise to fund fuel tax policy
Angus Taylor says the Coalition would cut the tobacco excise to fund halving the fuel excise, despite health experts sounding the alarm about the move.
Speaking on Nine’s Today, the opposition leader said his party’s policy to slash the fuel excise in half when global prices hit US$100 over two weeks “won’t put pressure on inflation, despite what the treasurer is trying to say, he has it wrong”.
When asked about previous criticisms from health experts about slashing the tobacco excise and what it would mean for anti-smoking efforts, Taylor said:
I think the health experts need to explain why they’re OK with … organised crime in this country, criminal gangs in this country, controlling the tobacco trade. 80% of the trade is illegal. You can already buy a packet of cigarettes for 15 bucks a pack or less. So I mean, seriously, we can’t take those comments seriously.
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NSW domestic violence rental reforms in effect from today
Rental reforms which make it easier for victim-survivors of domestic violence to leave a rental property in NSW are in effect from today, the state government says.
Under the changes, victim-survivors no longer need to notify people they share a lease with they are leaving a rental property, cannot be held responsible for damage caused by domestic and family violence, and must be asked for permission to publish images of the property that show their belongings. The government says victim-survivors have now have broader rights to change locks without landlord consent.
The NSW fair trading minister, Anoulack Chanthivong, said the reforms “deliver on the Minns Labor government’s promise to make renting fairer by replacing unsafe, outdated laws with practical, compassionate protections which put victim-survivors first”.
During debate on the laws, which passed last year, the cross bench and domestic violence advocates raised concerns that last-minute changes to laws on pets in rentals, making it easier for landlords to prevent pets, would make it harder for DV victim-survivors who want to find a safe place to go with their animals.
Domestic Violence NSW Deputy CEO, Pia Birac, has said today’s changes “remove some of the practical barriers that can make it harder for women to leave violence and rebuild their lives”.
Now we need to build awareness and understanding of these new protections so women can confidently exercise their rights and the professionals around them can support them every step of the way.
Dan Tehan says fuel excise cut when oil price is high a ‘sensible’ plan
Dan Tehan, the shadow minister for energy, said Gallagher’s criticism of the Coalition’s fuel plan wasn’t fair.
Tehan said the call for a 50% cut to the fuel excise whenever barrels of oil top US$100 was a “good, sensible, practical measure” that would help Australians deal with a cost of living crisis. He told RN:
[What] I would say to Anthony Albanese and the Labor party is get out amongst the people and see what’s happening in your electorates because people are hurting because of cost of living …
We have the discipline to be able to do the policy work to make sure we can offset policies like this so it won’t be inflationary and it will provide much needed relief to people, and they need it now.
Tehan maintained the plan would be funded by the promised cuts to the tobacco excise, which would allow the plan to “not be inflationary at all”.
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Finance minister calls Coalition vow to cut fuel excise an ‘unfunded’
Katy Gallagher, the federal finance minister, said the government doesn’t think a Coalition plan to halve the fuel excise whenever oil prices skyrocket is a “good idea”, saying it is an “unfunded, uncounted promise” from Angus Taylor.
The government halved the fuel excise for three months earlier this year amid the war in Iran and then discounted it at a small rate until August. Taylor has proposed to institute that plan whenever Brent crude oil averages US$100 a barrel over a two-week period.
Gallagher told RN Breakfast the government was not considering the same:
Obviously we’ve helped when the war started with some changes to the fuel excise but we’ve shifted, and [are] including in the budget, to providing more permanent cost of living arrangements, including through the tax system, to make sure that that ongoing cost-of-living help is there permanently, not just in these one-off arrangements, which, when we’ve got higher inflation, could be difficult in the economy.
She said the government hasn’t been considering further cuts to the fuel excise.
Our decisions have been built and baked into the budget to make sure that that cost-of-living help is permanent. You know, the sooner this war in the Middle East stops, the better.
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New diplomatic postings for Cairo, Port Moresby and Dili
Foreign minister Penny Wong announced the appointments of three people to lead Australia’s diplomatic posts in Cairo, Port Moresby and Dili, as well as the consulate in New York as we reported earlier.
Wong said Joel McGregor would serve as Australia’s next ambassador to Egypt; Jamie Isbister would be the next high commissioner in Papua New Guinea and Lucienne Manton would be the new ambassador to Timor-Leste.
Wong said in a statement:
Australia’s diplomatic network enables us to promote our interests in peace, security, trade, investment and other areas of cooperation.
Australia takes the world as it is and seeks to shape it for the better – these diplomatic appointments will deepen Australia’s connections abroad and increase our ability to influence where it matters.
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NSW to lead Australia with solar panel recycling mandate
New South Wales plans to introduce Australia’s first mandatory solar panel recycling scheme to ensure the materials are recovered rather than sent to landfill.
The state launched consultation on the design of the stewardship scheme on Monday amid prolonged delays at the national level.
Around 14,000 tonnes of solar panel waste was generated in NSW each year, which was expected to grow to 89,000 tonnes by 2045. The proposed scheme would require solar panel manufacturers to take responsibility for the end-of-life management of their products, helping fund collection, recycling and resource recovery.
NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said:
NSW has embraced rooftop solar, and now we’re making sure those panels don’t become tomorrow’s landfill problem. Solar panels contain valuable materials that can be recovered and put back to work.
“NSW is getting on with the job,” Gayle Sloan, the chief executive of the Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia. The state was implementing mandatory battery stewardship and intended to finalise solar panel regulation by the end of 2026.
She said:
The solar model can then be adopted by other jurisdictions or transition to a future Commonwealth scheme. That is tangible reform: establish the rules, set a deadline and create a pathway for national action.
Read more on the delayed implementation of a national scheme here:
Albanese says he will put concerns about AI to Trump
The intergenerational report also said Australia was well positioned to benefit from AI but its impact on many industries - such as the labour market - were too early to forecast.
The economic and social implications of AI are expected to be profound but the specific impacts will depend on the evolution of the technology, how deeply and broadly AI is adopted, and how it will be used.
Australia is a leading destination globally for datacentre investment and has seen a near doubling of capital expenditure in this area since the 2023 IGR.
It comes as Albanese will be face-to-face with Donald Trump at a gala reception hosted by the US president during the high-level week. Trump has called the fears surrounding AI a “hoax” and said a slowdown in the AI race by the United States could involve the country losing ground to China.
Albanese said he would put concerns about AI to Trump.
We have a view about artificial intelligence that there needs to be appropriate safeguards put in place, and I will advocate that privately, the same as I will publicly.
I have a very positive and constructive relationship with the president, and I will engage respectfully and constructively with him.
The prime minister will spend the week in New York City for a United Nations climate summit, where he will also hold talks on global conflicts and AI.
Trump has said he would appoint an AI chief and create an “AI Force” to help monitor the technology, though he gave almost no details about either plan.
- with AAP
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Jim Chalmers to release intergenerational report with AI warnings
Australia faces a more “fragmented and uncertain world” in the coming decades but key policy decisions will set future generations up well for the “AI revolution”, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says.
Chalmers will present the seventh intergenerational report (IGR) on Monday, detailing forecasts for the impact of new technologies on society and the economy, along with more warnings about the country’s aging population and declining fertility rates.
It comes as the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, meets with world leaders in the United States this week to discuss a “global framework” for the rollout of AI, urging the “big two giants” - the US and China - to work in the interest of humanity.
In a speech to unveil the latest report, the treasurer will warn of the threats on the horizon in a more dangerous, unpredictable and divided world.
The world is becoming more dangerous. More unpredictable. More unequal. And more divided.
These are not just individual threads but part of a bigger fraying of that intergenerational promise of better times.
Chalmers said an IGR has never been released at a time with “politics this fraught, or a future less certain”.
Yet this IGR shows we are better placed than our peers in almost every regard.
The global and generational risks are serious, but Australia’s opportunities are endless.
The report’s forecasts show Australia’s population is projected to slow, with an estimated population of 39.3m by 2065-66, 1.8m fewer people than the previous report’s forecast.
Much of the slowdown in population growth was tied to lower fertility rates as women continued to have fewer children.
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Albanese launches bid for Australia for two-year seat on UN security council
Anthony Albanese launched a formal bid for Australia to serve a two-year term on powerful UN body in 2029 and 2030.
A vote for the spot won’t be held until mid 2028, but lobbying efforts will intensify during the prime minister’s visit to New York for the UN general assembly.
The prime minister said Australia’s role on the council would be able to benefit ordinary citizens.
“Engagement with the world matters. It matters because it makes a difference to the cost of living, to inflation, to Australians’ way of life,” he told reporters in New York on Monday, Australian time.
That is why we can’t afford to not be engaged with the world, because it has a direct impact on the quality of life of Australians on a day-to-day basis.
We have an opportunity through this potential seat on the UN Security Council to play a key role in shaping the global issues that really matter to Australians.
Australia has served on the security council five times since the UN was established following the second world war – the most recent stint was in 2013 and 2014, where Australia was able to lead a response to the Russian downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
Albanese said the role Australia played during that period was evidence of what a spot on the council could achieve.
We do need to stand up to the Middle East conflict. I think there is a role for middle powers to engage, and Australia has done that as we’ve engaged with the war in Ukraine in the coalition of the willing.
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Former NSW police officer’s double murder trial to get under way
The trial of a former NSW police officer accused of murdering two men is set to begin in Sydney.
Beau Lamarre-Condon has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one charge of aggravated break and enter over the deaths of TV presenter Jesse Baird, 26, and his partner Luke Davies, 29, in February 2024.
His case has faced ongoing delays since charges were laid, but today, the 31-year-old’s trial will finally get under way.
On Monday, a jury will be selected at NSW supreme court on King Street.
Depending on how long the empanelment process takes the court may hear the crown’s opening statement in the afternoon.
Justice Natalie Adams will preside over the trial, which is slated to go for two to three months and include a brief of evidence with more than 200 witnesses.
The case has received significant media attention and Lamarre-Condon’s trial is also expected to attract substantial public interest.
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Former top aide to Lachlan Murdoch gets senior diplomatic post in NY
Anthony Albanese has named former News Corp executive Siobhan McKenna as Australia’s next consul-general in New York.
The prime minister announced her appointment while launching Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nation’s security council in New York on Sunday. She will replace Heather Ridout, formerly chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, following the expiry of her four-year term in December.
McKenna, the chair of Australia Post, has also chaired the National Broadband Network in addition to her time as CEO of broadcasting at News Corp. The prime minister said McKenna would “bring a great deal of financial and economic capacity to the role”.
When reporters asked about McKenna’s time at Murdoch press – describing her as “Lachlan Murdoch’s probably closest aide for a long, long time” – and whether the prime minister had sought assurances she wouldn’t “continue to lobby or deal with Mr Murdoch in advancing business interests”, he said:
Siobhan McKenna is a professional, and she will do an outstanding job representing Australia and the Australian government here in New York. And the fact that she has experience in both the private sector and the public sector is a very good thing. I’m someone who supports people being appointed on merit. Siobhan McKenna has been appointed on merit.
Good morning and welcome to Guardian Australia’s live news coverage for Monday.
Jim Chalmers will release the latest intergenerational report, while overseas Anthony Albanese has appointed a former Murdoch executive to a top diplomatic post.
Stay tuned.
