Afternoon Update: Australia’s economy weakest in decades bar Covid; NSW Liberals deny ‘stuff-up spiral’; and spider brains shrink

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has blamed interest rate rises for ‘smashing’ the economy. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Good afternoon and welcome to Afternoon Update.

Australia’s economy has fared slightly better than economists had expected, with gross domestic product growing by 1% over the year to June, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. On a per capita basis, though, activity shrank for a record sixth quarter in a row, making Australia’s economy the weakest it has been since the early 1990s (excluding the first year of the Covid pandemic).