What we learned, Thursday 19 February
Thanks for staying with our live news blog today. We’ll wrap our coverage there. Here were the top stories:
Coles admitted in court to strong-arming a supplier and threatening to pull products off shelves amid its “Down Down” campaign.
Aid agency Save the Children said the Australian children detained in Syrian camps are “desperate” to leave.
Formula One fans learned Victoria has lost the MotoGP to South Australia.
The unemployment rate held at 4.1% in January, beating expectations of a rise.
Anthony Albanese said “of course” there was a link between Pauline Hanson’s rhetoric and threats to a Sydney mosque.
A Sydney man has been charged over alleged death threats to a federal parliamentarian, while a Queanbeyan man will face court over allegedly posting threatening remarks about two federal MPs on social media.
And NSW’s Fair Trading warned a business is claiming false links to Bondi terror attack.
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ASX200 hits new record high
Australia’s share market has spiked to a new high as commodity price strength buoyed miners and energy stocks, AAP reports.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 hit a new intraday record of 9,118.3 points on Thursday, before easing to close at 9,086.2, up 0.88% from Wednesday.
The heavyweight financials sector advanced 1.4%, with Commonwealth Bank shares hitting six-month highs before settling at $178.19, a 0.7% rise from yesterday. The other three big banks rose more than 2%.
Energy outperformed the broader market after oil prices spiked overnight on tensions between the US and Iran, and failed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Woodside and Santos share prices rose more than 4%.
Buy-now, pay-later provider and former market darling Zip lost about a third of its market value after reporting lower revenue than expected thanks to bad debts and profit margin pressures.
Man charged over alleged online threats to MPs
A 51-year-old man will face court over allegedly posting threatening remarks about two federal MPs on social media.
The Australian federal police set up new teams targeting people harming social cohesion and threatening federal parliamentarians in October. Those National Security Investigations teams began investigating a set of threatening posts on a social media platform in January.
Investigators searched a Queanbeyan home on Tuesday and seized electronic devices and other items, police said. They later served a court attendance notice on the 51-year-old for one count of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.
That offence carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. The man is set to appear before Queanbeyan local court on 13 April.
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Capital gains tax inquiry to hear from ex-chiefs of Treasury, RBA and Labor
Next week’s hearings in the Greens-led inquiry into the capital gains tax discount have quite the witness list.
Published in the past few minutes, the hearings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are set to include evidence from Labor luminary Bill Kelty, ABC TV presenter Alan Kohler, former Treasury and Reserve Bank boss Bernie Fraser, economist Saul Eslake and money manager Geoff Wilson.
The Greens senator Nick McKim is leading the inquiry, held as the federal government considers scaling back the 50% discount to help first home buyers. The Coalition have ruled out support for any change to the rules.
New figures from the Parliamentary Budget Office this month showed the discount has cost the budget $205bn in lost revenue since its introduction. Australia’s soaring property prices and investor demand will push the total price tag to $247bn over the next 10 years.
The 50% capital gains tax discount applies to any investment held longer than 12 months. Introduced by the Howard government in 1999, it has been blamed, along with negative gearing rules, for promoting housing as an investment mechanism for wealthier Australians over the rights of would-be owner-occupiers.
Federal Labor went to the 2016 and 2019 elections promising to pare back the discount, but lost both times to the Coalition.
With Greens pressure, and a focus on intergenerational fairness from Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the arrangements could be changed as soon as the May budget. We will bring you coverage of the hearings next week.
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Migrants should answer test questions on their values, says Nationals senator
The Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie has said some “cohorts” of migrants don’t make significant contributions to Australia.
McKenzie said immigrants should be tested and required to answer questions about their personal values before coming to Australia. When asked whether Muslim migrants should be asked whether they believe in sharia law, McKenzie told the ABC:
We need to have workable options on how derive those answers because not good enough to say if you apply and you’ve got the skill sets that we need, you can come in.
… I think there are cohorts that significantly make contributions irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds and there’s ones that don’t.
… I think we can frame it around values. Because it isn’t about faith, it’s about how … Islamic terrorism is a specific radicalised element of the Muslim faith and [we need] to go into values and how they are expressed and how forcefully they are held.
McKenzie also said she did not support Pauline Hanson’s comments suggesting there were no “good Muslims”. Asked whether politicians should reject Hanson’s language more forcefully, McKenzie claimed Australians were frustrated about immigration levels. She said:
Every time someone stands up, someone like me … to have the respectful debate on behalf of the Australian community, you’re labelled a racist. We need to able to deal with the substantive challenges Australians have told us all they are concerned about, without demonising any one group in our beautiful democracy.
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Liberals split on RBA putting prices over jobless rate
The deputy Liberal leader has disagreed with her party’s new treasury spokesperson’s call for the Reserve Bank to put less focus on keeping unemployment low.
Tim Wilson, the shadow treasurer, called for the RBA to focus on fighting inflation above all else, according to the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday.
The RBA has a “dual mandate” when setting interest rates: it has to keep prices stable and support Australia’s jobs market. Wilson called for a review into the dual mandate, arguing it had led the RBA to make mistakes in recent years.
Jane Hume, the deputy Liberal leader, did not agree when asked by the ABC. She said:
That is Tim Wilson’s position, that is not something I have ever said. I believe RBA’s dual mandate has worked well for them in the past but their focus must be on bringing down inflation first and foremost. …
I haven’t heard Tim’s comments but what I would say is: when the RBA is working in tandem with the government, that is when the RBA they can do their best work.
… If the RBA are finding their job too hard to do because they end up working against a government that’s got an entirely different agenda, well, then, perhaps their mandate should be revised, but I haven’t seen a reason for that to be so.
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Hume says Hanson comments on Muslims ‘inflammatory’
The deputy Liberal leader has described Pauline Hanson’s comments about Muslim Australians as “inflammatory”, saying there is “reason to listen” to those feeling unsafe.
The Lakemba Mosque received a threatening letter on Wednesday, as well as two more in recent weeks. Hanson had two days earlier suggested there were no “good” Muslims.
Jane Hume, the Liberal frontbencher, was asked whether she agreed with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, when he said that comments like Hanson’s could lead to threats against Muslim Australians.
Hume did not directly say whether she agreed. She told the ABC:
I think her comments were inflammatory. I disassociate myself from them completely.
We all have a responsibility to speak the truth but we also have a responsibility to be careful with our language. Pauline wasn’t here, but is a terrible phrase she used and I was pleased to see her newest recruit in Barnaby Joyce even distanced himself from her language.
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Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume says detained Australians should be denied passports
The deputy Liberal leader, Jane Hume, has called for the group of 34 Australians detained in a Syrian camp to be denied passports
Hume said she did not believe the estimated 20 Australian children should not be removed from their parents the camp, the wives and widows of Islamic State fighters. She told the ABC:
We believe they should be denied passports. If the rules need to be changed to allow the government to do that … then the Coalition will help with that because that should be the number one priority.
Hume said she agreed with the principle that children were not responsible for parents’ decisions, when asked. However, she told the ABC:
I do agree with that premise instinctively, but we are also not inclined to split families up and take children away from their parents. That of course is fraught with its own difficulties, and let’s face it, the parents of these children have actively removed them from a safe environment in Australia or had children while overseas.
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KPMG asks Sydney writers’ festival to delete its name from website after Randa Abdel-Fattah confirmed as speaker
Global accounting giant KPMG has distanced itself from the Sydney writers’ festival, requesting its name be removed from the event’s website where it was listed as a corporate partner.
The move follows the festival scheduling Palestinian Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah to speak at two sessions in this year’s event.
A KPMG spokesperson confirmed the change on Thursday, telling the Guardian in a statement: “We are the auditor of the company, which we do not define as a ‘partner’. This is now reflected on their website.”
The spokesperson would not confirm whether the scheduling of Abdel-Fattah had prompted the move, but said the company had received calls expressing concern over this issue.
They confirmed that in previous years, KPMG had been comfortable with being described as a partner on the festival’s website. KPMG has provided auditing services to SWF at a discounted rate since 2023.
The writers’ festival said in a statement that KPMG, according to the firm’s own statement, did not consider itself a partner of the event.
“The website now reflects this,” the festival said in a statement. “SWF have many wonderful partners and supporters, and we are grateful to all of them.”
Read the full story here:
Coles strong-armed supplier and threatened to pull products off shelves amid ‘down down’ campaign
Coles has admitted to strong-arming suppliers by threatening to strip products from shelves if they refused to meet the retailer’s pricing demands, AAP reports.
The supermarket giant is fiercely defending claims by the consumer watchdog that it deliberately misled customers during the nationwide “down down” promotion by hiking prices on everyday items, then offering discounts at prices higher or equal to the original shelf price.
One Nature’s Gift pet food item sold for 10 months at $4, then was bumped up to $6 for a week before being reduced to the “down down” price of $4.50, the court was previously told.
Coles received rebates from suppliers when their products were discounted and promoted.
Coles’ senior category manager for pets, Paul Carroll, threatened to pull the Nature’s Gift pet product range from shelves over pricing and a dispute over rebates during negotiations with the supplier, the federal court in Melbourne was told on Thursday.
Carroll also offered Real Pet Food, the supplier, a “steer” to reach an agreement that Coles could accept, before placing existing product shipments on hold, emails read out to the court revealed.
While Carroll admitted to writing the emails, he said his intention was to reduce costs for the benefit of customers. He argued he “genuinely cared about the customers” before ultimately agreeing that it was about driving sales for the supermarket giant. The case continues.
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Medibank Private reports 11% fall in profit over second half of 2025
Australia’s biggest listed health insurer has seen profits slide as consumers move to lower levels of cover.
Medibank Private on Thursday reported an 11% fall in bottom-line net profit to $302.9m in the second half of 2025, compared to the same period in 2024.
The company had seen its market value surge $740m yesterday after the government announced it would let health insurers lift premiums by 4.41%.
After today’s disappointing result, traders sold out of the company, which shed $790m in value.
The number of people signing up with Medibank increased, with resident policyholders up 38,300, with the company saying strong numbers of 25- to 30-year-olds were joining up.
Medibank warned investors that customers were switching policies more often, putting the business under pressure. Its results announcement read:
Cost-of-living pressures continue to impact the industry, with rising switching rates and aggregators increasing their share of joins. The unsustainable competitive environment is moderating, but pockets of heightened competition remain.
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Thanks Nick Visser and good afternoon readers. I’ll be with you for the rest of today’s breaking news.
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That’s all from me. Luca Ittimani will take things from here. Enjoy your Thursday.
Sydney man charged with terrorism offences
A Sydney man was charged with terrorism offences after officers seized several multiple phones during a vehicle stop last year.
NSW police said officers first stopped a vehicle in Sydney’s south west on 31 December 2025. They searched the vehicle and allegedly seized an amount of drugs, cash and three mobile phones. A man, 31, was arrested and charged with drug offences as well as recklessly dealing with the proceeds of crime less than $5,000, among other charges.
Later, investigators examined the phones and allege they contained violent extremist material. This week, officers conducted a search warrant at a home in Bass Hill, seizing more phones, storage devices and a knife.
The man was arrested and taken to the police station, where he was charged with using a carriage service to possess violent extremist material, among other charges.
He was refused bail and will appear before court next month.
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NBN plans to launch first low-earth orbit satellite services by end of 2026
NBN Co is proposing to retail internet providers that its low-earth orbit satellite internet services will initially be priced on a wholesale price less than or equal to the wholesale price cost (currently up to just over $66 per month, depending on speed) for the Skymuster satellite plus services already in the market.
The speed tiers proposed to industry today would be 50 megabits-per-second (Mbps) download, 10Mbps upload, and 100Mbps/20Mbps.
The initial pricing will be maintained for the first two financial years post launch, subject to annual CPI changes.
The wholesale prices will apply to existing Skymuster customers who order an upgrade within 90 days of services becoming available, and would include $0 cost for customer equipment and installation.
NBN Co has tapped Amazon’s low-earth orbit service to supply the connections, which is due to begin testing and trials in Tasmania between July and September this year.
The rollout will depend on Amazon’s global deployment, but NBN Co has said it is planning to make the service available to the first Australian customers between October and December this year.
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The year of the fire horse – explained
As the lunar new year begins, the focus has turned to the Chinese zodiac and the arrival of the year of the fire horse – a rare pairing in the 60-year lunar cycle.
Drawing on Chinese metaphysics, the fire horse blends the horse’s reputation for energy and independence with the intensity of the fire element, giving it a distinct place in the zodiac tradition.
How and when does the fire horse occur? What are the personality traits of the fire horse? Is the fire horse something to fear?
Read on:
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Taylor: ‘They shouldn’t be allowed back in’
Taylor was pressed about the women and children who are in Syria. He maintained that everyone should be kept from entering the country:
The fact of the matter is, these people are supporters of ISIS. They went to another country to support ISIS, and shouldn’t be coming back into the country. It includes these families. I’ve been clear about that.
There’s no proposal to bring the children back without [their parents]. Let’s be clear about that. … These people left Australia, they left Australia to support a terrorist organisation that has heinous views, a heinous ideology, completely at odds with what we believe with our way of life, and they shouldn’t be allowed back in.
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Taylor says government should have power to deny passports to Australian citizens
Opposition leader Angus Taylor just spoke on the Gold Coast.
He said the government should have the power to refuse to grant a passport to some Australian citizens amid the controversy surrounding the 34 women and children who are linked to Islamic State fighters and are detained in Syria.
Taylor said:
If this person is going to bring hatred and to our part of the world, does not accept our way of life, does not accept our core beliefs, the government should be doing everything it can to stop them from coming back. And if we need to work with the government and pass legislation, to tighten legislation, to make sure that they can’t come back, we will do that.
I was clear about this on day one in this role. We need to see this government shut the door.
Taylor was asked if Australian citizens have a right to return to Australia. He said:
I don’t believe people who want to bring hate and violence from another part of the world to Australia – people who do not believe in our core beliefs – should be coming into the country. It’s as simple as that. This government has not answered the most basic questions about why these people are coming back to Australia.
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eBay buys Depop for US$1.2bn in bid to capture younger shoppers
Online seller eBay has agreed to purchase secondhand fashion marketplace Depop from Etsy for about US$1.2bn in cash, the companies announced on Wednesday, with eBay hoping the acquisition will help it capture a younger demographic.
The deal comes at a time when used clothing has become increasingly popular, sought out by gen Z shoppers searching for unique items that cost less than new ones, and who want to keep older items from heading to landfill.
Depop, based in London, is expected to retain its name, brand, platform and its culture, the companies said. It was founded in 2011.
“We are confident that as part of eBay, Depop will be even more well positioned for long-term growth, benefiting from our scale, complementary offerings, and operational capabilities,” eBay’s CEO, Jamie Ianonne, said.
Read more here:
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Steady jobs market supports RBA’s reasons for rate hike, economists say
Continued strength in Australia’s jobs market shows the Reserve Bank was right to say hiring was “tight”, economists have said.
As we reported, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1% in January, when markets had expected it to rise.
The RBA raised interest rates this month to tackle rising inflation, which can be worsened by strong hiring and a low jobless rate.
Today’s data showed the RBA’s judgment the jobs market is tight was correct, according to AMP economist Diana Mousina. She also pointed to underemployment figures staying near their historical low, showing relatively few workers want more hours:
Fundamentally this means that there is little ‘spare capacity’ in the labour market – people who want a job can more or less readily find one and workers are being used to their full capacity for consumer spending.
While the jobs market was already stretched, today’s data did not suggest it was stretching further, according to Devika Shivadekar, an economist with RSM:
With hours worked rising faster than employment, the data suggest firms are relying more on existing staff to meet demand rather than expanding headcount.
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Syrian camp ‘one of the most difficult places in the world to be a child’
The Australians stuck in “one of the [world’s] worst” detention camps want to cooperate with strict security demands, the head of Save the Children has said.
The government has refused to repatriate 34 Australian citizens, who are the wives and children of Islamic State fighters, from Syrian detention camps. Those citizens are desperate to leave the camp and would comply with security agencies, according to Mat Tinkler, Save the Children’s chief exective. He told the ABC:
I go to a lot of refugee camps around the world and I can tell you without a doubt this is one of the worst. This is one of the most difficult places in the world to be a child.
Tinkler acknowledged the government had security concerns about the women and has temporarily banned one of them from entering Australia. He said the women were willing to work with Australian agencies:
They have all said they will cooperate fully with law enforcement authorities. In the past, they volunteered to be subjected to terrorism control orders which would be conditions placed on who they meet, wither they live, how they communicate with people. … The best way to mitigate any risk that they pose is to put faith in our security and enforcement agencies.
Read more here:
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Australian children ‘desperate’ to leave Syrian camps, aid agency says
The 20 Australian children detained in Syrian camps have been left “devastated” by the government’s refusal to help them return to their home country, the head of Save the Children has said.
The prime minister has repeatedly said the government will not help repatriate the 34 Australian women and children – wives and children of Islamic State fighters – from their detention camps.
Mat Tinkler, the Save the Children chief exective, said 20 of those 34 were children, some of whom had “never seen a tree” having grown up in detention.
He told the ABC:
We have staff who are supporting the women and children in the camp in Syria, and what I know is that they’re devastated by what’s happened in the last few days, having spent almost seven years of their lives – some of these kids have never seen a tree – and to finally get on a bus and you’re on your way to safety and back home to Australia, only to be turned around, and even then they’ve been displaced from within the camp because their tents have been re-purposed.
They are devastated. They are desperate to get home to Australia. … We have means to put that tragedy to an end right now if we just show courage, the moral clarity and the political will to do what’s right for these innocent Australian children.
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Property developers spark anger over plan to clear woodland home to Baudin’s and Carnaby’s black cockatoos
Property developers in Perth plan to bulldoze an endangered banksia ecosystem used by threatened black cockatoo species, and conservationists have warned the damage cannot be mitigated by proposed offsets.
The developers want to replant the banksia ecosystem within a different type of protected woodland – a proposal that a leading botanist said was doomed to fail.
The woodland to be bulldozed for three housing developments is home to species including the threatened Baudin’s and Carnaby’s black cockatoos.
Prof Kingsley Dixon, a restoration expert and the national expert on the ecosystem – known as the banksia woodlands of the Swan coastal plain – said he had “deep concerns” about the proposal to offset clearing by trying to create banksia woodlands from scratch within another woodland type in protected reserves around Perth.
Read more here:
Jacinta Allan backs CFMEU administrator to ‘weed out the bad apples’
Allan says she’s confident the administrator of the CFMEU was “weeding out the bad apples”. She went on:
Victoria police is making arrests. We have addressed the areas of our responsibility here in the Victorian government, making sure the private companies are required to report these matters, making sure that workers are protected. Because it’s those workers that I am firmly focused on. That’s why a royal commission doesn’t support those workers. It’s about clawing back their wages.
She also refused to comment on a report in the Herald Sun this morning that she met with former premier, Daniel Andrews, after his trip to China last year, in which he posed in a group photo that included Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. Allan said:
I meet regularly with a whole range of former premiers, former ministers from both sides of politics. I’m not going to comment on the conversations I have with those individuals, but let’s remember we’re talking about this because I brought transparency to the ministerial diary process. We introduced the requirement for ministers to report and to publish their diaries.
The very reason we can have this conversation is because I enhanced transparency in this state around the meetings that I and other ministers of the government hold with individuals, with private companies, with a whole range of organisations here in Victoria.
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Victorian premier dismisses report of internal push for CFMEU royal commission
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, held a press conference at parliament this morning, which she began by dismissing a report in the ABC that suggested Labor MPs were calling for a royal commission into corruption within the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union.
Allan told reporters “no one in the caucus” had raised a royal commission with her. She went on:
I’m just not going to respond this morning to anonymous gossip, but I’ll repeat why I don’t support a royal commission. The claims don’t stack up. There has already been a royal commission that failed. And furthermore, when Liberals call for a royal commission, it’s all about wanting to claw back workers’ wages, go industry by industry, cutting into workers’ wages. And that is absolutely something I do not support.
She also defended comments made by her attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny, and police minister, Anthony Carbines, who launched an attack on anti-corruption lawyer Geoffrey Watson yesterday. Allan said:
I support the work of my police minister, I support the work of the attorney general … The attorney general made a really important statement yesterday, a statement that just shouldn’t apply to people who are people who come from the legal profession. It should apply to all of us – to politicians, to journalists, to anyone who has a position from which they can commentate on these matters. To repeat unfounded claims is reckless. It is reckless behaviour.
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Victoria loses MotoGP to South Australia
One of the weird things about South Australia (along with building a one-way expressway, pie floaters, and a half-hour time difference) is how long it’s held a grudge about Victoria stealing the Formula One Grand Prix.
In 1993, then Victorian premier Jeff Kennett presided over the coup that left residents of the middle bottom bit of the nation aggrieved for decades.
Today, South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas announced that, in what will be seen by some as revenge being served cold, Victoria’s MotoGP will move to SA.
After almost 30 years at Phillip Island, the event will run on the original Adelaide grand prix street circuit from 2027.
Before the announcement, Kennett told ABC Adelaide radio he was “both crying and laughing”:
I’m crying because it’s leaving. I’m laughing because your premier has just taken another page from the Jeff Kennett bible.
He’s gone and borrowed the MotoGP … but don’t think it’s in Adelaide forever, because Phillip Island is a most wonderful circuit, and I’ve just got a feeling in my bones we’re going to get it back.
We never stole the Grand Prix. We borrowed it. The only thing is we forgot to give it back. And I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Peter has borrowed the MotoGP … I’m all for borrowing it back.
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Unemployment rate holds at 4.1% in January
The unemployment rate remained at 4.1% in January, extending the extraordinary resilience of the post-pandemic jobs market but also underlining the potential for further Reserve Bank rate hikes this year.
The number of employed Australians climbed by 17,800 in January, with a solid 50,500 rise in full-time jobs offset by a 32,700 drop in part-time employment, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The underemployment rate, which measures those with jobs but who are trying to get more hours, lifted from 5.7% in December to 5.9% in the new figures.
The latest jobs numbers come after wages figures on Wednesday showed decent growth in workers’ pay rates were not enough to keep up with resurgent inflation in the back half of last year.
The RBA board, which hiked rates earlier this month, believes the labour market is a “little tight” and so would be contributing to inflationary pressures.
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Telstra reports net profit of $1.1bn for second half of 2025
Australia’s biggest telecommunications company has beaten earnings expectations and increased its payout to shareholders after its strong mobile business offset continued weakness in its enterprise division, AAP reports.
Telstra on Thursday delivered a $1.1bn net profit for the six months to 31 December, up 9.4% from the same time in 2024. Revenue climbed 0.3% to $11.6bn.
Chief executive Vicki Brady said it was a strong period for Telstra.
“We delivered ongoing growth in earnings, reflecting momentum across our business, strong cost control and disciplined capital management,” Brady said.
Telstra’s mobile business brought in $2.6bn in earnings. Its average revenue per mobile user rose 5.1% to $45.47 after hiking prices in July, with the cost of most postpaid mobile plans climbing by between $3 and $5 a month.
Despite the price increase, Telstra managed to add another 135,000 mobile customers during the half.
Telstra said it would pay an interim dividend of 10.5 cents per share, with 9.5 cents of that franked and one cent unfranked, up from a fully franked 9.5 cent per share interim dividend a year ago.
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Linda Burney joins UTS board with a mission to boost Aboriginal participation
Linda Burney has been appointed to her first public role since leaving federal parliament, joining the board of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in a move the New South Wales government hopes will restore faith in the embattled institution.
Burney, the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the federal House of Representatives, ended her two-decade career in politics in early 2025, departing as the minister for Indigenous Australians in mid-2024 and formally leaving office at the end of the 47th parliament.
The Wiradjuri woman carried much of the public weight of the failed voice to parliament referendum, even as she faced some private health challenges.
She said it was not the referendum defeat but a desire to “pass on the baton to the next generation” that led to her resignation from political life.
Read more here:
Chris Minns says Hanson should ‘probably’ apologise, but ‘we’re not going to get it’
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, is speaking in Sydney, saying the country needs an emergence in the “normal middle” of politics free from racist rhetoric.
He said he believes Pauline Hanson should issue an apology for her comments about Muslims, but added a major caveat:
Look, probably, but we’re not going to get it, let’s be honest. In my view, there has to be an emergence of people … in the normal middle that have no interest in hurling racist insults at one another, that don’t want to see Australians divided.
We can’t let the public space be taken over by extremists in these debates, who, let’s be honest, will profit politically by letting us be divided against one another.
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PM maintains no assistance being offered to repatriate Australians stuck in Syria
Albanese was also asked for further comments about the government’s feeling towards the group of women and children stuck in Syria, who are linked to Islamic State fighters in the region. He has maintained the government will not assist the group in any way, adding:
We followed the law and we followed the advice of the authorities. The government is providing no support for the Repatriation of these people or any support whatsoever. I have nothing but contempt for these people.
I have contempt for their parents who have put these children in that situation.
Albanese added that protections for those children are the responsibility of their parents.
We have a firm position, which is that the mothers in this case who made this decision to travel overseas against Australia’s national Interests are the responsible ones who’ve put their children in this position.
We will do nothing to assist these people coming back to Australia.
Prime minister stresses country needs to ‘turn the temperature’ down
The prime minister added that the recent threats towards Lakemba mosque – there have been three – were “outrageous”.
He said:
It is outrageous that people just going about commemorating their faith, particularly during the holy month for Muslims, of Ramadan, are subject to this sort of intimidation. I have said repeatedly: we need to turn down the temperature of political discourse in this country, and we certainly need to do that. And it is outrageous that at a time like this, three lots of threats are occurring.
PM says ‘of course’ there is a link between Pauline Hanson’s rhetoric and threats to Sydney mosque
Anthony Albanese linked a series of threats towards Sydney’s Lakemba mosque with One Nation’s Pauline Hanson’s rhetoric towards the country’s Muslims.
Albanese was asked on ABC Radio Sydney if there was a link in his mind between Hanson’s recent remarks and threats of violence. The prime minister replied:
Of course there is, because it legitimises it. It mainstreams it. And Pauline Hanson is a divisive figure. She’s made a political career out of seeking to divide Australians against each other. And what we need is more unity, not more division.
Pauline Hanson is ready to divide people. She is someone who often doesn’t participate in the Senate but is busy off just campaigning. She’s a negative force in Australian politics.
I understand that people are frustrated and that fear can be a powerful emotion. But what we need in this country is hope, is optimism and is looking forward with a serious positive policy agenda. And Pauline Hanson does not do that.
A number of figures including New South Wales premier Chris Minns have said Hanson’s remarks in recent days amount to a “racist intervention” and the country’s race discrimination commissioner has called on her to apologise.
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Truck carrying molasses overturns south of Sydney in two-truck crash
A truck carrying molasses has overturned in a two-truck crash south of Sydney, spilling syrup on a major highway and leaving both drivers in hospital.
New South Wales police said officials were called to the Princess Motorway near Kanahooka about 10.15pm on Wednesday night after reports two trucks had crashed.
The driver of one truck, a B-double, was treated for serious injuries and airlifted to the hospital in a critical condition.
The driver of a rigid truck was also treated and taken to hospital in a serious condition, where he will undergo mandatory testing.
A crime scene has been established and an investigation opened into the matter.
A spokesperson for NSW police said syrup had spilled in the area and created a sticky mess.
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Bridget McKenzie says Australians ‘rightfully concerned’ about women and children in Syrian camp
The Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie was asked about Tony Burke’s indication last night that 34 women and children linked to Islamic State fighters in Syria had been issued travel documents.
McKenzie spoke to the Today Show, saying Australians were “rightfully concerned” that members of the group could return to the country, while pointing to Anthony Albanese’s assertion the government would not assist in any repatriation efforts.
The prime minister has also said anyone who returns to Australian shores would be subject to Australian law.
McKenzie said this morning reports the group have Australian passports were “very, very concerning”, going on:
I think the Labor party and the Labor government is deeply compromised on this issue because Australians are rightfully concerned. The prime minister says we’re going to throw the book at them. Well, what evidence base are they going to use to actually do that?
Burke has maintained that Australian citizens are entitled to passports under the law.
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Children with complex needs being turned away from childcare in Australia
Children with complex needs are being turned away from childcare centres due to funding gaps and staff burnout, with industry leaders warning federal government inclusion rules are having the reverse effect.
The government’s inclusion support program (ISP) is intended to provide additional staff for children with complex needs, but the funding amounts to half of that needed, with centres forced to pay the rest.
While the government moves towards implementing a universal childcare system, industry figures said the ISP needed to be fixed before other structural changes were introduced.
Advocates also warned that a child required a formal diagnosis before a centre could apply for the funding, which could then take between two and five months to come.
Read more here:
Danielle Scott lands aerials silver as family sacrifice pays off at Winter Olympics
Australian freestyle skier Danielle Scott told her family and friends last month to cancel their plans to watch her compete at the Olympics because she was feeling so low about her form, AAP reports.
That meant the aerials veteran’s loved ones, husband Clark aside, weren’t in Livigno to watch the four-time Olympian achieve a lifelong dream when she finally clinched a medal on Wednesday.
An emotional Scott described winning silver as the “best day of my life”, the reward coming after she’d previously been unable to translate her impressive World Cup and world championship form to the Olympics stage, with her best result being a ninth place.
“To finally have this around my neck, I mean, it’s taken four Olympics and it’s been an incredible ride of frustration, a lot of highs, a lot of lows, but today, I just put my heart out there,” the 35-year-old said. “I left everything out there. I jumped the way I wanted to, so this just means everything.
Read more here:
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Sydney man charged over alleged death threats to federal parliamentarian
A western Sydney man has been charged after allegedly threatening to kill a federal parliamentarian.
The Australian federal police said the man, 55, was charged after officers executed a search warrant on a residence in Macquarie Fields. During the search, they allegedly found three gel blasters, three slingshot mounts and a pair of metal handcuffs. They also seized electronic devices.
Officials will alleged in court the man was responsible for a number of threatening calls to the parliamentarian’s office this month.
He has been charged with two counts of using a carriage service to make a threat to kill; three counts of possessing an unauthorised prohibited firearm; and one count of possessing a prohibited weapon.
The offences carry maximum penalties of 10 years’ imprisonment.
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Australian health insurance premiums just had their biggest hike in a decade. Is it time to scrap private health cover?
The government has approved a 4.41% private health insurance premium rise from April – the largest hike in almost 10 years.
With consumers already grappling with cost-of-living pressures, including an interest rate rise earlier in February, more Australians are likely to be wondering whether keeping their private health insurance is worth it.
There have been numerous attempts by the government to make private health insurance more affordable and consumer-friendly since then, including labelling policies as gold, silver, bronze or basic, and introducing reforms to reduce junk products.
Those policies have failed.
The system remains difficult to navigate and questions about value for money persist.
Read more here:
Fair Trading issues warning about business claiming false links to Bondi terror attack
Fair Trading NSW have warned consumers to avoid dealing with a business claiming false links to the Bondi Beach terror attack.
The agency said the clothing and accessories website Bondi United falsely claimed to support the victims of the attack. The company operated two websites, both of which have now been taken down, and has indicated it will offer refunds to customers who contact it asking for one.
Anoulack Chanthivong, the NSW minister for fair trading, said “attempting to profit off this horrific incident is just plain wrong – and it is a breach of Australian Consumer Law”.
The NSW Government strongly condemns any attempts to mislead consumers in the aftermath of this terror event, and we will continue to do everything we can to protect consumers from this behaviour.
I encourage people to buy from reputable sellers, be cautious when dealing with unfamiliar online sellers, and get in contact with NSW Fair Trading if they believe they have been adversely affected by this business.
A separate incident involving a website called Isla & James prompted a Fair Trading warning in January after it cited the Bondi beach shooting as the reason for a fake “closing sale”, falsely claiming one of its cofounders “was shot” in the terror attack. That site has also been taken down.
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Coalition says protecting Australia ‘bigger obligation’ than providing passports to citizens
Jonno Duniam, the shadow home affairs minister, spoke about the passports this morning as the opposition seeks to hammer the government on the matter. He told Channel Seven’s Sunrise reports those in the group had travel documents was “of incredible concern, I think, to most Australians that these people want to come back to Australia”, adding:
And if one person has been hit with a temporary exclusion order for going to this part of world and doing what they’ve done, why is it not the case that the others have not had the same order applied against them?
Duniam acknowledged that Burke was acting on advice he’d received from intelligence agencies, but asked why others in the group had not been subject to temporary exclusion orders:
I would be very interested to know what advice there is on the others because I think the fact that they’ve all gone to the same place for the same purpose … I’m not sure how you can differentiate between them.
But putting that to one side, if our laws aren’t strong enough to protect us, to prevent people who’ve gone to support Isis from coming back to this country, then the government should look at expanding and strengthening those laws and we stand as an opposition ready to work with them.
So sure, we have obligations to provide passports to Australian citizens, but we have an even bigger obligation to protect our country, our security and our way of life.
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Women and children linked to Islamic State fighters in Syria have Australian travel documents, Tony Burke suggests
Tony Burke, the home affairs minister, has not-quite-explicitly implied that a group of women and children stuck in Syria who are the family members of Islamic State fighters, have Australian passports or travel documents, or at least have the right to get them.
Burke was asked about reports those in the group of 34 people had the documents last night on ABC’s 7.30. He said “the reality is anyone who’s a citizen is able to apply for a passport and receive a passport”. When pressed by host Sarah Ferguson what that meant, Burke continued:
I think I’m giving the very practical answer that if anyone applies for a passport as a citizen, they are issued with a passport, in the same way that if someone applies for a Medicare card, they get a Medicare card. These are automatic processes done by public servants.
“That’s a long way of saying yes,” Ferguson replied.
“I’ve given the answer with the words I wanted to,” Burke said. “Anybody who has been found to be a citizen and has applied and been issued with a passport – everybody has the same citizenship in Australia.”
One adult in the group was issued a temporary exclusion order yesterday, banning them from coming to Australia for up to two years. The rest of the group has not been assessed by intelligence agencies as meeting the threshold to be banned from the country, but the government has said it is not actively helping them return.
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$170m in joint funding announced for early learning services in Victoria
The federal and Victorian governments have announced $170m in joint funding for more not-for-profit early learning services in the state’s outer suburbs and regions this morning.
The new effort will see the creation of about 1,110 early childhood education places across 11 locations, including Kings Park, Wedderburn, Weir Views, Geelong, Whittlesea, Casey, Frankston and Swan Hill. The services will come online over the next four years.
Education minister Jason Clare said the fund would help families secure access to early education in “communities that need them most”.
Where you grow up shouldn’t determine whether you can access early education.
These projects in Victoria mean more families can access early learning close to home and more children start school ready to go and ready to learn.
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Aussie teen suffers fall in Olympic snowboard thriller
Ally Hickman has suffered a bruised sternum after the Australian snowboarding teen took a nasty fall in the women’s slopestyle Olympic final, where she still finished an admirable seventh, AAP reports.
Just 16 years old, the Sydney schoolgirl was in fourth spot after the first of three runs in the final at Livigno Snow Park on Wednesday, awarded a score of 67.70 for her performance navigating three rails and three jumps down the mountain course.
But the Olympic debutant fell during her second run, injuring her sternum, and was unable to improve on her score. While she was cleared to compete in her third run, she had a further fall at the last jump which again jarred the injury.
Hickman was the only Australian to make the top-12 final with Beijing bronze medallist Tess Coady missing the cut.
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Jobless rate tipped to rise again
Australia’s unemployment is widely tipped to be on the rise once again after a surprise fall, Australian Associated Press reports.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the first lot of labour force figures of 2026 today, with a slight rise to 4.2% for January expected.
A fall in the seasonally adjusted rate to 4.1% in December took forecasters by surprise.
NAB senior economist Taylor Nugent said a course correction was on the cards for January’s data.
It’s expected 20,000 more jobs will be added to the economy for the month.
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Good morning, Nick Visser here to take the blog reins. Let’s see what the news holds.
NZ foreign affairs minister says Australian political 'churn' makes international relations harder
The New Zealand foreign affairs minister, Winston Peters, says he is “aghast” at the “inexcusable” turmoil in Australian political ranks which he attributes to “ego”.
Peters is in his third stint as New Zealand’s top diplomat, having served in the governments of Helen Clark, Jacinda Ardern and now Christopher Luxon.
Asked of his ties to newly elected opposition leader Angus Taylor, the 80-year-old leader of the rightwing NZ First party instead offered a critique of recent leadership battles in Australian politics.
“Can I just say, as an outsider, I’m aghast,” he told Australian Associated Press in Wellington.
The years of stability, first of [Bob] Hawke and then [John] Howard, those years of civility have been very critical for Australia’s success.
The churn now really is inexcusable, and the churn both in the Labor and the Liberal party, has been massive.
In the end, you’ve got to stand back and say to those parties … ‘what is going on with you when you think that personal ego is the most important thing to elevation?’
Peters said the task of ensuring strong relations wasn’t helped by political turnover.
“It makes your job harder because you keep on getting new leaders,” he said, before joking he may not need to begin fresh relationship-building with the new Liberal foreign affairs spokesperson, Ted O’Brien.
“The way the polls are going, maybe not,” he said.
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Tony Burke defends temporary exclusion order against woman
Burke revealed that the decision to make a temporary exclusion order against one woman on Monday – who he revealed came to Australia and became a citizen under the Howard government and went to Syria under the Abbott government – was made after reports of the group leaving the camp and preparing to return to Australia had surfaced.
Burke said it would not have made sense to issue the order earlier because it is set for two years.
Burke said if the children were able to return to Australia they would face a similar situation to those who returned under the Morrison government, but he said the parents “may well decide to never come back” because they would “face the full force of the law” for those who are found to have committed crimes.
Burke said he had a different view on the situation to Jamal Rifi – who reports claim is assisting the group – and said the prime minister’s response on the issue had not changed since before the Bondi terror attack.
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Burke attacks ‘silly hypocrisy’ from Coalition over IS-linked families
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, told the ABC’s 7.30 program last night that the Coalition pressure to prevent the 34 Australian wives and children of IS fighters killed or captured in Syria from returning to Australia was “silly hypocrisy”.
He said if the Coalition wants the group excluded from Australia permanently, “they should look at the laws they voted for, they put in place when they were in government”.
There’s a lot of very silly deeply hypocritical claims coming from the opposition today.
Burke said there were repatriations from Syria under the Morrison government, and also cases where people returned themselves to Australia.
We had 40 people under the Coalition do self-managed returns – that didn’t just include women and children, it included fighters. It included men who had gone there to fight. Now, they were among the returns who came back.
The fact that people with Australian passports have returned from those sorts of situations is not new. It happened under them.
Yesterday the government announced that one of the group would be banned from entering Australia for two years.
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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 will be Nick Visser with the main action.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, told the ABC’s 7.30 program last night that the Coalition pressure to prevent all the 34 Australian wives and children of IS fighters killed or captured in Syria from returning to Australia was “silly hypocrisy”. More coming up.
New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister has made some pointed comments about Australian politics, saying he’s “aghast” at the rapid change of leadership in the major parties and reckons “ego” is behind it.
Australia’s unemployment is widely tipped to be on the rise once again after a surprise fall. The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the first lot of labour force figures of 2026 today, with a slight rise to 4.2% for January expected.
