What we learned, 8 June 2025
With that we’re wrapping up the blog. Before we go, here are the major stories from Sunday:
Re-elected Coalition MP Tim Wilson has backed working from home in a departure from his party’s approach during the 2025 federal election.
The Coalition’s shadow finance minister says the party is weighing a legal challenge in Bradfield.
Northern Territory police say they are investigating the death In custody of a 68-year-old Aboriginal man previously arrested by the Australian federal police
Embattled Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff has ended a push to sell off the state’s assets after a turbulent week in state politics.
Former federal Coalition MP Bridget Archer has announced she will make the switch to state politics on Sunday confirming she will run at a future election.
A cold front brought rain and chilly weather across nation’s south-east on Sunday.
The Australian Medical Association has urged Australia’s to get vaccinated amid a surge of respiratory infections.
A vigil for Phoebe Bishop will be held after police confirm they have found human remains in a national park southwest of Bundaberg.
We’ll pick things up again tomorrow.
Updated
Auction activity remains low
There were 1,397 auctions scheduled to be held this weekend. This is a sharp drop on the 2,918 auctions held last week, but on par with the 1,317 auctions that occurred at the same time last year.
Based on results collected so far, CoreLogic’s summary found that the preliminary clearance rate was 63.8% across the country, which is lower than the 70% preliminary rate recorded last week. This lower than the 66.2% actual rate on final numbers but above the 62% at the same time last year.
Across the capital cities:
Sydney: 519 of 634 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 59%
Melbourne: 400 of 487 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 71.5%
Brisbane: 108 0f 134 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 58.3%
Adelaide: 58 of 84 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 60.3%
Canberra: 44 of 51 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 54.6%
Tasmania: Zero auctions held.
Perth: Six of seven auctions held.
Updated
Business and consumers caught between opposing forces
Falling interest rates are not buoying the spirits of households and firms as fast as hoped, as global economic uncertainty keeps a lid on sentiment.
Will a second rate cut be enough to settle the nerves of businesses and consumers spooked by global trade uncertainty?
Donald Trump’s tariffs have weighed on sentiment in recent months, stifling an expected economic recovery in 2025.
Household confidence spiked following the Reserve Bank’s first interest rate reduction in February but the prospect of a global economic slowdown brought about by the US president’s trade war wiped away those gains.
Westpac and the Melbourne Institute will release the June update to their consumer sentiment index on Tuesday.
Despite a de-escalation in trade tensions between the US and China, uncertainty remains high.
In the central bank board’s May minutes, the word uncertainty was used 21 times - almost double the figure in April.
But another rate cut by the RBA last month could at least provide a much-needed boost to consumer spirits, after spending was slower than expected in the first few months of the year.
Following the May board meeting, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock said there was a downside risk to the economy if households remained more cautious than they had been during past rate easing cycles.
Subdued consumption was having a flow-on effect for businesses, which are battling with relatively low spending while unit labour costs remain high.
Household spending rose just 0.1 per cent in April, cancelling out a 0.1 per cent fall the previous month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday.
- AAP
‘Life that they deserve’: why Australia’s elephants are moving out of city zoos
After Tricia died, Perth Zoo’s last remaining female elephant, Permai, became withdrawn. “She lost her matriarch … that was her whole world,” says Jack Lemon, the zoo’s acting director of life sciences, of the once cheeky and affectionate elephant.
“Elephants need the company of other elephants, and we just don’t have the space here to accommodate a herd structure.”
Earlier this year, Permai made the 2,700km trip across the Nullarbor plain to join a makeshift herd at Monarto Safari Park, in regional South Australia. There, she joined Burma from Auckland, and two female elephants from Taronga Zoo Sydney who arrived in April. Perth’s male, Putra Mas, will arrive later in the year.
This year, Australia’s captive elephants have been on the move, as long-term plans to build communities who can roam come to fruition. In February, Melbourne Zoo’s herd of nine were also transported to a new 21-hectare habitat at Werribee Open Range Zoo.
For more, ready the full feature story here:
Here are a few headlines in pictures from the biggest stories of the past week:
Updated
New South Wales police say they have found the body of a missing man who disappeared from rocks near Manly.
Emergency services were called on Sunday morning after reports a 33-year-old man fell from rocks at Blue Fish Point while fishing with a group.
A search operation, including police divers, began with police retrieving a body believed to be the man at about 10.30am on Sunday.
A report will be prepared for the information of the Coroner.
Challenge to North West Shelf approval
Raelene Cooper, a Mardudhunera woman and founder of the organisation Save Our Songlines has drawn more than $150,000 in public donations to help fund an eleventh-hour legal bid to fight the North West Shelf approval in court.
Federal environment minister, Murray Watt, cleared the way for the approval soon after being appointed, giving Woodside 10 days to review conditions placed upon the project.
The detail of those conditions has not been made public and until they are accepted, final approval to the project has not been given – meaning Cooper has an opening to mount a legal challenge.
Cooper said on Sunday the minister had been careless in his approach to the situation.
If the minister approves the North West Shelf extension before addressing my application, he will be locking in the very threat that I have sought to prevent.
The minster does not even have the respect to come and see for himself what he will be allowing Woodside to destroy.
A recent hearing in the federal court noted Watt had previously agreed to give Cooper three days notice prior to making any final decision on the North West Shelf project.
In 2022 Cooper filed a section 10 application under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act requesting that the federal government investigate whether the area around the gas plant warranted special heritage protection. That application has not been decided.
The federal court has ordered the matter to be heard the week of 14 July.
Updated
Amazing ‘creature from the deep’ washes up on NZ beach
Bethany Keymer’s kids love the beach, especially when anything dead or gross has washed up.
So, when they heard about a ‘big cool fish’ at Birdlings Flat - just down the road from their home at Little River, on New Zealand’s South Island - they “shot down there” as quickly as they could.
They made it in time to catch the oarfish, one of three to wash up in Australia and New Zealand this week.
We stumbled across this enormous, big, long, silvery thing without the head, but otherwise pretty much intact
We’d never seen anything like it.
Keymer took photos, which she posted on iNaturalist, and featured in The Guardian’s story.
It was really exciting to see this amazing creature from the deep ocean so close, washed up on the shore. And, the kids got the opportunity to see it first-hand, touch it and really examine the oarfish.
Read more:
Updated
Victorian ski resort records generous snowfall
Hotter than average ocean waters around the Australian continent have created damaging rainfall Australia’s north and drought conditions across much of southern Australia, but resorts in Hotham have reported a snowy start to winter with falls of 51cm overnight.
51cm of fresh #snow at #Hotham. We not skipping leg day! 🦵🫶❄️ pic.twitter.com/aUB6WtEwip
— Hotham (@_hotham) June 7, 2025
Australian alpine regions have had a rough time in recent years, with the snowy season starting late and not lasting as long. Sunday morning’s snowfall marks a good start, but it remains to be seen whether it will continue with just three of 14 ski lifts open at Hotham at present.
A recent report by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found the waters around Australia were contributing to the destabilisation of these weather patterns, with annual average sea surface temperatures in Australia’s region the highest since records began in the early 1980s.
The issue is associated with global heating, caused by continued consumption of fossil fuels. The WMO has previously warned there is an 80% chance global temperatures will break 2C warming before 2030.
Updated
AMA urges Australians to get vaccinated amid surge in respiratory infections
Doctors are urging Australians to talk with their GPs about flu, COVID-19 and RSV vaccinations, as winter brings with it a surge in acute respiratory infections.
Influenza vaccine coverage sits at 24% nationally, and 14% for people aged under 50. Covid-19 booster rates have also fallen for people aged 75 and over, according to the Australian Medical Association.
AMA president Dr Danielle McMullen encouraged people to visit their GP and get vaccinated:
New COVID-19 strains continue to circulate leading to increased hospitalisations, making regular boosters essential for maintaining protection against severe illness.
The evidence is clear – vaccines work. But vaccines sitting in fridges don’t save lives.
Updated
The NSW floods were bad enough. But then came the mould, and getting rid of it in winter is ‘almost impossible’
Nadia Zarb can already see, and smell, the mould in her art gallery in Taree. The building on Victoria Street was inundated during flooding that hit the Hunter and mid-north coast of New South Wales at the end of May.
Water filled the storage space below ground, the art supply store on the ground floor, and the loft exhibition space, reaching to just below Zarb’s home on the top level.
Water and mud still lies thick on the lower levels while her property is now filled with spores.
Mould is forming on her art supplies, Zarb says, texting through pictures of wooden art models covered in black and grey mould. It’s also in the walls, and areas she can’t access.
While it’s cold and damp, it’s really difficult to dry things and then you start to get that damp smell and that musty, mouldy odour.
Experts are warning about the “huge problem” of mould in homes and businesses affected by the recent floods. Because they happened in winter, it will be “almost impossible” for many homeowners to dry out their properties and eradicate the dangerous spores, they say.
For more, read the full feature story here:
Coalition mulls Bradfield challenge
In some morning media interviews, we’ve heard Coalition politicians James Paterson and Tim Wilson asked about the potential for the Liberals to challenge the result in Bradfield - where their candidate Gisele Kapterian lost to Nicolette Boele by just a handful of votes.
Kapterian herself said on Friday she was still considering the result and wouldn’t be drawn on whether she’d push for another challenge. We reached out to the Australian Electoral Commission, who said they’re not involved in this next part, but that the Electoral Act says any such dispute must be lodged within 40 days after the return of the writs for that specific seat.
The writs for Bradfield haven’t been returned yet, and that likely won’t happen for at least a few more days. So Kapterian or the Liberals have 40 days, once the writs are returned, to lodge a petition if they decide to.
Interestingly, it’s not just the candidate who can lodge a petition. The act says “a person who was qualified to vote” at the election can also lodge.
So until the Liberals rule out challenging - we might have more than 40 days still left of this seemingly never-ending process in Bradfield. A reminder we’re now 36 days on from the 3 May election.
Updated
Go bold: calls for Australia to lead on ocean health
Acting on the threats of deep-sea mining and climate change are among the asks of environmental groups heading into a global event.
Conservation groups are urging Australia to back a moratorium on deep-sea mining ahead of a major United Nations oceans conference.
More than two dozen countries want a ban, pause or moratorium until more is known about sea floors well below the surface, with concerns the emerging industry could disrupt ecosystems and the ocean’s ability to act as a carbon sink.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific, World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, and the Save Our Marine Life alliance are also pushing the government to ratify the high seas biodiversity agreement by September.
Australia was a founding signatory to the agreement in 2023 and the re-elected Albanese government has promised to ratify its commitment “as quickly as possible”.
The all-important treaty aims to better protect the two-thirds of marine habitat outside state jurisdiction and secure the necessary 60 ratifications will be a key talking point at the UN conference that starts on Monday.
Environment minister Murray Watt will join other policymakers, scientists, First Nations groups and environmental groups at the five-day event in Nice, France, as leader of the cross-government delegation.
- AAP
Updated
Tim Wilson backs working from home as ‘happy workers tend to be more productive’
Tim Wilson says work-from-home arrangements should be negotiated between workers and employers, shrugging off what he called a “heavy solution” outlined by the Coalition at the May election to end work-from-home for public sector employees.
The controversial policy, which was dumped mid-campaign in an embarrassing Peter Dutton backflip, has been blamed as a major factor in turning off professional women and young people from voting Liberal. The Coalition has indicated work-from-home arrangements shouldn’t be discouraged like this. Wilson, the new shadow minister for industrial relations, told Sky News that workers should “have a sense of ownership and responsibility of their workplace arrangements, in partnership with their employers”.
So if employers can find a pathway where, and employees can find a pathway, together in partnership for working from home because it works in their best interest, then that would always be the baseline at which I’d approach workplace arrangements. It’s not for me to dictate what those terms are.
When it comes to the politics of it, I think a lot of people looked at it and ... it was probably interpreted, anyway, as a heavy solution to what should be, for the most part, a productivity managed problem between employers and employees.
Wilson said the WFH policy was raised with him “from time to time” while campaigning for Goldstein, but that equally he had employers who felt they “no longer had a balanced relationship with their employees and wanted redress”. Wilson said the issue should be looked at from a productivity standpoint, about what works best for the business and employees.
We do know that happy workers tend to be more productive, and there’s certainly circumstances where people working from home can be more productive than they might otherwise be.
Because of commute times, because of their capacity to balance out their work and family lives, based on what their needs are, but it can vary circumstance to circumstance.
Updated
‘Sense of hope’ behind Goldstein victory, Tim Wilson says
Liberal MP Tim Wilson says he won back the seat of Goldstein after giving constituents a “sense of hope” and long-term vision beyond the immediate cost-of-living crisis.
The new shadow minister, who in 2025 took back the seat he lost to Zoe Daniel in 2022, was on Sky News earlier. Asked how he bucked the national trend, and picked up a seat the Liberals didn’t have, he said:
I think the biggest selling point we put forward to the community was that we were speaking to its hopes and dreams and aspirations.
Wilson claimed it came “at a time where a lot of the political conversation was not appealing to people’s sense of hope”.
I think that there was a very clear sense that we were trying to do something bigger and more urgent than a lot of the focus on trying to solve immediate problems around cost of living, which, of course, were very important.
But they’re connected to getting people to raise their heads up, to look further into the distance and say, ‘We’re not going to achieve or address the problems we’re facing today if it’s not part of a bigger, longer term vision to solve the challenges that face our country’. So we consciously and deliberately went big, bold and ambitious because we knew that it was going to be the basis in which we captured people’s imagination. We captured their sense of hope.
Updated
Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff will hold a press conference at noon with former federal Coalition MP Bridget Archer to “make an announcement”.
We will bring you the latest as it developments – for more context of what is taking place in Tasmanian politics, read The Guardian’s previous analysis here:
Updated
Cold front brings rain, chilly conditions to nation's south-east
Temperatures may not break out of single figures in some parts of south-east Australia on Sunday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Canberra can expect a top of 9C on Sunday, with maximums of 12C in Melbourne and 13C in Adelaide and Hobart.
The chilly conditions were due to a cold front, dragging air from south of Australia, which was expected to pass through Melbourne on Saturday night before moving into eastern Victoria and New South Wales early on Sunday.
BoM senior meteorologist Dean Narramore said:
Melbourne could see quite a lot of rainfall on Sunday. We could see 20 to 40mm through the metropolitan area with heavy rainfall and also cold and showery conditions extending all the way up into the New South Wales ranges.
Then, a slow moving low developing off NSW would spread showers, gusty winds – and in some places, snow – through southeastern Australia into Monday and Tuesday.
Drought-affected South Australia and south-west Victoria could see rainfall totals of 25 to 50mm, from Saturday into Tuesday, he said.
Sunday temperatures would be warmer in the other capitals, with a maximum of 22C for Perth, 16C in Sydney, 23C in Brisbane and 31C in Darwin.
Updated
Scott Morrison sought advice to obstruct Nauru asylum seekers from accessing abortions, documents reveal
Scott Morrison overrode medical advice in the case of an asylum seeker in offshore detention trying to access an abortion, and had previously sought advice that would effectively prevent access to terminations entirely, ministerial advice reveals.
Documents released under freedom of information laws show Morrison, in 2014 as immigration minister, had sought advice to deny the transfer of women to a hospital on the Australian mainland to access termination services before 20 weeks’ gestation.
Abortion is illegal on Nauru, except to save the mother’s life, and carries a prison term of up to 14 years. Termination laws differ across Australian states, but if pregnant women in offshore detention were prohibited from accessing abortion services in Australia until after 20 weeks, it would be far more difficult to access those services at all.
A handwritten note by Morrison, on a document dated June 2014, stated: “I would also like advice on denying transfer pre 20 weeks for pregnant women.” In the same document, Morrison specified that women should only be transferred to Brisbane, not South Australia, the Northern Territory or Victoria for abortion services.
For more, read the full report:
NT police confirm death in custody on day of protest against death of Kumanjayi White
Northern Territory police have confirmed a man has died in custody the same day rallies have been planned in protest over the death of Kumanjayi White in Alice Springs.
Police confirmed they were investigating the death of a man at Royal Darwin hospital in a statement on Saturday night.
The 68-year-old man was arrested by Australia federal police at 1pm on 30 May 2025 when he tried to board a plan out of Darwin. Police allege the man was heavily intoxicated.
He was initially held at Palmerston Watchhouse where a medical assessment concluded he should be moved to Royal Darwin hospital.
Upon arrival, AFP officers noticed the man had lost consciousness. Medical staff were alerted and resuscitation efforts were successful. The man was then transferred to the Intensive Care Unit in a stable condition where he received ongoing treatment.
The man died on Saturday. His cause of death currently unknown with an autopsy yet to be performed.
NT police are investigating and will prepare a report for the coroner.
Updated
US tariffs will ‘impact growth’, trade minister says
Trade minister Don Farrell also said Australia was hopeful of extending existing free trade deals with other countries, to help boost wider trade networks even if the United States kept up its tariff regime.
On Sky this morning, Farrell said his discussions with the US and other countries were about removing existing barriers, but also “ensuring that there is a way that countries don’t increase the amount of protectionism”. He’s recently been meeting with the World Trade Organisation and the OECD.
I took the opportunity last week to talk with my European counterparts. I met the French trade minister, the German trade minister, and of course, the most important one, and that is the European trade minister. We had good discussions.
My officials spent a couple of days after the meeting continuing those talks. And I’m hopeful that those countries around the world who do believe free and fair trade can reach agreement, to extend free trade agreements across the globe, so that irrespective of what the Americans might choose to do, we have a greater diversity of trading partners.
Farrell conceded that Donald Trump’s trade tariffs were “inevitably going to impact growth”, not just on nations subject to those barriers, but on the US itself.
So I think it’s incumbent on Australia, on the rest of the world, to say to the Americans, look, these are exactly the wrong policies to adopt. You should be adopting the opposite policies. You should be opening up, opening up your economies.
What we know is, if you’re an outward-facing trading company in Australia, your profits are going to be higher, but more importantly, the wages of your employees are going to be higher. So we say to the Americans, and we’ll continue to say to the Americans, these are the exact wrong policies to adopt.
Updated
Government still pushing for tariff relief, Farrell says
Trade minister Don Farrell says the government is still pushing for the USA to remove all trade tariffs on Australian goods, but could not confirm whether Anthony Albanese will have a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump this week when the pair visit the G7 meeting in Canada.
In an interview on Sky News, Farrell said he is still telling his American trade counterparts that Australia believes the trading barriers have “no justification”. Farrell, the senator from South Australia, said he’d put that position to the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, twice in the last week alone.
We want all of the tariffs removed, not just some of them. We want all of them removed. And I made it clear to USTR Greer that we’ll continue to press for the removal of all of those tariffs.
Farrell said it had been “friendly” discussions with Greer, but that he’d come away with the impression from the US trade reps that it would be Trump himself making the final decisions. Albanese will travel to Alberta, Canada this week for the G7 meeting, where it has been speculated that he could meet Trump - either on the sidelines of the G7 meeting, or during a potential stopover in the United States.
Farrell, asked about such a meeting, played coy and wouldn’t say whether such a conversation was locked in. But he said that while Albanese would continue to “push the Australian point of view” in whatever forum, that leader-to-leader meetings weren’t the only part of negotiations.
There’s a range of ways in which we communicate with the United States. Ambassador [Kevin] Rudd, obviously does it. All of our ministers who make contact with their equivalents in the United States make it clear what we want out of the relationship with the United States. And of course, most important, as you say, is the relationship between our prime minister and the president.
Updated
Coalition still pondering legal challenge over Bradfield defeat
With the count in the seat of Bradfield finalised, where the difference in the result came down to 26 votes, Paterson says he can’t confirm whether the Coalition will seek to challenge the result.
I understand that the New South Wales Liberal party is reviewing our legal options, and I really hope that we can find a way to have Gisele Kapterian in the parliament, because she’s exactly the type of person to make the Liberal party better and the parliament better. She has great insights and professional experience. She’s a person that I hope to be playing a big role in the future of the party. But it is up to the New South Wales division and ultimately, if we decide to make any application in the court of disputed returns to that.
Asked about comments from Kapterian that the 2025 election result showed that “the position on net zero has been put to bed”, Paterson says the party’s position on the issue will be considered as part of the ongoing review.
He also demurred on whether the party could find a byelection in the seat without a stated position on the future of climate change and net zero.
I’m not going to publicly engage on debate about internal policy about that. I have the opportunity to do so through the shadow cabinet process. But if there is a byelection, I would back Gisele because she’s an outstanding candidate and outstanding Liberal and someone who is placed to make a big contribution to the future of our country inside one of the major parties that will ultimately form government in this country.
That’s not something that an independent can do. And if the independents were relatively inconsequential in the last parliament, they’ll be even less relevant in this one.
Updated
Paterson refuses to commit to where the Coalition may land on its previous pledge to cut public service positions at the last elections, saying he won’t pre-empt a review of the party’s policies.
The shadow finance minister, however, did say he believe the Coalition “got the tone of that conversation wrong”.
We want a productive and respectful relationship with the Australian public service. I’ve seen in my previous committee roles, particularly on the intelligence committee, how professional and patriotic and dedicated the public servants are and they deserve to be respected for the role that they do. We of course expect them to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and the Liberal party will always want to spend that money as efficiently as possible but do so in a way that’s constructive.
Updated
James Paterson has acknowledged that the government could work around the Coalition on policy issues, such as the proposed changes to the way superannuation is taxed, by doing a deal with the Greens.
He was asked whether the refusal of the Coalition to negotiate with the government on the changes means the government will seek to pass the bill by looking elsewhere.
Well, the truth is, David, because of the extent of the government’s win at the election, if they don’t want to sit down and negotiate with us, they have other pathways available that they didn’t have.
Asked whether the Coalition’s position was reasonable, Paterson add:
Even if the entire crossbench and the Coalition opposes it, they can still pass things with the Greens. Now, the Greens are a more natural ally for the government on something like a tax increase because we’re never going to be party to a tax increase. We’re never going to make that easier for the government. We’re fighting this because we’re opposed to it in principle and proud to do it.
Updated
Paterson says that “it’s unusual to have a shadow minister for finance advocating for an increase in in spending in any portfolio” but that experts have been calling for Austral to up is defence spending.
I’m happy to do the hard work in the next two years to put in place good strong fiscal rules to allow us to take to the next election, a strong budget that invests in the things that Australians need, including the critical services that they rely on, but also our national security and defence.
The shadow minister for finance also says that he believes it was a strategic mistake for the Coalition to pledge to repeal a tax cut at the last election, saying it’s “in the Liberal party’s DNA to argue for, and advocate for, lower taxes wherever they can be afforded and whenever they are achievable.”
As I’ve said recently, I think that we made a strategic mistake at the last election by opposing a tax cut and taking to the election the repealing of the tax cut. And that’s not a mistake that we’ll repeat.
Paterson also attacked the government over its planned changes for the way superannuation for high income earners is taxed.
Updated
Paterson says the Coalition is unclear on government plans for a critical minerals stockpile, but supports “any sensible steps that represent an economic for Australia and an opportunity for us to demonstrate that we are a good alliance partner of the United States”.
Paterson was asked about whether the Coalition would support the government’s plan for a critical minerals stockpile, in the context of an Australia offer to leverage access to these resources in return for the US dropping tariffs against Australia.
Separately, he said the Coalition supported lifting Australian defence spending to 3% of GDP – the “exact profiling of that increase is something that we’ll determine through the policy process and closer to the next election”.
We’ve got three years to outline exactly what we could spend that money on. But there’s plenty of good advice out there in open source that suggests areas of investment.
One is spending to resolve the recruitment and retention crisis facing the ADF. Another is to make sure that we have the munitions stockpile that we would need to survive a conflict, God forbid, if that should break out.
Other things like hardening the northern bases, the air and miss aisle defence, drone defence. Purchasing our own lethal drones. There is no shortage of good thing that we could spend on that increase our ability to defend ourselves and safeguard our sovereignty.
Updated
Paterson says PM should have met Trump sooner on possible trade exemptions
Shadow finance minister, James Paterson, says the Coalition expects Anthony Albanese to follow the example of UK prime minister Keir Starmer in negotiating a partial exemption from steel and aluminium tariffs if he meets with US president Donald Trump on the sidelines of an upcoming G7 meeting.
Paterson says the Coalition, however, supports the government’s position that biosecurity standards will not be dropped to accomodate US demands, though the party is not opposed “in principle” to the importation of US beef to Australia.
Paterson added that he thought it would “have been much easier” to negotiate an exemption if the prime minister “had made the effort to go and meet the president earlier than he has now”.
It’s seven months on since the president was elected. And other world leaders like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have made the trip to the United States and met with the president multiple times in multiple forums. The Australian prime minister has not yet done so.
Updated
Shadow finance minister James Paterson will speak to ABC Insiders host David Speers this morning.
Earlier this morning federal trade minister, Senator Don Farrell spoke to Sky News. He was followed by Coalition MP Tim Wilson.
Resources minister Madeleine King will hold a presser in Western Australia this morning.
We will bring you the latest as it develops.
Updated
Privatisation shelved as premier fights to stay afloat
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff has intervened to end his government’s push to sell off state assets after a turbulent week in which he lost a no-confidence motion in parliament.
Rockliff has stopped prominent economist Saul Eslake from preparing a report on viable opportunities to sell government-owned businesses to support Tasmania’s troubled finances.
In a post to social media, he promised legislation ensuring that any sales would require a two-thirds majority support in parliament.
Today, I can confirm that there will be no privatisation under a government I lead.
We will also be changing the law so that a government business can only be sold in future if it receives a two-thirds majority in the parliament.
An election could be called on Tuesday.
Despite feuding over the state’s finances, Tasmania’s proposed $715m stadium looms as the biggest issue.
The roofed Macquarie Point proposal is a condition of an AFL licence, with the state government responsible for delivery and cost overruns.
Labor and the Liberals support the stadium but recent polls suggest Tasmanians are not sold.
Firebrand senator Jacqui Lambie, independent federal MP Andrew Wilkie and acclaimed author Richard Flanagan are among well-known Tasmanians who oppose the project.
- AAP
Updated
Vigil for Pheobe Bishop following grim bush discovery
A vigil will be held in memory of 17-year-old Pheobe Bishop after the discovery of human remains in rugged national parkland.
The vigil follows police confirmation that they found human remains in “unforgiving” terrain in a national park southwest of Bundaberg.
Floral tributes were laid outside the share house where Bishop lived, with a candlelight vigil at Kolan Community Park between 4pm and 6pm on Sunday. Locals have been asked to wear bright colours and butterflies.
A second candlelight vigil will be held at Buss Park in nearby Bundaberg on Monday from 5pm.
Well-wishers have left tributes on social media sites advertising the events.
Bishop was last seen near Bundaberg airport about 8.30am on 15 May after booking a trip to Western Australia to see her boyfriend.
Police have charged her housemates with her murder.
– with AAP
Updated
Good morning
And welcome to another Sunday morning Guardian live blog.
A vigil will be held for a Queensland teenager Pheobe Bishop on Sunday afternoon after police confirmed they had found human remains in a national park. Bishop’s housemates have been charged with her murder after she missed a flight she was expected to board at Bundaberg Airport.
Embattled Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff has intervened to stop a privatisation to sell off state assets after losing a no-confidence vote in parliament earlier this week. The Premier is expected to call an election on Tuesday after facing pressure over his government’s management of state finances.
I’m Royce Kurmelovs and I’ll be taking the blog through the day.
With that, let’s get started …
