What we learned – Thursday 17 September
It was bad day to be a microphone in Canberra – what a hectic sitting day!
Before we go, let’s recap the top headlines:
-
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, has revealed long-awaited migration changes at the National Press Club, after plans for a speech more than a month ago were derailed. The government will cut off pathways for international students to remain in Australia, and crack down on individuals living in Australia without a visa, under its new migration plan.
-
Deputy opposition leader Jane Hume said the government has been “all over the shop on immigration”, and cannot support its proposal without seeing further details.
-
Net overseas migration eased to 292,000 in the year to March, from 299,000 in December, according to new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
-
Australia has broken into the top 10 of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, ranking eighth out of 148 countries – its highest ranking ever.
-
Tanya Plibersek and Katy Gallagher have announced plans to close gaps that have allowed family and domestic violence perpetrators to continue causing harm through the child support system. Plibersek said the new child support legislation will enforce travel bans of child support dodgers – meaning they won’t be able to fly overseas.
-
Labor has backflipped on a decision to cap allied health support for veterans after wide backlash. The veterans affairs’ minister, Matt Keogh, said the cap will be removed after consulting with veterans.
-
Pauline Hanson has rebuked a reporter for asking about her decision to team up with Fatima Payman, who previously called her racist, to demand more staff.
-
Queensland’s government has passed legislation allowing it to establish outback boot camps for young people convicted or accused of crimes.
-
And finally, here’s a tl;dr on what happened during question time.
Thanks for sticking around, we’ll see you tomorrow morning.
Updated
NSW government introduces legislation cracking down on contract crime
The NSW government on Thursday introduced to parliament legislation cracking down on contract crime.
The move came after Marco Tapia, 23, was shot inside his family’s home in Glen Alpine early on 1 September. Two teenage boys have been charged with murder after the shooting death of a university student in Sydney this month, which police say was a case of mistaken identity.
Premier Chris Minns said his thoughts remained with Mr Tapia’s family. He said.
I can only imagine to have a son who’s done absolutely nothing wrong, living his life and being [killed] in his bed
The age of the people who have been accused of these offences is worrying for everybody.”
Opposition leader Kellie Sloane labelled the arrests deeply shocking and concerning. She said:
It is no wonder that people in Sydney’s southwest and west are frightened and I don’t blame them.
Read the full story:
Updated
Integrity body warns government algorithms risk repeating robodebt mistakes
The independent research institute the Centre for Public Integrity has warned that federal government agencies are deploying opaque automated decision-making tools as part of an opaque system, creating major accountability gaps potentially depriving people of fundamental review rights.
In a submission to the government inquiry on Artificial Intelligence, the Centre wrote that it is concerned the increasing use of algorithms is creating “significant accountability gaps” requiring new legal frameworks. The submission said:
At the most basic level, individuals may not know whether automated decision-making has been used at all in a decision affecting them.
Even where its use is known, there may be insufficient information about the particular system involved and the material upon which it operated, including relevant algorithms, code, datasets and, in the case of generative AI, prompts and other instructions.
This opacity stops meaningful scrutiny of whether government systems produce discriminatory, biased or otherwise unfair outcomes, the submission says, and this may “substantially impair an individual’s capacity to understand and challenge a decision”.
It comes as Guardian Australia has reported the government’s implementation of an algorithm to assess the entitlement of older Australians to government-funded aged care support at home could not be overridden when it made wrong decisions. It has left older Australians without the care and support they need, leading to worsening health and earlier entry into aged care.
Centre director Dr Catherine Williams said:
We have been here before.
Robodebt showed what happens when automated systems are allowed to make decisions affecting people’s lives without adequate transparency, accountability or review rights. To prevent piecemeal reform like we have seen with the Aged Care Bill, a single, principled framework must be implemented.
The submission calls for an audit and registry of all automated tools across commonwealth agencies.
Updated
Shadow health and aged care minister Anne Ruston said Freedom of Information (FoI) documents reported by Guardian Australia show the government “shut out its own staff and frontline assessors from a decision that directly affects older Australians”.
You cannot tell Australians a qualified human is in control, while designing a system where an assessor cannot override an algorithm-generated result.
The federal government stripped frontline health workers of the power to override an algorithm used by aged care assessors to determine how much government-funded home support older Australians are entitled to, forcing them to accept the algorithm’s outcome even when it under-assesses peoples needs.
FoI documents show the department’s own staff warned removing the ability of assessors to override wrong outcomes was contrary to assurances they had provided to assessors and in public statements, and would likely break the trust of the sector.
Ruston said:
Technology can support an assessment but must never replace professional judgement or stop an assessor responding to an older Australian’s individual circumstances.
Read more:
Government to face Senate scrutiny over compulsory BasicsCard scheme after broken election promise
Last week, the government broke an election promise to “scrap the discriminatory Cashless Debit Card and make the BasicsCard voluntary” by repealing a clause that would have ended the compulsory nature of the scheme in July this year.
Tomorrow, the Senate Community Affairs References Committee will be hearing from groups about the government’s changes to the policy, which blocks purchases like alcohol and tobacco until 2033,
Data from the Department of Social Services shows there are 33,061 people on income management programs, known as the BasicsCard and SmartCard. More than 82% of participants identify as First Nations, with the vast majority on the scheme living in the Northern Territory.
Ahead of the inquiry tomorrow, Accountable Income Management Network Simon Schrapel said:
The Government’s proposed changes aim to shut down future Parliamentary review of a regime that has proven to be ineffective, discriminatory, costly and harmful for many participants.
And yet here we are with a government having no road map to end compulsory income management. Instead they have pushed through legislative changes to remove self-repeal dates and the periodic review of income management by the Parliament, backtracking on their promise to end these policies.
Income management disproportionately targets Aboriginal people and communities. It undermines basic human rights, creates stigma, is fundamentally racist and has consistently shown to deliver minimal if any benefits for participants forced onto the scheme. The Accountable Income Management Network continues to call on the government to end compulsory income management.
If the Government was serious about implementing its policy commitment to ending mandated income management then this latest proposal to remove legislative self-repeal dates is a funny way to go about it. It will only serve to make the Government less accountable for a policy that has failed at every hurdle.
Updated
Jane Hume says Labor ‘all over the shop on immigration’
Deputy opposition leader Jane Hume said the government has been “all over the shop on immigration”, and cannot support it’s proposal without seeing further details.
Speaking on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Hume said the Coalition had not seen any legislation:
The Coalition cannot respond on whether we would support legislation unless we have seen it. This government has a track record of putting together legislation that contains things that are inevitably going to wedge the Coalition, that we simply cannot support for one reason or another, and then accusing us of being uncooperative.
If the minister has legislation that he would like to bring to the parliament he would like us to consider, absolutely, go ahead, please do it. We want to see it.
Labor always tries to find a wedge and the political angle. This is too important for a political angle.
Updated
WA police officer stood down after allegedly assaulting his five-week-old baby
A Western Australian police officer has been stood down and charged after allegedly assaulting his five-week-old baby.
The baby was taken to Perth Children’s hospital as a precaution.
The 30-year-old man has been charged with aggravated common assault and is expected to appear before a magistrates court on Thursday.
Updated
Labor accused of abandoning migrants and refugees to ‘appease far right’
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre has accused the government of turning its back on migrants, international students and asylum seekers in an attempt to “appease the far right” as it announces its migration policy.
In a statement, ASRC chief executive Kon Karapanagiotidis said the government must remember that “behind all of this are human beings”.
They are our neighbours, our colleagues, our friends and our families. They are part of us.
And all of this for what?
To make Australia smaller, meaner and more divided in the hope that cruelty towards migrants and refugees will win back votes from the far right?
There is no bottom to this race. There is no amount of cruelty that will ever appease the far right. Pauline Hanson has already made that clear, and the Coalition is already demanding more. How much of its soul is the Labor Party prepared to sacrifice chasing people who will never be satisfied?
Karapanagiotidis said the organisation “will not stand by while migrants and refugees are used as political punching bags”.
Updated
Queensland passes laws to establish outback boot camps for youth criminals
Queensland’s government has passed legislation allowing it to establish outback boot camps for young people convicted or accused of crimes.
The Youth Justice (Circuit Breaker) Amendment Bill 2026 passed into law this afternoon.
The Liberal-National party government made an election promise to establish two camps run by non-government organisations in rural or remote locations in the state for up to 60 children. Under the act, children can be sent to the remote prisons for up to six months either as a condition of bail or as a sentence for a conviction.
Experts compared the facilities to the boot camps created under the government of Campbell Newman. A KPMG report later found they weren’t an effective way to reduce recidivism and children should not be detained in remote locations.
The Youth Advocacy Centre warned there was a risk children could be mistreated in the camps, as the new centres will have less oversight than Queensland jails.
Minister for youth justice Laura Gerber said the law would give courts “a powerful new tool to deal with repeat youth offenders by removing them from the community they have caused harm to and ordering them to Circuit Breaker Sentencing, an intensive rehabilitation program”.
Labor and the Greens voted against the bill.
Updated
Good afternoon!
Thanks to Krishani Dhanji for guiding us through what has been a jam-packed day. I’ll be here to see out the rest of the afternoon.
Updated
Thank you all so much for joining me in our journey on the blog today – it’s been busy to say the least!
I’ll leave you with the wonderful Achol Arok for the rest of the afternoon.
Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time
-
The Coalition started on migration today, asking why the government hadn’t reduced its migration targets in today’s announcement. Tony Burke said cutting migration further would “trash” the economy.
-
Jim Chalmers then accused the Liberals of having their policy developed by One Nation “in the cockpit of a plane donated by a billionaire”
-
The Coalition finally got the prime minister to say that he hadn’t provided Rhys Muldoon a reference for his role as an Australia Day ambassador (on the second attempt today).
-
Anthony Albanese was asked about whether he would increase funding for the AI safety institute – while talking up the institute, he wouldn’t commit more money.
-
Milton Dick had a bit of a moment confusing two different MPs, which the Coalition took full comedic and political advantage of when he apologised for the mistake.
Failed NSW anti-abortion bill an attempt to ‘chip away’ at women’s rights, critics say
A failed New South Wales bill has been labelled “a familiar strategy from the anti-abortion playbook”.
The Libertarian upper house member John Ruddick had introduced a bill that claimed to ban sex-selective abortions. Experts say such a practice is not occurring, has already been banned within the health regulations, and that the attempt to “ban” it is part of a broader strategy to recriminalise abortion.
The bill was defeated 21-16 on Wednesday night.
Family Planning Australia’s chief executive officer, Sue Shilbury, said the decision underlined that abortion is healthcare. She said:
It is reassuring that measures which could recriminalise abortion care and undermine safe, equitable and timely access were rejected.
Criminalising any aspect of abortion care is an attack on women’s health and the doctors and nurses caring for them.
This bill was a familiar strategy from the anti-abortion playbook attempting to chip away at women’s reproductive rights bit by bit.
One Nation’s NSW leader, Mike Newman, spoke at a rally for the bill organised by controversial anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe, where he claimed the party wanted to “stop” abortion – a claim he later said was a mistake.
Updated
Abbott says Australians don’t want frontier wars or ‘drug wars’ in War Memorial
Tony Abbott has said the Australian War Memorial should not be dedicated to the frontier wars between Indigenous people and settlers, just as it should leave out the “drug wars” in suburban Sydney.
The former prime minister said the massacres should not be considered a war between nations, nor even a civil war, addressing the “Imperialism and Resistance” conference at the memorial today. He said:
What about the fights between First Nations which were frequent and often deadly? How could events such as the Eureka Stockade or even the apprehension of the Kelly Gang be excluded? ...
It would be a big stretch to ask the Australian people to describe as war all acts of politically motivated violence, as it were, or of violence between significant groups of people. I mean the tabloids might say there’s a drug war in western Sydney, but I don’t know whether we would want to put that into the Australian War Memorial for instance, however serious.
The Australian War Memorial has no separate gallery on colonisation but is considering more work to reflect the conflicts after the first fleet’s 1788 arrival.
Abbott said there were “lots of terrible things that undoubtedly happened” and singled out a court case over the 1838 Myall Creek massacre as a “regrettably rare show of British justice”. He accused colonial Queensland’s native mounted police of “indiscriminate killing” which went “unrecorded as a matter of policy”. But he downplayed an academic’s massacre map and their estimate of 11,000 deaths from conflict as a “guesstimate”.
Researchers this week estimated there were roughly 2.2 million Indigenous people before 1788, with fewer than a tenth thereafter. Abbott declined to comment on the study but said it was “way, way, way larger” than previously recognised estimates. He said:
Obviously, population decline from let’s say 300,000 to 100,000 is a catastrophic decline.
Updated
Question time ends
And after that final dixer, the PM brings question time to an end for the fortnight.
Updated
Milton Dick has helmed a bit of chaos in the House.
Meaning to call on the member for Hume, David Moncrieff, for a dixer, he instead accidentally calls on the member for Moncrieff, Angie Bell – an honest mistake.
Everyone laughs it off and he apologises, which leaves the Coalition roaring with laughter.
“That’s how you do it!” shouts Nationals deputy leader, Darren Chester (a nod to Anthony Albanese not apologising over melon-gate).
Dan Tehan gets up to acknowledge the apology, but Dick laughs it off and tell him to sit down and be serious:
Yes, we don’t need acknowledgement, we need you to resume your seat.
Updated
Albanese questioned on funding for AI Safety Institute
Independent Kate Chaney asks if the government will increase funding for the AI Safety Institute, after AI leaders just this week said the technology was developing faster than it can be controlled.
Anthony Albanese spends most of the answer talking about how good the institute is but doesn’t say whether he’ll give it any more money.
Chaney tries to make that point – that she asked about funding specifically – but Milton Dick says the prime minister is being relevant.
It’s just been established, it’s just been established, less than one year ago … we want to make sure this follows best practice.
Perhaps that means it’s too soon to give it a funding boost?
Updated
Albanese says he didn’t give Muldoon a reference for Australia Day role
After ducking questions in question time yesterday and today, Anthony Albanese finally gives a us a clear “no” when asked again whether he provided Rhys Muldoon a reference for his Australia Day ambassador role.
It’s fourth time lucky for the Coalition.
Updated
Albanese dodges questions on his ‘foul-mouthed friend’
Anthony Albanese has continued to dodge questions on whether he provided a reference for Rhys Muldoon, the ex-Play School host who was sacked from a casual Labor staffing role with Tasmanian senator Richard Dowling after old slur-ridden tweets were resurfaced.
Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell says the prime minister twice avoided the question yesterday and asks a third time if a reference was ever provided to what she calls his “foul-mouthed friend”.
The prime minister repeats lines that Muldoon’s social media posts were “completely inappropriate”.
I’m advised that Mr Muldoon has been Australia Day ambassador since 2014. It’s clearly not appropriate for that to occur. And as I have said I wasn’t aware of his comments until they were raised in the media. Neither was Senator Dowling. Senator Dowling took immediate action and that is appropriate.
There’s no mention of references.
Updated
No dollar figure on government spend on green hydrogen
How much has been spent on green hydrogen asks One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce.
Spoiler alert, halfway through Chris Bowen’s answer Joyce stands up to make a point of order because we’ve got no dollar figure.
Bowen says there are a few different programs that could fund green hydrogen, some only disburse money when green hydrogen is actually produced.
Bowen says more broadly that green hydrogen is still an important part of the energy transition and takes a swipe at the opposition:
I want to give credit where it’s due. I stand on the shoulder of giants because my predecessor as Minister for Energy, the member for Hume, said, on eight occasions that hydrogen would be responsible for $50 billion of additional GDP by 2050.
“Hydrogen. Not green hydrogen!” shouts Angus Taylor from across the despatch box.
After the point of order, Bowen still can’t get us a dollar figure, but says he’ll come back to Joyce with an answer.
Coalition calls for Keogh to apologise following allied health cap backdown
The veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh, has been asked to apologise to veterans and resign after he this morning announced a backflip on the government’s controversial $5,000 allied health caps.
Keogh says the government listened and engaged with veterans – which causes the opposition to arc up. Veterans have accused Keogh of not meeting with them or hearing them.
He doesn’t apologise – and unsurprisingly doesn’t say he will resign.
We committed to listen, and we did. And we heard. We have responded as part of that, we are not proceeding with the threshold. But we are also ensuring that we are increasing that access to allied healthcare by maintaining that increase in fees so that allied health professionals will continue to service our veteran community, which is so vitally important.
Keogh says the government has passed legislation through the Senate today that goes to 40 of the recommendations from the royal commission into defence and veterans’ suicides.
The opposition tries to make a point of order, but Keogh sits down, indicating he’s finished his answer.
Updated
Albanese challenged to face workers in Whyalla
Changing tack, Liberal MP Tom Venning asks Anthony Albanese whether he will visit Whyalla and face the hundreds of workers who have lost their jobs “under Labor’s future made offshore”, before he heads to New York.
Albanese is leaving tomorrow morning – so won’t go.
But he tries to do a bit of a compare and contrast on how many times he’s gone compared with the opposition.
I’ll compare how many times I’ve been to Whyalla compared with the frontbench there. We’ll add it up. I don’t know if the member for Canning [Andrew Hastie] has been to Whyalla or the leader of the opposition, he’s probably been there to check that it was still there. Remember when they were in government they said it would disappear off the map?
Updated
‘They’ve got a lot of nerve’: Chalmers hits back as Coalition attacks Labor on productivity
Tim Wilson has gone for a bit of a character hit on Jim Chalmers, asking how many more chances the treasurer will get – between “Labor legend Bill Kelty’s” criticisms of him, Labor backbenchers briefing out their budget concerns to the media, and reports that he’s switching from a 20-year to 30-year averages for productivity to “pump up his numbers”.
Chalmers seizes on the third point and says the opposition “has a lot of nerve” asking about productivity, accusing them of presiding over the weakest decade in over 60 years in terms of productivity.
They’ve got a lot of nerve asking about productivity. They did nothing, nothing about productivity in their wasted decade of missed opportunities in office.
One of the first things I did as Treasurer was to get rid of the Coalition’s dodgy productivity assumption and make it more realistic on the advice of the Treasury department.
He says the government’s long term productivity assumption sits at 1.2 – somewhere in between the UK which uses 1.5, the US that uses 1.4 and New Zealand that uses 0.9.
Updated
‘We must shape AI or it will shape us’: Albanese
Over to the crossbench, Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown asks whether the government will legislate to force datacentres to build at least enough renewables to power themselves, and in the mean time, place a moratorium on new datacentre approvals.
Anthony Albanese says these discussions are being had and that datacentres will be forced to build renewables, but they won’t be forced to only use renewables for power. He also doesn’t want a moratorium on approvals.
If there is surplus energy in gas, for example, in some areas then we would allow that to be used on the proviso that it does not put pressure on the system and therefore put pressure on prices that ordinary Australians are paying. Why is that important? That’s important because you need social licence for these institutions.
We’re working constructively to make sure that that social licence is available, is absolutely critical. We have said very clearly that we must shape AI or it will shape us.
Updated
Parents, teachers, coaches have a role in preventing radicalisation: Burke
Jumping back to the end of his address to the National Press Club, Tony Burke was asked about reports in The Australian documenting four major terror plots that had been disrupted since the deadly Bondi beach shootings in December.
The alleged schemes were all thwarted in the first six months of the year, with five males, including three teenagers, charged.
Burke said that work is under way right now to consider changes to the terror threat level system, including possibly changing categories such as “probable” to give the public a better understanding of the likely threat.
Burke mentioned advertising related to the national security hotline and said a real risk was young men and boys engaging with people or AI chatbots online and becoming radicalised.
We’ve talked today about what comes over the border and who comes over the border. Can I also say we need to be really careful about what comes over the browser.
We have real national security risks there, particularly for young people. So, one of the challenges in any advertising campaign there is, what do we do for parents to notice what signals there might be?
Burke said parents, teachers, school coaches and other trusted adults were best placed to notice small changes in behaviour and language which might indicate possible risk of radicalisation.
In those cases, he said it could be advisable for adults to call the government’s national security hotline. All calls are investigated and care applied to help children and families.
The advertising campaign on that, I think, is the biggest risk that we need to get moving on. Because that’s the bit that people are most likely to be unaware of.
Updated
Liberal policy ‘determined by One Nation in the cockpit of a plane donated by a billionaire’, Chalmers says
Nationals MP Kevin Hogan is up next and asks the treasurer how the government can be trusted when it’s blown a $7bn hole in the budget after the prime minister said the refugee intake would remain at 20,000.
For the backstory on that one, read here.
Jim Chalmers decides to take a quick jab at his counterpart, shadow treasurer Tim Wilson, joking that the opposition probably gave the question to the Nats, not expecting him to still be here in QT (because he pretty often gets kicked out).
He says more seriously that the government is working to make the migration system “robust” and one that works in the national interest.
Then decides to get a bit personal again.
The difference between this side of the house and that side of the house is our migration policy is determined by cabinet ministers in the cabinet room. The Liberal party’s migration policy is determined by One Nation in the cockpit of a plane donated by a billionaire.
Barnaby Joyce fist bumps the air at the shout out.
Updated
It’s question time!
Angus Taylor begins and asks why the government did not announce new cuts to migration levels today.
Tony Burke, who has raced back to parliament from the National Press Club, says doing so would trash the economy.
Let me say this to the leader of the opposition, as I said to the National Press Club today. If you make cuts too deep, too hard in the immigration system, you trash the Australian economy.
“You’ve already done that mate,” shouts someone from the opposition benches.
Burke asks Taylor if he’s been listening to his own backbench who have been calling for more backpackers to support regional areas.
Does he understand that the people who have jobs at our universities, funded by international education, are Australian citizens with real jobs? Does he understand that the people who work there have real jobs? Does he understand that the small businesses that exist off the back of international education also are people with real jobs?
What we don’t need is random dog whistling and someone wanting to claim that … they want all the numbers to be lower except every visa that might affect their electorate.
“That’s a slur!” shouts Taylor.
Updated
Burke: tougher compliance measures will force ‘behaviour change’
My colleague, Tom McIlroy, asks Burke how many more people will leave under his new enforcement measures.
There are tens of thousands of individuals who have had their visas rejected and then exhausted legal options to remain in the country.
Burke says new compliance officers and beds in new detention centres will help get those numbers down.
It’s not 250 permanent places. So, you’d certainly turn over more than four in a year, and sometimes you’d only have people in there for a couple of weeks, sometimes even less than that. The behavioural change is actually the biggest outcome. So, we’re dealing with something that Australia hasn’t done for 11 years.
He adds that there’s a deterrent effect, where previously six to seven people would depart voluntarily for every person brought into detention.
The real change is effectively for people to be self-managing and working on the basis that ‘this is a country where, if I’ve no longer got a visa, I should leave’.
Updated
Burke says everything is hunky dory between him and the PM and treasurer
Tony Burke says that the prime minister did not intervene last month when he was first due to unveil the migration plan at the Press Club.
He says the first reports of his speech being cancelled came a day after he’d discussed the decision with Anthony Albanese:
It was a bit hard for me to go back and say ‘I’m upset that you’re not agreeing to something that he had agreed to yesterday’, but journalists were saying he hadn’t.
Things are also all good with Jim Chalmers, Burke stresses, after reports the two weren’t seeing eye to eye on the policy.
This morning other cabinet ministers sought to play down any tensions in the cabinet over the plan.
Asked, “are you still mates?”, Burke says:
Yeah, absolutely. Add that to the list of things I’ve read that have surprised me about myself! I’ve had all sorts of arguments that I wasn’t aware of, as I’ve watch the news over the last six weeks.
Updated
Migration plan ‘improving supply and reducing demand’ in housing, says Burke
Burke is asked whether the policies will help put downward pressure on housing and rental costs.
At the beginning of his address, the home affairs minister tried to rubbish claims that migration is the leading cause of housing unaffordability.
He said a huge change from the last century is that less people are living in a home together, and more people are living by themselves, meaning you need way more housing stock to accommodate those choices.
He tells the press club these measures will help bring in more trade and construction workers to build more housing while decreasing the total number of migrants competing for housing.
It’s never going to be the only issue. But obviously anything you do that improves supply, you know, we’re both here, we’re both improving supply and reducing demand. We’re doing the two things that should help with exactly what you’ve described.
Updated
Cutting migration too much would ‘trash the economy’, Tony Burke says
Tony Burke says it would be an “own goal” for the country to drop migration numbers further than what the government is planning over the next few years.
The budget anticipates net overseas migration will drop to 225,000 in 2027-28.
He says any more than that risks critical industries.
He tells the press club that other parties (One Nation) are proposing to stop temporary skilled workers being able to bring their families which would stop many of them coming and “will trash Australian services and trash the Australian economy.”
How many doctors at the moment, the proportion of doctors who come to Australia, come with family attached to their application? 50%.
How many construction workers come with family attached to their application? 50%.
How many nurses and aged care workers come with family attached to their application? Two–thirds …
Imagine half of the construction workers who we have to build the houses that we need, not coming.
Imagine two–thirds of the people who we rely on in aged care or nursing not coming. That’s the impact of those policies.
That’s what those lower numbers do. And if that’s the debate I’m walking into, I am all in.
Updated
‘Some of what’s been written is very wrong’: Burke on humanitarian visa reports
We’re onto questions now and Tony Burke is asked about media reports that the government was considering stripping working rights for asylum seekers or that an individual would only have three months to apply for asylum.
Burke says, don’t believe everything you read.
This is the problem we want to solve, but we will insist on solving it in a way that doesn’t undermine the decency of us as a country and doesn’t undermine the fact that we do believe – and the government does believe – for example, the classic one was those [Iranian] footballers, where they came to Australia, they were completely honest about the visa they applied for, they intended to go back, circumstances changed when they were here, and we were a good and decent country. We should continue this.
I don’t think there’s much public appetite for people who know they don’t have a valid claim, being able to game the system. There are ways of working through that. I’m not going to go any deeper than that.
Updated
New ballot systems for second and third years of working holiday visas
There are some pretty significant changes to the backpackers’ visas that Burke is announcing today.
Right now you have to do 88 days of regional work to qualify for a second year of the working holidaymaker visa.
Under the new changes, that only gets you into a ballot to then get a chance of remaining here for the second year. Then there will be a further ballot for the third year, for those who have spent six months of their second year working in a regional area.
This is where the government will be cutting down a lot of visa places.
Burke says:
What you will be qualifying for is a ballot. Not everybody will get through because we need to have some control and certainty of what those numbers are. The ballot for year two will be limited to 45,000. For reference, last year there were 57,000 people who qualified.
Year three, with the exception of the UK, is something that is not part of any free trade agreement, that third year, it was something that was introduced not that long ago. We will be seriously limiting year three down to a ballot system of 5,000. Now, last year, there were 31,000 in this group.
As Burke notes there – this won’t affect the free trade agreement signed with the UK.
Updated
‘If you no longer have a valid visa, you should leave Australia’: Burke
Burke says the government will hire 100 compliance officers and pursue extra detention centres to deal with tens of thousands of individuals who have remained in Australia without a valid visa – but stresses it won’t be an ICE-style crackdown seen in the US.
He says before 2015 anyone who overstayed their visa would be sent to a detention centre and they pretty quickly booked themselves a flight out of Australia.
But in 2015, after mandatory visa cancellation was introduced, the detention centres were filled with people who had come from prisons.
Burke says:
There are many compounds there where there is no way I would share an overstayer with that particular caseload, and it’s meant that the resources of the department have been had to be used in a very different way.
Burke says now the government is looking to return to that previous system.
What we will do is simply go back to what Australia always did before 2015. This is not the sort of operation that some people have seen on TV happening in other countries …
We already have different alternative places of detention near airports that are available – but we’re also having a look at the former quarantine facility in Melbourne to see how that might be able to be repurposed as well.
Updated
Burke outlines crackdown on visa-hopping
There are quite a few changes in store for future international students, including that students will no longer automatically be able to bring their family on a visa with them.
But students from Pacific and Asean nations, as well as students studying PhDs, will still be allowed to bring family.
There will also be changes to the points allocated for certain Tafe or university courses. Normally Tafe courses attract fewer points that are required to study in Australia, but Burke says now construction trades will get the same number of points as a university degree to “make sure that we are getting the construction trades that we desperately need”.
What we’ll be doing is updating that and adding to the priority list, construction, agriculture, fisheries and teaching.
The government will also be cracking down on so-called visa-hopping. Burke says:
Someone finishes their course and where do they go to next? And one of the classic areas of visa hopping is people finish a course, hop to the next course, hop to the next, and one of the worst examples is they transfer down to a not-so-legitimate educational provider who is able to say to them, ‘Study with me. It will cost you less. We’re not very demanding on whether you attend anything. And you’ll be able to go for your life and get out there and work.’
And where this is being used effectively to drive a migration outcome, not an educational outcome.
Burke says to combat this a student will be allowed to change courses “up the qualification scale” but not down.
Updated
Burke denies migration plan in response to One Nation threat
Tony Burke says the government has been working on the migration plan since last year – ie refuting the claim that it’s been done in response to One Nation.
It’s simply demonstrably wrong to [suggest] that somehow this is a recent bit of work done to deal with a political climate. It’s not.
But he does say that the reforms don’t go as far as he’d like them to because of the political climate.
He says to go harder and use more “levers” to control migration, legislation is needed, and he knows he’ll struggle to get support from the Coalition or the Greens to do that.
They are not as comprehensive as I would like them to be. Effectively, to be able to add all the levers that I talked about, particularly with respect to the problem of the demand-driven system that we have – you can’t do that without legislation.
Updated
Burke rubbishes ‘absurd’ claims of ‘mass migration’ in Australia
Tony Burke starts his address trying to dispel some of the most “absurd” claims in the migration debate – starting with the claim that Australia is a nation of “mass migration”.
Burke tells the National Press Club that there’s one simple fact to counter that:
Before the pandemic, the intergenerational report had the projections for where Australia’s population would be by 2030–31. When we get to that point, we’ll be 700,000 people smaller than what had been projected before the pandemic.
He then takes aim at claims that backpacker and Palm scheme visas don’t form part of the net migration number – most of them do. He said last year backpackers made up 48,000 of the net overseas migration figure.
There’s almost an approach, sort of the Nom version of nimbyism – I won’t try to invent the ‘nombyism’ word. It’s a concept where people say they want immigration numbers to go down, but they don’t want to mention this visa class and they immediately want to rule out all the ones that they would rely on.
Despite international students being targeted by the government in its migration changes, Burke acknowledges that the cohort are incredibly important to the economy.
He doesn’t say One Nation, but he’s clearly having a crack at their policy.
There’s a whole section of the economy in the cities that is only there because we have an important export industry in international students. Drastic cuts, wherever you make them, hurt the economy in every part, in every area. And what we need to make sure of is anything we do to temper migration needs to take account of the economic costs.
Updated
Labor to cut visas for international students’ families; new conditions on visitor visas
The government will cut off pathways for international students to remain in Australia, and crack down on individuals living in Australia without a visa, under its new migration plan.
Tony Burke is unveiling the plan – which won’t decrease the current targets for net overseas migration but will help the government ensure that the numbers won’t go above the target.
Burke says the government will enforce new compliance messages to make sure people without valid visas leave the country, as well prevent international students visa hopping, and restrict their ability to bring family over to Australia while they study.
Dodgy migration agents who support visa applications without merit will also be targeted.
There will also be changes to the working holidaymaker visa, which will see a ballot system introduced for the years two and three where there will be a requirement to work in regional areas.
Updated
Students should stay in school, not go to Hanson protest, Carroll says
The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, was also asked about this afternoon’s national student walkout against Pauline Hanson.
He said:
Students want to change the world. The best place is to be in school – and getting an education, coming out and following it through is the best way you can change the world. I’m hurt by Pauline Hanson’s comments. At least Andrew Hastie calls out her comments. Jess Wilson is still to call out any comments that Pauline Hanson’s made. And whether its family violence, the prime minister’s mother, the attack on Indigenous Australians, leadership is calling out the awful, hurtful comments that Pauline Hanson has made.
Updated
Big Build royal commission ‘toughest’ in Victoria's history, premier says
The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, has held a press conference with the head of the police union, Wayne Gatt, to announce that if Labor is re-elected, it will invest $10m in Bluehub, a mental health service for police officers.
Carroll has spent much of the week spruiking crime-related election commitments, including opening a new police academy in the western suburbs and introducing Jack’s Law, which will give police powers to stop and search anyone for knives using handheld metal detectors.
But most of the questions this morning focused on the royal commission into allegations of corruption on Big Build sites, which will hold its first public hearing next week. Carroll described the inquiry as the “toughest royal commission in Victoria’s history”. He went on:
Nobody and nothing is off limits – the power to compel people, the power to compel information. Also working alongside the royal commission, a special prosecutor, not waiting for a report, doing the work they need to do straight away for any criminality that is aired, and that is what we will focus on.
Asked whether a witness list would soon be published, he said that was “totally up to the royal commissioner”.
Carroll also said the matter of whether the government would cover current or previous MPs’ legal bills was being “worked through”.
Those decisions will be taken and made in appropriate course of time and action.
Updated
Got a question for us?
As we settle down at the National Press Club to shortly hear from the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, we want to hear from you.
Do you have a burning question about Labor’s migration plan or any other political issue?
Send your questions to [email protected] and we’ll be answering them in tomorrow’s newsletter.
And don’t forget to sign up to the Politics, really newsletter here.
Updated
Labor ‘still doesn’t understand how badly this has gone wrong’: Greens
Continued from our last post …
On Tuesday night the government circulated an amendment to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner Bill to establish an “escalation pathway” for the mistakes made by the tool’s algorithm.
A statement from Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne said this change “is not to change the broken algorithm, or restore the ability for clinicians to override its mistakes. The amendment merely provides for an additional review pathway to the department to alter decisions”.
Allman-Payne said:
This tool was deployed without adequate testing or consultation, and yet was immediately given absolute power to decide older people’s care needs. The implementation of the tool has been a disaster, but this amendment shows Labor still doesn’t understand how badly this has gone wrong.
Simply adding another review pathway is a wholly inadequate response by the minister to address an assessment tool that is fundamentally unfit for purpose.
Updated
Greens accuse government of failing to fix aged care algorithm
The Greens have slammed the government’s proposed fix to an aged care assessment tool that is driven by an algorithm, and which has been revealed to be systemically under-assessing the support at home needs of older Australians.
Guardian Australia revealed through freedom of information that within days of the algorithm being rolled out as part of the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT), state and territory health departments were logging hundreds of cases of under-assessment old older Australians and sharing concerns about the impact this was having on hospital discharge times and the deterioration of health conditions.
On Thursday Guardian Australia reported that after months of assurances to aged care assessment organisations that if the algorithm got a funding decision wrong, clinicians would have the power and discretion to correct the outcome, the department went back on its word at the 11th hour leading to internal turmoil.
Updated
Asylum seeker work restrictions ‘manufacture humanitarian crisis overnight’
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has warned that Labor’s proposed restrictions on asylum seekers’ work rights would “manufacture a humanitarian crisis overnight”.
The warning comes amid reports the government is considering new limits on the work rights of asylum seekers on temporary visas, including those appealing visa refusals.
According to modelling by the ASRC, removing work rights in Victoria alone could create at least $1m a week in additional support needs for asylum support organisations.
In a statement, ASRC head of advocacy Ogy Simic said:
Taking away work rights means taking people who are working, paying rent and supporting their families, stripping away their income and forcing them to rely on charities that are already stretched just to survive.
You cannot tell someone they are allowed to remain in Australia while their case is reviewed, but deny them the ability to earn enough to eat or keep a roof over their head. That is a recipe for poverty, homelessness and exploitation.
People seeking safety should not have their lives and livelihoods used as political footballs. Playing politics with people’s ability to work, feed their families and keep a roof over their heads has devastating real-world consequences.
The answer is simple: let people work, support themselves and contribute to their communities.
Updated
Queensland government pressed for power impact of datacentre deal
Queensland’s premier has refused to release any modelling done about the power impact of its new datacentre deal with AI giant Anthropic.
The company – which develops the large language model Claude – yesterday announced it would invest in the first stage of a $31bn planned datacentre west of Dalby, advertised as the country’s largest.
The opposition leader, Steven Miles, used question time this morning to press David Crisafulli for any modelling done on the project’s effect on household prices.
Crisafulli said the government’s “carve out” from commonwealth rules requiring datacentre developers to invest in new renewable power generation and to instead use the state’s ageing coal fleet would mean “that they don’t suck up power, and that they actually drive down electricity prices”.
Updated
Force big tech to report AI incidents, says Kate Chaney
Kate Chaney has called for the government to force AI companies to share information on their advanced frontier models and report critical incidents.
Chaney and other crossbenchers are also calling for a tenfold increase in funding for the government’ AI safety institute so it can have a bigger role in local regulation and global negotiations. She told reporters in Canberra:
I have spoken to the government about it and they have not dismissed it out of hand … If we want to be taken seriously as a voice at that table, we just need to scale up.
She’ll be making more recommendations from the parliament’s joint committee on AI, which closed for submissions today. It will have six Labor members, four from the Coalition, Chaney and David Pocock but no Greens members. Greens senator David Shoebridge, who has been calling for a pause on datacentre development, said the party’s exclusion was “deeply disappointing”.
Updated
Net overseas migration falls to 292,000 in the year to March
Net overseas migration eased to 292,000 in the year to March, from 299,000 in December, according to new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The data comes less than an hour out from a major address by Tony Burke, the minister for home affairs, at the National Press Club, where he will release Labor’s migration plan amid an increasingly heated debate about the number of people arriving and staying in the country, mostly on temporary visas.
Net overseas migration, or Nom, surged following the end of Covid-era lockdowns, peaking at an annual pace of 556,000 people in September 2023 after turning negative two years earlier.
While well down on those peaks, Nom remains above the roughly 250,000 run rate leading into the pandemic, and above the government’s target of 225,000.
Updated
MND Australia calls for urgent action on aged care algorithm
MND (motor neurone disease) Australia have urgently called for transparency and the return of human override to an aged care algorithm being used by the government to determine the level of support and funding Australians are entitled to.
It follows reporting by Guardian Australia that before the algorithm was added to the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT), department of health officials were grappling with the removal of human override powers and the impact this would have on aged care assessors who they had promised would be the ultimate decision makers.
Instead, Guardian Australia revealed assessors were left distressed and in turmoil when the department removed their override powers and forced assessors to accept decisions made by the algorithm, which in many cases was leaving vulnerable older people without the level of support they needed, forcing them into aged care earlier and leading to the worsening of their health conditions.
MND Australia CEO Clare Sullivan said people living with rapidly progressive conditions cannot afford further delays. She said:
For months, MND Australia has been raising serious concerns about a system where an algorithm can determine the level of care someone receives without an assessor being able to intervene when the outcome is clearly inappropriate.
We welcomed the government’s commitment to review the system, but three months have now passed. People living with MND do not have the luxury of waiting indefinitely for answers.
MND Australia has previously presented evidence showing significant variation in IAT outcomes for people living with MND. Sullivan said:
We are calling for transparency around how decisions are made and meaningful human oversight where an outcome does not reflect a person’s needs.
Read more:
Hanson scolds reporter for asking about ‘racism’ accusation from Payman
Pauline Hanson has rebuked a reporter for asking about her decision to team up with Fatima Payman, who previously called her racist, to demand more staff.
In 2024, Hanson attempted to have Payman investigated for an alleged section 44 citizenship issue. Payman responded in the Senate, before being forced to withdraw:
You’re not just vindictive, mean, nasty, you bring disgrace to the human race.
Today, the two have joined with independent MP Dai Le to ask for more parliamentary staff, or for an independent body to make staffing decisions.
Speaking to reporters in Canberra, they were asked about Payman’s past comments and whether she stood by them.
Hanson said:
Don’t raise that with me. I’m not interested. … It’s not about whether she believes it or not, and I think that’s wrong to ask that of her, of that question …
Payman said:
Australians want to see politicians act in a mature way, to put their differences aside when it comes to common causes … When Labor do that it’s called being pragmatic, making deals. But when we do it, we are under fire as, ‘oh, you know, you’ve made comments about each other in the past’.
She blamed Anthony Albanese for her staff facing burnout and psychosocial hazards due to the “whim of a petty man”. Hanson said she had two personal staff, with three more for the parliamentary party, and she wanted staffing equivalent to what the Greens have.
Updated
No bipartisanship to be found on Labor’s migration policy, says Angus Taylor
Angus Taylor says there’s no common ground to be found with the government over migration policy, ahead of Tony Burke’s announcement at the national press club today.
Taylor says the government has failed to meet its own net overseas migration targets in the post-Covid years.
When the numbers are too high and the standards are too low, it’s not going to be bipartisan. We disagree with what they have been doing. It’s wrong … They have come in over their own targets every single time. Now, there’s absolutely nothing in what we see to suggest that it’s going to change. We are just going to get more of the same.
He says the government has become too reliant on migration to keep the economy afloat.
Matt Canavan adds:
I welcome a belated recognition from Labor’s immigration minister that they agree, but the question has to be asked – what the hell has Labor been doing for the past four years?
Updated
Rockhampton’s Fitzroy River endorsed for 2032 Olympics by world rowing and paddle bodies
Rockhampton’s crocodile-inhabited Fitzroy River has been endorsed as the 2032 Olympics rowing venue.
The river – about 650 kilometres north of Brisbane – will host rowing, para rowing, canoe sprint and para canoe events for the 2032 Games.
The state government announced the plan to host the event in the regional city after lobbying by mining magnate Gina Rinehart – but it sparked a backlash by Australia’s rowing community, largely due to fairness concerns.
The premier, David Crisafulli, told parliament this morning that the plan had been endorsed by World Rowing and Paddle Worldwide, after a technical assessment by the government’s games infrastructure authority.
“The Fitzroy has passed with flying colours,” Crisafulli said.
It’s official. Signed, sealed and delivered.
World Rowing president, Jean-Christophe Rolland, said:
Based on the extensive analysis undertaken, we now know that the Fitzroy River is capable of providing fair competition conditions during the period of the Games, consistent with the requirements of Olympic and Paralympic Rowing.
Updated
‘It should never have happened’: Taylor repeats call for Labor to dump Matt Keogh
Angus Taylor has savaged the government after Labor backed down on a $5,000 allied health cap for veterans, and reiterated his call for the minister responsible to be sacked.
Taylor tells journalists in a press conference that the government’s budget is “unwinding in front of our eyes”.
The prime minister shouldn’t have just scrapped the cap. He should have scrapped the minister. This minister is not up to the job. He’s failed veterans time and time again.
Matt Canavan says that while it’s good the decision has been overturned, there is still a lack of trust among veterans with the government.
The problem now for the veterans community and our country is that there’s clearly a breakdown in trust between the veterans community and this minister … The most depressing thing to hear as the veterans came down in the past few months was their statements that they don’t know if they’d encourage their own children or others to join the defence force, given how they’re being treated here.
Updated
‘Have a beer’: Lambie celebrates veterans allied health cap backdown but defends Keogh
Jacqui Lambie has said veterans should celebrate and have a beer, after the government backed down on a policy capping allied health services for veterans to $5,000.
Lambie has also secured a win over Labor in the Senate after the Coalition and Greens supported her bill to ban any future caps on health services for veterans.
The bill won’t make it through the house though, where the government has a majority.
She tells veterans:
Have a great weekend. Have a beer. Have too many beers – do whatever. But the bloody cap has been scrapped. You beauty, and we’re backing it up, making sure that they’re never ever going to try it again.
But Lambie defends the veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh, and department:
I have seen more movement in the last two years since that royal commission than what I have in the whole 10 years I’ve bloody been up here, guys. They are working hard.
Updated
IMF downgrades Australian economic forecast amid fears of interest rate hike
The International Monetary Fund has downgraded its forecast for Australia’s economic growth in 2027, warning that the Reserve Bank may have to hike interest rates further to get price pressures back under control.
The IMF also called on federal and state governments to tighten their belts, with a new report saying more disciplined budgets will rein in rising debt burdens and help solve Australia’s long-running inflation problem.
In a “concluding statement” that followed annual consultations with Treasury, RBA and Australian Prudential Regulation Authority officials, the Washington-based institution predicted that the economy would grow by 1.9% this year.
But it shaved 0.1 percentage points off its forecast for real GDP growth to just 1.6% in 2027, flagging the downgrade was due to the higher likelihood of another RBA interest rate hike.
Inflation remains a central challenge, while weak productivity growth is weighing on the economy’s potential.
There is a risk that further large increases in global energy prices lead to stronger second-round effects and lift inflation expectations, warranting further tightening” in monetary policy.
Read the full story here:
Updated
NSW parliament votes down bill targeting ‘sex-selective abortions’
A bill to criminalise “sex-selective” abortions has been defeated in the New South Wales upper house.
The legislation, introduced by Libertarian John Ruddick, was voted down 21–16 in the Legislative Council on Wednesday.
Defending the bill during its second reading, Ruddick cited 2025 Edith Cowan University research, frequently referenced by anti-abortion activists, which he said showed Indian and Chinese migrant families were more likely to have male children than the broader population.
Labor’s Cameron Murphy said he opposed the bill “in any form” in his second reading speech, referring to a 2020 NSW Health review that found 13 of 15,973 terminations between 2019 and 2020 were flagged for sex selection, 10 of which were likely “reporting errors”.
In June, NSW’s health minister, Ryan Park said there was no evidence that sex selection was occurring in the state.
Murphy also called anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe a “co-conspirator” of the bill, criticising her influence as a political lobbyist.
Greens NSW health spokesperson, Dr Amanda Cohn, welcomed the defeat in a statement, calling the bill a “thinly veiled attempt to incrementally re-criminalise abortion”.
The real impact of the bill would have been to create so much uncertainty and fear around severe criminal penalties that many health professionals would stop providing abortions.
On Wednesday, One Nation NSW leader Mike Newman walked back comments made alongside Howe at a Tuesday anti-abortion rally, clarifying his party did not support an outright ban, but would move to restrict late-term and sex-selective procedures.
Updated
Coalition’s no-confidence motion against veterans’ affairs minister fails
Unsurprisingly, the government has not voted with the Coalition to declare no confidence in the veterans’ affairs minister. And they have the majority in the house, meaning the vote fails.
Crossbenchers Rebekha Sharkie, Dai Le and One Nation MPs David Farley and Barnaby Joyce support the Coalition’s motion.
Updated
Jacqui Lambie welcomes government’s allied health cap backdown
Jacqui Lambie has thanked the minister for “hearing us loud and clear” after the government scraps a proposed cap on allied health services for veterans.
The $5,000 cap was due to take effect on 1 July 2027.
Lambie, the Tasmanian crossbench senator and veteran, is debating her bill in the Senate which would permanently block any government from being able to impose caps on health services for veterans.
She says the bill is needed to protect veterans in the future.
If a veteran needs treatment because of their service, they should be able to get that treatment … Their access to necessary treatment should not be restricted simply because some bean counter somewhere thought he could save the department money. Because you can never, ever put a price on veterans’ life.
It would be welcome news for more than half a million Australians (581,139) who have served or are currently serving in the ADF.
By the numbers: 84,865 are current serving members and 496,276 are former serving members.
Updated
‘He has let them down’: Coalition push for no-confidence vote on Matt Keogh
The parliament is reacting quickly to the allied health decision this morning.
Liberal MP and veteran Phil Thompson who’s been a very vocal critic of the changes, has moved to suspend standing orders in the house to move a no-confidence motion against the veterans’ affairs minister, Matt Keogh. The Coalition have been calling for Keogh’s head for weeks.
The government is very unlikely to oblige and will move to shut the whole thing down.
Thompson thanks the veterans who have lobbied the government for this action and calls the caps “insidious”:
Today, veterans, you have won, you have done this, you have made a bad government back down.
We must honour those who put on the uniform that serve this nation – those that deploy on combat operations, that deploy on humanitarian missions, and when national disasters occur the first people we look to is members of the Australian defence force.
And then when they become veterans they deserve the respect and they deserve a government that looks after them. Sadly the Labor minister for veterans’ affairs has not done this. He has failed in his duty, he has let them down.
Updated
Allied health cap backdown a ‘win for democracy’, say Greens
The Greens have also welcomed the government scrapping the allied health cap for veterans that was due to start on 1 July 2027.
Senator David Shoebridge also says the cap should never have been proposed and called the backdown a “win for democracy”.
The Greens had put forward a petition for the government to scrap the cap which had more than 5000 signatures.
The Greens say they will support Jacqui Lambie’s bill in the Senate which would stop the government from being able to put caps on healthcare services for veterans into the future. The government is extremely unlikely to support it.
Shoebridge said:
This is a win for decency and the thousands of veterans who pressured this parliament to do the right thing … You did not back down, and today the government had no choice but to follow.
We’ll keep pushing for genuine consultation on any future changes to veterans’ health funding.
Updated
Taylor calls for minister to be sacked over allied health cap for veterans
Angus Taylor must have been given the heads up that the government were going to back down on the widely condemned $5,000 cap for allied health services for veterans.
When speaking to reporters a little earlier this morning he said said the decision had taken too long accused the government of being “not committed to our veterans”.
We’ve seen outrage from veterans across the country, and rightly so. These are people who have served our country with distinction, and they need to be treated with respect by this government.
They haven’t been. They haven’t been treated with respect by this minister either … It has taken too long to scrap this cap, it should never have happened, and frankly, it’s time for this minister to go.
Independent Tasmanian senator and veteran Jacqui Lambie revealed her own health struggles in parliament last month in her calls for the cap to also be scrapped.
Updated
Alternative breast cancer and endometriosis treatment added to PBS
The government has approved a new breast cancer and endometriosis treatment drug, following AstraZeneca pulling out a critical medication from the PBS.
The drug company announced in June that the Zoladex 3.6mg implant would no longer be available on the PBS from November, raising concerns for thousands of women reliant on the drug. It can provide crucial pain relief for women who use it.
The health minister, Mark Butler, has this morning announced that Triptorelin, an alternative treatment, will be available on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme (PBS) from 1 October.
Butler said:
We know thousands of women were concerned about the prospect of losing access to the Zoladex 3.6mg Implant, which is why our government has taken action to find an alternative treatment for women.
Updated
Labor backs down on $5,000 allied healthcare cap for defence veterans
Labor has backflipped on a decision to cap allied health support for veterans after wide backlash.
In a statement released this morning, the veterans affairs’ minister, Matt Keogh, said the cap will be removed after consulting with veterans.
The Coalition had been calling for Keogh’s head over the decision, urging the prime minister to sack him. He’d faced criticism for not meeting with veterans who came to Parliament House to lobby him against the reforms.
Keogh said:
We have been consulting on this measure, and we have heard from veterans there are concerns about this approach.
We have been listening carefully and today, the Government is taking the proposed $5,000 threshold off the table.
We will not change our commitment to improving access to allied health care through the fee increase to allied health providers.
Updated
‘The standards are too low’: Taylor says Labor not serious on migration cuts
Angus Taylor says Labor will not be able to achieve their own migration targets and that the party is too divided on the issue.
Speaking to journalists at Parliament House, he repeats his well-worn line that the “numbers are too high, the standards are too low”.
There’s no change to the targets, and Labor’s never reached its targets anyway. I mean, seriously, what is there to believe here, what is there in this that we can support at this point?
We’ve been clear with the prime minister and the government about what our expectations are on immigration policy. I laid that out in a letter to the prime minister last week. And we know what we want to see.
Taylor and Anthony Albanese met last week to discuss the issue – but evidently it didn’t go anywhere.
Updated
‘It’s not going to work’: Hanson says Labor has sat on its hands on migration
Pauline Hanson claims her plan of net-negative migration is the will of the people, and says One Nation has forced Labor’s hand to release its policy.
Labor was due to unveil its plan a month ago, while One Nation revealed its policy on Monday. The Coalition says it’s still working out the detail for its own plan.
Hanson spoke to reporters on her way into parliament:
Labor again has lied to the people, they’ve sat on their hands. One Nation has forced them to [release] its immigration policy, but it’s not going to work … both the Liberal party and Labor party and the Nationals are starting to see they’ve done the wrong thing by the country.
I’m implementing the will of the people who’ve been crying out this for years.
Updated
‘Don’t send the wrong message’: university vice-chancellor’s migration warning
University of Sydney vice-chancellor, Mark Scott, has warned the government to be careful in its messaging around migration, and not make international students feel unwelcome in Australia.
The families of international students could be targeted in the cuts which will be unveiled later today.
It’s also probably worth noting that the University of Sydney has the highest number of international students in the country.
Scott says international students contribute to university life and the economy and we should “treat [them] with respect to the mining sector, the agricultural sector, the tourism sector.”
He told RN Breakfast earlier:
We just need to be very sure we’re not sending any sort of message that the best international students from around the world aren’t welcome in Australia, don’t make a powerful contribution to Australia while they’re here, and we want them to be welcome and befriended in this country.
It’s that on top of the political debate, on top of a dramatic increase of visa cost, on top of a dramatic increase of visa rejections, we need to be very sure we’re not sending a message to the world that international students aren’t welcome here. We must welcome them.
Scott says he was once an international student at a university in the US and was allowed to travel with his family, “and if they had not been able to come with me, then I probably wouldn’t have gone to America.”
Updated
‘Welcome to politics’: Canavan defends Brethren church involvement in election
Matt Canavan has hit back against calls from Labor for the Coalition to condemn the Plymouth Brethren Christian church, following allegations the group paid far-right individuals to disrupt the Labor campaign.
Canavan claimed it shows Labor “seems to have a problem with people of faith, especially people of faith who involve themselves in politics”.
The Nationals leader tells RN Breakfast that the group has denied the allegations.
They [were] denied. They’re not proven. And I was aghast during the election campaign when the prime minister called a group of Christian people a cult, a group that he’d never met.
I’ve met with them [the church] since those allegations. I was pretty impacted by them. And they’re good people. They get in the community. Now, of course, like any group, some people might do the wrong thing, some might do the right thing. But to just run around allegations like that … the Labor party’s hands aren’t clean here. A lot of the Brethren members did campaign against them. OK, welcome to politics. I don’t condemn people who campaign against me.
Canavan says the allegations should be looked at and investigated but not in the “witch-hunt style process” he claims Labor is running.
Updated
Canavan says ‘not an issue’ Coalition is releasing its migration policy after Labor and One Nation
Nationals leader Matt Canavan says it’s not a problem that the Coalition will be the third party to reveal its migration plan, after One Nation revealed its plan on Monday, and Labor unveils its today.
Canavan says One Nation’s policy has no detail and no costings, and doesn’t believe that Labor will be able to hit its own targets.
I don’t see that as an issue given that the election’s not for 18 months. I mean, we can’t obviously implement any of our policies today. It’s also the case that it’s somewhat difficult here to outline plans that we won’t put in plan 18 months because things can change within 18 months.
All we’re going to get today, apparently, is another plan to implement the plan that they put in place to implement the plan that they couldn’t get done in the first place. That needs to come down. The numbers don’t seem to be coming down.
He says the numbers aren’t coming down – they are, but the government has conceded there is still a way to go.
Burke says net overseas migration fell in the last financial year to 301,000, a 45% drop from the post-Covid peak in 2023. But the government under its current projections wants to see it drop down to 225,000 in coming years.
Updated
Joyce says Labor’s migration plan almost ‘exact replication’ of One Nation's
Barnaby Joyce says Labor is copying and pasting One Nation’s homework because the measures we know so far around blocking the families of international students and preventing visa hopping have some similarity to what Pauline Hanson is suggesting.
Speaking to the Today show a little earlier, Joyce says Burke’s last minute cancellation at the press club was “the greatest no-show since Amelia Earhart”.
Joyce says:
[Burke] can’t possibly be about to announce One Nation’s policy. I mean, Tony’s a great guy, right? I like Tony, but honestly, he was the greatest no-show since Amelia Earhart when he didn’t turn up to the Press Club …
What I’ve heard thus far is that it’s an exact replication, but not to the extent of what One Nation is doing.
He says Jim Chalmers will have to come with him for the return – claiming what will be announced today won’t match the economic modelling in the current budget.
Modelling is perhaps a bit of a sore point for Joyce at the moment, after he was asked a serious of questions about whether One Nation had modelled its migration plan and couldn’t come up with a coherent answer (the answer was no).
I will be watching this with absolute fascination and some trepidation, and I’ll be waiting for Jim Chalmers to explain his new budget.
Updated
Plibersek troubled by alleged behaviour from Brethren church during election
Tanya Plibersek alleges she saw first-hand members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian church physically intimidating her colleagues during the election campaign.
Two of the most senior members of the church have been compelled to appear before the electoral matters committee. Hundreds of the church’s members volunteered for Liberal members and candidates around the country in 2025.
The church also denied reports it had secretly paid far-right individuals to disrupt the Labor campaign, during the church’s last appearance at the committee.
Plibersek tells RN Breakfast:
I was on polling booths with my colleagues like Sally Sitou. I was out there in Reid with her in those last weeks of the campaign, standing there for hours at a time. She would be surrounded by men a foot taller than her, stopping her physically talking to or giving information to voters.
I would think secretly paying known rightwing figures to disrupt events and pretend that they are just disgruntled citizens having their say is certainly immoral, if it’s not illegal.
And physically intimidating Sally Sitou, who’s a head shorter than me, with big blokes standing around her, physically stopping her talking to voters, I think that’s pretty troubling and it’s certainly not what we want in our democracy.
Updated
People with child support debts to be banned from leaving Australia
Tanya Plibersek says the new child support legislation (which my colleague Tom McIlroy brought you a moment ago) will enforce travel bans of child support dodgers – meaning they won’t be able to fly overseas.
Plibersek says there is more than $2bn of unpaid child support in Australia.
She says the system can be used as an “insidious form of domestic violence where you can continue to harass or intimidate your ex”.
She says the new rules will help recover “some” of the outstanding debts.
If people move from the private collection system to the agency collection system, so the child support agency collection system, it’ll give the child support agency the ability to go after that outstanding debt.
We got 200 cases where the debt is more than $150,000, we got one case where the debt is more than $2m.
The next piece of legislation we introduce will actually have transport or travel bans on people who have, outstanding child support debts of more than $10,000, will be automatically stopped from leaving the country and that is a strong incentive for people to pay.
We also investing more in resources from the tax office to go after people who haven’t been lodging tax returns. We know that one of the ways that minimise their child support or avoid paying is by saying I’ve had no income or have had much less income than they’ve actually had.
Updated
‘You don’t know that at all’: Plibersek rejects cabinet division over migration
Tanya Plibersek doesn’t want to say much about migration this morning, other than the broad-brush statement that migration is essential to Australia and the government has already brought net migration down significantly from Covid peaks.
The social services minister also doesn’t want to talk about whether there was any internal cabinet division over Tony Burke’s proposed migration changes.
There’s been plenty of reporting out there in recent weeks over division in the cabinet being part of the reason why it’s taken so long for the policy to be announced – it was initially due to be revealed at the National Press Club more than a month ago.
Plibersek tells ABC News Breakfast: don’t believe everything you hear.
You don’t know that at all. That has been reported and you can’t always believe what you read in the newspapers.
I don’t talk about what happened in cabinet but I can say to you that it is a very constructive discussion that focused on the real issues here. Which is making sure that our immigration system is fit for purpose, that it meets the needs of our country, and that – and by the way, that we continue to celebrate the contributions that migrants to this country make today and have made for many, many years.
Asked again whether she’s saying there were no disagreements, Plibersek replies, “I’m not speaking about what happens in Cabinet, I never do.”
Updated
Good morning
Krishani Dhanji here with you for the final sitting day of the fortnight. Thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started.
And the sitting fortnight is going out with a bang today with the Labor’s long awaited plan finally being unveiled at the press club today.
We have a fair sense of where some of that will land – including a restriction on international students bringing their family with them, and cracking down on “visa-hopping” – and we’ll bring that speech to you live from 12:30pm.
No doubt the Coalition will want the government to go harder and cut more, the Greens will want more compassion and fewer cuts, and everyone’s going to be comparing the plan with One Nation’s.
It’s going to be a big one – let’s get stuck in.
Updated
Albanese government to improve safety in child support system
Tanya Plibersek and Katy Gallagher have announced plans to close gaps that have allowed family and domestic violence perpetrators to continue causing harm through the child support system.
The new laws will scrap legal requirements that mean any information provided by one parent be shared with the other parent, stopping situations where sharing that information could put children or a parent at risk.
Families will also be supported to recover more unpaid child support debts when they move into official arrangements, and new rules will be created to remove the harm that can arise from family tax benefit debts caused by child support payers against their former partners.
In a joint statement, the social services minister and the finance minister said:
There is almost $2 billion of unpaid child support in this country.
There are almost 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence. Australian children deserve better.
This is the first stage of the most significant reforms to child support in decades, helping create a system that is safer, simpler and more effective for Australian families.
Updated
Australia breaks into top 10 global gender gap rankings
Australia has broken into the top 10 of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, ranking eighth out of 148 countries – its highest ranking ever.
The 2026 report marks a significant climb for Australia, moving up 35 places from 43rd since the Albanese government took office.
The government credits this historic high to improved political representation (including a majority-female cabinet), expanded paid parental leave, wage increases in female-dominated sectors and new investments in women’s health.
Anthony Albanese said in a statement that the ranking “slipped to an all-time low of 50th under the previous Coalition government” and acknowledged that the work must continue:
The job is not done and we will continue to focus our efforts on lifting wages, ending gender-based violence, increasing female representation in workplaces, investing in women’s health and more.
The minister for women, Katy Gallagher, said the record ranking was “not by accident”, also recognising areas for improvement:
We know there is more work to do across our priorities of ending violence against women, valuing care, improving women’s economic empowerment, improving women’s health outcomes and strengthening women’s leadership and representation – this is just one measure that shows Australia is moving in the right direction.
Updated
International student visa changes expected
International students will see some of the biggest changes in the reform of immigration settings.
Last year Australia issued more than 337,000 international student visas, of which about 45,000 went to dependents or family members of the primary applicant. The vast majority of students will now be expected to be required to come alone.
Burke gave a preview in parliament yesterday.
We do need to get net overseas migration down.
We need to make sure that we deal with the numbers overall, and do so in a sensible, a targeted way that provides the easiest pathway through the Australian economy.
Burke’s speech kicks off at 12.30pm today.
Updated
Long-anticipated immigration changes drop today
Foreign students will face tough restrictions on the ability to bring family members into Australia under big changes to the country’s immigration system.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, will reveal the changes today at the National Press Club, after plans for a speech more than a month ago were derailed.
Burke’s plan is designed to bring down net overseas migration (Nom) while doing the least damage to the economy.
His speech is titled: “The work of managing the migration program: Who arrives, who stays, who leaves”.
The plan will shift some rules for visa categories away from demand-driven settings, introduced during the Howard government, allowing more control on the numbers of people coming into, and departing, the country.
Labor plans to use legislation to gain more control over arrival numbers but could rely on regulation and directives to departmental officials if it cannot find agreement in parliament.
Updated
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Krishani Dhanji with the main action.
Foreign students will face tough restrictions on the ability to bring family members into Australia under big changes to the country’s immigration system to be announced at the National Press Club this lunchtime by Tony Burke. More details coming up.
Updated
