What we learned today, Friday 17 May
We are wrapping up the blog for tonight. Here’s what made the news:
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, revealed Australia, in coordination with international partners, would be imposing financial sanctions on six bodies associated with North Korea’s arms exports to Russia.
A pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Monash ended while the University of Queensland calls for an end to the encampment on its campus.
Negotiations over the Melbourne university encampment remain in deadlock.
Three A-League players were arrested this morning, after an investigation by the organised crime squad into alleged betting corruption under Strike Force Beaconview.
Half a million Australians may have phones that won’t connect to triple zero after the 3G network shuts down, a situation the federal government says is “deeply concerning”.
Alcohol consumption is decreasing across the country, but city-dwellers are curbing their drinking at higher rates than their regional counterparts, a study has found.
Enjoy your evening.
Updated
Chalmers dismisses Dutton’s budget reply as 'unhinged'
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has dismissed the opposition leader, Peter Dutton’s, budget reply speech as “unhinged” and lacking in economic credibility.
With parliament now on a break for a week, Chalmers has headed to Port Augusta in South Australia with the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, and South Australian state and federal colleagues to promote the government’s renewable energy transition agenda which it calls the Future Made in Australia. But the treasurer was also focused on criticising Dutton’s reply speech, delivered in parliament last night.
“All we got from Peter Dutton was the usual unhinged, nasty, nuclear negativity in the rant which he tried to pass off as a budget in reply,” Chalmers said. He accused the opposition leader of failing to explain how he would pay for the suite of measures he promised a future Coalition government would deliver, including more generous tax cuts and the construction of nuclear reactors at unspecified sites around Australia.
Dutton also promised to cut the number of incoming permanent migrants annually from 185,000 to 160,000 to address the nation’s housing shortage.
Tuesday’s federal budget capped migration at 185,000 places with most dedicated to skilled workers.
Chalmers said Dutton was just “scratching around for something to say in a budget reply speech”.
Updated
