What we learned today, Wednesday 7 April
That’s where we’ll leave the blog for this evening. Thanks for reading our coverage. I’ll be back with you tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, here were today’s major developments:
The Greens refused to concede the seat of Melbourne, despite the ABC and other election analysts projecting the party’s leader, Adam Bandt, had been defeated by Labor’s Sarah Witty.
Peter Dutton said he would maintain a “graceful silence” on his exit from politics, after shepherding the Coalition through an election campaign that resulted in such a resounding election defeat it cost him his own seat. Meanwhile, tensions bubbled over who should take over the Liberal leadership.
Joseph Gaerlan, a security guard in charge of emergency response the day Joel Cauchi fatally stabbed six people inside a Bondi shopping centre, has told an inquest that communication difficulties caused a delay in warning customers about the incident.
A doctor who treated Erin Patterson told her triple murder trial that he was surprised she discharged herself from hospital five minutes after being told she may have been exposed to potentially fatal mushroom poisoning.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, urged against “escalatory actions” after Indian missile strikes in Pakistan and Kashmir and said Australia was engaging with both countries.
The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, announced plans to resign after three years in the five-year role and 38 years in the police force.
And mystery swirled over how miniature dachshund Valerie braved more than 500 days in Kangaroo Island’s rugged wilderness only to emerge healthy, happy – and larger than before.
Updated
Under examination from Asmof’s barrister, Thomas Dixon, Buchanan told the court his and NSW Health’s expert witness reports provided “very similar” modelling costs looking at two scenarios – current cost of provision of psychiatry services with diminished staff specialists (SS) as well as the assumption there were no VMOs and no locums, and hospitals instead staffed by SS with a 25% pay rise.
However, he said they differ in how they use that information.
NSW Health’s report in response to Buchanan’s was prepared by Rian Thompson, the department’s director of workforce insights and transformation.
Buchanan said the “character of the growth is dramatic” with staff specialist vacancies dropping from 70% to 60% in six years and “all things considered the staff specialist proportion could drop further”.
Buchanan said considering the likelihood of further staff specialist resignations and the growing incidence of mental health disorders, the reliance on visiting medical officers and locums will become “far more expensive”.
Under-cross examination, Thompson in his evidence was reticent to accept Dixon’s question that his costing simulations did not differ from those of Buchanan. Thompson said “arguably 10% is substantial”.
Thompson also confirmed psychiatrists have been pushing back their resignations due to delays in these proceedings, which were originally scheduled for one week in March.
Updated
Under cross-examination by NSW Health’s barrister, Ian Neil, Buchanan said that, as a labour market researcher, one has to look at demand conditions and the increase in vacancies since 2018 to today as a “good indicator there is a significant problem of excessive demand.”
Probed by Neil as to why he had said the vacancies were also a supply-side issue, Buchanan replied it is due to the erosion of training capacity that comes with permanent staff vacancies.
As such Buchanan “identified a threat to the sustainability of psychiatric services in NSW”, the court heard, as VMOs typically don’t have the same capacity to train future psychiatrists or play role in clinical supervision.
He said:
I’m not saying NSW health is evil. The demand for health services is almost insatiable, but the way we handle those challenges has changed.
Neil asked Buchanan whether increasing remuneration to the level sought by the union would make a difference to the problem he described as excess, to which he replied raising wages was an “essential ingredient” in handling the challenge.
While raising wages alone would not solve it, it was vital in the same way “you can’t make a sponge without self-raising flour or bicarb soda”, Buchanan said.
Updated
NSW public sector psychiatrists should get a pay rise, court hears
Raising New South Wales public sector psychiatrists’ wages is an “essential ingredient” in managing the significant problems of excessive demand for psychiatrists and the labour market being in distress, a court has heard.
Prof John Buchanan from the University of Sydney Business School appeared as a witness for the doctors union, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation (Asmof), on the fourth full day – dedicated to expert evidence – of its arbitration with NSW Health in the Industrial Relations Commission in Sydney.
In Buchanan’s affidavit received into evidence, he and his colleagues giving expert evidence wrote that:
The 25% allowance proposal is about repairing an uncompetitive and inefficient labour market. A significant proportion – if not all of the 25% claim – will be offset by reduced reliance on more expensive forms of contingently engaged labour (i.e. [visiting medical officers] VMOs and labour hire).
The figures provided in that report assumed a pay rise would entice permanently employed psychiatrists back to work and gradually reduce the state’s reliance on casual doctors, similar to modelling which Guardian Australia’s reporting revealed in February:
Updated
Australian investment in the US soared to $1.5tn last year, ABS data reveals
Australian investment in the US leapt to $1.5tn in 2024, reducing the gap between how much more other countries invest in Australia compared to how much we invest overseas to its narrowest point in nearly two decades.
Australia’s investment in the US, which surpassed $1tn in 2021, further soared by more than $350bn in the 12 months to December, Australian Bureau of Statistics data released earlier today revealed.
Some of that rapid rise – which appears to be Australia’s biggest-ever annual pile-in to any country, in dollar terms – could be due to the outsized performance of the American stock market last year.
Australia bought some $107bn of American financial assets such as stocks and securities last year, but only made $17bn of direct investments relating to buying into, starting up, or purchasing businesses.
US investment also led the increases in foreign funds that flowed into Australia.
While US investment in Australia has now surpassed $1tn, their investors have displayed more moderate enthusiasm for us than we have for them, with their total investments here sitting at $1.35tn.
While overseas financiers have accumulated nearly a $5tn presence in Australia, our investment overseas has been increasing more quickly than foreign investment here for a few years now.
This is largely due to Australian superannuation funds taking local money overseas for better returns.
Ultimately there is still more foreign investment in Australia than we invest overseas, although the gap last year narrowed to 2007 levels.
You have to wonder whether Australian investors may decide they leaned too hard into American markets last year, given Trump tariff volatility has convinced funds around the world to “sell America” or shed US assets and put their money in more stable markets elsewhere.
You can read more about that here:
Updated
ABC projects Labor will narrowly defeat independent to retain Fremantle
The sitting MP, Josh Wilson, is set to narrowly defeat the independent challenger Kate Hulett to reclaim the WA seat of Fremantle for the Labor party, according to the ABC’s projections.
Fremantle was previously a safe Labor seat, held by Wilson with a margin of 16.9% after the 2022 election, but the contest this time around has come down to the wire.
While the Australian Electoral Commission has recorded a significant swing towards Hulett of more than 23%, the ABC has called the seat for Labor.
Updated
Greens refuse to concede Bandt has lost seat
The Greens have released a statement saying they are not conceding the seat of Melbourne, where their leader, Adam Bandt, is projected to lose to Labor’s Sarah Witty.
A spokesperson for the Greens said:
While there are many, many thousands of votes to be counted we are not conceding Melbourne.
While we are ahead on primary votes, there is a chance that One Nation and Liberal preferences will elect the Labor candidate. The count needs to proceed.
Updated
Wong urges against ‘escalatory actions’ after Indian missile strikes in Pakistan and Kashmir
In a statement, a spokesperson for the foreign minister, Penny Wong, said Australia was engaging with both India and Pakistan “in response to recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir”.
The statement continued:
We don’t want to see escalatory actions, which pose a risk to regional peace and security. Australians in affected areas should monitor updated Smartraveller advice.
You can read more about the situation here:
Updated
Greens deputy leader says parliament can be a ‘bloody awful place’ after criticism from outgoing MP
The Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, says parliament can be a “bloody awful place” after one-time MP Max Chandler-Mather spoke out about his time there.
Speaking on the ABC’s Triple J Hack radio program, Chandler-Mather, who lost his inner-Brisbane seat to Labor after one term in office, called parliament a “sick place”.
In the interview, Chandler-Mather said half the Labor frontbench would be “screaming at me and calling me a joke and an idiot” and he had walked back to his office “almost throwing up out of stress”.
Faruqi was asked about Chandler-Mather’s comments during her own interview on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program a short time ago. She said:
Of course the parliament can be a bloody awful place, I could relate so much to his comments about what he has said about his time in parliament.
This is a workplace where for six years I have experienced outright racism.
Faruqi, whose party has lost three MPs including Chandler-Mather and its leader Adam Bandt, said the Greens would undertake an analysis of the election and their campaign “once all the results are declared”.
But she talked up the party’s success in the upper house, saying:
One thing is quite clear for us: the people of the country have put us in sole balance of power in the Senate … So that does mean that we have a mandate to keep pushing Labor.
With Labor having a majority in the lower house there is no excuse for Labor not to make progressive and transformational changes on the things that people have been struggling on … cost of living, housing, addressing the climate crisis.
Faruqi said the Greens vote had “exploded” with swing of 20% towards the progressive party in some booths in seats she said were home to large migrant communities such as Wills and Fraser and those in western Sydney.
Updated
Littleproud suggests Nationals won’t back down from nuclear plans
David Littleproud has suggested the Nationals won’t walk away from having nuclear energy as part of its policy offering.
The Coalition’s resounding election defeat has cast doubt on its plan to build nuclear reactors in Australia, which was one of its signature election policies.
There is already division among some Liberal MPs and senators over whether the policy should be abandoned.
Speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program a short time ago, Littleproud said the Nationals would “obviously have a conversation” with the Liberals if the latter decided to ditch the nuclear policy.
Littleproud said:
I don’t see any need for us to change from a technology-agnostic approach to our energy grid.
You can’t run an economy on the scale of Australia on renewables, it just cannot work.
What we’re saying is we’re not walking away from renewables, even the grid we were proposing would see more renewables. You should have a mix.
Earlier today, the Liberal MP Tim Wilson, who defeated the independent Zoe Daniel to regain the Melbourne seat of Goldstein, said he backed nuclear energy as “part of building the future industrial base of our country”.
Wilson said:
In my core sense of belief I believe in the role of nuclear power not as an end but as a beginning.
Updated
Greens leader Adam Bandt projected to lose seat of Melbourne
The ABC has called the seat of Melbourne for Labor, meaning that Adam Bandt will almost certainly lose his seat.
Labor’s Sarah Witty leads the two-candidate preferred (TCP) count by 52.7% to the Greens 47.3%.
The seat is still undergoing a recount of the TCP after the Australian Electoral Commission picked the incorrect final pairing of candidates on election night. As of Wednesday afternoon, 23 booths have been included in the new count, and Labor has benefited from strong preference flows to take the lead over the Greens.
The Greens’ margin in the seat of Melbourne has declined compared with 2022 due to boundary redistributions, which resulted in the electorate losing some strong Greens-voting areas in the north of the seat and gaining areas in South Yarra where the Liberal vote is higher. This redistribution is likely responsible for at least some of the swing against the Greens.
Bandt had held the seat for 15 years after he was first elected in 2010 in Labor’s Gillard minority government.
Labor’s victory upset in Melbourne was one few saw coming. It means Anthony Albanese can now claim the political scalps of two party leaders in both Peter Dutton and Bandt.
It also reduces the minor party’s gains in the lower house after a high-water mark in the 2022 federal election. The Greens will likely be reduced from four lower house seats to just one – the Ryan MP, Elizabeth Watson-Brown, assuming Watson-Brown wins the seat when the new TCP count for Ryan is done.
Updated
Sky News and independent analyst say Bandt will lose Melbourne
Sky News and the independent election analyst William Bowe are both projecting the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, will lose the seat of Melbourne to Labor’s Sarah Witty.
Labor leads the two-candidate preferred (TCP) count by 52.7% to the Greens 47.3%.
The seat is still undergoing a recount of the TCP after the Australian Electoral Commission picked the incorrect final pairing of candidates on election night. As of Wednesday afternoon, 23 booths have been included in the new count, and Labor has benefited from strong preference flows to take the lead over the Greens.
Updated
Police union hails Karen Webb’s ‘undeniable positive mark’
The head of the New South Wales police union has issued a statement congratulating the outgoing commissioner, Karen Webb, on her long career.
Webb confirmed this morning that she would retire later this year after 38 years in the force.
In a statement, the president of the Police Association of NSW (PANSW), Kevin Morton, said:
As the first female police commissioner, Karen Webb APM has left an undeniable positive mark on the NSW Police Force and the landscape of policing in NSW.
The PANSW worked closely with Commissioner Webb to achieve several significant outcomes for police officers in NSW, including paying recruits at the NSW police academy and an unprecedented pay rise and enhanced conditions to retain currently serving officers.
As a long-serving PANSW member, we congratulate her on 38 years of policing and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.
Morton called on the government to move “swiftly” to appoint a new commissioner to ensure the NSW community was “safe and has respect for our men and women in blue”.
The deputy commissioner Peter Thurtell will act in Webb’s role during the recruitment process to appoint her successor.
Updated
Hi, I hope you’ve had a good day so far. I’ll be with you on the blog until this evening.
Thank you for joining me on the blog today – handing over now to Catie McLeod who will keep you posted with the afternoon’s news.
Cost of living for working Australians still rising faster than the official inflation number
If you feel like your cost of living is still going up faster than the measly 2.4% official inflation rate, it’s probably because it is. Working Australians’ costs are still climbing by 3.4% in the year to March, after rising faster over the first three months of 2025 than they did in the last six months of 2024 combined.
Costs rose at their fastest rate in two years in early 2025 for those whose main income comes from government payments and pensions. The only type of earners that saw living costs rise on par with 2.4% inflation in the year to march were self-funded retirees.
Higher costs for health services and pharmaceuticals contributed after some of those on government payments lost their eligibility for bigger subsidies in Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme after January’s threshold reset. Rising electricity prices and more expensive fruit and vegetables didn’t help.
For students, unemployed people and others on non-aged pension payments, the cost of living increased 3.5% in the year to March. That group has now overtaken workers as those facing the worst annual living cost rises, today’s data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed.
Employees had been the worst hit since late 2022, as interest rates spiked and mortgage repayment costs nearly doubled in 2022-23, but rising rents helped payment recipients overtake.
Mortgage-holders’ repayments still grew more expensive despite February’s rate cut, as debt levels grew and cheaper fixed-rate loans expired. A historically low one in 10 loans are now on fixed rates, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates.
The rate cut should bring workers’ living costs down in the data covering April to June, the ABS estimates, by which time economists expect we’ll be enjoying another rate cut from the Reserve Bank board’s meeting less than two weeks from now.
Updated
Dutton to maintain ‘graceful silence’ after exit from politics
Former opposition leader Peter Dutton says he will maintain a “graceful silence” as he exits from politics.
He made his first remarks to journalists since Saturday night’s federal election walking through Canberra airport today:
I just want to say thank you to all those who have offered good wishes.
I’ve spoken to my colleagues, and the Liberal party rebuilds from here, and that is as it should be.
The best model I’ve seen is where former leaders make a graceful exit from politics and maintain their graceful silence. So that will be my model.
Updated
School retention rate rises slightly
The Acara data also found the retention rate had slightly increased on 2023, with 79.9% of students continuing school from year 7/8 to year 12, up from 79.1 the previous year.
The retention rate differs from the attainment rate in that it measures the progression of students through schools over several years.
When viewed over time, however, the retention rate has continued to languish well below pre-pandemic levels. In 2020, the retention rate for students all continuing year school to year 12 was 83.6%, and had not dropped below 84% since 2014.
The apparent retention rate from year 7/8 to year 12 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students similarly increased from 55.8% in 2023 to 57.0% in 2024. But it was well below a historic high of 62.4% in 2017, and is the second-lowest figure since 2013 (55.1%).
Updated
More than 25% of Australian school students receive educational adjustments for a disability
More than a quarter of school students receive an educational adjustment due to their disability, new data from the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (Acara) shows.
Disability adjustments are actions taken in schools to enable students to better access and participate in education, such as providing larger print materials, visual aids or allowing students extended time to complete assessments.
The 2024 data, updated on Wednesday, found just over 1 million students were provided an adjustment, representing 25.7% of total enrolments. It was up from 24.2% in 2023 and 18% in 2015.
Some 2.5% of all school students were provided extensive adjustments to help them participate on the same basis as others, while 4.7% were given substantial support, 11% were offered supplementary support and 7.3% were supported through “quality differentiated teaching practices”.
The majority of students who received an adjustment were due to a cognitive disability (53.9%), followed by a socio-emotional disability (35%), a physical disability (8.6%) and sensory disability (2.5%).
Updated
Valerie the miniature dachshund reunited with owners
After 529 days on the run, Australia’s favourite fugitive has been reunited with her owners. People have been trying to find Valerie the miniature dachshund since she went missing in November 2023, when her owners, New South Wales couple Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, were holidaying at Stokes Bay on Kangaroo Island in South Australia
Here’s the video:
Updated
More seat counting
The count in Bradfield, NSW between the independent Nicolette Boele and the Liberal Gisele Kapterian is extremely close and will likely require a full count of the absent, provisional, declaration and postal votes before a decision can be made.
Read Nick Evershed and Andy Ball’s full analysis of all seats that are too close to call:
Updated
Australia-Pacific ties enhanced by Labor’s election win
While Pacific nations had no say in the outcome, the federal election was a sliding doors moment for Australia’s relationships with the blue continent.
Labor’s success allows a number of key Pacific collaborations to continue: the bid to co-host a climate change summit, a defence treaty with Papua New Guinea, enhanced labour mobility and visa pathways.
The region had a clear preference, according to Mihai Sora, a former Australian diplomat and the director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program. “It’s not necessarily a personal affinity for Labor or for Albanese – it’s more Australia’s Pacific policy platform,” he told AAP.
Continuity of government represents continuity in those policies that are very important to Pacific countries.
Albanese and the foreign minister, Penny Wong, have much much stock in growing Pacific relationships, visiting more often than previous governments, and in an uptick in bilateral agreements, including landmark treaties with Tuvalu and Nauru.
AAP’s private discussions with Pacific officials and diplomats – who were not authorised to speak publicly – confirmed their hopes for Labor’s re-election.
- Australian Associated Press
Updated
An update on seat counting
We are still following federal election results in a number of undecided seats.
In Richmond, NSW, it’s likely that the Labor candidate, Justine Elliot, will be successful against the Greens, and retain the seat. But the initial pairing the Australian Electoral Commission chose was not the one that eventuated on the night, so we’re waiting on the two-candidate-preferred count (TPC) recount before making a call to avoid any doubt.
The AEC also picked the incorrect pairing for the final TPC in Bean, ACT, so we’re waiting on a recount with the actual final pairing of Labor v the independent Jessie Price.
Read Nick Evershed and Andy Ball’s full analysis of all seats that are too close to call:
Updated
NSW police release statement on behalf of commissioner Karen Webb on her decision to retire
New South Wales police have released a statement on behalf of commissioner Karen Webb after it was announced in parliament this morning that she would retire later this year.
In the statement, Webb said:
I have recommended to the government that Deputy Commissioner Peter Thurtell act in my role.
I knew when the time was right I would know, and I wanted to give the state government time to recruit and appoint a new commissioner going into an election period in less than two years’ time.
Webb said she had decided to retire after discussions with her family, the statement said, and had planned to announce her retirement on 18 May to commemorate the date she started training at the Goulburn police academy 38 years ago.
Webb said her role as the first female police commissioner has been her “greatest honour”.
Police said Webb would be officially farewelled from the force when she walked off the parade ground at the Goulburn police academy at the next attestation in August.
The NSW police minister, Yasmin Catley, announced Webb’s decision to retire in a speech to parliament earlier today. You can read more here:
Updated
Labor candidate takes stronger lead over Adam Bandt in Melbourne
The lead has widened between the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, and his Labor challenger, Sarah Witty, in the seat of Melbourne.
Bandt has been clinging on in the progressive inner-city electorate which he has represented since 2010.
The latest count from the AEC, released just before noon, has Bandt almost 2,000 votes behind – although only 35% of the ballot papers have had their preferences distributed.
As it stands, and including preferences, Witty is leading 53.55% to 46.45%, with 14,501 votes to Bandt’s 12,580.
Analysts were divided yesterday afternoon on whether Bandt would be able to retain the seat.
Updated
NSW police commissioner Karen Webb steps down
New South Wales’ police commissioner, Karen Webb, has resigned from her role.
The police minister, Yasmin Catley, has just told NSW parliament that Webb had indicated that she would retire by the end of the year and will leave the job on 30 September.
“She has provided a lengthy notice period to enable the government to conduct a thorough recruitment process for her successor,” Catley said.
Commissioner Webb has had an extremely extinguished career marked by exemplary service. I have nothing but heartfelt thanks for her incredible work and admiration for her many significant achievements. She has been a force for change and reform focused on the safety and wellbeing of the New South Wales police.
Webb is the 23rd commissioner of the NSW Police Force. She was sworn in at a ceremony in her home town of Boorowa in February 2022.
Updated
Laura Tingle appointed as ABC global affairs editor
Laura Tingle is to become the national broadcaster’s new global affairs editor.
Tingle will take up the role mid-year after six years as 7.30’s political editor. She takes over from John Lyons, now ABC’s new Americas editor.
Tingle said of her appointment:
I started my journalistic career at a time when Australia and the world were being challenged and transformed by the forces of deregulation and the freeing up of global trade.
Forty years on, we are in even more uncertain times.
It’s so important that the national public broadcaster has Australian eyes on the world, putting the significance of major global events into context for local audiences.
Updated
Monique Ryan leading by just 622 votes
Independent Monique Ryan’s lead over Liberal Amelia Hamer in the seat of Kooyong has slimmed down to just 622 votes, according to the AEC’s most recent count.
Last night the margin was at about 1,000.
Updated
Wilson said he believes in the role of nuclear power:
In my core sense of belief I believe in the role of nuclear power not as an end but as a beginning.
We talked about this in our campaign launch. Nuclear power as part of building the future industrial base of our country …
I am about building out the future [so] the next generation can lift their eyes … and look further to the horizon.
That is why it is so important to have honest conversations with the Australian people. To be part of building out that future and to make the case, not just simply [putting] something out there and [seeing] whether it will be tested. We must fight vehemently, passionately, [with] energy and courage because it comes from who we are.
Updated
Wilson says Daniel “has continued to post content on social media suggesting they wish the counts to continue”.
All I will say is this: after the last election, and let’s be very honest, it was brutal. But I showed dignity … showed respect I should say, I should respect my supporters and the people who voted for me by conceding because I thought it was important to provide a clean slate. I will leave my comments there.
Updated
Wilson continues:
One of the things I’m most proud of in this campaign is how much it was a genuine community connected campaign and I have to start by expressing my most incredible gratitude to the people of Goldstein. You know, the privilege of public service … is something that has been afforded to me by the people of Goldstein. To be given that privilege once again is something that is almost unbelievable and I do so very much with a sense of humility and respect for the electorate … and of course the people surrounding me.
Tim Wilson speaks after claiming victory in Goldstein
Tim Wilson is speaking live after claiming a Liberal victory for Goldstein over independent Zoe Daniel:
The reality is, three years ago we were written off …
I’m very proud, genuinely very proud to say that we are pleased to accept that we have won the seat of Goldstein back for the Liberal party.
Updated
Australians warned against travelling to Pakistan and to exercise 'a high degree of caution in India'
The Australian government has issued a warning against travelling to Pakistan, after an Indian missile attack on Pakistan and Kashmir – a dramatic escalation in a long-simmering conflict.
“We continue to advise reconsider your need to travel to Pakistan overall,” the Smartraveller advice reads. “The security situation remains unpredictable. Avoid large groups of people, demonstrations, and protests, as they can turn violent quickly.”
It has also warned Australians to exercise a high degree of caution if travelling to India:
Due to the current security situation between India and Pakistan, we recommend you monitor local media for updates, stay alert, take official warnings seriously and follow the advice of local authorities.
Exercise a high degree of caution in India overall due to the threat of terrorism and crime and the risk of civil unrest.
We continue to advise do not travel to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the entire India-Pakistan border, or Manipur.
Updated
More from NAB chief executive Andrew Irvine
Since coming to Australia last year, the British Canadian dual citizen has been forthright in his criticism of housing affordability issues.
He said today that:
The only way we’re going to address this is to fix supply and so we’ve got to have more conversations on that. It’s still the case that too much of the discourse on housing is on the demand side.
While the housing policies of both of Australia’s major parties were heavily criticised in the election campaign, Labor’s platform had more supply built into it than the Coalition’s proposal.
NAB economists are forecasting a string of rate cuts this year, including a bumper 50 basis point reduction later this month.
Irvine said while those cuts will help mortgage holders, it could also drive home prices further out of reach for many Australians.
“We may not get the outcome we want, which is getting more people into houses,” he said.
Updated
NAB boss backs Canadian PM
The head of National Australia Bank, Andrew Irvine, has backed the new Canadian prime minister, describing him as “exactly what Canada needs in these turbulent times”.
Irvine, a British-Canadian dual citizen, told media after the bank’s half-year results today that he’d sent the new PM, Mark Carney, a congratulatory note after last month’s election.
Carney, a former central banker in Canada and the UK, is tasked with negotiating trade arrangements with Donald Trump, while fending off suggestions Canada should accede to joining the US as the 51st state.
“He’s exactly what Canada needs in these turbulent times,” said Irvine, who worked at the Bank of Montreal before joining NAB last year.
He certainly has a strong mandate from the Canadian people, and I wish him well in his efforts to negotiate with the Trump administration.
Analyst Ben Raue still predicts Ryan will narrowly win Kooyong
Independent Monique Ryan remains about 1,000 votes ahead of Hamer, according to analyst Ben Raue. Last night he predicted the gap wouldn’t narrow enough to tip the seat of Kooyong in Liberal Amelia Hamer’s favour.
Raue’s model has Ryan winning by 600 votes.
Updated
Hamer ‘cautiously optimistic’ for Liberal victory in Kooyong against Monique Ryan
Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer is “cautiously optimistic” for an outcome in Kooyong in her favour, she told 3AW yesterday.
“It’s too close to call anything right now, but you know, if the postals do continue on the trajectory that we’ve seen so far … there is a pathway,” she said. Hamer is in a tight race against independent Monique Ryan.
On election night, Hamer said she considered calling in to concede.
You[’ve] got to put your ego aside in these things, [if] it looks like you’re not going to get there.
[The] first thing I actually did [was] speak to the team. I said, ‘Look, should I call and concede’. The team said to me, ‘no, actually, it does look like what’s coming out of pre-poll is much more positive’. And, you know, I trust my team and so we hung on.
Updated
Victorian premier pays tribute to former Labor MP and chief of staff Race Mathews
Race Mathews, a former chief of staff to Gough Whitlam who was also a federal and Victorian MP, has died. He was 90.
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, led tributes to the Labor activist and social reformer. She said Mathews “never forgot where he came from or who he was there to serve”, crediting him with helping to shape the early design of Medibank, which lay the groundwork for Medicare.
Allan said during his time as a minister in the Cain government he “led reforms that changed our state for the better”, including strengthening child protection, conducting a major review into Victoria police, tightening gun control and improving disaster management after the 1983 ash Wednesday bushfires.
She said he also championed the arts. Mathews has been credited with establishing the Arts Centre in Southbank and the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.
Allan’s statement went on:
Race’s legacy is found in the Victoria he helped build – a fairer, more caring, more creative place. On behalf of the Victorian government and the Victorian Labor family, we send our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Iola, his family, and everyone who knew and loved him. Victoria is better for his service – and our movement is stronger for his belief.
Iola released a biography of Mathews last year and at the time said he was living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Updated
Australian author Tracy Sorensen dies aged 61
Some sad news for lovers of Australian literature. Tracy Sorensen, the Miles Franklin-longlisted author of The Lucky Galah and The Vitals, has died at the age of 61.
The novelist, journalist, film-maker and Charles Sturt University academic died in Bathurst hospital on Monday from cancer.
Readers who are devoted to our Moment I Knew column may have read Tracy’s beautiful piece on Sunday 4 May – just a day before she died – about her relationship with her partner of 23 years, Steve Woodhall.
She wrote:
In 2010, I discovered I had the BRCA1 gene mutation; I had risk-reducing surgery (breasts and ovaries removed), then got ovarian cancer anyway, in 2014. I had 8.5 years’ remission before the cancer came back in 2023. This has been hard, but Steve has been steadfast.
In 2023, Sorensen spoke to Guardian Australia on the eve of the release of her second novel, The Vitals, an unconventional cancer memoir written from the point of view of her internal organs. As well as being incredibly funny, The Vitals was an emphatic denunciation of pseudoscience, social media influencers, capitalism and climate change deniers.
Sorensen described the return of her cancer just a few weeks before the release of the book as “some sort of cosmic joke”, but she was determined to remain “incredibly philosophical” in the face of such an unwanted plot twist.
She said:
We all get a narrow band in history: that’s our spot, so we come into it and go out of it in ways that we absolutely can’t control. I’m just here for the ride in between.
You can read Tracy Sorensen’s Moment I Knew here.
Updated
Police investigating after Victorian shop blaze spreads to pet store, killing multiple animals
Victorian police are investigating a suspicious fire that engulfed an Acai shop and killed animals in the nearby pet store this morning.
Emergency services were called to Mahoneys Road, Campbellfield, around 3:40am with reports of a blaze at an Acai shop. The fire fully engulfed the shop, which no one was inside at the time, police said in a statement.
Some rabbits, fish and birds died in the fire that also impacted a nearby pet store.
An investigation is ongoing and police are appealing to anyone who witnessed the incident or may have dashcam or CCTV vision.
Updated
MPs say next Liberal leader faces period of ‘instability’ as recriminations over election bloodbath intensify
As leadership contenders Angus Taylor, Sussan Ley and Dan Tehan canvass support ahead of a vote expected next week, colleagues are warning whoever steps into the role to brace for the sort of robust internal debates that they say were stymied under Peter Dutton.
Senior Liberal sources – including Dutton supporters – say the former opposition leader and his team ran a closed shop that sidelined shadow ministers from crucial decisions and left backbenchers completely in the dark on policies.
In just one example, senior shadow ministers were not consulted on Dutton’s last-minute decision to use the party’s campaign launch to announce a $1,200 income tax cut offset.
Multiple senior Liberal sources said the next leader would not be afforded the same leeway as the party undergoes a “complete rebuild” in the next term.
“Whoever is the leader should be prepared to be regularly critiqued,” one MP said, predicting a period of “instability” for whoever took the reins.
Another MP said: “We need to thrash things out much more rather than just trust the leaders’ gut.
We all just went along with the leader’s view, we accepted it and perhaps some of us are now regretting that.
Read the full story here:
Mortgage holders fall behind at NAB
National Australia Bank has reported an uptick in the number of mortgage holders falling behind on repayments, amid warnings global trade tensions pose a risk to an otherwise improving outlook for the Australian economy.
In half year results released today, the major lender reported cash earnings of $3.58bn, up from $3.55bn a year ago. Its profit margins were stable and the number of impairment loans are at modest levels.
While the bank expects “slowing inflation, tax cuts and reductions in the RBA cash rate” to support household incomes, there are signs of stress among its customers. Housing lending arrears have jumped to four-year highs, with a growing number of mortgage holders falling more than 30 days behind on repayments.
NAB said the pace of arrears was slowing and that there had been limited impairments, referring to loans that might not be fully repaid. The bank said in a statement:
While the underlying outlook for the Australian and New Zealand economies is improving, elevated global trade tensions are a key source of uncertainty and downside risk.
NAB will pay an 85c per share interim dividend. The results refer to the six months ended 31 March.
Updated
Valerie the dachshund reunited with owners after stint running free on Kangaroo Island
Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, owners of miniature sausage dog Valerie, have been reunited with their pup after 529 days.
“We were on the ferry across and we were just looking at each other like ‘I can’t believe it, we’re back here’ because we kind of came to the conclusion that we were never coming back,” Gardner told the Advertiser.
“I bawled my eyes out and just seeing her come up and wag her tail and bark, I’m speechless,” she said. “Just so much emotion.”
You can read about how a wildlife team managed to catch the tiny dachshund after its 17 months on the run here:
Updated
Max Chandler-Mathers on housing: Labor refused to negotiate then told media the Greens were blocking their bills
Asked about criticism that the Greens slowed down progress on housing on Triple J Hack, Max Chandler-Mather said Anthony Albanese was “basically saying that, and it just wasn’t true, but then the media repeated as fact”.
He continued:
It was odd for me, I have to say, because I would be sitting in a negotiating room with the prime minister or with the housing minister, and we’d be privately saying we’re willing to give up everything on our side of negotiations if you just build a bit more public housing. And then they say, ‘Nah, no way, we’re not giving you a thing’. And then they go out into the media and say, ‘The Greens are blocking housing’.
In the house, a lot of those things didn’t get across that you were hoping or that you were promising, the rent freezes, the rent caps, the negative gearing changes, the doubling of capital gains tax … That stuff didn’t get across the line, but Labor’s housing policies still did.
Updated
Parliament House a ‘miserable’ workplace: Max Chandler-Mather
Max Chandler-Mather said the Greens operated against “often very hostile two major parties”. He told Triple J Hack:
I’ll be honest, one of the things I’m quite happy about at the moment is I don’t have to spend more time in the House of Representatives, because, like, basically every time I stood up, I got screamed and yelled at. In terms of a workplace, it was bloody awful, and frankly, a lot of the times miserable.
The only reason I kept going back because it felt like we were one of the few voices fighting for millions of people who feel really let down by this political system …
Despite all of that and fighting hard we fell short, and I feel like I’ve let people down because I always feel like, at the end of the day, the MP has to take responsibility for that and I suppose I do.
Updated
Max Chandler-Mather takes responsibility for Greens defeat in Griffith: ‘I feel like I’ve let a lot of people down’
The former Greens member for Griffith, Max Chandler-Mather, said he has “let a lot of people down” after losing the seat in this year’s federal election. He spoke to Triple J Hack last night:
A negative feeling I really have at the moment is I feel like I’ve let a lot of people down.
We helped build a lot of hope, and then we lost in Griffith, and ultimately, I have to take responsibility for that. In Griffith, it became impossible to overcome the combined liberal and labor vote.
Updated
Can we cut the reams of waste in election paper trail?
A mountain of waste is created each time Australians go to the polls to vote in local, state and federal elections, and experts say we need to find creative ways to reduce it.
The 2025 federal election was Australia’s biggest yet, with 710,000 more people on the electoral roll than in 2022.
The Australian Election Commission used 250,000 pencils, 240,000 vests, 80,000 ballot boxes and 5,000 rolls of tamper-proof tape to stock 7,000 polling places.
RMIT University’s Lisa Given said Australia needed to mandate an efficient approach to creating, using, recycling and disposing of election materials and consider online voting to cut waste.
A key area of waste is the number of plastic corflutes produced for each election, many of which are not recycled. The exception is South Australia, which last year banned corflutes except on private property.
“It’s great that SA has taken that first step, corflutes are not easy to recycle,” Given said. “They’re generally single-use, and the more that we can just stop creating them, the better off the environment is going to be.”
- Australian Associated Press
Updated
Child missing after Toowoomba house fire
Police are investigating after a child went missing in a house fire in Toowoomba overnight.
Emergency services were called to Merritt Street, Harristown, around 12:30am this morning, where they found a house fully engulfed. The fire has since been extinguished, Queensland police said in a statement.
Six people were able to escape the property, including a 34-year-old man who was taken to hospital with serious injuries, a 36-year-old woman and four children taken to hospital with critical injuries.
The woman and two children have been taken to Toowoomba hospital with critical injuries. The man was also transported to Toowoomba hospital with serious injuries.
A fifth child “remains unaccounted for at this time,” the Queensland police statement said.
A crime scene has been declared and investigations into the cause of fire are under way. Police are appealing to anyone with information or vision.
Updated
Renewables influx a cooler change to summer energy mix
An influx of renewables into Australia’s main energy grid has driven down emissions while helping counter price pressure from expensive coal, hydro and gas.
Solar and wind chipped in 43% of the main grid’s supply in the first three months of 2025, up from 39% over same period in 2024, while coal availability slipped to new first-quarter lows.
Large-scale battery generation reached an all-time high, with output jumping 86% to 98MW when averaged across all hours.
Wholesale prices were higher in the southern states and lower in the north during the summer months, electricity system updates from both the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and the Australian Energy Regulator showed. Compared with the last three months of 2024, average wholesale prices were 6% lower.
Upward forces in coal and hydro prices were largely offset by downward pressures from higher renewable energy availability and fewer periods of extreme price volatility, AEMO’s executive general manager of policy and corporate affairs, Violette Mouchaileh, said.
- Australian Associated Press
Updated
Thanks to the great Martin Farrer for kicking off the live blog this morning. I’ll be rolling your news updates from here – let’s go.
Who is Labor’s Paul Erickson?
In his victory speech on Saturday night, Anthony Albanese described him as “a “magnificent campaign director”.
But who is Paul Erickson, the mastermind behind Labor’s win? Henry Belot traces his rise from student politics in Melbourne through the Labor machine. As one observer says: “He’s a true believer who wants to beat Tories and get Labor governments elected to do good things.”
Read the whole piece here:
Flu vaccination rates ‘dire’, expert warns
Experts are urging people to get vaccinated for the flu this season with cases already relatively high for this time of year in all jurisdictions.
Prof Julie Leask from the University of Sydney said the flu is the “underdog of infectious diseases”, in that people underestimate its severity.
As a result, flu vaccination coverage remains perpetually low, with current data showing the national rate for people above 65 years of age receiving flu vaccines is only 62%, and far lower for other age groups. These vaccination rates are “dire” and not improving, Leask says.
Flu vaccination needs to be a habit for Australians, with data showing once they receive a vaccine one year, they tend to continue it the next, so it is important for healthcare workers to encourage patients to initiate that habit, Leask said.
Prof Patrick Reading, the director of WHO collaborating centre for reference and research on influenza based at the Peter Doherty Institute for infection and immunity, said flu case numbers in Australia between January and April have already been higher than usual in all jurisdictions.
However, experts cannot predict the severity of the upcoming flu season as the virus is so unpredictable that an early peak does not always predict greater severity, Reading said.
Leask said “it’s always a bad flu season because it results in hospitalisations and deaths”, but the more people can receive recommendations, reminders, and easy access to flu vaccines, the better.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Rafqa Touma with the main action.
Tim Wilson is projected to reclaim his inner-Melbourne seat of Goldstein from the teal independent Zoe Daniel today but several other races are going down to the wire. Another class-of-2022 independent, Monique Ryan, is less than 100 votes ahead of Liberal Amelia Hamer in Kooyong next door to Goldstein; there is also a too-close-to-call race in the Sydney seat of Bradfield between the Liberal Gisele Kapterian and independent Nicolette Boele. And back in Melbourne, Greens leader Adam Bandt may lose his seat. We will have the latest on all the races over the day in the blog.
Back with the Liberals, whoever replaces Peter Dutton faces a period of “instability” and must be prepared to be regularly criticised and challenged as the party wrestles with its future after its disastrous election defeat. We will have the latest on this other important race.
Speculation about the makeup of Anthony Albanese’s new ministry continued with Labor insiders saying assistant trade minister Tim Ayres’s move to pass up promotion last year in favour of female colleagues will all but guarantee him a spot in Anthony Albanese’s looming reshuffle. And economists hope that the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, will be able to pursue structural reform after the fall of inflation.
Experts are warning this morning that flu vaccination rates in Australia are “dire” ahead of the flu season this winter. Flu cases have already been higher than usual this year and one specialist urged people to take up the jab because flu was the “underdog of infectious diseases” and easy to underestimate its severity.
