What we learned: Sunday 25 January
We will wrap up the live blog for today now. This is what made the news:
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has revealed that veteran public servant and former chief of staff to Malcolm Turnbull, Greg Moriarty, will be recommended to the governor general to be Australia’s ambassador to the US.
Albanese said Donald Trump’s comments that Nato-aligned soldiers including Australians “stayed a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan were “completely unacceptable”.
The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, will visit Australia in March and address the federal parliament.
Record-breaking temperatures are expected to hit Victoria this week as the most significant heatwave since 2009 continues.
As residents in Gellibrand in Victoria’s south-west have been told it is too late to leave with a bushfire at Carlisle River just one kilometre from the town, forest fire management Victoria chief fire officer Chris Hardman said yesterday’s extremely hot day in the state made it challenging for firefighters.
Liberal frontbencher and moderate Julian Leeser declared Sussan Ley had his “unequivocal support”, amid suggestions there could be a leadership spill in the coming weeks.
A pack of K’gari dingoes will be destroyed after the death of a Canadian tourist. The animals are considered sacred in the local Indigenous culture, and are among the last pure-bred animals in Australia.
NSW police say a sighting of Julian Ingram, who is suspected of murdering three people in remote NSW, has been reported about 70km north of where the shootings occurred.
NSW police have charged a 70-year-old man after he allegedly posted a threatening letter to a mosque in Sydney’s south west last week.
A 40-year-old man was charged over an assault that was allegedly religiously motivated in Bankstown, in Sydney’s south west on Saturday.
We will be back tomorrow with all the latest. Until then, stay safe.
National cabinet to meet on Friday on health and disability funding
Anthony Albanese and the state premiers will meet for national cabinet on Friday, as they try to thrash out a long overdue deal on health and disability funding.
Originally planned to be signed in late 2025, momentum slipped away on the plan when the Bondi beach terror attack took focus in the days before Christmas.
The PM will press state and territory leaders to accept more than $23bn in extra spending for public hospitals, as it looks to transfer some costs for services currently provided on the NDIS back to the states.
Albanese and health minister Mark Butler want to end a row dating back to December 2023 when states agreed to take over services for developmental delays and autism for young children. A new federal program called Thriving Kids is due to kick off in July, but states are yet to sign on.
“For too long we’ve seen governments stuck in trench warfare playing the blame game on hospital funding,” Butler said.
This infuriates Australians when all they want is to make sure they don’t spend hours ramped in an ambulance or waiting in an overcrowded emergency department.
The Commonwealth has put a very generous offer on the table to secure hospital funding, the future of the NDIS and keep older Australians out of hospital.
We are prepared to negotiate in good faith with the states.
Updated
