What we learned, Monday 16 February
We’ll leave our live coverage of today’s news there. Thanks for reading. Here are the day’s top stories:
South Australian police renewed their search for missing boy Gus Lamont and arrested a 75-year-old over an unrelated matter.
Federal police said they would not take action against Lidia Thorpe over her “burn down Parliament House” comment.
The Bureau of Meteorology warned Tuesday would be a “classic fire spike day” for Victoria.
The ACCC’s court case against Coles opened, with the watchdog citing the price of dog food to argue Coles misled shoppers.
Both the Liberals and Nationals will run in the Farrer byelection.
The accused Bondi shooter, Naveed Akram, made his first court appearance.
Officials from Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, faced a parliamentary inquiry on climate misinformation.
Updated
Woman’s death in Melbourne’s east investigated by homicide squad
A woman’s death this morning in Melbourne’s east is being investigated by homicide squad detectives.
Victoria police said officers found the woman dead after 11am today at a property on Mountain Highway in Bayswater.
A 39-year-old local man, believed to be known to the woman, was arrested nearby at about 11.40am, police said.
Homicide squad detectives were investigating and the man was expected to be interviewed this afternoon, police said.
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Labor rejects Liberal proposed migration and budget cuts
A Labor minister has rejected Liberal proposals for budget and migration cuts, saying one proposal could dismantle Australia’s humanitarian migration program.
Under Sussan Ley’s leadership, the Liberal party was considering proposing blacklisting specific countries and regions from the migration program. You can read more here:
Andrew Leigh, the assistant minister for competition, has said such a proposal would “effectively dismantle” Australia’s humanitarian immigration program.
Leigh told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing that cuts could also cost the country’s skilled migrant intake. The government had no plans to change its 185,000-person target for annual permanent migration, he said.
The government has also rejected Angus Taylor’s offer for a bipartisan budget review to rein in government spending, with Leigh saying the new opposition leader “doesn’t bring anything to the table of credibility”.
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SA police arrest 75-year-old over unrelated matter during search for missing Gus Lamont
South Australian police plan to continue searching the area around missing four-year-old Gus Lamont’s home on Tuesday.
Police said they had concluded today’s renewed search for evidence at Oak Park Station, Lamont’s home, and expected to remain in the area tomorrow.
On 5 February, police declared his September disappearance a major crime and alleged someone who lived with Lamont was a suspect.
Police also today arrested a 75-year-old and charged them with firearms offences. Those charges related to a previous police search at Oak Park Station but were not connected to Lamont’s disappearance, nor to a separate incident involving media attending the site in October, police said.
The 75-year-old has been bailed to appear in the Peterborough magistrates court on 6 May.
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Former NSW Liberal leader calls for gender quotas
The first woman to lead the NSW Liberals has called for the party to introduce quotas for gender representation after Sussan Ley was replaced as federal leader.
Kerry Chikarovski, a former state parliament Liberal leader, said she had dropped her opposition to quotas because of the party’s historic failure to nominate women in winnable seats. She told the ABC:
[It’s] time to actually step back, look at where you are, has that worked? And the answer is no. So do something different and introduce quotas.
A leading advocate for greater representation of women in the party, Charlotte Mortlock, gave up her membership after the NSW division last week abandoned plans to consider gender quotas.
Chikarovski also said she was “appalled” by suggestions Sussan Ley was not strong enough to lead the federal opposition, saying she had faced similar criticism when she was a leader:
It’s that impossible situation. I had thought that 20 years later we had moved beyond that.
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No AFP action against Lidia Thorpe over ‘burn down Parliament House’ comment
The Australian federal police say “no further action” will be taken against independent senator Lidia Thorpe, after her comments – which she said were a figure of speech and not literal – that she might have to “burn down Parliament House” to make a point about the war in Gaza.
Thorpe was investigated by the AFP over the comments at a Melbourne rally in October. On Monday, an AFP spokesperson said it had finalised its investigation, with “insufficient evidence” of a crime being committed. They said:
The AFP began investigating the matter on 13 October, 2025 after receiving numerous AFP Reports of Crime. Following an investigation, the AFP has concluded there is insufficient evidence of a criminal offence. The matter has now been finalised and no further action will be taken.
Thorpe’s office declined to comment. Thorpe told the rally at the time:
We stand with you every day, and we will fight every day, and we will turn up every day, and if I have to burn down Parliament House to make a point … I am not there to make friends.
Thorpe later said she had not meant the words literally and condemned what she called the “mock outrage” that followed them, adding:
My rally remarks were clearly a figure of speech – a metaphor for the pain in our communities and the urgent need to end genocide in Palestine and everywhere.
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Victorian bushfires being contained ahead of extreme danger tomorrow
Victoria’s emergency management commissioner, Tim Wiebusch, said two of the major fires Victorian authorities had been battling for more than a month – at Walwa/Mt Lawson and Longwood – were deemed under control on Friday.
Of the Otways bushfire, he said:
Firefighters are continuing to put in containment lines and control lines around that fire as we head into tomorrow, but we are hopeful that that fire may be deemed contained some time this week …
Our focus really is shifting, after the weather tomorrow, to really be about recovery here in Victoria. We now have 17 recovery hubs that are active across the state.
A cold front is also forecast to bring cooler gusty winds on Tuesday. The Bureau of Meteorology’s Briony Macpherson said the cold change brought the risk of severe thunderstorms, with the potential for damaging wind gusts of up to 90km/h:
That added risk of potential fire starts due to the lightning and also the instability will make it a little bit more challenging for firefighters tomorrow if we do see any starts.
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BoM warns of ‘classic fire spike day’ for Victoria on Tuesday amid extreme fire danger
Hot, dry and windy conditions ahead of a cool change are forecast to drive extreme fire dangers across much of Victoria on Tuesday.
On Monday afternoon, high fire dangers were affecting much of South Australia and Victoria, according to Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Dean Narramore.
But as that front approaches tonight into tomorrow, we’re going to see those winds really increase across south-eastern Australia.
Tim Wiebusch, Victoria’s emergency management commissioner, said extreme fire danger was forecast for five districts on Tuesday:
The south-west, the Wimmera, central, north central, and west and south Gippsland, with the remainder of the state with high fire danger.
Total fire bans in those five areas will be instituted from midnight. BoM senior meteorologist Briony Macpherson said Tuesday would bring “a classic fire spike day over Victoria” with temperatures “getting up into the mid-30s over much of the state, including Melbourne”. She added:
We’ll see the fresh north to north-westerly winds start to increase from around dawn tomorrow … those north-westerly winds really pick up as we go into the afternoon, across most of the western and central parts of the state.
We’re looking at winds generally 30 to 40km/h, but with gusts 50 to 60km/h.
In addition, Macpherson said, the “danger of a wind change” would see temperatures dropping “10C or so in a fairly short period of time” in places like Melbourne, but that it would “make fires hard to fight if any do start”.
High fire danger is also likely through eastern South Australia, and central and eastern Tasmania, Narramore said.
Updated
Coal Australia head defends millions in election donations
Coal Australia has dismissed claims it donated millions of dollars to third-party “fronts” during the 2025 federal election to advance its lobbying efforts for the fossil fuel industry.
In a Senate hearing earlier this afternoon, the coal lobby group’s chief executive, Stuart Bocking, dismissed an array of questions from Labor and crossbench senators on whether it had deceived voters.
Earlier this month, election donation disclosure data revealed it had given $3.68m to third-party campaign group, Australians for Prosperity, making up 95% of its total donations.
Bocking said Coal Australia donated the money to campaign groups aligned with the lobby group’s messaging, and denied a suggestion from Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah that they were “fronts”.
“There are no fronts for Coal Australia,” he said, adding:
When you donate money, you donate money assuming that that organisation has the wherewithal, the logistics, the organisational ability to be able to deal with media buyers, creatives and various others. They’re things that generally go beyond the realm of Coal Australia. So we donated money to that group [Australians for Prosperity].
Updated
Sydney measles case visited healthcare sites
Two new measles cases have been identified in Sydney, with one visiting healthcare facilities while unknowingly infectious.
Health authorities have urged residents in the city’s inner west to watch for symptoms, after Concord hospital, Ryde emergency department and Ryde urgent care clinic were revealed as sites of possible exposure.
The two cases were not known to each other but were linked to an earlier patient who caught the disease while travelling in south-east Asia, where measles outbreaks are ongoing, according to NSW Health.
Sydney has now had 16 identified cases of measles so far in 2026. NSW Health has shared a full list of locations visited by those with the disease on its website.
People should watch for fever, runny nose, sore eyes and a cough, usually followed by a rash, according to Dr Christine Selvey, director of communicable diseases at NSW Health.
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Computer and mobile phone prices to surge, JB Hi-Fi warns
Electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi is expecting higher prices for personal computers and mobile phones amid a global chip shortage.
Computer companies had faced higher costs for memory and storage components, which were set to result in ticket prices rising 20% on average from March onwards, JB Hi-Fi’s chief executive, Nick Wells, said.
Wells said mobile phone prices have already been rising but further hikes could be delayed as suppliers waited for new product launches, telling analysts:
If you think about an iPhone, that’s typically not until September. So we’ve got a fair amount of time before that [price increase] will come through.
Large numbers of customers were expected to buy PCs and phones in the coming year regardless of the price increase, Wells said.
Promotional discounts have also been easing, with Wells saying discounting had eased back to a normal level after an intense couple of years of promotions – meaning less savings for shoppers. The company’s gross profit margin picked up over late 2025.
Despite that, consumer spending has stayed strong, with JB Hi-Fi Australia’s financial results today showing sales grew 6.3% to $41.2bn for the six months to December 2025, compared to the same period in 2024.
Price hikes amid strong consumer demand for electronics and other durable goods has worried the RBA and may have contributed to the recent interest rate rise. You can read more here:
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Western Australia plans crackdown on illegal tobacco
Businesses caught selling illegal tobacco and vaping products could have their shops shut down for up to three months under new laws planned for Western Australia, AAP reports.
Offenders found in possession of a large commercial quantity of the products could also be slapped with multimillion-dollar fines and more than a decade behind bars.
The legislation, to be introduced in the Western Australian parliament on Tuesday, would give the state “some of the strongest penalties in Australia,” the state premier, Roger Cook, said.
The maximum penalty for possession of a large commercial quantity of illicit tobacco and vaping products will be $4.2m for an individual, or $21m for a company, and 15 years’ imprisonment.
NSW and Queensland have introduced laws to penalise commercial property landlords who knowingly allow illegal tobacco and vape stores to operate on their premises.
Black-market trade in cigarettes has boomed after the excise on legal tobacco sales climbed 60% since 2020. Treasury is considering changing the excise, as Patrick Commins reports here:
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That’s all from me! Luca Ittimani will take things from here. Take care, and enjoy the rest of your Monday.
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NSW police detect 604 people allegedly driving with drugs in their systems during statewide traffic operation
NSW police conducted a mass, statewide police traffic operation last week, saying they detected 604 people who allegedly had drugs in their systems while driving.
Officials said they stopped thousands of drivers across the state, issuing 9,126 drug tests, with 604 of those returning the allegedly positive results. A further 121,000 breath tests were issued, with 167 drink-driving offences allegedly detected. The operation took place from 12am Thursday to 4am on Sunday.
Police also issued more than 6,500 traffic infringement notices, including 1,695 for speed-related offences, 267 for mobile phone use and 77 for restraint-related offences.
Yasmin Catley, the state’s minister for police, said officers will continue to have high visibility on roadways across NSW:
Too much of what happens on our roads is preventable. Police are out there every day, but they can’t be everywhere – we need drivers to make better, safer choices – for themselves, their passengers and everyone else.
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NSW premier urges kidnappers to return 85-year-old abducted by mistake
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, urged those responsible for the abduction to return 85-year-old Chris Baghsarian, who investigators say was taken by mistake in a botched underworld kidnapping.
Minns told reporters earlier today:
It’s not too late to end this situation … please return him to his family.
Let police know where he is currently located or, alternatively, drop Mr Baghsarian off at a shopping centre, an emergency department, or even a nursing home.
Read more here:
Research institute withdraws $20m budget submission for youth gambling education
The University of Sydney-based OurFutures research institute has withdrawn a $20m federal budget submission for youth gambling education after concerns were raised about multiple errors and potential use of AI.
The OurFutures institute confirmed in a letter to independent senator David Pocock that it had “made the decision to retract our proposal and documents” after “we became aware that the submission and background paper contained errors”.
“These errors do not reflect our standards. We apologise unreservedly and are conducting a full internal review,” an email sent by the OurFutures CEO, Ken Wallace, said.
The withdrawal follows a report by Guardian Australia which found multiple problems with the institute’s “Youth Gambling in Australia” evidence review and the accompanying budget request, including broken links, references to papers that could not be found, and claims not supported by the cited research.
Pocock, who was among at least 10 politicians sent the review, said at the time he was “deeply concerned” and described the document as appearing to be “slop written by AI”.
He said he was particularly concerned by the review’s claim that school-based gambling harm prevention programs have a return on investment. But Pocock said “in reality, the [Productivity Commission] found that these programs are typically pushed by the gambling industry and can make things worse”.
The institute had initially attributed the issues to a reference editing tool used for references and said it would correct the material and resubmit it, then blamed it on a “clerical error,” but it has now withdrawn the submission and review entirely.
Read more:
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$5.4tn will soon be inherited in Australia. What does this mean for equality?
Over the next 20 years, it’s expected $5.4tn will be passed down from baby boomers to their beneficiaries. Guardian Australia’s Celina Ribeiro spoke to economists about this massive wealth transfer.
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Coles will argue changes in price were ‘not illusory’
Coles will defend the ACCC’s allegations by arguing the changes in pricing was a response to suppliers’ requests for “cost price alterations” or changes to promotional funding arrangements.
In the supermarket’s concise statement, filed with the court, Coles said the third prices referred to by the ACCC (eg the $4.50 price for the dog food) were real discounts.
The non-promotional, higher prices were the “genuine, undiscounted shelf price” and the discounts were “not illusory” the supermarket said, adding that:
Coles denies the allegation that it has made false or misleading representations in breach of ss 18 and 29(1) of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).
ACCC cites price of dog food to argue Coles misled shoppers as court case begins
The landmark federal court case between the competition regulator and supermarket giant Coles has begun in Melbourne this morning, on the first day of a 10-day block of hearings.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) alleges Coles misled shoppers with “illusory” discounts on hundreds of products between February 2022 and March 2023.
Justice Michael O’Bryan has heard the ACCC’s opening submissions this morning. Barrister Garry Rich SC, acting for the regulator, gave the court the example of Coles’ pricing of 1.2kg cans of Nature’s Gift wet dog food.
Coles had sold the dog food for $4 for 296 days between April 2022 and February 2023, Rich told the court. The supermarket then increased the price of that product by a “whopping 50%” to $6 and sold it at the higher retail price for just 7 days.
After a week, Coles changed the price of the dog food to $4.50 and told customers it was on sale as part of the “Down Down” promotion, claiming that price “was” $6.
Rich said while Coles’ claim $4.50 was a discounted price for the dog food was “literally true”, it was also “utterly misleading”.
He told the court:
A consumer who knew the real facts would not think the price of the dog food had gone down. Nor would they think the price of $4.50 was a genuine reduction or discount.
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Greens welcome ACCC court battle over Coles’ grocery prices
The Greens said this afternoon they welcome a court challenge by the ACCC against Coles over allegations of misleading “specials”, with the competition regulator seeking large penalties and community service orders against the grocery giant.
The Greens’ leader, senator Larissa Waters, said the court action reflected a need for the Labor party to “stand up” to big corporations, saying in a statement:
Labor must stand up to their big corporate donors who are making massive profits while everyone else struggles to get by.
The Greens are proud to have led the charge on supermarket price gouging with our inquiry and divestiture Bill in the last parliament and we will continue to fight for a system that doesn’t put profits before people and farmers.
The Greens’ economic justice spokesperson, senator Nick McKim, went on to say the action confirmed what “people across Australia already know – when corporations have too much power, they use it to squeeze everyday people”.
We need laws that make price gouging illegal across the economy, not just in supermarkets, so corporations can’t exploit times of financial pressure to hike prices with impunity.
Coles is defending the claims, and has argued its pricing was a response to increased costs from suppliers.
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Both Liberals and Nationals to run in Farrer byelection, Littleproud confirms
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has confirmed the junior Coalition partner plans to contest the upcoming byelection in Farrer, where former Liberal leader Sussan Ley is preparing to retire.
Before Ley won the rural NSW seat in 2001, Farrer was held by former Nationals leader Tim Fischer, who first won it in 1984.
Littleproud told Sky News that both the Nationals and the Liberals would run. A One Nation candidate and a teal independent, Michelle Milthorpe, are also set to run.
“The NSW National party made a decision at an executive meeting on Saturday to run a candidate,” Littleproud said.
They’ve opened nominations, but we’ll be working as a team. We want to see a Coalition candidate get up.
Littleproud said the Liberals and Nationals would send preferences to each other.
That gives us protection and allows choice within the Coalition. We only do this in transition seats. There’s usually a transition when there’s incumbency, and we respect that.
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No ransom note or underworld ties for kidnapped 85-year-old
The elderly Sydney man believed to be mistakenly kidnapped had no connection to the underworld, police said.
Up to three offenders were believed to have taken Baghsarian from his home at 5am on Friday, with police suspecting a wider network was involved, according to NSW police’s Andrew Marks.
Baghsarian and his family, though, were not connected to that world and had not even received a ransom note, as would be usual during a kidnapping case, Marks said. Their lack of connection to “any criminal world” had led police to believe his abduction was a case of mistaken identity. He said:
It’s not an instance where they were randomly taking people for the sake of it. They were intending to take somebody, but they have taken the wrong person.
Police had not determined who the intended victim of the kidnapping was and were investigating the persons involved, Mark said, adding:
We are throwing every resource that we have at this kidnapping case so we can get the safe return of Mr Baghsarian.
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Police appeal for information on Chris Baghsarian’s location
Police urged alleged kidnappers to share where they have taken an 85-year-old Sydney man, who investigators say was abducted by mistake.
Investigators do not know where Chris Baghsarian is being held or even if he remains in Sydney, Detective Acting Supt Andrew Marks said. He said:
This is a very strange appeal but we appeal to those who are responsible to release Mr Baghsarian somewhere safe ... [and] inform somebody [so] that we can get to him and get him the medical treatment he needs.
The elderly widower and grandfather requires daily medication, Marks said.
Every hour is very important. We need him returned now.
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Taylor open to endorsing nuclear energy
Angus Taylor has left the door open to endorsing nuclear energy, saying “every technology” was needed to support Australia’s energy system.
Asked on 2GB whether the Liberal party would again pursue the opening of nuclear power stations after its failed effort at 2025’s election campaign, Taylor said:
We need every technology available to get prices down, to get reliability back, and get our energy system working again. I’ve always believed you’ve got to have the full range.
Taylor also described planned closures of coal-fired power stations as “absolute madness” and suggested “net zero obsession” was responsible for electricity price increases.
Asked separately how he planned to rein in government spending without cutting public service jobs, Taylor put funding for electricity poles and wires first on the chopping block:
You have to make sure you get rid of unnecessary waste. I mean, spending billions and billions on thousands of kilometers of power lines in this country for Labor’s net zero obsession has got to go.
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Taylor discusses migration numbers in talkback session
The new opposition leader, Angus Taylor, has cited a migration figure of 500,000 people during a talkback session on Sydney radio as a level that was “way too high”.
Appearing on 2GB radio this morning, Taylor said:
“Half a million a year, forget about it. That’s just way too high. And that’s where we’ve been.”
Net overseas migration to Australia, in the year to June 2025, including people on temporary visas, was 305,000 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Net overseas migration has not been above 500,000 people annually for more than two years.
The “half a million” figure was also cited by Tony Abbott, the former prime minister, in a recent interview with the ABC.
Taylor declined to endorse a pause on migration when prompted by the interviewer, instead saying levels of intake should “get back to the levels that we know we can cope with”.
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Construction yard for nuclear subs will cost at least $30bn
At least $30bn will be spent building a construction yard to eventually build nuclear submarines for Australia under the Aukus agreement, AAP reports.
The federal government announced on Sunday it had pledged $3.9bn as a down payment to secure the future of the Submarine Construction Yard in the northern Adelaide suburb of Osborne. The government hopes the project will create 10,000 jobs in design and construction as well as up to 1,000 apprentices per year at an on-site training facility.
The future of Aukus has been under a cloud for months since the US announced it would review the terms of the agreement. But the prime minister dismissed concerns that the promised shipyard would never see an Aukus vessel.
The price tag comes from an estimate provided by Australian Naval Infrastructure, the government’s hand-picked company tasked with delivering the Aukus facility. As well as construction, the new yard will include capability for the testing and commission of the submarines.
Read more here:
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Accused Bondi shooter makes brief court appearance
Accused Bondi terrorist Naveed Akram made brief remarks to a court as the names of some victims remain sealed, AAP reports.
The 24-year-old called in from prison to face Sydney’s Downing Centre local court on Monday morning on 59 charges, including murder and terrorism offences. He is accused of carrying out Australia’s deadliest terror attack, when 15 people were killed and 40 injured during beachside Hanukah celebrations at Bondi Beach.
The younger man spoke after a magistrate on Monday continued suppression orders protecting victims and survivors of the attack who have not chosen to identify themselves publicly.
Akram was dressed in a green prison-issued jumper, with his hands in his lap as he listened to the otherwise uneventful case mention.
He was asked several brief questions, responding either “yeah” or “yep” to the court. He is next due to appear on 9 April.
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Record number of Australians to start university degrees in 2026
A record number of Australians will begin a university degree this year, the federal government has announced, as it seeks to meet an ambitious target for tertiary participation.
According to preliminary data from the Department of Education, university applications for commencing undergraduate students are up 4.6% compared with the same time last year, while offers are up 2.5%.
There has been a particular boost for social work (up 19%) while engineering and science applications are up by 9% and nursing and teaching are up by 6%.
It follows the allocation of an extra 9,500 domestic places to universities this year by the newly established Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) on top of 2025 levels.
The education minister, Jason Clare, said a further 16,000 fully funded commonwealth supported places would be allocated in 2027, rising to 200,000 over the next decade:
The Universities Accord says that, by 2050, 80% of the workforce will need a tertiary qualification. The only way to hit that target is to help more people go to university and Tafe. This will help more people build the skills they need for the jobs of the future.
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Queensland gets a new interim police commissioner
Brett Pointing has been announced as interim Queensland police commissioner.
Steve Gollschewki announced his resignation last week. He was promoted to commissioner in 2024 but stepped aside in 2025 after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
Pointing served in the QPS for more than 40 years before leaving to the Australian federal police in 2018. He served as an adviser on the recent QPS review which recommended shifting resources away from domestic violence case management and administration to frontline policing.
“Its a great honour and indeed a great privilege to be appointed commissioner of the Queensland police service,” Pointing said.
He said his priorities were to reduce volume crime such as break and entry, domestic violence and car fatalities, and to “remove the unnecessary red tape and complexity” imposed on the frontline, among others.
He will take up the role next week. His interim term will last 12 months.
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Sydney man charged after allegedly damaging 35 cars in hotel car park
A Sydney man has been charged after allegedly damaging more than 30 cars in a hotel car park in the city’s CBD on Monday morning.
NSW police said the man, 42, was arrested after they were called to the car park just before 4am. Upon arrival, officers were told the man was allegedly armed with a traffic cone and had damaged the car park’s boom gate. The man then allegedly went on to damage 35 vehicles.
Police estimated the total damage to be worth about $100,000.
The man was arrested after a short foot pursuit and has since been charged with 37 counts of damaging of property. He was refused bail and will appear before court today.
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Farmers call for ‘meaningful market access’ as part of any free trade deal with EU
Farmers say any new free trade agreement between Australia and the European Union must deliver “commercially meaningful market access” for producers here.
Over the weekend Australia and the EU appeared on the brink of striking a long sought-after trade deal, ahead of a planned visit to Australia by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, due within months.
The trade minister, Don Farrell, took part in two days of talks in Brussels last week, with the two sides talking up progress. But farmers in the 27-member bloc have long held concerns about greater imports of Australian beef and lamb.
The National Farmers’ Federation president, Hamish McIntyre, said any deal must improve the ability of farmers to sell to about 450 million European consumers. He noted that was a standard set by Farrell himself before travelling overseas.
“Australian agriculture is pro-trade and supports a high-quality agreement with the EU,” McIntyre said, adding:
However, industry expects the government will hold firm to the standard it publicly set.
The final call now rests with the prime minister, who must ensure any agreement delivers genuine, commercially meaningful market access for Australian farmers.
Anything less would fall short of the government’s stated position and undermine confidence in Australia’s commitment to open, liberalised trade.
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Meta officials fronting inquiry on climate misinformation
Officials from Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, are facing senators at a parliamentary hearing on climate misinformation this morning.
Victorian Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah noted the pieces of content removed by Meta had “literally fallen off a cliff” since 2022. In 2022, 91,000 pieces of content were removed, with 9,700 posts removed in 2023 and 350 posts in 2024.
“We remove misinformation which could, is likely to, cause immediate physical harm or interferes with the political process,” Simon Milner, Meta’s public policy vice president for Asia-Pacific, said.
Meta’s head of policy for Australia, New Zealand and Pacific islands, Cheryl Seeto, explained that the sharp drop in content removals was related to the World Health Organization’s decision to lift the Covid-19 public health emergency declaration.
She said:
When that emergency declaration was lifted, we did revise that policy, such that the policy that still remains now, we will only remove Covid-related misinformation in countries where there is an active Covid-19 related emergency.
Meta is trialling the use of community notes, like X, in the United States and said it will likely be introduced to Australia if it is successful. Meta said it had blocked 692m fake accounts globally in the third quarter of 2025.
In Australia, Meta pays news agencies, AAP and AFP, to factcheck articles shared across its platforms but officials did not know how many people worked in those teams.
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New search for evidence in missing boy Gus Lamont case
South Australian police have announced a new search for evidence at Oak Park Station, the home of four-year-old Gus Lamont, who went missing last year.
On 5 February, police declared his disappearance a major crime and said someone who lived with Gus was a suspect.
In a statement today, they said:
Members attached to Task Force Horizon conducting inquiries into the disappearance of four-year-old Gus Lamont on 27 September 2025 have returned to Oak Park Station to continue searching for evidence.
It is anticipated that Task Force Horizon detectives will remain in the area for at least the next two days.
An update on the search activities will be provided as they progress.
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In case you missed it, NSW is getting an extra holiday this year
People in Australia’s most populous state have been granted an Anzac Day long weekend for the next two years, and could be in line for more public holidays.
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has announced the state would have an extra public holiday in 2026 and 2027, when Anzac Day falls on a Saturday and Sunday.
Remembrance services are held nationwide on 25 April, but only people in Western Australia and ACT had previously been granted an additional public holiday on the following Monday.
But others said they won’t do likewise, with the governments of Victoria and Queensland declaring no such public holiday would be created.
Unlike New Year’s Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, there had been no additional public holidays declared in NSW when Anzac Day fell on a weekend.
Read more here:
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NSW detail more charges against men accused of elderly driver scam
NSW police will lay more charges against two men accused of scamming elderly drivers in carparks across the state over multiple days in January.
Police first said last month they had arrested two men, aged 37 and 57, as part of a scam in which one of the men would allegedly approach a victim, claiming there was an issue with their car before asking them to raise the bonnet to inspect it. While the bonnet was up, another man would allegedly steal items from inside the victim’s car.
The pair were charged with 72 offences each in early January and refused bail.
Investigators now allege more offences in additional locations, including Waratah, Gundagai, Wyong and Sydney, among others. Police believe the pair came to Australia in late December, using allegedly false representations on passenger cards and visa applications.
They will lay a further 17 offences against the pair, encompassing charges of fraud, stealing, entering a vehicle without consent and making false statements to officers working under the migration at.
Police are appealing for more information about anyone who may have dealt with the men.
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Treasury considering changes to Australia’s contentious tobacco excise, as calls grow for a freeze
Experts say a freeze on the federal government’s contentious tobacco excise should be considered, after the Treasury revealed it was modelling the impacts of cigarette prices on demand amid a booming black market.
Lachlan Vass, a research manager at the e61 Institute, said the Treasury’s examination of “price elasticity” and demand for tobacco would be a necessary step to costing potential reforms to the excise.
Jim Chalmers, the treasurer, and Mark Butler, the health minister, have previously rebuffed any suggestion that reducing the sky-high cost of cigarettes was the solution to curbing the black market trade, which has ballooned over the past five years and smashed a $17.8bn hole in the budget since 2020-21.
But when asked at Senate estimates last week why a cut to the excise couldn’t be considered as part of a wider strategy to curb the illegal tobacco trade, Katy Gallagher, the finance minister, left the door open to a change in excise policy.
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Search continues for elderly man who was allegedly kidnapped by mistake
The search continues for a grandfather who was allegedly abducted by mistake in a botched underworld kidnapping, AAP reports.
The 85-year-old Sydney man, Chris Baghsarian, was alone in his North Ryde home when he was taken and bundled into dark-coloured SUV on Friday morning. Police hold grave concerns for the grandfather, who needs daily medication, after they were called to the home by neighbours who heard a commotion about 5am.
Detective Acting Supt Andrew Marks urged for the release of the elderly man:
Police consider that Mr Baghsarian was not the intended target … You have the wrong person.
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Wildlife officials still searching for entangled humpback whale in Victoria
Victoria’s Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) is still searching for a humpback whale entangled in rope off the Gippsland coast.
The agency said the juvenile whale was first seen late Saturday by a wildlife tour boat, heading slowly south about 250 metres off the coast of Cape Wellington. The animal was seen again on Sunday morning and was described as moving “very slowly”, appearing underweight.
DEECA will send a plane up today to continue searching for the whale in hopes of providing assistance.
The agency said it is likely to be the same whale that was seen earlier this month in Jervis Bay, NSW. Members of the public who see the animal are urged to call the DEECA emergency hotline on 1300 136 017.
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IMF finds Australia managing ‘soft-landing’ on economic recovery
The International Monetary Fund released a report on Sunday saying the Australian economy was managing a “soft landing” but said inflationary pressures had “re-emerged” in recent months.
The body said the country’s economic recovery is expected to continue in the near-term but added wage growth is anticipated to moderate further, partially due to weak productivity growth. The IMF said yesterday:
Executive directors welcomed Australia’s progress toward a soft landing and internal balance, notwithstanding uncertainties regarding residual excess demand and supply capacity in the context of weak productivity growth.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the report was generally good news for the economy, telling RN Breakfast:
It was a very positive report about Australia and about the government’s economic plan, it was a powerful endorsement. … It described our budget management as effective.
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Court battle begins over Coles’ grocery prices
A highly anticipated federal court battle between the competition regulator and supermarket giant Coles begins today, testing allegations the retailer offered “illusory” discounts on hundreds of everyday products.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is seeking large penalties and community service orders against Coles, which, along with Woolworths, controls two-thirds of the Australian grocery market.
A similar case against Woolworths is expected to be heard at a later date.
The 10-day hearing in Melbourne will scrutinise pricing practices involving hundreds of products, from instant coffee to chocolate biscuits, over an extended period.
The regulator alleges that Coles temporarily inflated prices before marking the items as discounted under promotions like “Down Down,” in a practice known as “was/is” pricing.
Coles is defending the claims, arguing pricing was a response to increased costs from suppliers.
The case starts during a period of reigniting inflation, with groceries and other household costs rising strongly again.
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Labor releases numbers showing budget would be $14bn worse off under Coalition
The government has released figures that, it says, show the federal budget would be $14bn worse over two years if the Coalition had won the 2025 election.
The figures released by Labor claim those budget deficits would add $22bn to gross debt over the coming decade, resulting in $8.4bn in extra interest payments, based on the Coalition’s costings that were released ahead of the election.
The Coalition’s nuclear plan is not included in the figures.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says the numbers demonstrate Angus Taylor and the newly elected deputy leader, Jane Hume, “blew up their economic credibility” during the election campaign.
Chalmers said:
Angus Taylor is the poster child for the Coalition’s economic insanity. These figures show Angus Taylor has no credibility on the economy and that’s exactly why the Liberal party is a complete bin fire.
Angus Taylor and Jane Hume blew up their election campaign, they blew up their economic credibility, and these numbers show they would have blown the budget too.
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Aussie medal party continues with dual moguls bronze
Australian skier Matt Graham bounced back from individual disappointment to add another medal to the one he collected eight years ago in Pyeongchang and continue the Aussie success story at Milan-Cortina, AAP reports.
He became the country’s third moguls medallist at the Games on Sunday. It was Australia’s record-extending fifth medal of the Olympics and was hard-won given Graham’s multiple injuries that have included a fractured neck, collarbone, broken ribs and lung contusions.
Graham clawed his way on to the podium with a win over Japan’s Takuya Shimakawa in the small final, which decided the bronze medal. The Australian outscored his rival 20 to 15. The Canadian all-time great Mikaël Kingsbury won the gold medal after taking silver in the individual.
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Good morning
Good morning, and welcome to Monday. Nick Visser here to guide you through the day’s news. Here’s what’s on deck:
The federal court will hold a hearing on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) case against Coles and Woolworths today after the consumer watchdog sued the grocery giants in 2024 over allegations they misled shoppers using “illusory” discounts on hundreds of products. The hearing will take place in Melbourne, with the court noting the ACCC is seeking “a significant penalty” for the alleged breaches of consumer law.
Australia is up to five medals at the Winter Olympics in Milan after skier Matt Graham took home bronze in the new dual moguls events. “This means a lot, the other day was a bit bittersweet, coming fifth when I knew I had enough to get on the podium so today was a bit about redemption, I was fired up,” he told reporters after the achievement.
Stick with us.
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