What we learned, Wednesday 29 July
And that’s a wrap on our live coverage for the day.
Before we head off, let’s look at the day’s top headlines:
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The former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has issued a rare public statement paying tribute to his successor, Jacinta Allan, and declaring that Labor’s new leader, Ben Carroll, can win the state election in four months’ time.
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Carroll also introduced a bill late on Wednesday to scrap group voting tickets to elect the state’s upper house.
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The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says no payments were made in relation to a growing corruption case involving members of the NSW Liberal party, insisting he is not a party to the proceedings. The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) also resumed its examination of former Liberal staffer Dylan Whitelaw.
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Inflation has dropped to 3.8% in the year to June, from 4% in the previous month, with lower than anticipated underlying price pressures weighing against the chance of another Reserve Bank interest rate hike.
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South Australia police are investigating the deaths of a mother and toddler as a murder-suicide after their bodies were found in the ocean off the coast west of Port Macdonnell.
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The Greens have renewed called for rent freezes as they say today’s inflation figures still reflect a cost of living reality that is too expensive for Australian households.
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The federal agriculture minister, Julie Collins, has said the government is preparing for further H5 bird flu detections in Australian wildlife after “local transmission between birds may indicate that we will continue to see spread”. Conservationists have expressed fears for Kangaroo Island’s iconic Australian sea lion population, after H5N1 bird flu was detected in a greater crested tern at Seal Bay.
Thanks for sticking around, see you tomorrow morning!
Updated
Victoria to finally scrap group voting tickets to elect its upper house
Rightwing provocateur Avi Yemini and anti-lockdown activist Monica Smit will no longer be able to use their “Free Palestine” and the “Save the Environment” parties to funnel preferences to One Nation and other conservative parties, with the new Victorian premier introducing legislation to parliament to scrap group voting tickets.
Ben Carroll on Wednesday afternoon announced that legislation had been introduced to parliament to abolish the system.
Under GVTs, voters can only choose one party above the line on the ballot paper, with their preferences then allocated by the party if it’s knocked out during counting. The system has allowed backroom deals between parties to flourish, enabling some candidates to get elected with only a minuscule number of primary votes.
Carroll said under the Electoral amendment (miscellaneous matters) bill 2026, a new above-the-line voting system will require voters to number at least five groups in order of preference. Those preferences will then flow to candidates in the order they appear below the line for each party or group.
In a YouTube video in April, Yemini said he had registered his party to “flow our preferences on to parties that want to free Palestine from Hamas” in the November poll.
Carroll said:
Fair elections are the bedrock of democracy, and we are delivering these reforms to ensure Victorians can be confident in their electoral processes. Victorians shouldn’t wake up after an election wondering how someone with only a handful of votes ended up in Parliament.
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SA police officer allegedly stabbed in the neck and armed suspect shot in the leg
A South Australian police officer is in hospital with stab wounds to the neck after a confrontation with an armed man who was shot in the leg by police.
Police said they responded to multiple reports from the public of a knife-wielding man running on to Main North Road at Elizabeth East at about 11am.
The officer was transported to hospital and is receiving treatment for serious injuries. Police said they are providing appropriate support to her colleagues and family.
The suspect was also taken to hospital and is being treated for a gunshot wound. Police said his injuries are “not deemed to be life-threatening” and he will remain in police custody.
Acting Cmdr David O’Donovan praised the officers involved for their “courage, discipline and professionalism” during what he described as “an evolving and rapidly dangerous situation”.
Police have ruled out any further threat to the public or wider community.
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One Nation faces being struck off in Queensland after failing to file audited financial statements
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party faces being struck off in Queensland after failing its legal obligation to lodge audited financial statements with the state’s regulator.
The breach exposes Hanson and the New South Wales One Nation senator Sean Bell to financial penalties, with Hanson registered as president and Bell as secretary for the party in Queensland, where it is headquartered.
One Nation, which has been facing growing scrutiny of its finances as it has surged in popularity over the past year, has failed to lodge three years of audited financial reports.
Read more:
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Rising Tide protesters interrupt address by NSW premier amid coalmine expansion proposal
Climate activists have interrupted an address by the NSW premier, Chris Minns, to protest a controversial coal expansion proposal currently being considered in the state.
The premier was giving the main address at the Committee for Economic Development’s (Ceda) State of the State series in Sydney this afternoon.
In a post on Instagram, climate protest group Rising Tide took responsibility for interrupting the event, with a video showing a protester attempting to hand the premier the NSW Net Zero Commission report, which has warned that extended or expanded coal mines are inconsistent with the state’s legislated climate targets. Rising Tide said:
We just tried to hand NSW Premier Chris Minns his government’s own Net Zero Commission report.
Yet the largest coal project proposed in NSW history, the HVO expansion project, is currently before the Independent Planning Commission. And just yesterday Chris Minns said he supported its approval.”
During his speech, Minns said the government was “taking heat from both sides of the political spectrum when it comes to energy policy”.
He defended his government’s support for coal and gas, saying “the easiest way of seeing diminishing support for renewable energy transition in New South Wales is if the lights start going out on a regular basis and bills rise even farther and faster than they currently are”.
In a statement, NSW police said officers were called to the event at a hotel in Martin Place, following reports two people had attempted to approach the stage.
Officers attached to Sydney City Police Area Command spoke to a man and a woman before they were directed to leave the venue, to which they complied. There will be no further police action.
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‘We will continue to see spread’: authorities warn of further bird flu cases after local transmission confirmed
The federal agriculture minister, Julie Collins, has said the government is preparing for further H5 bird flu detections in Australian wildlife after “local transmission between birds may indicate that we will continue to see spread.”
There are currently 27 confirmed cases of H5 bird flu in Australia: 10 in Western Australia, 14 in South Australia, two in New South Wales and one in Queensland.
Speaking at a press conference in Sydney, Collins said that “while there remains no evidence of any mass mortality at this point in time, we do expect with this local transmission that there will be further detection”. She said:
States and territories will continue to undertake activities on the ground, particularly through shared costs, to manage the impact of the H5 bird flu.
Once it becomes established, what we do know from overseas, is that it is not able to be eradicated. So, what we will do is continue to monitor and evaluate and see where this disease is in Australia.
The Australian chief veterinary officer, Dr Beth Cookson, said it was “a concerning development” but “not unexpected”.
This news of some local transmission may mean we start to see wider spread among wild birds and other susceptible wildlife. This small shift in the situation will be very disappointing to many, but is certainly not an unexpected development as the last continent to detect H5 bird flu.
The government has confirmed there have been no detections in poultry or the wider agricultural sector. It said advice from the Australian Centre for Disease Control remains that risk to human health is low.
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Petrol back above $2 a litre and diesel at $2.40 in some cities
Petrol is back above $2 a litre and diesel prices have hit $2.40 in some cities as fuel costs race upwards.
Oil prices have steadily risen since the US resumed strikes on Iran, with Brent crude up from about US$70 on 2 July to US$87 today, while the Australian government reduced its fuel excise discount by 16 cents a litre.
Service stations have passed the higher wholesale fuel prices on to customers.
Melbourne is facing diesel prices of $2.40 a litre today, up 66 cents from their June low of 173.9c/L, according to Motormouth. Canberra is at 238c/L, Brisbane is at 234.4, Adelaide at 233.7, Sydney 232.8, and 226.4 in Perth.
Unleaded petrol prices have risen to 204.1 cents a litre in Canberra. They’re at 195.6c/L in Melbourne, 195.2 in Brisbane, 192.6 in Adelaide and 191.1, in Sydney – the latter up from its June low of 152.2. Perth has seen the biggest jump, with unleaded at 196.6c/L today, up nearly 50 cents from the June low of 148.3.
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Jewish medical group details ‘increased politicisation’ in the health sector
Healthcare workers need to take caution in what they post to personal social media accounts, a peak body for Jewish medical practitioners warns.
AAP reports senior members of the Australasian Jewish Medical Federation have provided the royal commission into antisemitism with examples of multiple incidents in which people felt unsafe or doctors were rejected by patients because of their cultural identity.
The federation’s president, Jack Green, said the organisation “hardly ever” received reports of antisemitism before Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza.
“There was increased politicisation in the health sector, there were a lot of social media postings,” Green said of the shift.
There were a lot of increasingly distressed Jewish medical practitioners and they started contacting us.
Doctors became afraid to display symbols indicating their Jewish identity and, in one instance, an Israeli-Australian patient experienced significant distress seeing “overt political symbols” in a Northern Territory hospital, Green said.
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Icac witness accepts former NSW Liberal minister did not have extramarital affair despite ‘shit sheet’ claim
Returning to the NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny hearing earlier, witness Dylan Whitelaw was cross-examined over a claim he repeated about a purported extramarital affair by the former NSW Liberal minister David Elliott.
The claims were in a document titled “David Elliott shit sheet” allegedly shared between members of the hard right factional group the Reformers.
Elliott’s lawyer, Bruce Levet, questioned the document which claimed that during the pandemic lockdowns, Elliott was photographed leaving the residence of another woman while his wife was undergoing treatment for cancer. Whitelaw accepted Levet’s submission that Elliott’s wife had treatment for cancer in 2012, not during the pandemic.
He agreed with Levet that he had not seen any photograph, saying he was not aware if “any specific photo” existed. “No one ever showed me,” said Whitelaw. Finally, they had this exchange:
Levet: “I suggest to you that no such affair occurred.”
Whitelaw: “I would accept that.”
Following today’s evidence, Elliott put out a statement reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, in which he strongly rejected any claims of an affair.
I reject all the accusations made by the young boy, Dylan, and his colleagues on the religious right of the Liberal Party.
As most of Sydney knows I’m a devoted husband of 30 years to a beautiful woman who doesn’t deserve to be treated like this by the party she has sacrificed so much for.
Needless to say I’m looking forward to the possibility of providing my own observations should the Commission see fit to invite me to give evidence.
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That’s all for me. Achol Arok will take things from here. Enjoy the arvo.
NSW says it won’t sell koala national park carbon credits to coal and gas companies
The NSW government says it will not sell any carbon credits generated by its planned Great Koala national park to coal and gas companies.
The government said today it had submitted the Great Koala national park to the Clean Energy Regulator for approval under a new carbon method that will allow state governments to earn credits by storing carbon dioxide in native forests on public land.
If approved, the government would cease logging within the park’s boundaries and move legislation to formally establish its long-promised Great Koala national park.
The Minns government wants the park accredited under the new method so that it can use revenue from the carbon credits to fund the park’s management.
But it has faced criticism from some environment groups who object to offsetting on public forests or hold concerns credits could be purchased to offset coal and gas projects.
The NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said on Wednesday if the Clean Energy Regulator approves the project the state government will prioritise selling the ACCUs (Australian Carbon Credit Units) to “targeted manufacturing industries in NSW”. Sharpe said:
ACCUs from the Great Koala national park will not be able to be sold to coal and gas projects.
The Bob Brown Foundation said:
Today’s announcement ruling out trading Great Koala National forests for coal and gas does not rule out making those credits available to facilitate NSW’s biggest industrial emitters such as Port Kembla Steel and Tomago Aluminium.
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Greens renew calls for rent freeze amid inflation data
The Greens say today’s inflation figures, which show inflation unexpectedly easing to 3.8%, still reflect a cost of living reality that is too expensive for Australian households.
The party said housing costs are driving inflation, and there should be a freeze on rents for 12 months and a moratorium on no-cause evictions during the ongoing fuel crisis.
Barbara Pocock, the Greens’ spokesperson for housing, said in a statement:
High inflation means that too many households are just one rent increase away from eviction or homelessness. A rent freeze and ban on evictions will give people more security in a cost of living and fuel crisis.
Households across the country are already doing it tough. They’re struggling to pay their rent and mortgages, as well as the cost of essentials, while they watch their wages go backwards. …
The Government must freeze rents and stop no cause evictions. They need to invest directly and at scale in good quality public housing and stop fiddling at the edges with things like the 5% deposit scheme, which actually pushes prices up to make the housing crisis worse.
Read more here:
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Full scale of mortgage offset failures ‘completely unknown’, says Asic chair
Sarah Court, the Asic chair, at a press conference earlier this morning discussed the regulator’s latest report, which revealed banks’ “significant failures” when it came to managing mortgage offset accounts.
“We have found that banks are failing to deliver interest savings to many of their customers, costing millions of dollars a year in extra interest,” Court said.
The corporate regulator’s report revealed lenders paid $55m in compensation to 264,000 customers over two years to August 2025, and Court said the ultimate number will be higher.
It’s clear that the banks we surveyed may themselves not know the full extent of these issues. The amount of the potential losses to customers at this stage is completely unknown.
The Asic chair detailed some examples of the substantial and often hidden cost of these failures:
In one case, a customer paid more than $3,500 in extra interest in just over one month when their offset account was incorrectly de-linked by their bank.
In another example, two customers paid more than $17,000 in additional interest after the bank failed to inform their broker that the offset account needed to be relinked following refinancing.
Now, many of these failures went undetected until Asic started our work.
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David Pocock is writing an illustrated children’s book about birds
Federal senator David Pocock is writing a new book, a field guide for native birds geared toward children.
Pocock, the independent senator from the ACT, has declared an “advance from Penguin Random House Australia for book contract” on his parliamentary register interests.
Reached for comment, Pocock said he’d have more to say soon, but that it was an illustrated field guide for birds, in conjunction with a local ecologist.
Pocock is a noted wildlife fan, backing the gang gang cockatoo for Guardian Australia’s Bird of the Year poll in 2025.
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Peak medical body says no need for high concentration medicinal cannabis
The president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Dr Michael Wright, says there is “no clinical need” for THC concentrations to be so high in the medicinal cannabis products available in Australia.
Guardian Australia reported that doctors are commonly prescribing high-dose medicinal cannabis containing up to four times the concentration of THC tested in clinical trials. There are adverse events being reported associated with these products, such as psychosis.
THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis.
There is no upper limit for THC concentration allowed in medicinal cannabis products in Australia.
“Concentrations of up to 98% THC have been available to patients,” Wright said.
With the possible exception of palliative care, there’s no situation where such high doses of THC are warranted. High-THC products can heighten anxiety, create cannabis dependency, and in some cases lead to psychosis. The increase we’ve seen in hospital presentations for psychosis is deeply concerning.
According to TGA data, chronic pain and anxiety drive the majority of prescriptions.
This is despite research that has found medicinal cannabis is no more effective than placebo at reducing anxiety symptoms, and a 2018 review concluding there is low quality evidence that cannabis may be associated with small reductions in pain.
Wright said online providers are driving poor prescribing practices.
Online cannabis clinics operating as businesses create conflicts of interest, fragment care, and put patients at risk.
The problem is the vertically integrated, single-issue telehealth model, where patients often self-assess their eligibility for a predetermined treatment.
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Further mention of purported Angus Taylor payments at NSW Icac
The NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny hearing has now concluded for the day. Before it finished, finished former Liberal staffer, Dylan Whitelaw, was asked again about purported payments by the federal opposition leader, Angus Taylor, to the Reformers, who are being investigated by Icac.
This morning, Taylor has said he made no payments to the hard-right factional group after messages read out at the inquiry yesterday purported to show Taylor had agreed with Catholic Schools NSW CEO, Dallas McInerney, to make a one-off payment of $15,000 and a $3,000 monthly donation.
Counsel assisting, Juliet Curtin, had the following exchange with Whitelaw today:
Curtin: “That monthly retainer of $3,000, though, are you able to say whether that had anything to do with the increase that [Reformer-controlled lobbyist] Beckington received in its monthly retainer [from Catholic Schools NSW] from March 2021?”
Whitelaw: “Sorry, I don’t.”
Curtin: “Are you able to say whether there’s a connection between the monthly amount that Angus Taylor had indicated to Mr McInerney that he’s prepared to make and the corresponding increase, well, it appears to be an increase that happened at the same time in the amount that Catholic Schools New South Wales was paying to Beckington?
Whitelaw: “No, I wouldn’t be able to talk to that.”
Taylor is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Updated
Continued from previous post …
On Monday, the inquiry heard a phone call featuring Jean Nassif in which he allegedly claimed he had paid for David Chandler’s removal. He also allegedly claimed that “the fair trading minister is gonna to be one of my girls”.
The inquiry heard that two months after the call, the then Liberal premier, Dominic Perrottet, appointed Eleni Petinos as fair trading minister in a reshuffle. In July 2022, Chandler handed in his resignation following an investigation into his conduct that had been requested by Petinos, which later cleared him of any wrongdoing. The watchdog heard that evidence would determine if Nassif’s call was “an incidence of wishful thinking that serendipitously came to pass” or the result of work by the Reformers.
Spence, Perrottet and Petinos are not named in any allegations, and have not been accused of any wrongdoing.
On Tuesday the NSW Liberal leader, Kellie Sloane, said she had checked in on Petinos, who is on maternity leave. She has not asked Petinos to stand aside from shadow cabinet during the inquiry.
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Inquiry hears about video allegedly circulated to damage building commissioner
Questioning by the NSW Icac of former Liberal staffer Dylan Whitelaw moved earlier to his time working in 2022 in the office of the then Liberal planning minister, Anthony Roberts.
One of the allegations Icac is investigating is whether members of the Reformers solicited or accepted donations from fugitive property developer Jean Nassif in exchange for the pursuit of outcomes including the removal of the then building commissioner, David Chandler.
Whitelaw has described an incident in which Roberts’ chief of staff, Christopher Spence, claimed to have a potentially damaging video of Chandler, with Spence saying he planned to give it to the then fair trading minister and current Liberal shadow minister, Eleni Petinos, to use in budget estimates.
Whitelaw says he is not aware if Spence spoke to Petinos about the video, saying they “were very close”. Asked if Spence had sought to circulate the video to bring about Chandler’s removal, Whitelaw told the inquiry Spence said words to the effect of: “We’ve just got to get rid of this guy”.
Whitelaw says he never saw the video, which he alleges included the imputation Chandler was racist, and included reference to a list of “dodgy” developers or certifiers that the building commissioner had passed on to banks. He says Spence never told him where he had received the video from.
Asked if he knew of Spence’s alleged plan to discredit Chandler at budget estimates “came to fruition”, Whitelaw says he does not, and he did not know why Petinos would want to have Chandler removed.
No, I don’t believe it did because I recall a subsequent conversation occurring … [Spence] walked into the office and said, ‘I can’t believe it, Eleni fucked it up’, excuse my language, or words to that effect.
Petinos is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Updated
Dfat investigating if any Australians affected by Japan quakes
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) is investigating if any Australians were affected by yesterday’s earthquakes in Japan.
A spokesperson for the agency said in a statement:
We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and damage in Japan resulting from the earthquake in Kyushu. Australians in the affected area should follow the advice of local authorities.
Australian officials are liaising with local authorities to determine whether any Australians have been affected. We stand ready to provide consular assistance.
At least 13 people were killed in the temblors and hundreds injured.
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Financial markets slash chance of an RBA rate hike next month
Financial markets have virtually ruled out a Reserve Bank rate hike next month, pricing in just a 4% chance of a move, down from more than 20% at the start of the day, according to Bloomberg.
The dramatic move comes after ABS figures this morning showed a surprise drop in headline inflation to 3.8% in the year to June, from 4%, alongside softer than anticipated underlying price pressures.
In no world is inflation low enough for comfort – something economists have been quick to point out.
Still, the chance of a fourth rate hike this year has plunged to 49%, from 84%, according to financial markets.
Jim Chalmers earlier told journalists in Brisbane that “we know that people are still under pressure”.
The treasurer said:
We know that inflation is still higher than we would like it to be. We know that the war in the Middle East and the uncertain developments, even in the last couple of weeks, risks that outlook as well. But in the circumstances that we find ourselves in, these numbers today are encouraging.
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SA police investigate death of mother and child as a murder-suicide
South Australia police are investigating the deaths of a mother and toddler as a murder-suicide after their bodies were found in the ocean off the coast west of Port Macdonnell.
The 36-year-old mother and her 23-month-old child were located by authorities after emergency services were called to the area when a vehicle was found with its engine running.
The incident has been referred to the coroner to examine the cause and circumstances surrounding the deaths. Police said: “Based on the evidence currently available, the matter is being investigated as a murder-suicide.”
At this time, there is no information to suggest that any person other than the mother and her two children were involved in this heartbreaking incident.
Police are continuing to search for the woman’s second infant, a three-month-old.
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ASX200 back above 9,000 points amid Iran war pause
The Australian sharemarket is bounding upwards for the third day in a row as the US holds off strikes on Iran.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index has risen 1.27% to hit 9,061.86, representing a combined $34bn rise in value across Australia’s 200 biggest public companies. The ASX200 hasn’t closed above 9,000 points since March, when the US-Israel war on Iran first broke out, and swinging either side of 8,800 points until Friday, but has risen steadily in the last three days.
Mineral Resources and Rio Tinto are among the biggest gainers, after the miners reported their latest financial results. Rio has added $3.3bn in value, to hit $62.6bn, while MinRes is up $420m for a valuation of nearly $11bn. BHP, also a miner and the nation’s biggest company, is up 1.92% despite not releasing any results, with a market value of $307bn.
Commonwealth Bank is back to a market value of $302bn, with its shares up 0.85% to $181.11 apiece. All of the big four banks’ share prices have recovered from their post-federal budget slump, which had been prompted by predictions of a lending collapse as investors exited the housing market.
The broader all ordinaries index is up 1.18% to 9,219.2 points, which would be its highest level since early March if maintained. The sharemarket lift this morning was despite the crude oil price picking up to US$88 a barrel, after Iran launched “surprise” strikes on US bases. It extended after new data showed Australian inflation is falling, slashing the chance of an interest rate hike.
Inquiry hears of photos claimed to show Liberal minister’s alleged extramarital affair
Returning to the NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny, the inquiry has heard more about details in an alleged dirt file prepared by the Liberal “Reformers” against former Liberal minister David Elliott.
The inquiry has heard that a document titled “David Elliott shit sheet” had a subheading “Extramarital affair”.
Asked about this detail, former Liberal staffer Dylan Whitelaw says he recalls being told about the alleged affair by Reformers Jeremy Greenwood and Christian Ellis, who claimed they had photos which were evidence of the affair:
The allegation around Mr Elliot and the affair was something that Mr Greenwood and Mr Ellis kept very, very secretive. It wouldn’t tell me much about it at all, apart from the fact that you know they were aware that this was happening and they had photographs of it, but I wasn’t aware of the specific detail.
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Fears for endangered sea lions after Kangaroo Island bird flu detection
Conservationists have expressed fears for Kangaroo Island’s iconic Australian sea lion population, after H5N1 bird flu was detected in a greater crested tern at Seal Bay.
South Australian authorities believe it is “extremely likely” that local transmission of the virus is occurring between birds, after 11 new suspected detections were reported on Wednesday morning.
Alexia Wellbelove, campaigns director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said:
This is the news we feared but predicted given the experience of bird flu internationally. Endangered Australian sea lions are now on the frontline of the potential wildlife crisis, and a positive detection in a greater crested tern at one of the largest breeding colonies means we must be on high alert. With only 12,000 individuals left, the Australian sea lion simply cannot absorb the kind of losses we have seen bird flu inflict on marine mammals overseas.
In South America, this virus killed 30,000 sea lion pups in just six months following transmission from birds to marine mammals. On our own Heard Island, it killed more than 13,000 elephant seal pups in a single season … we now have to face the very real possibility of similar devastation here at home, in a species already teetering on the edge.
Groups including the AMCS and the Invasive Species Council have called on the federal government to establish a $200m national wildlife resilience fund, “focused on emergency protection and recovery for our most at-risk species”.
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Former treasury secretary claims Australia’s climate policy architecture at risk
Former treasury secretary Ken Henry will take aim at other environment and climate advocates in a speech today, making a bold claim that “every bit” of Australia’s climate policy architecture is at risk.
With the Coalition stepping away from net zero climate targets, Henry will warn that renewable energy projects “are being opposed by conservation and community groups because of their environmental impacts”.
In a speech to be delivered today at the Clean Energy Summit in Sydney, Henry, who is now chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, will say:
Environmental restoration projects financed by carbon revenues are being opposed because they are seen to be making life easier for carbon emitters. And a small set of conservation and climate groups is ramping up a campaign to do away with carbon offsetting altogether.
Last week four major groups – The Australian Conservation Foundation, Bob Brown Foundation, the Wilderness Society and Wilderness Australia – published a set of forest principles that included banning the use of carbon and biodiversity offsets from public native forests.
Updated
Inflation eases to 3.8% in the year to June, reducing chance of rate rise
Inflation has dropped to 3.8% in the year to June, from 4% in the previous month, with lower than anticipated underlying price pressures weighing against the chance of another Reserve Bank interest rate hike.
The unexpected drop in headline inflation by the monthly measure was married with a softer than expected 0.8% quarterly increase in the RBA’s preferred trimmed mean measure of price growth, the Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.
Before the latest inflation report, the chance of an 11 August hike had dwindled to 16%, from 50% on Friday, according to financial markets.
The latest consumer price figures come as Iran launched a volley of missiles at US bases in the region, puncturing days of calm and partially reversing some of the steep oil price falls over recent days.
Updated
‘Shit sheet’ prepared by NSW Liberal faction group about minister, inquiry hears
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) has resumed its examination of former Liberal staffer Dylan Whitelaw who yesterday was asked about group chat messages which made reference to a potential donations made by Angus Taylor to the Reformers – a conservative right faction group involved in branch stacking efforts.
This morning, Taylor, who is not accused of any wrongdoing, has denied payments were ever made.
Counsel assisting Juliet Curtin SC has been asking Whitelaw about efforts by the Reformers to brief against the former NSW Liberal minister David Elliott.
Whitelaw says the Reformers – part of the Liberal hard right faction – had a “large distaste” for Elliott, who was a member of the Liberal centre-right faction.
He says he does not recall being asked by a member of the Reformers, Jeremy Greenwood, to prepare a document with negative stories about Elliott. Curtin reads him intercepted messages between from December 2020.
Curtin: You asked Mr Greenwood: “When did you want the Elliot document by?” … You see that?
Whitelaw: Yes.
Curtin: And Mr Greenwood responds: “Take your time on it.”
Whitelaw: Yes.
Curtin: So it does appear that you’ve been asked by Mr Greenwood to prepare a document in relation to a person by the name of Elliot. Would that be David Elliot?
Whitelaw: I would assume so.
Curtin reads him an email with an attachment titled “David Elliott shit sheet” sent by Greenwood to himself 11 days later. Whitelaw says he does not recall seeing the document or giving it that title.
One of the allegations Icac is investigating is whether members of the Reformers solicited or accepted donations from fugitive property developer Jean Nassif in exchange for the pursuit of outcomes, including damage to Elliott’s career.
Whitelaw, who has been described as an associate of the Reformers, has not been named in any allegations.
Updated
Local transmission of H5N1 bird flu ‘extremely likely’ after 11 new detections in SA
Local transmission of H5N1 bird flu in South Australia is “very, very likely”, authorities believe, after 11 new suspected detections were reported today.
Clare Scriven, SA minister for primary industries, said the detections were all in greater crested terns in the state’s south-east, including four on Kangaroo Island.
Scriven said:
Those samples have been sent to the national laboratory in Geelong and we will wait for confirmation, but it is highly likely they are positive for H5 bird flu …
This is concerning but not unexpected. We knew that eventually when bird flu arrived in Australia it would spread. It has spread on every other continent around the globe.
One of the Kangaroo Island detections was at Seal Bay, which has the country’s third-largest Australian sea lion population. Scriven said beach tours there were temporarily paused to keep people separate from the “very vulnerable” animal population.
She added:
It seems extremely likely that we do have that localised distribution …
There has … around the world been local transmission so it was pretty much inevitable it would occur.
There had been no H5 detections in commercial poultry in Australia to date, Scriven said.
Updated
Daniel Andrews pays tribute to Jacinta Allan and says Carroll will win next election
The former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has issued a rare public statement paying tribute to his successor Jacinta Allan and declaring that Labor’s new leader, Ben Carroll, can win the state election in four months’ time.
Andrews said he first met Allan when he was the “most junior official at the ALP Head Office and she was the youngest candidate in a seemingly unwinnable Liberal stronghold in Bendigo.” He went on:
Together, we worked to win that seat and for the next 25 years, to elect Labor governments and deliver a Labor agenda for working people. There is no greater compliment in politics than to say someone lives their values – that has always been true of JA. For nearly three decades, she has been a champion for Bendigo, for workers, for women, for the future of Victoria. I wish Jacinta, Yorick and the kids all the very best for the future.
He also congratulated Carroll on his election, saying he is a “great campaigner who will take it up to the Liberal Party and One Nation.” Andrews said:
I well remember campaigning shoulder to shoulder with Ben in the Niddrie byelection in 2012. I saw then what I know now, he is a great campaigner who will take it up to the Liberal Party and One Nation. Elections like this are won by a handful of votes in a handful of seats. I believe Premier Carroll and his team can win in November. As he has rightly pointed out the stakes are high. Working people across Victoria cannot afford the cuts that will come with a Wilson-Hanson Government. I wish Premier Carroll and his team well for the future.
In his first press conference as leader yesterday, Carroll sought to differentiate himself from Allan and Andrews. He told reporters:
Let me make one thing very clear: I am not Daniel Andrews. I am not Jacinta Allan. I will do things differently, because different times require a new approach.
Carroll comes from the right of the Labor party while Andrews and Allan are members of the Socialist Left.
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Brittany Higgins joins calls for pre-recorded testimony in NSW
Separately, Britanny Higgins joined a coalition of 26 community services and legal academics on Wednesday calling for reforms allowing adult sexual assault complainants to be given the option to prerecord their evidence in NSW, AAP reported.
They argue that current court rules cause unnecessary harm and distress, with serious impacts on survivors’ wellbeing, healing and recovery.
“Justice shouldn’t require survivors to put their lives on hold,” Higgins said.
The option to prerecord evidence recognises that every day spent waiting for trial is another day carrying the emotional weight of what happened to you.
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Higgins legal saga brought to a close with settlement
A workplace lawsuit linked to the Britanny Higgins saga reached a confidential settlement after mediation earlier this month, AAP reports.
Ex-Liberal staffer Fiona Brown, former chief of staff to then senator Linda Reynolds, launched legal action in 2025, alleging the commonwealth failed to stop her from becoming embroiled in a political storm following Higgins’ allegations that she was raped by Bruce Lehrmann in Parliament House.
A criminal trial of Higgins’ allegations was abandoned in 2022 due to juror misconduct. Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence. A defamation case launched by Lehrmann against Network Ten found that Higgins was, on the balance of probabilities, raped by her former colleague in the office.
Brown had alleged former prime minister Scott Morrison and senior office staff did not allow her to publicly defend herself against allegations that she had participated in a political cover-up.
If the matter was not settled, it would have reached a federal trial in 2027, in which Morrison would be put under oath.
A spokesperson for the attorney general, Michelle Rowland, confirmed a settlement had been reached and said further comment would be inappropriate “due to privacy considerations, legal professional privilege and confidentiality obligations”.
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Angus Taylor denies involvement in Icac case
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says no payments were made in relation to a growing corruption case involving members of the NSW Liberal party, insisting he is not a party to the proceedings.
During a press conference in Queensland this morning, Taylor was asked about being named as a potential donor to a conservative Liberal group known as the Reformers, now being investigated by the New South Wales corruption watchdog.
During a hearing as part of Operation Rosny on Tuesday, a screenshot of a text message from the Catholic Schools NSW chief executive, Dallas McInerney, was shown in evidence. The screenshot was sent by Robert Assaf, a member of the Reformers, to a group chat that included Dylan Whitelaw in March 2021.
“I want to shake down Angus for 10k,” the message, read aloud at the inquiry, allegedly said. Asked if “Angus” referred to Angus Taylor, the witness and former staffer Dylan Whitelaw said: “I would assume it’s Angus Taylor”.
Taylor is not accused of any wrongdoing.
“I’m not a party to the proceedings. No payment was made,” Taylor said on Wednesday.
Asked if he would agree to appear as a witness, he said no such request had been made and he would not discuss hypotheticals.
“I haven’t been approached by the commission and I’m not going to give a running commentary,” Taylor said.
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Victoria premier maintains he is a strong supporter of Airport Rail project
Carroll also said his new cabinet would discuss the $34.5bn Suburban Rail Loop project, which was first announced by Daniel Andrews, championed by Jacinta Allan, and received billions of dollars from the federal government in its May budget.
He would not say whether this would involve reviewing the project:
I’m going to run a disciplined, proper cabinet process.
But he did reiterate that he was a supporter of Airport Rail, which had stalled up until recently. Carroll said:
Everyone knows there’s not a stronger supporter for airport rail … than me … airport rail will electrify the north-west – it is a gamechanger, it’s been talked about for a hundred years. And as premier, I’m very focused on airport rail.
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Carroll has already started work on royal commission into the construction sector
The new premier also told reporters he has already asked the Department of Premier and Cabinet to start working on terms of reference for the royal commission into the construction sector he annouced yesterday.
He confirmed the commission will look into the Labor government’s oversight of the Big Build, where corruption is alleged to have occurred.
Carrol said:
I said I want exhaustive terms of reference. No stone unturned. Whether it is top-tier contractors, subcontractors, labour hire, government, unions – these will be exhaustive terms of reference.
New Victorian premier holds first day presser at Kmart
The new Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, started his first full day in the top job at Kmart Bourke Street – a nod to his first job. He told reporters he spent eight years working at Kmart Airport West, calling them “crucible years”.
But he also recalls memories “of being intimidated, of being abused, of being threatened” in the job. It’s why he’s chosen to bring forward the introduction of legislation his predecessor Jacinta Allan had already committed to: establishing workplace protection orders.
Under the bill, the courts will have the power to ban or limit people’s access to workplaces when they treat frontline workers unacceptably for up to 12 months.
Breaching an order could result in up to two years in prison or a fine of up to $50,000.
The protections apply across all retail businesses and specified train, tram and bus operators. If passed, the scheme will begin on 29 July 2027 to allow further consultation and to ensure vulnerable people aren’t caught up.
Carroll told reporters:
This is a big reform, it’s been trialled in the ACT but this is going to be nation-leading and we want to make sure we get this right.
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NSW police seize millions in drugs, grenades and ammunition during raid
A young man and woman were arrested after police seized millions of dollars worth of drugs, multiple grenades, ammunition and guns at an alleged safe house.
AAP reports detectives made the find during a raid on a home in Glenfield in Sydney’s south-west on Tuesday morning.
Weapons including six grenades, three semi-automatic assault rifles, four shotguns, a pistol, firearm parts and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition were allegedly found at the scene.
Six kilograms of cocaine, a kilogram each of methylamphetamine and ketamine, 15kg of cannabis, 1.1kg of heroin and 107 grams of MDMA were also allegedly discovered there.
The man and woman, both 26, were arrested and charged. The man faces 27 offences and was refused bail. The woman was charged with organising/conducting/assisting drug premises and granted conditional bail. Both will appear before the courts.
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Significant traffic delays in Sydney this morning
Sydney commuters, some frustrating news if you’re already running late for work:
The M5 corridor is backed up for kilometres heading into the city, with roads closed between Beverly Hills and Mascot due to emergency work in the main tunnel.
Heavy traffic is queued on the artery, with motorists advised to avoid the area and consider other routes.
There’s no forecast yet as to when the motorway will reopen to citybound traffic.
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Search to continue for missing infant in South Australia
A search will continue this morning in South Australia for a missing infant in the waters off Port MacDonnell.
The baby has been missing for days after the bodies of a mother and toddler were pulled from the ocean before treacherous cliffs in the small coastal town.
Police have been searching for the infant since Monday. They had to end the effort yesterday afternoon due to severe weather conditions.
Dan Tehan sidesteps questions on Angus Taylor’s links to Icac inquiry
Dan Tehan, the shadow minister for energy, didn’t answer any questions this morning after Angus Taylor was named as a potential donor to a conservative Liberal group being investigated by the New South Wales corruption watchdog (Icac).
Taylor is not accused of any wrongdoing. The opposition leader said yesterday the matter should be “allowed to run their course free from political interference or commentary. As such, the leader will not be providing a running commentary on any matters before the commission”.
Tehan was asked if the Icac inquiry risked becoming a distraction for Taylor if he doesn’t clarify his relationship with the group from the hard-right faction of the Liberals, known as the Reformers. But Tehan told RN Breakfast the focus should remain on the government in power while Icac “does its job”. He said:
Let’s let Icac do its job. And in the meantime, let’s focus on the person who’s running this country.
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Specially designed Airbus completes marathon 24-hour flight before joining Qantas fleet
A specially modified Airbus A350 plane touched down in France Tuesday after a record 24-hour test flight from Australia, ahead of it joining Qantas’s fleet next year, Agency France-Presse reports.
Its 23,076-kilometre journey – across three continents and two oceans, and through two sunsets and two dawns – was one of the most-watched flights shown on the Flightradar24 tracking site.
It was also a crucial step before Australian airline Qantas receives its first A350-1000ULR in April next year, to be followed by 11 others for services able to link Australia non-stop to destinations in the United States and Europe.
The ULR in its designation stands for “ultra long distance”, a feat made possible by an additional 20,000-litre rear centre fuel tank being fitted to Airbus’s A350-1000 model.
The flight from Australia to France took precisely 24 hours and 24 minutes.
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Angus Taylor’s approval rating crashes and One Nation support plateaus
One Nation’s primary vote has plateaued and Angus Taylor’s approval rating has crashed, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.
But it is not all smooth sailing for Labor, with Australians rubbishing the government’s handling of the inflation and cost-of-living crisis.
Australians have also shown their reluctance to embrace new AI datacentres, with less than a third saying they’d be happy to have a facility in their local area and sharing concerns about energy demands, water supply, environmental impacts and noise.
The Guardian Essential poll, of 1,060 voters last week, found One Nation’s popularity was continuing to level off, attracting a 25% primary vote, down one point from June’s poll. Meanwhile while Labor’s indicative primary vote ticked up one point to 31%, the Coalition’s vote dropped further, down another point to 22%.
Read more here:
Kazem Hamad sentenced to life in prison in Iraq
A former Melbourne gangster believed to be a key player in the city’s tobacco wars has been sentenced to life in prison in Iraq.
Kazem Hamad was given a life sentence for “drug trafficking” by Iraq’s Karkh criminal court, according to the National Centre for International Judicial Cooperation (NCIJC).
It added that the sentence includes “the confiscation of his movable and immovable assets in accordance with the law”.
Hamad was deported from Australia to Iraq in 2023, where he was arrested in January this year “in response to an official request from Australia”, the NCIJC said.
He “is considered one of the most wanted individuals by Iraqi and international judiciaries”, the centre said, adding that Hamad smuggled “large quantities of narcotics” into Iraq and Australia.
He is also “linked to transnational organised crime gangs involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, murder, kidnapping, extortion, and organised violence”, the NCIJC said.
Read more here:
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Former Victoria premier says Ben Carroll will move to market himself as a ‘new’ type of Labor leader
Steve Bracks, a former Labor premier of Victoria, said he believes Jacinta Allan had “no option” but to resign after losing the confidence of her colleagues.
Bracks spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying Allan had been in office for decades and would leave a lasting legacy in the state:
Look, Jacinta Allen has been a great contributor to public life in Victoria over a long period of time. She was first elected in 1999. … She’s achieved so much over such a long period of time, and she’ll go down as one of the great contributors to public life in Victoria.
Bracks said he thinks Ben Carroll, who was chosen as the new premier yesterday, will bring a “fresh approach” to government:
He’ll market himself as not a fourth-term Labor leader, but as a new Labor leader, a new Labor leader in a new term with a new set of policies and programs. And that’s really what he’s going to set out to do. I know it’s a very short time between now and November to get that across, but he’ll do everything he can to do that.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers spoke with his new UK counterpart, Chancellor John Healey, by phone last night
It’s the first conversation since the new UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, took over and since Healey replaced Rachel Reeves in 11 Downing Street.
“Really appreciated the chance to touch base with John so soon after he was appointed Chancellor,” Chalmers said.
He’d have a lot on his mind and the briefing would be really intensive so it’s good of him to make time. Our first conversation augurs well for a really beneficial working relationship.
I’ve been fortunate with the chancellors I’ve worked with on both sides of politics.
The pair discussed global challenges and plans to meet in person in the months ahead.
“At a time of great uncertainty there’s no shortage of challenges in the global economy and we are more likely to rise to the occasion when friends like Australia and the UK work together,” Chalmers said.
CSIRO head to defend agency – and job cuts – in press club address
The head of Australia’s national science agency will defend planned job cuts, warning without a refocus the organisation risks doing nothing at scale in the future, AAP reports.
In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, the CSIRO’s chief executive, Doug Hilton, is expected to address the agency’s choice to cut jobs from key areas in the face of funding pressures.
He is expected to say the organisations faced a sobering backlog of essential repairs and renewal at the end of 2025. More than 80% of CSIRO’s 800 buildings were no longer fit for purpose, he will say.
Hilton is expected to say the leadership team chose to exit some areas of science and narrow its focus rather than run the risk of doing nothing at scale.
Last November, the science agency said up to 350 research positions would be slashed as the “cost of doing science has gone up”.
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Good morning, Nick Visser here to guide you through the day’s news. Let’s get to it.
Bill Shorten backs royal commission into the construction sector
Former union boss and former leader of the Labor party Bill Shorten has leant his support behind newly crowned Victorian premier Ben Carroll’s announcement he will call a royal commission into the construction sector.
Shorten told 7.30 last night:
He wants to act with integrity, and he wants to act in everyone’s interests.
I think he understands [what] people will be assessing: is he serving the people or is he just playing politics? So I thought he was very straight. He’s in there for Victorians, not trying to just tick the box and get particular interest groups on side.
Shorten, former national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union before entering parliament in 2007, said Carroll’s call yesterday to set up a royal commission was timely.
I think the national mood or the state mood was there for it. I just think that the costs of construction … there may be exaggerations, but there is something rotten going on in construction, and people want to see it can be dealt with. This is public infrastructure, so it’s taxpayer money.
You can read more about Carroll’s announcement here:
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Jacinta Allan the victim of 'vile' sexism, Julia Gillard says
Former prime minister Julia Gillard says departing Victorian premier Jacinta Allan has been subjected to “vile sexism” during her term in office.
Posting on Instagram yesterday, Gillard said Allan would be remembered as a role model and trailblazer who governed for all Victorians, but particularly for the lives of women and girls.
There is no doubt that as the second woman to lead the state, she has been subjected to vile sexism.
She has been courageous in calling it out and combating this misogyny. As a result, she has made it easier for the women that follow.
Gillard herself went viral globally in 2012, after delivering her now famous misogyny speech attacking the opposition leader Tony Abbott in the Australian parliament. The 15-minute tirade against Abbott inspired a range of diverse musical adaptations of the speech from classical choral arrangements to punk anthems.
Gillard, who represented the Victorian electorate of Lalor from 1998 to 2013, now sits on the boards and trusts of a number of NGOs focusing on health and women’s rights, and works the speaking circuit.
Her post also congratulated the man who toppled Allan as premier, Ben Carroll.
I know how hard working he is and how much he cares about ensuring every child gets the best possible start in life. I wish him and his team well in the months to come.
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Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Nick Visser with the main action.
