Assistant treasurer disputes Coalition suggestion tax reforms being rushed through
The assistant treasurer has denied tax-reform measures are being rushed through parliament despite just two days being set aside for an inquiry into the “once-in-a-generation” changes, AAP report.
Changes limiting negative gearing to new houses from July 2027 and scrapping the 50% capital gains tax discount to a rate based on inflation passed the House of Representatives on Thursday.
A two-day Senate inquiry will scrutinise the laws later in June before they go to the upper house, with the opposition and crossbenchers saying the measures are being rushed.
Assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino said the laws were not being raced through as issues surrounding tax and housing had been on the agenda for a long period, alongside 17 hours of debate in parliament so far.
“It is one of the most exhaustive discussions I’ve seen in the parliament,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.
It was in that broader context that the budget was framed and so there has been a long-running discussion around these kind of issues, and in fact, a lot of the issues dealt with in the budget have been looked at in previous tax inquiries.
Read more here:
Barnaby Joyce calls Sky News after interview to clarify One Nation’s housing policy
One Nation senator Barnaby Joyce retreated from suggestions the party would force permanent residents to sell their homes under tough new housing policies should they be elevated to leadership.
Joyce spoke to Sky News on Thursday night about the party’s housing policies after the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, said foreign ownership of housing would be stopped “indefinitely”. Joyce initially told Sky that permanent residents ensnared in those policies would need to commit themselves “totally” to Australia and become citizens or risk losing their homes.
But he later called back into Sky to clarify that “on further investigation and discussion no, we are not going to be kicking permanent residents out of their house”.
Hanson herself took to social media on Friday to clarify One Nation’s stance, saying while Australians should be prioritised for housing and the party made no apologies for that, permanent residents would be excluded from the tough plans. She wrote:
Permanent residents have been accepted to settle in Australia permanently. They live here, work here, pay taxes here and build their lives here. Many are on the path to citizenship. One Nation’s policy does not require them to sell their homes.
Hanson maintained that foreign owners, meaning temporary visa holders and foreign citizens living in other countries, would be given two years to sell their Australian properties under One Nation policies.
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Queensland parliament passes watered down e-mobility legislation
Queensland parliament has passed a watered-down version of legislation cracking down on ebike and e-scooter users.
The transport minister, Brent Mickelberg, had intended to ban ebike use for all under-16-year-old riders, much of the disability community, require riders to have a driving licence and set a 10km/h speed limit. He amended it this week after a backlash and thousands of submissions to its parliamentary inquiry.
“This bill gives police the powers they need to take dangerous, high-powered and illegal devices off the streets while backing in Queenslanders who choose to do the right thing,” he said, in parliament on Thursday night as the law was passed.
“Police will be empowered to seize and destroy dangerous, illegal devices, and path speed limits will be introduced alongside penalties for careless riding around pedestrians”.
The new law also gives police the power to crush illegal e-vehicles and makes parents legally responsible for the behaviour of their children, if they ride an illegal device in public.
Bicycle Queensland CEO Prof Matt Burke said the legislation would do little to get illegal e-motorbikes off Queensland footpaths, but would unreasonably restrict the safe use of legal ebikes.
He said the law would mean “thousands and thousands and thousands” of children who ride from school would be banned from doing so, forcing their parents to “change their entire daily life to now go back to driving those kids to school”. It would increase the road toll, because cars are more dangerous than ebikes, he said.
The RACQ head of public policy told the ABC on Friday morning the legislation was a distraction from dealing with genuine threats on the roads. He said targeting legal ebikes was a “waste of everyone’s time and effort”.
Queensland recorded a 16-year high road toll last year, and the rate is 21.2% higher this year, according to the latest update from the Department for Transport and Main Roads. Almost all of the 306 road deaths last year, including the only fatality involving an ebike, were caused by cars, trucks and motorbikes. She was a pensioner riding in an unprotected bike lane on Bribie Island.
All non-government MPs voted against the laws. They will take effect on 1 July.
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Victorian opposition says donation laws ‘shameful’
Following the passage of the bill, Victoria’s shadow attorney general, James Newbury, claimed it was a “shameful attempt by Labor to rig the system in their own favour”. He said:
These dodgy new laws shut off money from Labor’s political opponents whilst continuing the rivers of gold from the CFMEU and the unions to the Labor party.
The Allan Labor government is end of days and have done a deal with the crossbench to benefit themselves as they desperately try to cling to power.
The Liberals and Nationals do not support these rigged laws and are considering our legal position.
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Victoria’s replacement political donation laws pass parliament
Victoria has donation laws once more, following the passing of a bill during a marathon 20-hour sitting of parliament that only wrapped up at 5.30am this morning.
Since the high court struck down the state’s donation laws in April, removing the previous cap of $4,970 over a four-year term, there have been no limits or disclosure requirements for political donations.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, fast-tracked legislation through parliament this week to stop “big money” from dictating the November state election.
Under the electoral further amendment bill 2026 – which passed parliament with the support of the Greens and other crossbenchers – political donations will be capped at $7,500 per donor over four years. New candidates and parties can receive $15,000. All foreign donations will be banned, and donations above $1,250 must be disclosed in real time.
The major parties (Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals) will no longer have access to their “nominated entity” – legacy investment funds they could previously draw from outside the donation caps. The bill has instead increased administrative funding for MPs.
However, the Labor party will still receive union affiliation fees – which cannot be used for campaigning – angering the Coalition.
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‘I don’t think that women should automatically not be believed,’ Hume says
Hume was asked on RN about comments made by the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, yesterday in relation to a cohort of Australians who allege they were beaten and sexually assaulted by Israeli forces after being detained as part of the latest Global Sumud Flotilla.
Wong told Senate estimates:
My principal position is to always believe women when allegations of sexual assault are made.
Hume was asked on RN if women should always be believed, and if she shared Wong’s view. The deputy opposition leader responded:
I don’t think that women should automatically not be believed.
I mean, certainly if an allegation is made, it should be taken very seriously. And it doesn’t matter what the circumstance is. And I think all fair-minded Australians believe that.
Read more here:
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Jane Hume says Labor being ‘sneaky’ on tax changes
Jane Hume, the deputy opposition leader, accused the government of being “sneaky”, saying discussions around tax reforms in parliament were much too short to properly address so-called “generational” tax reforms.
“What the government has done is essentially prevented scrutiny of the changes that this legislation is going to inflict on the Australian economy,” Hume told RN Breakfast. She went on:
Apparently, these are generational reforms. If they’re generational reforms, well, surely they should have been taken to an election so that the Australian people could decide that.
Two days simply is not enough. There is no need to rush these changes through because they don’t kick in until 2028.
Read more about jostling with the Greens and the Coalition here:
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NSW officially abolishes ‘good character’ references from being considered at sentencing hearings
NSW has officially abolished the use of “good character” references when it comes to sentencing for all offences, the first such change in the nation.
The new legislation passed in legislative council on Thursday night, and will apply for all offences, including homicide, domestic violence and road crimes. It means convicted offenders will no longer be able to argue their sentences should be mitigated because they are of otherwise “good character”.
The NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, said in a statement:
Victim-survivors and their loved ones will no longer be forced to sit in court and hear the person convicted of a heinous crime be described as an otherwise good person.
While I’m glad we’re finally here, it should not have taken so long for the Liberals and Nationals to listen to victim-survivors and their advocates and drop their opposition to these reforms.
Harrison James, the cofounder of the group Your Reference A’int Relevant, said:
This win belongs to every survivor in this country. … That is hard-won dignity.
But I’m not done. Every survivor in every corner of this country deserves the same protection, and I will fight until every jurisdiction reflects that. NSW was first. The rest will follow.
Read more about the changes here:
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John Howard among signatories of open letter calling for stronger gambling reforms
Former prime minister John Howard and a cohort of other current and former lawmakers signed an open letter urging the Albanese government to take stronger action on the gambling industry.
The letter was published today as an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, urging the prime minister to establish “long-overdue reforms to reduce gambling harm”.
The letter reads:
Your proposed reforms do not go far enough. They leave too many loopholes and fail to properly protect families from an industry that profits from addiction. …
This is not good enough … We support stronger national action, including consideration of a national regulator, so gambling harm is addressed consistently across the country.
Signatories include Andrew Hastie, senator Maria Kovacic and former Liberal premiers Jeff Kennett and Nick Greiner.
You can read the full letter here.
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Senate committee hears of transition to SmartCard
The Senate community affairs legislation committee discussed the government’s controversial income management system at estimates last night.
Social services officials revealed that since September 2023, 17,014 people have been placed on the newer SmartCard, which can be used on the visa network. The BasicsCard, which is being phased out and can only be used at government-approved merchants, is also still being used.
Estimates heard 81% of participants on the government’s income management are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait islander, with that number jumping to 84% in the Northern Territory.
Participants on the BasicsCard have had the opportunity to transition across the cards, but the department said some had not taken that up.
In 2024, a Labor-led inquiry into compulsory income management recommended the government abolish the scheme after receiving a large amount of evidence showing the compulsory SmartCard increases hardship, makes it difficult for women to flee violent relationships and is discriminatory towards First Nations people.
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Labor’s help to buy shared equity scheme approves 2,589 applicants in five months
Housing Australia officials have revealed 2,589 applications had been approved under Labor’s Help to Buy scheme.
Alia Ayoub, executive leader of the Help to Buy scheme, told Senate estimates it had received 5,323 applications from 5 December 2025 to 30 April 2026, of which 2,589 applications had “found a home”.
Senator Andrew Bragg asked why the scheme was marked a “risk” in its portfolio budget statement, to which Ayoub said:
We had a forecast that we would do 10,000 applications in a year. However, the scheme started on the 5th of December. Had it been running for the full year, it would receive the 10,000.
Ben Rimmer, director general of Treasury’s housing group, said the operating cost of the scheme was $21m over the forward estimates, while the money spent on buying stakes in homes was nearly $1.6bn this year and $6.9bn over the forward estimates. Rimmer said of the latter figure:
We don’t know whether that will be a cost or a benefit to the balance sheet of the commonwealth at this point. If house prices continue to grow gradually over time, it will actually benefit the commonwealth.
We reported earlier that more than 312,000 people have benefited from the government’s 5% first home buyer guarantee scheme, including 251,000 under Labor since 2022. About 51,000 of those who accessed it were permanent residents.
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Some NSW pharmacists can now prescribe contraceptive pill
Women waiting weeks and months in regional areas to get a doctor’s appointment for a prescription for the pill can now head to their local pharmacy, AAP reports.
NSW is the latest state to expand access to contraception beyond the GP’s office after Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania enacted similar changes.
Karen Carter, who has almost 35 years’ experience, is one of 30 pharmacists who, from Friday, can prescribe and supply the oral contraceptive pill to low-risk women between the ages of 18 and 39.
“It’s going to be great for those women who want to talk about contraception, but sometimes their shifts may not allow all of them to be able to attend a doctor’s surgery,” she told AAP.
“This just gives women an option.”
Carter completed a 12-month course offered through NSW Health to allow for first-time prescriptions.
It is part of a state initiative to expand the treatment services available in pharmacies, including for uncomplicated urinary tract infections and common skin conditions.
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Good morning, Nick Visser here to take over from Martin Farrer. Let’s see what Friday holds.
Homelessness up 75% in NSW in past six years, report shows
Homelessness is soaring in regional areas as advocates plead for more funding to stop simply shifting the problem and start solving it, Australian Associated Press reports.
The number of people sleeping rough in New South Wales has increased 75% in six years, according to a Homelessness NSW report that relies on the state’s street count data.
While the count in metropolitan Sydney is virtually unchanged between 2020 and 2026, it has surged 689% in the Illawarra Shoalhaven and southern NSW district, from 27 people to 213.
The district encompassing NSW’s northern region and mid-north coast has also sky-rocketed from 407 people in 2020 to 1024 in 2026, leading it to become the state’s leading area for homelessness.
Homelessness CEO Dominique Rowe said state government funding for support services needed a 50% boost, along with a commitment to build 10,000 social homes a year until they constitute 10% of all housing.
“Homelessness services have a situation where 92% of people coming through their doors are not getting the assistance they need,” she told AAP.
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Labor MP claims government has ‘won the debate’ on housing tax changes
A Labor MP has declared victory in the debate over the government’s tax reforms, engaging in a bit of meta-commentary at the end of parliament’s sitting fortnight.
Julian Hill made the comments on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing on Thursday.
Hill said:
I believe the government’s won the debate on negative gearing. I believe we’ve won the debate on capital gains tax on property.
And we’re winning the debate, we got a way to go, on removing the distortion that would otherwise be there. … I think we’re winning the debate … Start ups and so on, we are still engaging on.
But I absolutely believe we’ve won the argument about property and giving young Australians a fair crack at the housing market.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Nick Visser with the main action.
After a week in which Labor’s tax reforms came under a lot of scrutiny, the MP Julian Hill told the ABC that he thinks the government is winning the argument for giving young people a chance at the housing market.
And the number of people sleeping rough in New South Wales has increased 75% in six years, according to a Homelessness NSW report that relies on the state’s street count data.
