What we learned: Sunday 23 March
That is all for today’s live blog. Here is a wrap up, in case you missed anything:
Prime minister Anthony Albanese said the government’s additional $150 in energy bill relief, announced last night as part of Labor’s pre-election budget on Tuesday, will put downward pressure on inflation. “We wanted to make sure that this energy bill relief was extended through this calendar year to the end of 2025,” he said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the rebate was not an election bribe, as the Coalition accused, but a “hip-pocket relief for households”.
The Coalition immediately matched the $150 energy bill rebate, with shadow finance minister Jane Hume saying the need for relief from high electricity and gas prices is “caused by Labor’s failed policies”.
Albanese criticised opposition leader Peter Dutton’s push to end work-from-home entitlements for public servants and “sack 36,000 public servants”.
The US cut research funding from seven Australian universities after the Trump administration told Australian university researchers a push to promote its priorities and avoid “DEI, woke gender ideology and the green new deal” was behind a “temporary pause” of funding.
Thank you for joining us on the live blog – we will see you back here tomorrow.
Updated
Video: ‘Heartbreaking’ simultaneous coral bleaching events hit Ningaloo and Great Barrier Reef
Australia’s two world heritage-listed reefs – Ningaloo on the west coast and the Great Barrier Reef on the east – have been hit simultaneously by coral bleaching that reef experts have called “heartbreaking” and “a profoundly distressing moment”.
Teams of scientists on both coasts have been monitoring and tracking the heat stress and bleaching extending across thousands of kilometres of marine habitat, likely to have been driven by global heating.
Watch the video here:
Updated
