What we learned, Wednesday 15 July
We’re going to leave our live blog coverage there for today. Before we go, here are today’s top headlines:
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Anthony Albanese has promised “the strongest possible protection” for Australian creatives against misuse of their work by artificial intelligence models, warning it would be “theft” if writers, artists and musicians didn’t have control of their work or receive payment for its use.
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The Greens have again called for a moratorium on new datacentres until the government’s new legislated standards are in place, claiming there cannot be a “free for all” until the new laws are enacted.
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The AFL has removed Nicky Winmar from the Australian Football Hall of Fame after the former St Kilda and Western Bulldogs player was in June found guilty of three assault charges involving violence against women.
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One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has claimed First Nations people would agree with him that Australia is a “Christian nation”.
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The interim vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne (UoM) says pro-Palestine sit-ins on campus led to the institution “quite sharply” changing its protest policies and that further restrictions could arise.
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The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says he won’t do a deal with Pauline Hanson to form government in his latest attempt to distance the Coalition from One Nation.
Have a lovely evening, we’ll be back tomorrow for another day of breaking news.
Minns welcomes proposed AI framework, saying ‘we need to get the settings right’
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has welcomed the prime minister’s announcement of a national regulatory framework for AI ahead of it being put to leaders at national cabinet next month, adding the state “needs to get the settings right”.
In a statement released by his office this afternoon after Anthony Albanese’s announcement, the premier said:
We welcome the federal government’s announcement today on a proposed AI framework to ensure communities see the benefits of data centre investment. NSW wants to lead the way on jobs, investment and innovation – but we need to get the settings right.
The premier’s office did not respond directly to questions about whether it supported proposed legislation, including requirements for datacentres to pay in full for electricity grid connections and additional water infrastructure. The state government, which released a consultation paper on the datacentre industry earlier this year, is developing its own strategy, after submissions closed in March.
The NSW opposition spokesperson for artificial intelligence, James Griffin, said the Coalition’s own strategy to support the “responsible growth” of the industry would be announced in the coming months.
The NSW Greens have echoed their federal counterparts. In a statement, Abigail Boyd MLC, the chair of a parliamentary committee into datacentres, said:
Where this leaves NSW is, in the continued absence of any strategy, plan or guardrails, in desperate need of a moratorium on AI data centres to allow regulations and safeguards to be put in place.
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Jacinta Nampijinpa Price rebuked for sharing false claim Labor ‘importing’ Indian migrants
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has been rebuked by Liberal colleagues after sharing a social media clip that falsely claimed Labor was “importing” Indian migrants, resurrecting the controversy that ended with her being sacked from the frontbench by former leader Sussan Ley.
The backlash came as a new internal discussion paper admitted multicultural communities had “deep-rooted” concerns with the Liberals, urging the party to “instill message discipline” to prevent political opponents weaponising its positions as “hostile or racist”.
The Northern Territory senator was last year sacked from Ley’s frontbench after suggesting the federal government’s migration program favoured Indians to win Labor votes.
Price later clarified the initial remarks – acknowledging Australia has a non-discriminatory migration program – but refused to apologise for the hurt caused to Indian Australians.
Read more:
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Vice-chancellor of UNSW tells royal commission staff needed ‘generosity, patience, empathy’ after 7 October 2023
The vice-chancellor of UNSW, Prof Attila Brungs, has told the royal commission he was “deeply concerned” about the wellbeing of his community after the 7 October 2023 Hamas terror attack.
Brungs said he immediately set up a response group and reached out to Jewish staff and students, who spoke of their “fear” and “anguish”, some with direct connections to people who had been directly affected.
Twice a week for about a year, the response group met, and they still meet every week … I wrote to all staff probably twice a month … just acknowledging the hurt that was going on across the community … to show them generosity, patience, empathy.
In addition, UNSW launched a “Speak Up” campaign encouraging staff and students to issue complaints, and increased their number of protective services.
Brungs is the final witness during today’s hearings, which have also heard from the heads of the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney. On Monday, the commissioner heard testimony from an academic at UNSW who said he was subjected to Nazi salutes by students in his UNSW College business class.
Brungs confirmed UNSW College was independently operated and he didn’t have oversight of it as a higher education provider.
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Barnaby Joyce claims Australia is a ‘Christian nation’ and says many First Nations people would agree
One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has claimed First Nations people would agree with him that Australia is a “Christian nation”.
The New England MP made the comments at an anti-abortion gala – where he accepted a prize for “political courage” – in Sydney over the weekend.
In an exchange posted on social media, Benjamin van der Linden from a group called Make Australia Christian Again asked Joyce if Australia was a Christian nation. Joyce said:
Yes, it was premised on Christian principles.
A lot of Indigenous people would tell you straight up and proper Australia’s a Christian nation.
Read more:
Melbourne council votes to scrap Lime ebikes for failing to meet ‘bare minimum standards’
Shared ebikes will disappear from some inner-city Melbourne streets after a council scrapped its agreement with Australia’s largest electric bike operator.
The City of Yarra on Tuesday voted to end its memorandum of understanding with Lime, terminating its almost six-year-long trial.
Though some councillors noted shared ebikes were an affordable and environmentally friendly transport option, others said the operator had not done enough to prevent users from blocking footpaths, dumping ebikes or riding while drunk.
Read the full story here:
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Greens critical Labor ‘still hasn’t legislated a single enforceable protection’ on AI
The Greens have again called for a moratorium on new datacentres until the government’s new legislated standards are in place, claiming there cannot be a “free for all” until the new laws are enacted.
Senator David Shoebridge was also critical of the delay in responding to the AI issue.
“A coordination office in Canberra doesn’t stop a single kid getting harmed tonight, and no amount of branding changes the fact that this government still hasn’t legislated a single enforceable protection,” he said in a statement.
Sarah Hanson-Young has called for a pause on new datacentre builds, and said this was important in the period before Labor’s new laws – which Anthony Albanese said won’t be introduced into parliament until “early next year” – came into force. She said:
We need a moratorium on the building of datacentres until there are laws in place to properly regulate their impact in Australia including energy, water use, environment and communities. It is essential that we get the rules right. To do that we need a pause on the approval and construction of new hyperscale datacentres while we do this important policy work.
Just because big tech companies want to move at hyperspeed, doesn’t mean that we need to fast-track and roll out the red carpet for them. We need to take the time to get this right, if we don’t there will be serious consequences for our energy grid, water, environment and climate.
Shoebridge raised concerns about “consent, privacy and surveillance risk”.
Australians need an independent AI regulator with real powers, mandatory guardrails, and legislated protections for kids, workers and creators.
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Royal commissioner rejects line of questioning in cross-examination of Mark Scott
The royal commissioner, Virginia Bell, has rejected the line of questioning in a cross-examination of the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, Prof Mark Scott, over comments made by one of his former students.
Gabi Crafti SC is representing the Australasian Union for Jewish Students and Jewish communal groups. She asked Scott whether he had heard the evidence of Yasmin Johnson, a Jewish pro-Palestine activist who appeared as a witness on Monday.
Crafti pointed to Johnson’s confirmation that she gave a speech in August 2025 on the University of Sydney’s campus “in which she called for the destruction of the State of Israel”.
Is that tolerated at the University of Sydney?
Scott said she was a “guest speaker” and the university is not “vetting speeches in advance”.
I totally reject her views. I do not believe that is an appropriate use of academic freedom and discourse. And I in no way support or associate myself with her comment.
Crafti asked if he would “permit that kind of thing to happen at the University of Sydney going forward”, at which point the commissioner intervened:
You don’t have to answer that, Professor. Ms Crafti, I think that’s a difficult proposition to put to the witness. Will you not permit that to go ahead? We’re talking about a university where a whole range of views might in many contexts be expressed. I’m not going to allow that question.
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OpenAI welcomes chance to shape Australia’s standards as a ‘priority market’
OpenAI has committed to working with creators and industry on the new national AI standards the prime minister announced today.
A spokesperson for the company said it had been engaging with the government for months on its commitment to building AI access and infrastructure in Australia and welcomed the chance to help shape Australia’s approach. They said:
Australia has enormous potential to benefit from AI, and we want to work for and with Australia to help realise Australia’s AI ambitions. This is truly a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Australia’s economy and it’s crucial the country gets this right.
We are committed to engaging constructively throughout this process with the government, creators and industry on an approach that is practical, sustainable and right for Australia.
Anthony Albanese today suggested artists and other creatives would keep copyright protections against AI model training and reuse. OpenAI said it was open to commercial agreements with individual publishers where appropriate, such as those it has signed with News Corp and Guardian Media Group, owner of this website.
OpenAI said Australia was a “priority market” with half of all adults using ChatGPT.
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Mark Scott says there was a risk of the University of Sydney’s pro-Palestine encampment ‘blowing up’ by forcibly disbanding it
The vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, Prof. Mark Scott, has told the royal commission into antisemitism that he feared forcibly disbanding the campus’s pro-Palestine encampment could have led to it “blowing up” and causing conflict.
The encampment, established on its front lawn in mid-2024, was the first and longest running in the nation. Scott said the university “didn’t anticipate” one would be established at the university because it hadn’t been part of its “protest tradition” and there weren’t substantial preparations in place.
In line with other universities, he said their priority was to “try and see a peaceful resolution” of the encampment, but said it may have been a “real failure” not to consult further with Jewish groups.
How can we bring this encampment to a close peacefully without seeing the destruction and the turmoil that we’d seen at major universities around the world? … I still felt the risk of the encampment blowing up by forcibly ending it. Police in riot gear taking students away could have seen an encampment 10 times the size the day after. And if you look at the experience in the United States, who knows who would have been drawn in to that kind of conflict.
But I can see that our Jewish students and staff paid a price for that as the encampment dragged on. And I am sorry to them that it took so long for us to get it done. And I’m sorry we did not keep them more closely engaged in dialogue and listen more intently to them as it was going.
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Recording industry association says it’s time for AI companies to licence content
Aria, the Australian Recording Industry Association, said it’s now time for AI companies to move forward on content licensing after Anthony Albanese’s speech on the technology boom.
Annabelle Herd, Aria’s CEO, said in a statement:
The prime minister could not have been clearer: Australian writers and musicians keep ownership and control of their work. Artists control what that work is worth, not the government and not a technology company.
Control of price, value and terms of use are what underpin a commercial licensing market. The artist decides what their work is worth and who may use it. That is how licensing works everywhere else in the world and it is how it should work here. In the prime minister’s words: anything less is theft.
This is clear message to AI companies: now is the time to get on with licensing. Right now deals are being signed across music, journalism and publishing around the world. Australia’s creative industries are ready do business.
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University of Melbourne interim vice-chancellor disputes claim of a sector-wide failure to properly adopt antisemitism definition
Interim vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne (UoM), Prof Glyn Davis AC, has pushed back on an audit conducted by the emeritus professor Greg Craven on behalf of the antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, which found no university was properly adopting a definition of antisemitism.
He told the royal commission that he didn’t accept Craven’s assessment that the UoM hadn’t incorporated a definition of antisemitism into their policies and procedures. The UoM was the first university in Australia to publicly adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism in 2023.
He said:
It has been adopted in the same sense that the commonwealth government has adopted it. That is, a statement of principle and as a working definition of antisemitism and that’s crucial … It isn’t a definition by itself that takes you to disciplinary actions. It was not written for that point. That isn’t its character …
I don’t accept that we haven’t engaged with the definition, drawn it into our policies, used it to inform our discussions. It’s part of the protocol for our appeals. It informs appeals panels when they come to make decisions. In that sense, I think it’s perhaps an overstatement.
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That’s all for me. Ima Caldwell will snag things from here. Enjoy the rest of your arvo.
Business council backs Labor’s plans for AI standards
The Business Council of Australia has thrown its support behind the government’s AI approach.
Bran Black, the BCA’s chief executive, backed the new AI office, suggesting it should focus on the effect of AI on workplaces as a priority.
He supported the government’s “measured” timeline for bringing in nationally coordinated standards with plans to consult first then legislate next year.
We would always support engagement and consultation right across the economy including with different levels of government businesses, unions, community groups, and so forth. Take the time to do that and do it well.
The BCA was less supportive of Labor’s moves to mandate developers bring new energy and water infrastructure. Black said the council would push the government to instead give priority to those developers.
We can’t be too prescriptive because we are in a race and we are in a competitive contest in that regard …
AirTrunk … [has] just made a $42bn commitment to build datacentres, not in Australia, but in India. … We don’t want to see ourselves get out of step with International counterparts and that as a consequence, we would lose investment.
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Boy, 5, dead after fatal crash in Perth
A five-year-old boy has died after a fatal crash between a vehicle and two pedestrians, Western Australia police said this afternoon.
Officials said the accident occurred on Tuesday about 4.25pm in Cloverdale, a suburb of Perth. A Toyota LandCruiser and two pedestrians were involved.
The boy died from his injuries and a woman, 48, was taken to the hospital for critical injuries. The driver of the vehicle was stopped at the scene and was uninjured.
An investigation is ongoing, and police are appealing for any information related to the crash, including dashcam or mobile footage.
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More transparency needed around aged care investment
The outgoing inspector general of aged care, Natalie Siegel-Brown, said she has “not seen a lot of economic modelling behind a lot of the investment that we’re making” in aged care.
“I think that we should be asking for that and seeing it transparently,” she said.
Siegel-Brown addressed the National Press Club today and said the system’s means-testing asks people to contribute to their care based on how much care they need rather than what they have.
It means the sickest and poorest older Australians pay more and are the most likely to walk away from care, she said.
If we are effectively pricing people out of the very care that is designed to keep them independent at home, we’re likely pushing them towards something far more expensive to the taxpayer: residential care.
She said people return to the system much sicker, requiring far more expensive late-stage interventions.
The most important lesson here is that better outcomes do not come from bigger budgets; they come from spending the money more intelligently. And even if you park the money issue for a minute, the simple reality is the residential aged care’s capacity to absorb growing demand does not exist today, and on current trajectories, it never will.
She said people should be able to age in their own homes and their communities.
We should be doing everything in our power to reduce avoidable demand for residential aged care because we are never going to be able to build our way out of this problem.
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‘Societal-level solutions’ needed for AI: Anthropic
Anthropic says it takes seriously the new plans for AI rules and regulations outlined by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Wednesday, after forecasting the need for “societal-level solutions” to new challenges.
Jeff Bleich, the company’s general counsel, and a former US ambassador to Australia, said big change is coming. “AI will reshape democracies, economies and national security, bringing significant benefits and unprecedented challenges alike,” he said in a statement.
Anthropic has been clear for some time that societal-level solutions are needed for AI.
We respect the process articulated by the prime minister today for establishing Australia’s AI framework and take seriously Anthropic’s responsibility to meet the terms set out by the Australian Government for AI developers.
Ahead of meetings with senior cabinet ministers earlier this year, Anthropic cited Australia’s policy uncertainty as a major impediment to new investments in the country.
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Nicky Winmar removed from Australian Football Hall of Fame
Nicky Winmar has been removed from the Australian Football Hall of Fame, effective immediately, the AFL commission announced today.
The body said Winmar had been found guilty of three assault charges involving violence against a woman, saying:
Under amendments to the Australian Football Hall of Fame Charter adopted in 2023, the AFL Commission can remove an inductee if they have been charged with or found guilty of an indictable offence and/or if the inductee engages in conduct which the Commission considers is prejudicial to the interests of the AFL or is conduct which brings the AFL, the inductee, or Australian Football into disrepute.
Craig Drummond, the chair of the AFL commission, said in a statement:
The Commission has a responsibility to protect the integrity and reputation of that honour.
Violence against women has no place. Not in our community, not in our game, and not in the values the Australian Football Hall of Fame seeks to uphold.
The Commission acknowledges Nicky Winmar’s significant contribution to Australian Football and his place in our history. However, the recent findings against him render inappropriate his place in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
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Datacentres ‘largely agree’ with new energy and water mandates, says peak body
The head of the Data Centres Australia welcomed Anthony Albanese’s speech, saying the sector agrees with plans to make developers pay for their own energy and water infrastructure.
Belinda Dennett, the developer peak body’s CEO, said the prime minister had made clear what Australia could lose if it didn’t build AI infrastructure. She said:
It was great to hear him really outline that Australia wants this investment, that we’re leaning into it, that he wants to make sure we don’t miss this opportunity.
Dennett was unfazed by the PM raising the prospect of requiring datacentres to offset their energy and water use by paying for new infrastructure.
We’ve been talking about it now since March, a lot of that stuff. Certainly, my members already do, in terms of offsetting their energy with renewable energy, paying for energy connections …
We’re driven to be sustainable on water, so the devil will always be in the detail, but I think we largely agree. This is what we have to do as a sector and we’re committed to that.
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‘This is happening at scale’: inspector general on aged care failures
Siegel-Brown shared the story of an older woman whose GP prescribed her a pair of crutches.
“The value of those crutches about 50 bucks,” Siegel-Brown said.
But under the federal government’s Support at Home program, “those same $50 crutches cost the taxpayer $1,800 and a three-month wait”.
She said the government funding those crutches requires an in-home occupational therapist assessment to confirm crutches are needed even though “a GP had already said it was necessary, so she waited for three months”.
In that time, her risk of falling increased dramatically. Her confidence dropped. Her world shrank. And if she had fallen, we would have been dealing with hospitalisation, rapid decline, and if she could get a place, residential aged care, which would cost the taxpayer about $120,000 to $300,000.
I hear versions of it all the time. This is happening at scale.
We’ve still built a system that would rather spend 36 times as much to delay support than what it would have cost to deliver it immediately.
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Inefficiency is built into aged care system by design, inspector general says
The outgoing inspector general of aged care, Natalie Siegel-Brown, is addressing the National Press Club and said inefficiency is built into the aged care system by design.
The poorest Australians are suffering the most when they try to access support and care as they age, she said.
We’ve been behaving as if we have to choose between dignity and fiscal responsibility. As if independence, meaning and connection in older age, in our homes, in our communities, is somehow in tension with economic outcomes.
The answer to an ageing population is not more beds, she said, but “the real question should be how do we stop generating that demand in the first place” by supporting people to age well at home.
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PM promises ‘strongest possible protection’ for Australian creatives against AI theft
Dipping back to Anthony Albanese’s speech, the government is promising “world-leading” protections in the areas of consumer safety, copyright and environmental standards when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Australian creatives – artists, musicians, writers and journalists – have been worried for some time about the potential weakening of copyright law, with large AI companies calling for greater access to local content. But in addition to his speech, the PM’s office has released a statement promising “the strongest possible protection for Australian artists and media”. It said:
Our approach will ensure Australian writers, artists and journalists retain ownership over their work, meaning no company should use Australian creative works to train AI without the artist’s control.
The statement says the government wants to “ensure Australia can capture the opportunity, share the benefits and keep Australians safe” but at the same time as not “undercutting conditions, dividing communities or damaging our environment”.
Albanese claims the government’s new standards for copyright and datacentres will be “the first to be legislated by a government worldwide”.
More information on a set of “whole-of-government AI consumer safety priorities” will be unveiled “in coming weeks”.
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University of Melbourne considering further crackdown on protests, royal commission hears
Continuing his royal commission testimony, the interim vice-chancellor at the University of Melbourne, Prof Glyn Davis, said earlier the institution is considering requiring posters put up around the university to identify the individuals or organisations who authorised them.
Davis was asked about the occupation of UoM academic, Prof Steven Prawer’s office in 2024. Prawer appeared before the royal commission into antisemitism on Tuesday, where he spoke of offensive stickers and posters accusing him of genocide.
Davis said it “beggared belief” that an academic could be treated how Prawer was and said his request to identify organisations or individuals who authorised posters was a “dilemma” that hadn’t been settled:
There’s an assumption that we will make a series of policy changes in the light of this royal commission and the other things that are under way … If you’re not prepared to put your name to a statement, I don’t think academic or freedom of speech applies.
Davis pushed back, however, at Prawer’s requests for the students disciplined over the occupation of his office to be identified. He said privacy and confidentiality was hinged on dealing with “young adults” and attempting to “not to make a stain on the rest of their lives by an adverse decision by the university”.
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‘We can make AI stand for ‘Australia’s Interests’,’ Albanese says
Albanese closes out his speech with this message:
If we move with purpose now, if we back ourselves, if we trust in our values and invest in our people, if we set our national standards high, then I have every confidence that Australia can seize this moment and make it our own.
We can make AI, indeed, stand for ‘Australia’s Interests’.
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Albanese vows Australian music, art and writing not ‘up for grabs’ by AI giants
The prime minister is outlining some of the standards Australia will set for AI.
They include expectations for AI datacentres, including the requirement to underwrite new power supplies and to pay their full share for grid connections so no costs are passed on to homes or businesses.
Rules would also set requirements to minimise water usage.
He also said the government would continue to protect Australian artists and media with the “strongest possible” safeguards.
Let me make this crystal clear – not everything produced in Australia is up for grabs. Not at all. Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists, must retain ownership and control of their work.
Albanese added a caveat:
It is not our goal to try to legislate for every possible eventuality or risk. That only creates the risk of Australia missing out on investment altogether. This is about having the flexibility to keep pace with change and get out in front of it so Australia can draw on and learn from what other countries are doing and deal with issues in real time without the bureaucracy having to contemplate every modification.
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‘You do not need to be an expert in AI to have a say or a stake in it,’ Albanese says
The prime minister is speaking about the “social” and “spiritual” imperatives behind action on AI.
He said:
You do not need to be an expert in AI to have a say or a stake in it. We’re all involved. Because the real issues that AI presents are not technical ones – they are economic ones, legal ones, social ones.
As Pope Leo has made clear in his superb first papal encyclical … there is also a spiritual one.
He said Al will test national values and national interests, but required action now.
If we act now, if we mobilise our resources and coordinate our efforts, if we move with the urgency that the speed of this change demands – if we build to match the scale of the opportunity that this moment presents, and if we do it the Australian way, true to our values and our standards, we can make AI work in Australia’s national interests.
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AI is ‘bigger challenge and a bigger opportunity than social media’, Albanese says
The prime minister is presenting AI as a major opportunity for the country, saying Australians have always been “enthusiastic adopters of new technology”.
Anthony Albanese said:
AI is, of course, already part of our daily lives. …
All of this is a bigger challenge and a bigger opportunity than social media – no question about that. But not only are we coming to the issue earlier, we have more than time on our side. We have the advantage of geography – the expansion of AI requires a physical material footprint.
It needs our land and energy and computing power to operate. That means we can set the terms. We can determine AI’s social licence. But we have to do it now.
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University of Melbourne didn’t want disbandment of pro-Palestine protests to go ‘terribly wrong’ like in US, royal commission hears
Back to the antisemitism royal commission. The interim vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Prof Glyn Davis, has justified the institution’s approach to pro-Palestine encampments and sit-ins by pointing to police violence at universities in the United States.
Davis was asked about how he reconciled that the encampment had been “largely orderly and peaceful” with “multiple reports” from staff and students who reported feeling “intimidated”. He said it came down to constant discussions between the university security team and the encampment’s leaders, with a shared objective for safety.
He continued that the aim of management “at every point” was to end the protests without violence, including when it escalated to a sit-in at the UoM’s Arts West building, which peaked with 20 tents and 50 protesters set up inside. He said:
We had all seen what happened in the United States and in other places where these things had gone terribly wrong … Nobody wants a confrontation there. And that included importantly the Victoria police who gave us advice, for example, that it takes four police people to remove a single protester. And we’re talking about possibly 100 people in the building.
Davis said the atmosphere on campus “changed dramatically” after the sit-in. The university has prohibited outsiders from protesting on campus, banned camping and protesting indoors.
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Albanese reveals new policy on AI as heavy hitters gather for speech at University of Sydney
Big names have gathered in the University of Sydney’s Great Hall for the prime minister’s landmark speech on AI today.
Robin Khuda, founder of datacentre company AirTrunk, is here (plus some high school students from his University of Sydney’s Khuda Women in STEM program). The university’s senior deputy vice-chancellor, Annamarie Jagose, gives him a special shoutout in her opening remarks.
Federal ministers Michelle Rowland, Tim Ayres, and Andrew Charlton are in attendance, as is Labor senator Toby Sheldon. The head of the department of prime minister and cabinet, Stephen Kennedy, is watching on.
Bran Black, the head of the Business Council of Australia, is also here. A slew of academics, industry voices and others fill the rows in the grand sandstone hall.
The University of Sydney’s vice-chancellor, Mark Scott, is not present as he’s fronting the royal commission into antisemitism.
Sydney students, with their long tradition of protest and activism, have not been seen in the hall or out the front. The location of today’s speech was not publicised ahead of time.
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Carlingford shooting victim ‘known to police’
NSW police are speaking to the media about a man who died in a public shooting in Sydney.
A police spokesperson said they do not believe it was a “random attack” and that the victim was known to police:
We do not believe that this is … a random attack.
The victim was known to police …
We believe that this is an isolated incident, and that there’s no ongoing threat to the public.
Authorities say emergency services were called to Carlingford, in Sydney’s north-west, just after 7am.
They found a man, aged in his 30s, with significant injuries inside a car. He was unable to be revived and died at the scene.
North Rocks Road at Carlingford remains closed for traffic, and police say it is expected to be for some time.
The investigation is ongoing.
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Man charged over alleged indecent act on Perth-Sydney flight
A 62-year-old Brisbane man will face a NSW court today after allegedly committing an act of indecency on a flight from Perth to Sydney.
The AFP alleges the man inappropriately touched a female passenger seated next to him on the domestic flight yesterday.
Following a request for assistance from airline staff, AFP officers met the aircraft upon arrival at Sydney airport and interviewed passengers and staff.
The man was charged with one count of an act of indecency without consent, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.
AFP Det Acting Supt James McMillan said:
We encourage anyone who experiences or witnesses inappropriate conduct during a flight or within the airport setting to report it to airline staff or police as soon as possible.
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Pro-Palestine sit-in led to University of Melbourne ‘quite sharply’ changing protest policies, royal commission hears
The interim vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Prof Glyn Davis, has told the royal commission into antisemitism the institution “quite sharply” changed its policies towards protests in the wake of its pro-Palestine encampment and associated sit-in.
Davis agreed with a line of questioning that the encampment, established in April 2024, created a “level of fear and unsafety” in staff and students. Protesters were calling for the UoM to cut ties with Israel and weapons companies.
He said there were “regular discussions” between the university and police about the camp, and police attended multiple times. But Victoria Police maintained unless a law was broken they would not intervene, and they did not intervene. Davis added the right to protest was “entrenched in university policy”:
The encampment on the South Lawn, it was judged, did not override any of those concerns and therefore the university would not seek action against the encampment … That came at the end of a profound policy discussion.
Davis said one of the “clear requirements” of the then-vice-chancellor, Prof Duncan Maskell, was that the protest would “only be tolerated while it was peaceful” and there was no harassment of students. He said the university took a different approach after the occupation of the UoM’s Arts West building from 15 May.
Last year, the state’s deputy information commissioner found the UoM breached Victoria’s Privacy and Data Protection Act when it used its wifi network to surveil students and staff holding the sit-in.
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LGBTQI+ artists have been targeted for ‘insulting Christianity’. To queer people, this feels particularly cruel
James Thorpe, the vice-chair of the Night Time Industries Association, has written this morning about accusations levelled against a theatre pop-up in a former Sydney church.
He writes:
It would be easy to treat this as yet another skirmish in the culture wars, witness the inevitable jokes about habits and holy orders, and move on. But beneath the debacle is a much more fundamental debate: a question about who gets to speak and, perhaps most importantly, whose offence carries the power to silence another’s voice.
Read more here:
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Tasmanian government could buy James Boag’s brewery, premier says
James Boag’s brewery could be bought by a state government after time is called on its beer production, AAP reports.
Parent company Lion in June announced it would shut the brewery in Launceston in northern Tasmania, first opened in 1881, in November.
Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff has met with beverage company Kirin, which owns Lion, and said they had agreed to provide in-principle support to explore the state’s proposal to buy the site.
“The Boag’s site is part of Tasmania’s industrial and cultural heritage,” Rockliff said on Wednesday.
A union campaign to convince Lion to sell the brewery to another beer maker has collected more than 3,500 signatures but hasn’t shifted the company’s decision to wind-up production.
The closure will leave about 40 workers without jobs. The government hasn’t provided any details on what it would cost to buy the site, or what it could be used for in the future.
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Vice-chancellors to front antisemitism royal commission as university block enters third day
A former Flinders University student has told the antisemitism royal commission he has been painted in a “political light” because he is Jewish and a supporter of Israel which has limited access to spaces and safety.
The co-president of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) in South Australia, appearing as Mika, pointed to one student representative council meeting in 2022 when a student said “death to Israel” and “death to Australia” which he said caused a fellow peer to have a panic attack, and another instance when a student was called a “dirty Zionist”.
The term Israel, I experienced as a collective term for Jewish people … Not to mention it’s where half of the world’s Jewish population lives … For Israelis, there’s a sense of xenophobia, asking ‘where are you really from? You better not take over us’ … These assumptions have limited our access to spaces. There’s this sense that the bar of entry to a club space, for example, requires a political admission.
The antisemitism and social cohesion royal commission has entered its third day of hearings examining the university sector. Also appearing on Wednesday are the vice-chancellors of the University of Melbourne, the University of Sydney and UNSW.
Mika said since the 7 October 2023 Hamas terror attack, he noted a rise in “anti-Israel” sentiment and a “hostility” towards Israel which was projected on to Jewish students regardless of citizenship.
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Swimmer Shayna Jack to retire after Commonwealth Games
Australian swimmer Shayna Jack has announced she will retire after the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
In a video posted on Instagram in which Jack spoke with her coach Dean Boxall, the freestyler fought back tears as she said the Games – to be held from 23 July to 2 August – would be her competitive swan song.
“It’s been an absolute privilege being an Australian athlete, an Australian swimmer, an Olympic medallist, Commonwealth Games medallist, world medallist, and world record-holder,” the 27-year-old said.
I think I’ve definitely ticked off all the boxes. It’s been a long career, but I’m ready to announce my retirement and be Shayna Jack.
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Hume concerned Labor will stifle innovation with new AI office
Deputy opposition leader Jane Hume spoke earlier about the news that Australia will create an AI office to fast-track datacentres and encourage approvals for AI projects.
Hume told Sky News of the plans, to be detailed in a speech by Anthony Albanese today:
We’ve seen our standard of living go backwards so far and so fast under Labor. I can understand why they are reaching out towards this new technology and trying to control its direction.
However, my concern is more about whether Labor stifles that innovation that comes with AI, rather than allowing it to flourish.
Hume said she understands that datacentres don’t come “without their problems”, but we should be “encouraging it where it is appropriate and where possible, because it will power the productivity boom of the future”.
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Alcoa to set up gallium plant in Western Australia
Alcoa Corp said on Tuesday it has reached a final investment decision to set up a gallium plant at its Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia, with backing from the Australian, Japanese and United States governments and industry partners. The US and Australian governments had said in October they would support Alcoa’s expansion plans in the region, a few months after the company signed a joint development agreement with a venture between the Japanese government and Sojitz Corp.
Reuters reports the US-based aluminium producer plans to construct and operate the plant, which could provide up to 10% of the global gallium supply.
“This final investment decision reflects a shared commitment by governments and industry to strengthen critical mineral supply chains among the partners,” said Alcoa president and CEO William F. Oplinger.
Construction activities are expected to begin after final site preparations, the company added.
Gallium, a raw material used in the production of alumina, is a critical mineral for the technology sector, especially the semiconductor and defence industries.
Earlier this month, Alcoa agreed to buy the bulk of South32’s aluminium portfolio for an implied enterprise value of up to $5.6bn to expand its access to upstream assets, including bauxite, alumina and aluminium assets across Brazil, South Africa and Western Australia.
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Coalition and One Nation’s plan to ditch net zero would not lower power prices, CSIRO report finds
Claims by the Coalition and One Nation that abandoning a net zero climate target would bring down power prices are contradicted in a new CSIRO report on the costs of generating electricity.
Generation costs will probably rise after 2030 regardless of Australia’s policy on net zero, according to the CSIRO’s annual GenCost report, but prices should then stabilise at levels below recent price spikes.
The report concludes electricity from nuclear plants, which the Coalition and One Nation promote, would be the most expensive way to generate electricity among the current options.
Read more here:
Taylor takes harsher tone towards One Nation
Angus Taylor has adopted a more confrontational approach to One Nation in the past week or so after previously shying away from opportunities to openly criticise Pauline Hanson and her rightwing populist agenda.
The opposition leader’s reluctance created a sharp contrast with colleagues such as Andrew Hastie, who has gone as far as declaring political war on One Nation.
Taylor’s stance shifted in a major speech last week, when he warned that a One Nation government would bring an “eternity of pain” to Australia.
He told 2GB radio on Tuesday morning that he made those criticisms with a “heavy heart”, showing he remains sensitive to alienating conservative voters who have shifted to One Nation.
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Taylor rules out power-sharing deal with One Nation
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says he won’t do a deal with Pauline Hanson to form government in his latest attempt to distance the Coalition from One Nation.
Appearing on ABC’s 7.30 program on Tuesday night, Taylor was asked repeatedly to explicitly rule out a potential power-sharing deal with One Nation after the next federal election. He said:
We’ve got absolutely no plan for a deal with One Nation to form government. We want to form government in our own right, in our coalition, the Liberal and National Party coalition, on the back of a strong plan and a strong team.
7.30 host Sarah Ferguson said not planning to do something was not the same as ruling it out, pushing Taylor for an iron-clad guarantee. Taylor said:
I’m ruling it out, there is no plan.
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Man found dead in car after shooting in north-western Sydney
A man was killed in a public place shooting in Sydney this morning, NSW police say.
Officials said emergency services were called to Carlingford, in Sydney’s north-west, around 7am. On arrival, they found a man, aged in his 30s, with significant injuries inside a car.
He was unable to be revived and died at the scene. The man has not been identified.
Police have established a crime scene and closed the area to the public. An investigation is ongoing.
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University vice-chancellors to be grilled at royal commission on antisemitism
University vice-chancellors will appear before the royal commission on antisemitism, as representatives from Australia’s highest ranked institution prepare to be the first to give evidence, AAP reports.
The University of Melbourne’s Glyn Davis, who is interim vice-chancellor, will appear at the royal commission’s public hearing on Wednesday.
Davis’s attendance will follow the damning testimony a day prior given by Jewish academic Steven Prawer, whose campus office was broken into and occupied by protesters in 2024.
“We reaffirm our commitment to a safe, inclusive and supportive environment for all and acknowledge the important work of the Royal Commission,” a statement from the University of Melbourne’s reads.
As a diverse university community, we must come together and stand united in our continued efforts to eradicate hate and discrimination in all forms.
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Shorten labels rising anti-immigrant rhetoric a form of ‘political dementia’
Shorten said he believes there is a “creeping cultural dementia” taking place in Australian politics amid debates over multi- and monoculturalism.
The former Labor leader had this to say to RN:
I do detect – I’ve read this expression somewhere, but I’ll apply it here – a sort of creeping cultural dementia across Australian political discourse, where we’re forgetting some of the basic memory of what makes this country such a special place … Saying that we should go to zero immigration, it forgets how we got here.
Like again, to be really straight talking, I could understand why perhaps some Aboriginal Australians might say, well, immigration hasn’t been a success. But you know what? The other 97% of us, we all came from somewhere else.
He went on:
We’ve got to stop this sort of rush to extremism, which extinguishes sort of the country’s history, which is a successful story of bringing things in. …
When I see people proposing very simplistic solutions and trying to put everything to a binary … that intolerance I think is a form of political dementia where we’re just shutting down our ability to think.
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Shorten shocked by testimony given to royal commission on antisemitism
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten, now the vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra, said he was shocked by the evidence given from the university sector during the latest round of hearings before the royal commission on antisemitism.
Shorten told RN Breakfast this morning:
It describes an Australia … and Australian universities that I don’t recognise. But the fact is that these voices who are speaking up through the vehicle of the royal commission are revealing things, which mean that there’s no excuse to ignore them.
Shorten said there was “nothing wrong with protesting”, but said people had gone over the line:
Once people are putting coverings over their faces so they can’t be identified, once they’re going to people’s individual offices, they’ve crossed a line. This is not a protest any more. It’s just bullying. It’s thuggery. It’s cowardice. It’s intimidation. And I don’t really care how righteous you think your cause is. You’ve got no right in this country to make someone else’s life so scary, so miserable, so fearful, just because you happen to have a view.
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Victorian government urges teachers’ union to return to negotiations
The state government urged the Australian Education Union to return to negotiations to prevent disruptions to families across the state, AAP adds.
“This deal, which was endorsed by the AEU leadership, would have made Victorian teachers the best paid in the country together with the best conditions,” a government spokesperson said.
We will always back our hard-working teachers, school leaders and education support staff.
Teachers previously walked off the job in March, when staff took to the streets of Melbourne in the tens of thousands dressed in AEU red.
As many as 35,000 people marched to the front steps of state parliament during the strikes, the first of its kind in more than 13 years.
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Victorian teachers to walk out today over pay dispute
Hundreds of government schools will be affected by the latest round of teacher strikes as a pay dispute rages on, Australian Associated Press reports.
Public school staff across Victoria will walk off the job today after a vote by the Australian Education Union’s state branch yesterday.
Teachers will down tools and also refuse to work unpaid overtime unless an eleventh-hour agreement can be struck with the state government.
It comes after the powerful teacher’s union in June knocked back the Labor government’s offer of a 28% pay rise over four years.
Branch president Justin Mullaly said teachers, faced with untenable workloads and uncompetitive pay, had been left with no choice.
“In this underfunded system, teachers, principals, and education support staff are working an average of 12 hours unpaid overtime every week,” he said.
The government must stop relying on the goodwill of school employees as a core part of their funding model for schools.
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Central office for AI policy a ‘world first’, assistant technology minister says
Andrew Charlton, the assistant minister for science, technology and the digital economy, is speaking this morning about the new announcement of a federal office of AI, which will fast-track approvals for datacentres and create a central framework for the technology.
Charlton said the decision would be a “world first” and reflects the government’s methodical approach to the expansion of AI technology.
He told RN Breakfast:
We need to make sure that Australia shapes the future of how this technology is deployed. And there are many different levels of government that are involved in the way that large AI datacentres are deployed. There are many different departments within government that have equities in this space. So the prime minister is bringing national leadership to the issue. He is well placed to bring together the states and territories, bring together different parts of government, and make sure that we have a consistent national framework.
When asked about copyright for creative works, Charlton said the government’s position had not changed and that it would remain a supporter of creators.
We have ruled out a text and data mining exemption and we have said that where Australian copyrighted material is used, it must be used with consent and with compensation for the creatives and copyright holders who made it.
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Union demands government bring ATO’s outsourced phone calls in-house
A top union has warned Australians their tax time phone calls to tax office employees are being directed to lower-paid workers at outsourced call centres.
The Australian Taxation Office is set to face landmark “same job, same pay” hearings in the coming month, with a call centre worker saying his outsource colleagues were paid up to 40% less than their public service counterparts.
The Community and Public Sector Union on Tuesday lodged reply submissions supporting the Fair Work Commission case. In a statement today, it said outsource workers were answering the same calls as ATO employees, with the same systems, equipment, policies and procedures. The union said they should therefore have the same pay and employment conditions.
The CPSU said it submitted outsource labour hire companies were wrongly claiming they provided a specialised service and value for money. It described answering calls as “core ATO work” that should be brought back into the public service.
Melissa Donnelly, the CPSU’s national secretary, called on the Albanese government to direct the ATO to bring the call centre work in-house. She said:
These outsourced call centre workers are doing the same job as their ATO counterparts, but with worse pay and conditions. …
Right now, millions of Australians are doing their taxes. They need to know they are talking to fully trained and trusted public sector employees – not outsourced workers being underpaid by profit-driven firms.
You can read about the case here:
• This post was amended on 15 July 2026 to give a correct day for when the submissions were lodged.
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Husic warns Labor over Gaza policy
Labor risks losing voter support in a similar way to the Democrats in the US if it continues to respond to questions around Palestinian rights with “fear and loathing”, former cabinet minister Ed Husic has said.
The western Sydney MP, the most outspoken Labor member on the war in Gaza, also wants a dedicated federal police team to monitor dual Australian-Israeli citizens who travel to the Middle East to fight for the Israel Defense Forces, Australian Associated Press reports.
“What I am deeply concerned about is there are elements of fear and loathing that drive the way we respond to these issues,” Husic told a Labor Friends of Palestine event over the weekend.
Fear to have your own view, and loathing if you do.
First reported by Labor Tribune, which bills itself as a voice for the “Marxist left” in the labour movement, Husic’s comments were made on the sidelines of the NSW Labor conference in Sydney.
They foreshadow a possible battle over Palestinian rights at Labor’s national conference later in July.
While elements of the party are keen to ventilate the issue at the party’s most significant policymaking forum, multiple Labor sources confirmed to AAP debate was likely to be tightly stage-managed and relatively sedate.
Husic said the Labor party he’d grown up in had similar debates and went on to win multiple elections.
He warned the political movement risked losing support if it continued to stifle what he said was “legitimate debate” on the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
“That cannot be the way that we continue. Otherwise, we will see what happened to the US Democrats happen with us as our members and supporters drift off, and we cannot have that,” Husic said.
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Good morning, Nick Visser here to snag the blog. Let’s get to it.
More on the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors’ CEO pay report, which reveals that Life360’s founder Chris Hulls was the top-paid chief executive of an Australian-listed company in 2025’s financial year.
Hulls earned $47.7m in realised pay, which was about 437 times more than the average Australian full-time adult worker.
The other top earners were also heads of ASX-listed companies headquartered overseas: ResMed’s Mick Farrell took home $35.1m and News Corp’s Robert Thomson $33.5m. Thomson had been last year’s top earner.
Out of the 200 biggest ASX-listed companies, the CEO with the lowest realised pay in 2025 was Temple & Webster’s Mark Coulter at $506,000.
ACSI’s Louise Davidson said Australian investors were doing a good job at keeping a lid on executive pay. Fixed pay for the top 100 companies rose 4% to a median $1.83m, still below 2012 levels. The difference is made up by bonuses: the median ASX100 CEO received 70.7% of their maximum bonus, on the higher end. Just five CEOs missed out on their bonus. Nine CEOs received termination payments averaging $2.2m each.
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Top 100 CEOs paid a median $4.8m in 2025, analysis shows
Chief executives of Australia’s 100 biggest companies earned a median $4.8m in realised pay in 2025’s financial year, a 16% increase from 2024, a new report has found.
The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors has calculated take-home pay, which includes reported pay plus bonuses, vested shares and other extras.
At the 100 biggest ASX companies, the $4.8m median was the highest recorded over the 12 years the calculations have been done. Two Australian-based CEOs had realised pay above $30m – Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake and Goodman’s Greg Goodman – where none did in 2024. Incumbent CEOs tended to see higher pay gains. The average hit $6m.
ACSI found the gap between top CEOs and ordinary workers was the same as in 2024, with chief executives again earning 55 times the average Australian adult’s weekly full-time earnings as of May 2025. Average earnings have slowed since then so the gap may have widened.
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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.
Ed Husic has warned the Labor party that it risks losing voter support in a similar way to the Democrats in the US if it continues to respond to questions around Palestinian rights with “fear and loathing”. More coming up.
Chief executives of Australia’s 100 biggest companies earned $4.8m in realised pay in 2025’s financial year, a 16% increase from 2024. We have more details on that shortly.
