Qld government to introduce third tranche of “adult time adult crime” laws
Queensland premier David Crisafulli has announced that the government will introduce a third round of “adult crime adult time” laws early this year.
The first two rounds mean a child convicted of any of 33 laws will be sentenced as an adult. Children as young as 10 convicted of murder are given a mandatory life sentence for some offences. They also cover offences like breaking and entering, serious assault and arson.
Crisafulli said:
In the first quarter of this year, we’ll be taking the next tranche of changes to adult crime, adult time (to parliament),”
It’s unclear which offences the new tranche will add.
The government also revealed the site of its first youth justice school, which will accommodate children on youth justice orders. A disused youth justice service centre will be converted for use by Ohana for youth, Minister for youth justice Laura Gerber said. It will open for term 3.
Palmer accuses Bannon of lying on political ad
Jumping back to that Clive Palmer press conference, Palmer directly denied claims by rightwing political strategist Steve Bannon that he was behind Palmer’s controversial $60m advertising strategy at the 2019 federal election.
A text conversation purporting to be between Bannon and an unidentified person – who appears to be convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – was among a tranche of documents released by the US Department of Justice in connection with Epstein.
Bannon, a Donald Trump loyalist and promoter of misinformation who ran the US president’s 2016 election campaign, said in the messages sent two days after the 2019 Australian election: “I had Clive Palmer do the $60 million anti china and climate change ads.”
Palmer confirmed Bannon had called him, but that the anti-China and anti-climate change ads were already running at the time. He denied Bannon had any involvement in the ads. He also said he never met Epstein.
Palmer said:
I was deep in sleep, dreaming. I picked up the phone and this fellow said, ‘It’s Steve Bannon here.’ I said, ‘Hello, Steve, are you a member of our party?’ ‘No, I’m calling from the United States.’ I said, ‘Well, we can’t talk to people in the States. We can’t take donations from overseas.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to give a donation.’ He said, ‘I’m just ringing. I’m just ringing to say you’re running a great campaign against the Chinese, keep it up.’ I said, ‘Thanks, Steve.’ … Apparently, if you go on the press reports, he wrote some sort of a text to Mr Epstein. I’ve never met Mr Epstein.
Asked why Bannon had said he was behind the ad, Palmer replied:
Well, he just lied.
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Nationals respond to Liberal offer, but ‘there’s no rush’, says McCormack
The Nationals have responded to the Liberals’ offer to re-form the Coalition, says Michael McCormack, promising a “diplomatic” response.
Speaking to Sky News, McCormack says there’s “no rush” to reunite. He won’t divulge any details on whether any of the conditions set by the Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, have been accepted.
It’s [The letter has] gone back … it’s careful, it’s considered, it’s appropriate and it’s diplomatic … There’s a bit of time. There’s no rush for these sorts of things. We don’t want to do what Labor did and rush legislation through the parliament. We want to make sure that we do it in a careful, considered fashion, and that’s what our response is.
I think everyone needs to be sensible about this. We do need cool and wise heads to prevail. We can’t just keep on going like we are at the moment.
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Clive Palmer to launch high court challenge against Labor’s political donations changes
Clive Palmer, who’s not often seen around parliament any more, has announced he will launch a high court challenge against Labor’s political donations legislation, which will come into effect on 1 July.
The mining billionaire, according to Australian Electoral Commission data released on Monday, was the country’s biggest political donor of the last financial year (putting a whopping $53m into his Trumpet of Patriots party).
Under the changes, individuals will be able to donate up to $50,000 per year to a political candidate, and third-party groups will also be limited to donating $50,000 a year to an individual candidate but could spend up to $11.2m annually on promotions.
To journalists at Parliament House, Palmer says:
The Australian parliament, in my view, does not have the power to stop members of federal parliament raising funds to carry out their oath of office.
Elections must be fair, and the next election, the Liberals and Labor have given themselves $41m of taxpayers’ funds.
We topped the [AEC] list of $53m or something. But I want to assure everyone here today that was our money. It wasn’t taxpayers’ money. It wasn’t your money, and taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be spent at all in advantaging one side.
Where does that $41m figure come from? Under the new legislation, there will be a substantial jump in public funding from $3.50 to $5 per vote.
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Victorian government offers single day of travel – worth $11.40 – for commuters trapped on trains
The Victorian transport minister, Gabrielle Williams, has offered a single free day of travel – worth $11.40 – for commuters who were trapped on trains for up to two hours yesterday.
Williams held a doorstop at parliament a short time ago where she also apologised for the inconvenience caused, particularly for the two trains that were halted near the overhead power fault at Armadale. For one train, this was a 90-minute wait and for the other, a two-hour wait before they were helped off and had to walk to nearby Malvern station.
She said:
The government will be offering compensation to those passengers and inviting those passengers to call the Transport Victoria call centre to get a ticket, which will effectively issue them with a day’s free travel.
So for anybody who was on those services, we again apologise. We appreciate the level of inconvenience and potentially even distress that was caused.
Williams said while investigations were ongoing, there was “no indication” it was related to the ramping up of the Metro Tunnel to full capacity, which occurred a day earlier:
Early indications are, it’s not related to the Metro Tunnel or the timetable at all. It seems to be at this stage, from what we understand, a cable fault near Hawksburn.
We will get an understanding in time of exactly what’s the cause. Some of our best and brightest are working on that as we speak, so that we can make sure that we are continuing to build a rail network that is reliable and gets people to where they need to go.
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Labor’s beer excise freeze passes parliament
The government’s freeze on a beer excise has passed the House, but not without a touch of drama. The freeze, which will be in place for two years once it passes the Senate, will probably save consumers about one cent on a mid-strength pint.
The Nationals tried to move two amendments to the bill, which found support from none other than Andrew Hastie and a couple of conservative Liberal allies, including Tony Pasin, Terry Young and Ben Small. The amendment also had support from a few crossbenchers including Nicolette Boele and Andrew Wilkie.
None of the other Liberals were in the chamber to vote with the Nats.
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Rangers hunt last dingo in pack after death of Canadian backpacker
One dingo doomed to die remains at large on K’gari after wildlife rangers killed eight of its pack for their role in the death of Canadian backpacker Piper James on the world-heritage listed sand island off the Queensland coast.
A coroner’s preliminary assessment, released four days after the 19-year-old died in the early hours of 19 January after going for a dawn swim on her own, found “physical evidence consistent with drowning” as well as “injuries consistent with dingo bites” – noting these were unlikely to have been fatal bites.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the coroner was still “awaiting pathology results to further assist in determining the cause of death of Piper James” – a process expected to take several weeks.
Regardless, nine days ago the Queensland environment minister, Andrew Powell, said an entire pack of 10 animals would be euthanised – leading dingo experts to warn of an “extinction vortex” for Australia’s only native canid.
But a spokesperson for Queensland’s environment department said on Tuesday afternoon that eight dingoes had been “humanely euthanised”:
The operation is ongoing, with one dingo outstanding.
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NSW Labor MLC criticises court delay over challenge to ‘draconian’ protest restrictions
A NSW Labor MLC has criticised the courts delay to hear a legal challenge on whether controversial protest restrictions are constitutional, saying the fact it couldn’t be heard until almost two months after it was filed was “a serious issue”.
Stephen Lawrence, who is also a barrister, pointed out to ABC radio on Tuesday afternoon that the state had agreed the case could be heard on 16 January but “after the judge on duty spoke to the chief justice, it was then not listed until the end of February”. He said:
The concern I’ve got is that very serious and draconian restrictions on the right to protest and assembly have been introduced. The people who seek to protest have not had the opportunity to have the court rule on it.
I’m a little bit surprised in the modern state of New South Wales that the supreme court, the court of appeal, can’t see a case, essentially in a sort of two-month period – that’s a serious issue.
It comes as the protest restriction was extended for a fourth time on Tuesday ahead of a protest against a visit by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog. Lawrence said:
I’m just not sure that continually extending this thing to apply it to the visit of the Israeli president is actually going to make us more safe. I think it could be creating a flashpoint, and it concerns me.
Police were given the controversial power to restrict protests in 14-day increments for up to 90 days after a terror attack, after the Minns government rushed laws through parliament last year in the wake of the Bondi beach terror attack.
Groups the Blak Caucus, the Palestine Action Group (PAG) and Jews Against the Occupation ’48 filed the legal challenge against New South Wales laws restricting protests after terrorist incidents in early January, arguing the laws were invalid because they impinge on the implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication.
Prof Ben Saul has applied to join the case as an amicus curiae, which would see him provide expertise on the matter as a “friend of the court”. Saul is the United Nations special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism.
If Saul’s application to join the case is accepted, Saul told Guardian Australia he would argue that the protest restriction is at odds with Australia’s obligations to protect the freedom of peaceful assembly under international law.
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Housing ‘part of the opportunity’ from defence estate sell-off
Jumping back to the press conference in Parliament House:
Richard Marles was asked whether housing will be built on any of the sold off land.
The defence minister says while that could be the case, it was not necessarily the priority of the audit.
I expect that housing will be part of the opportunity that is created here. But I want to be really clear, that’s not why we’re doing this. [This is] around making sure we have a defence estate which is properly attuned to the capabilities of the Australian defence force.
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, is with Marles – the finance department will be in charge of the sell-off. Gallagher says no decisions around what the land could be used for have been made yet.
The short answer is none of those decisions have been taken.
The divestment the land is coming to [the finance department], then there will be a piece of work done about what is the most appropriate use on those sites, and it will be varied. I mean, there are some prime locations. I imagine there will be a lot of interest and a lot of views about what it can be used for … It may be that some sites are suitable for housing, obviously, other sites will have contamination, heritage restrictions, other issues that need to be worked through.
You can read more on the announcement from my colleague, Tom McIlroy, here:
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Former NSW Labor ministers fail in high court bid to overturn corruption convictions
Former NSW Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, along with Obeid’s son Moses, have failed in a high court bid to have their 2021 corruption convictions overturned.
The high court ruled on Wednesday that the trio’s appeal against their convictions should be dismissed.
The men were found guilty of a conspiracy to wilfully have Macdonald, the former NSW minerals minister, commit misconduct in public office. The conspiracy involved Macdonald granting a lucrative coal exploration licence to land owned by an Obeid family company.
The court granted the men leave to appeal on a single ground - that the prosecution case at their NSW supreme court trial was “incapable at law” of amounting to a conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, given the prosecution did not allege there was an agreement for Macdonald to do a particular act of misconduct. In its judgment, the high court said:
For the reasons that follow, each appeal must be dismissed. The agreement alleged by the Crown in its indictment, as particularised during the trial, was a complete offence of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.
The alleged agreement contemplated acts to be undertaken by Mr Macdonald that necessarily satisfied the elements of the predicate offence, albeit that it was not known and could not be known at the time the agreement was made what “particular acts” Mr Macdonald would undertake to bring about the objects of the agreement.
Sale of defence properties represents ‘opportunity to return billions of dollars to the government’s purse’: Richard Marles
Marles says that the government has agreed or agreed in principle to the 20 recommendations in the audit.
He says that of the 68 properties the audit recommends selling off, just one – the Pittwater annexe in Sydney – will be retained, and three others partly retained. Three have already been divested, Marles says.
He adds that the government has spent millions of dollars maintaining the buildings, including from vandalisation.
If we do nothing, we will be spending $2bn over the next 25 years, in respect of such properties, without a single contribution to defence capability, that is clearly unsustainable, and yet, on the flipside, the divestiture of these properties represents the opportunity to return billions of dollars to the government’s purse.
Three of the big-ticket properties are the Victoria Barracks in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Marles says the public deserve to be able to access those significant heritage sites.
These properties are protected by law with heritage overlays, and they will exist whatever their future use is, but being opened up and being allowed to be seen by the Australian people is a tremendous heritage outcome.
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Marles announces government to sell off $3bn in defence owned property
The defence minister, Richard Marles, is announcing that the government will sell off $3bn in defence owned properties, which he calls the most “significant reform to Australia’s defence estate in our nation’s history”.
Marles says the issues around the defence estate have been known within defence circles for “a very long time”.
The sell-off comes after the government commissioned an audit of the estates. Marles says:
For any organisation, its home, its land, its infrastructure, its bricks and mortar, is fundamental to what it can do, and that is most certainly the case when it comes to defence.
What became clear was that defence as one of the largest owners of property in the country had a very significant estate, much of which was not being used.
Marles quotes from the audit:
Attempts to consolidate and rationalise property holdings in the past have been stymied by a lack of political and organisational will to overcome challenges … it is clear that maintaining the status quo is not an option.
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Victorian Liberals call train delays a ‘disgrace’
The Victorian opposition public transport spokesperson, Matthew Guy, has blamed the major delays on the train lines that travel through the Metro Tunnel yesterday on the government failing to upgrade rail power systems.
He says it was a “disgrace” that people were trapped on trains for up to two hours as a result:
Yesterday was a disgrace. It was third world conditions – 1,200 people trapped on high capacity trains in the middle of stations, and they’ve got one small ladder to get them off.
Guy says while Labor invested in the new tunnel, which only ramped up to full capacity on Monday, and the new high-capacity trains that travel through it, the power substance were “decades old”:
If you don’t upgrade those before you introduce new trains, you’re going to trip the system and on hot days in Melbourne. And I hate to break it to most people, our trains’ air conditioning systems in Melbourne are only there to suit mid-30s temperature, so when it gets warmer than that, they’re not designed for that. So when you’ve got all these new high capacity trains, which came on just two days ago into the network in full, in the big switch, you’re drawing a huge amount of power out of the system.
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Abdel-Fattah to appear with Louise Adler at ‘Not Writers’ Week’ festival in Adelaide
Stepping away from federal parliament for a moment:
Palestinian Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah will appear at the Constellations or ‘Not Writers’ Week’ festival in conversation with former Adelaide writers’ week director Louise Adler on 1 March.
The Constellations event has been created at the last minute by a grassroots group of authors, publishers and booksellers in Adelaide after writers’ week was cancelled in January.
Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to appear at the writers’ festival was revoked by the board, leading to Adler resigning as director, and the festival being cancelled entirely.
Abdel-Fattah will also appear in the “Rivers of Reason: Blak & Arab Writers in Conversation” event alongside other writers including Melissa Lucashenko, Chelsea Watego, Ali Cobby Eckermann, and Daniel Nour.
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Coal lobby-backed campaign group a ‘textbook example of Liberal astroturfing’ says independent MP
Independent MP Sophie Scamps, a “teal” who ousted former Liberal Jason Falinski in a blue-ribbon Sydney seat, has attacked campaign group Australians for Prosperity that was almost entirely funded by a coal lobby group.
Guardian Australia analysis of the Australian Electoral Commission’s transparency register found Australians for Prosperity, which attacked Labor, the Greens and teal independent candidates were backed by Coal Australia. Australians for Prosperity is connected with former Liberal MPs Falinski and Julian Simmonds.
Scamps told Guardian Australia “voters deserve honesty”.
Australians for Prosperity is a textbook example of Liberal party astroturfing. While it claims to be a grassroots movement “backed by Australians”, it emerged suddenly just before the last election with the purpose of attacking teal candidates advocating for climate action …
It’s well overdue the Liberal party came up with a few policies instead of relying on misleading tactics to win support.
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In pictures: here’s who was roaming around the press gallery this morning
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More on yesterday’s Melbourne train disruptions
We have some further info from Metro Trains on yesterday evening’s peak hour delays on the lines that travel through the new Metro Tunnel, which left some commuters trapped on trains for two hours.
They have confirmed the issues began at 5pm, when a fault on the overhead power supply on the network in Armadale affected trains on the Cranbourne and Pakenham line. The fault also stopped trains going through the Metro Tunnel and a section of the Sunbury line, as Metro Trains needed to suspend the line between West Footscray and Caulfield to undertake repairs.
Metro Trains said the two trains closest to the fault were halted and passengers were required to stay on board until the situation was safe. For one train, this was a 90-minute wait and for the other, a two-hour wait before they were helped off and had to walk to nearby Malvern station.
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Albanese: Beer excise freeze a ‘cost of living measure’
The bells have rung and the House and Senate are sitting, but there’s not a whole lot of drama happening so far today.
The prime minister is giving a speech to the House on Labor’s beer excise freeze that will knock about one cent off a mid-strength pint, which he’s branded a cost-of-living measure. The beer tax will frozen for two years.
Anthony Albanese says:
It took a Labor government to freeze the beer excise making sure that this was just part of our cost of living measures that we implemented, not just talking about cost of living pressures, but doing something about it …
It’s a way of people getting through their university days or just working part-time for people when they’re raising a family as well. So good for our economy, good for our jobs, good for our local community as well. And that’s why, from the front part of the beer garden, when you raise a glass, you can do so, knowing that our government won’t be raising the price over that two years.
Again, the freeze will save about 18 cents on a 48-litre keg of mid-strength beer.
The legislative agenda is a little on the thin side at the moment, also on the notice paper is the bill to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) which was supposed to be established last month, and a bill to give coal mining workers long service leave.
Labor are probably pretty happy that the focus remains on the Coalition’s messy split.
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Victorian premier apologises after major delays on Metro Tunnel’s second day of full service
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has apologised for yesterday’s major delays on the lines that travel through the Metro Tunnel, which only ramped up to full capacity on Monday.
During the evening peak on Tuesday, Metro Trains suspended services on the Sunbury line and there were major delays on the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines due to a problem with overhead wires near Armadale. Both lines run through the new tunnel.
Allan says:
As Metro Trains has also done this morning, I’d like to acknowledge and apologise to those passengers who had had a really difficult experience last night as a result of a fault of the train network, and the investigations are continuing as to what was behind the cause of the disruption last night.
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Victorian government announces free ADHD top-up scripts
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is holding a press conference this morning to announce free top-up prescriptions for people with ADHD.
Under the plan, if someone with an existing ADHD diagnosis needs a new prescription urgently and can’t see their regular doctor, they will be able to dial into the Victorian virtual emergency department and have a free consultation.
The doctor will verify their current medication and dosage and send the prescription to their local pharmacy. The one-off refill will be for at least 30 days and up to six months.
It follows the announcement of a $750,000 plan yesterday to train GPs to be able to diagnose and prescribe medication for adults and children with ADHD.
Both changes come into effect in September. Allan says:
We’re doing this because we don’t want parents or kids to get caught out. We heard from Bronwyn yesterday about how she had to keep her little boy home from school for a couple of weeks when he had run out of the medication.
The health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, says:
There are a range of reasons why people might not be able to access their medication, their script may have run out, they may have lost their script. This happens to the to all of us at any given time, but we know that there are real consequences for missing a medication that is designed to be taken every day, and that’s where the Victorian virtual emergency department … can step in to meet the needs of Victorians wherever they live.
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Nationals not a ‘faction’ of the Liberal party, says Littleproud
Conversations are ongoing over whether the Liberals and Nationals can settle their messy divorce.
The ball is now in the Nationals’ court, after Sussan Ley wrote them an offer yesterday with several conditions – the two main conditions being that shadow cabinet solidarity must be obeyed, and that the three former Nationals frontbenchers who crossed the floor face continued punishment. Ley says there will be another meeting between the two leaders today.
David Littleproud is speaking to Sky News, and says he won’t “rule anything in or out” on Ley’s conditions for the Coalition to reform, but says he wasn’t happy about those terms being made public.
I’m not going to rule anything in or out. What I’m saying is that we’ll do that behind closed doors. We’ll do that in a constructive way within our room. And I don’t intend to give a running commentary of where our room is with respect to that, I don’t think that’s respectful, not only to my room, but it’s not respectful to the Liberal party either. So the fact is, we didn’t really want any of these out in the media at all, to be candid.
Littleproud stands by his argument that there wasn’t a proper party room process before the hate speech bill (which is what kicked off the whole separation).
Shadow cabinet solidarity was one of the key sticking points when the Coalition first split in May, and Littleproud says the Nationals shouldn’t have to be “subservient” to the Liberals.
We’re not a faction of the Liberal party, we’re the National party. The Coalition is not one party, and there’s this cultural mindset in Canberra and particularly in some of the commentary, that we should be subservient. We shouldn’t have our views, but we should as National party members, we have different values, different principles, at times, on different issues, to the Liberal party, and we’re paid to come here and to express them.
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RBA rate hike ‘not one and done’, economists say
The Reserve Bank’s rate hike on Tuesday does not look like a case of “one and done”, NAB economists are warning this morning, with financial markets pricing in another move higher at the May meeting.
The Aussie dollar jumped back over 70 US cents and regained three-year highs overnight in a further sign that investors believe the RBA has further work to do to get inflation back under control in 2026.
While the RBA’s governor, Michele Bullock, said that Tuesday’s rate move was an “adjustment” rather than the start of a new hiking cycle, markets are even factoring in a solid chance of a third increase by the end of the year.
NAB’s head of markets research, Skye Masters, wrote:
NAB expects the RBA to deliver another 25bps [0.25 percentage points] rate hike in the cash rate at the May meeting, and while governor Bullock did not want to signal that this was the start of a series of rate increases, NAB recognises that the risks are biased towards more than 50bps of hikes [in 2026].
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Action needed to stop private health insurers offering doctors ‘take it or leave it’ contracts, peak body says
The peak medical body is calling for regulation to prevent private health insurer’s “abuse” of their market power when creating contracts with doctors.
In a new position statement released today, the Australian Medical Association says insurers must be prohibited from offering doctors ‘take it or leave it’ contracts, which they say limits patient choice and increases out of pocket costs.
Approximately 97% of procedures performed in private hospitals are conducted by doctors working under ‘no gap’ or ‘known gap’ agreements with private health insurers.
The AMA’s federal president, Dr Danielle McMullen, said:
If a doctor does not sign because the insurer’s remuneration is too low or charges just $1 more than the insurer is willing to pay, the insurer will then slash the medical benefits they would pay to patients and blame it on doctors’ fees.
Yet for most insurers, medical benefits haven’t been indexed and the ‘known gap’ contract limit of $500 hasn’t changed for years, meaning that doctors are being asked to sign contracts that do not reflect the current costs of providing care.
This is deceptive and unfair and leads to higher out-of-pocket costs for patients.
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Chalmers pours some cold water on capital gains tax reports
As we brought you earlier this morning, there are some reports the government could be considering changes to the 50% capital gains tax discount for property investors. The tax discount is being looked at by a Greens-led Senate inquiry.
Jim Chalmers was stopped by reporters as he was walking into parliament this morning – which is notable, if I can take you briefly down memory lane. During sitting weeks, reporters used to hang out by the Senate and House entrances every morning trying to question pollies as they walked in. But there are other ways for politicians to enter parliament without facing a barrage of questions, and so this practice has somewhat diminished over time.
For Chalmers to enter through the Reps doors might mean there was something he particularly wanted to say this morning, and he used the opportunity to temper expectations on the reporting around capital gains tax discount changes.
We haven’t changed our policy on capital gains. That committee work is ongoing, and any further changes to taxes beyond those we’ve already flagged would be a matter for cabinet in the usual way.
We’ve got other priorities when it comes to tax reform, cutting income taxes, standard deduction, a fairer superannuation system from top to bottom, making sure we’re getting the multinational tax regime right. Those are our priorities. That’s something that the Senate committee is looking at … We’ve made it very, very clear that our focus in housing is on building more homes. It’s on the supply side.
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Cigarette butts Australia’s most littered individual item, Clean Up Australia annual survey finds
Cigarette butts have become Australia’s most littered item according to the annual Clean Up Australia litter report, which counts rubbish found in Australia’s streets, parks, bushlands and waterways.
Cigarette butts, which are made of plastic, accounted for 23.6% of all counted individual litter items, up 3.5% on the 2023-24 results and overtaking soft plastics wrappers (18.6%), followed by plastic bags (8.7%).
Clean Up Australia’s chair, Pip Kiernan, said the increase was “troubling” and an estimated 8.9bn butts were littered in Australia every year:
Many in our community don’t know that the butts are actually made of plastic, and when littered, they shed microfibres, leach toxic waste, and take up to 30 years to decompose.
Plastics continued to be the most common major type of litter found at 80.8% of all counted litter.
Soft plastics as a category of litter remained a significant problem, accounting for 30.5% of litter surveyed, while packaging of various types accounted for 59.5%.
Kiernan said the pervasiveness of plastic showed “we cannot simply recycle our way out of this challenge” and packaging reforms to reduce production of single-use plastics were needed.
Vapes were found at 33.5% of sites surveyed, a figure that Clean Up Australia said had increased by 23.5% over three years “highlighting the pressing need for a nationwide safe disposal system”.
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Barnaby Joyce says his defection to One Nation contributed to party’s ‘surge’ in support
Barnaby Joyce, who yesterday told the Coalition to get back together in the House of Representatives, says he’s added to the surge in support for One Nation since he defected in December.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, he also says he’s added to the “acceptability” of the fringe party.
I’m definitely part of it … I’m not going to go with faux modesty, I think I’m part of it. It gives people licence that they have the capacity to, I don’t know, go to dinner and say, “actually I’m a One Nation voter”.
On whether he thinks there will be other Nationals MPs joining Joyce in defecting to One Nation, he says:
No, I don’t. What they’re following is obviously the policies of One Nation and they’re following policies of One Nation because the policies obviously resonate with the community as reflected in the polls.
An example of Joyce’s point here is when Liberal MP Phil Thompson introduced an amendment to Labor’s antisemitism laws last month, to ban the burning of the Australian flag. His amendment looked practically identical to an amendment that Joyce was also putting forward for One Nation. Thompson’s amendment was voted down by the government, and Joyce’s was dropped because it was essentially the same.
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Meanwhile, Ted O’Brien is also making moves across the Parliamentary press gallery, and lands in the RN Breakfast studio.
He says he doesn’t buy the government’s argument that private spending is driving inflation.
I accept what the RBA governor said in the press conference yesterday that she did, which is you see both private and public spending increasing and hitting up against basically the speed limit of the economy. Both are having an enormous impact. But mostly, I believe it’s government spending because government spending has been running about four times the pace of the economy itself in the last financial year, running about twice the pace of the economy in this financial year.
So what would the opposition do? O’Brien says there need to be tighter “fiscal rules” around spending. On specific areas to cut, he says the opposition would cut the electric vehicle fringe benefits tax and net zero authority which would save around $5bn.
Government’s job to minimise pressure on households, Gallagher says
Katy Gallagher moves from one end of the ABC office to the other, now appearing on ABC News Breakfast off the back of her RN interview.
Host James Glenday says Gallagher got the “short straw” in having to front up to the media on the difficult news.
The finance minister says she understands yesterday’s rates decision will hit families hard:
The government understands the decision taken yesterday by the independent Reserve Bank will hit those homes … they’re under pressure, we understand that. So, the job for the government really is to, in the upcoming budget, continue to roll out some of the cost of living help that we’ve already rolling out. And to continue to manage, the budget in a responsible way, to minimise some of those pressures on households.
So where is the inflation coming from?
Gallagher says private sector demand is contributing to the heat in the economy:
If you go and have a look at governor’s statement and the statement on monetary policy, I mean, the surprise element if you like in the some of the pressure on inflation, the bank does put down to increase in private demand. And so, that is the issue really they’ve been grappling with in their decision.
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Will the government announce some bold economic reforms in the budget?
RN Breakfast host, Sally Sara, asks Katy Gallagher whether there will be some big, meaty economic reform come May (which is when the budget will be released).
The question gets a small, dry chuckle from Gallagher, but she sidesteps the question.
That’s why we held an economic reform roundtable as one of the first things we did on coming back to government, there was another range of ideas that came through that. And as you would expect, and I’ve heard the treasurer and the PM say this in recent days around reform, that is part of our thinking in the budget process as well.
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Labor ‘mindful’ of government role in spending, finance minister says
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, is in the hot seat, taking on the morning media interviews today, and pressed on the government’s spending which is now above 27% of Australia’s GDP.
Speaking to RN Breakfast, she says there are big pressures on the budget including defence, health, aged care and NDIS.
She also defends the budget, saying the government has already found billions of dollars in savings, and last year asked the public service to find the 5% of lowest priority spending (which came with some controversy).
We are mindful of the role of government of public spending in the economy. We’ve been responsible about the decisions we’ve taken. We’ve found $114bn in savings.
If you take NDIS alone, it was growing at 22% when we came to government. We’re getting it down to 8% … I think it’s part of what we need to do is manage those big programs where they’re growing too fast, and we’re doing that. So NDIS, aged care, but there’s other areas where as finance minister, I look at all these programs and think what’s happening there and how do we get some of the growth or the increasing pressure down.
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Two-thirds of homeless youth unable to access housing services: report
Approximately 40,000 15- to 24-year-olds have nowhere to live in Australia each year, with only 3.1% accessing long-term housing, according to a new report from the Home Time Youth coalition.
With only 23.6% young people accessing medium term housing each year, the majority remain homeless, and a large proportion are turned away with no help.
The key driver of youth homelessness is domestic violence (83%), with early experiences of homelessness dramatically increasing the risk of long‑term or chronic homelessness.
The report found that youth homelessness costs the government $626m each year in avoidable health and justice system costs, and every dollar invested in youth housing returns $2.60 in community benefit.
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Australian prison population hits eight-year high, with deaths by ‘unnatural causes’ highest in five years
The number of Australians in prison has jumped to an eight-year high, while the number of prisoners who died from unnatural causes jumped to 26, with almost half of those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, new data from the Productivity Commission has revealed.
The national average daily prison population increased by 5.9% in 2024-25 to reach an eight-year high of 45,526, with real net operating expenditure hitting $5.43bn in 2024-25, an increase of 4.3% since 2023-24 and 49.3% over the last 10 years.
Across the country, 22 people died in police custody, six of whom were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This is lower than 2022-23, when the total number of deaths in police custody was at an 18-year high of 41.
However, 26 people died from “unnatural causes”, including suicide, drug overdose, accidental injury or homicide, in prisons in 2024-25, the highest number in five years, 10 of whom were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
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Government spending too high, says independent MP
Independent MP Zali Steggall is also piling pressure on the government to reduce its spending, and calling for the government to take responsibility for it driving up inflation.
Speaking to the Today Show earlier this morning, Steggall says the government needs to think about where it should “readdress its spending priorities”. She says:
We need to look at the factors that are driving inflation. Of course, the RBA have identified private sector spending being too high, but we have to be clear, government spending has now risen to 28% of GDP … What do we spend on, what is helpful and supporting Australian people? And I think that’s where we really have to ask questions of the government.
Steggall is joined by Nationals senator Matt Canavan, who says it is a “bad day for Australian homeowners who are facing a big, big increase in their mortgage payments thanks to this mismanagement of our economy”.
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Coalition won’t support capital gains tax reforms
The Financial Review is this morning reporting that the government could be considering winding back the generous 50% capital gains tax deduction for property investors.
The Greens are currently conducting a federal inquiry into the tax deduction, with calls from NSW government that the policy should be reconsidered.
Staying with Ted O’Brien on Sky, he’s asked whether the opposition would support any changes to CGT. No is the short answer:
It’s what happens when you have a Labor government that’s running out of money and they just want to come after more. What do they do? They tax people ... We are not going to be joining with Jim Chalmers on trying to ping Australians for more money, because he can’t stop his spending.
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Ted O’Brien is trying to make ‘Jimflation’ happen
Having coined the term late last year, shadow treasurer and shadow assistant treasurer, Ted O’Brien is still trying to make “Jimflation” happen.
The government is feeling the heat over yesterday’s rate rise, which the Coalition says is a result of record high government spending.
So what would the Coalition cut and where would they find the savings? O’Brien, speaking to Sky News, won’t list anything as yet:
Cuts aren’t the priority here. Offsets are, and they’re very different things, and so the government has every right to determine what the spending priorities are, but with those rights come commensurate responsibilities, and that means finding room in the budget to pay for them.
Again, host Peter Stefanovic tries to push O’Brien to list where those savings would come from, but the shadow treasurer keeps it broad.
Basic principles. It [tax] needs to be lower, it needs to be fairer.
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Coalition can reform this week, under conditions: Ley
Ley is facing two challenges, the other of course is the split with the Nationals. Yesterday we reported that the Liberal leader had offered the Nats a deal that would see the three senators who crossed the floor remain off the frontbench for six months.
She says she expects to meet again with David Littleproud today.
The Coalition can reform this week but under certain conditions, and those conditions are overwhelmingly supported by the majority of my party room. And they are that shadow cabinet solidarity is mandatory. That shadow cabinet and the party room have primacy of over any individual party room, and the three senators do need to face ongoing suspensions.
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Leadership rumours are ‘ridiculous suggestions’ says Ley
Sussan Ley has swat away questions on her leadership, as the prospect of a spill by Angus Taylor lurks behind her.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast this morning, Ley is asked whether she’s spoken to Taylor about that not-so-secret meeting from key senior members of the right faction on Thursday before former Liberal MP Katie Allen’s funeral.
She says Taylor is in her leadership group, “we’ve had discussions about interest [rates], about the circumstances Australians face.”
So is she concerned Taylor is plotting to replace her next week? Ley says:
These are ridiculous suggestions and they’re made by people in the media, not the conversations that I’m having with colleagues, and they’re not the focus of my team.
She tries to pivot the conversation again to focus on interest rates and inflation.
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Liberal party can go it alone, says deputy leader
The shadow treasurer, Ted O’Brien, says that, should the impasse between the Liberals and the Nationals not be resolved, the Liberal party has the talent on its own to take on the Albanese government.
Speaking on the ABC’s 7.30 program last night, the deputy leader of the opposition said “there’s no doubt the voters want to ensure that we have a stable opposition, an effective opposition. There’s just no doubt about that and I can’t pretend otherwise.”
Whether that opposition is ultimately from the Liberal party holding the government to account or a reunited Liberal-National party, well, let’s wait and see.
Australia I think is best served by a Coalition but, if at the end of the day that’s not to be, then I have enormous confidence in the depth of talent within the Liberal party and, yes, I do believe we can absolutely hold what is a very poor government to account.
Battery installs increase four-fold off the back of federal subsidy, report says
Solar battery installations in Australia increased four-fold in the second half of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.
The Clean Energy Council’s rooftop solar and storage report, released today, found more than 450,000 home batteries had been installed across Australia, by the end of last year.
Australians continued to embrace solar, with more than 139,000 systems installed in the latter half of 2025. That brought the number of households with solar to 4.3 million.
As a result, Australia’s share of rooftop solar continued to increase, making up 14.2% of the energy supplied to the grid in 2025, almost doubling since 2020, when it was 7.2%.
CEC CEO, Jackie Trad, said that the figures were a testament to incentives such as the federal government’s Cheaper Home Batteries program, launched in July, in tandem with other state-based programs in New South Wales and Western Australia, which had expanded Australia’s longstanding love of rooftop solar.
Our biggest power station now resides on the rooftops of more than 4.3 million households, which is helping to drive downward pressure on power bills for consumers and businesses, with less reliance on expensive gas or unreliable coal to power our grid.
On Tuesday, the climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, told parliament that more than 218,000 home batteries had been installed under the federal government’s subsidy scheme. That number was expected to climb to 2m by 2030, under an expansion of the program announced in December.
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Good morning
Krishani Dhanji here with you for another busy day in parliament.
The government will be on the defence over the Reserve Bank’s decision to increase interest rates yesterday, having previously said publicly that the economy had “turned a corner” on inflation. There’ll be plenty of reaction to that decision today.
There’s some new data on the record number of solar batteries installed in Australian households – more on that in a moment.
And the Liberals and Nationals are still on the outs (Beckham family style, says Labor), but “constructive” talks continue – we’ll keep a close eye on any movements there.
I’ve got my coffee, I hope you’ve got yours – let’s get cracking!
