Labor MP tells Coalition to ‘stop running scare campaigns’ over CGT changes – as it happened

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Here are the main stories of the day:

• Inflation has dropped to 4.2% in the year to April, down from 4.6%. The fall is bigger than economists’ forecasts leading into the data release but still well up on the 3.7% rate leading into the global oil shock.

• The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the better than expected inflation numbers were “encouraging” signs but the war in the Middle East is having a big impact on the economy.

• Paul Brereton, the outgoing boss of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nacc), has defended his controversial tenure but hit back at suggestions he contributed to the major suffering of robodebt victims.

• The NSW police assistant commissioner David Hudson has told the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion he believed giving the Community Security Group (CSG), which provides security services to the Jewish community, additional powers or privileges would be “problematic”, saying it was something police had “considerable reservations” about.

• Mutual obligations will be different for every welfare recipient, the employment minister, Amanda Rishworth, says, signalling an end to jobseekers being forced to submit “endless” applications for roles they may not be qualified for.

• Justin Stevens has resigned as ABC director of news after four years in the role, citing personal and professional reasons.

• The independent senator David Pocock says a government plan that could require podcasts sponsored by betting companies to produce two versions of the same program – so people can avoid gambling ads – is “totally unworkable” and “bonkers”.

We will see you here again for more news tomorrow.

Royal Australasian College of Physicians resolves dispute in NSW supreme court

Infighting at one of Australia’s oldest medical colleges was brought to a resolution in the NSW supreme court today.

The charities regulator last week suspended until 20 September the president-elect of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Dr Sharmila Chandran, for allegedly contravening a direction from the NSW work health and safety watchdog.

It followed months of conflict within the RACP’s board, which culminated in an extraordinary general meeting in April to which police were called.

Chandran today gave a court undertaking that she would not act as the college’s president-elect for the duration of her suspension by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.

The court, under Justice François Kunc, also declared that a board meeting purportedly called by Chandran after the April EGM, for the purposes of appointing three additional board members, was invalid. The three board members were not validly appointed directors of the RACP, the court declared.

Kunc said it had “clearly been a problematic period … in the history of this organisation” and later wished the college well in “attempting to restore” the position espoused in its tagline, “Specialists. Together”.

Pocock accuses Acma of ‘going light’ on gambling companies

Acma decided not to pursue Entain in court over more than 500 breaches of BetStop rules, leading to independent senator David Pocock accusing the regulator of going light on gambling companies.

Acma could still have taken Entain to court to seek fines but the Acma chair, Nerida O’Loughlin, said:

We decided that the best compliance outcome in this case would be to get Entain to fix its systems and give us a court enforceable undertaking.

She said it was the quickest remedy, noting that Acma’s court action against Optus over the 2022 data breach is not due to be heard in the federal court until 2027.

Pocock said:

How is it that every single estimates I come here with this [there is] another wild story about Acma going easy on gambling companies when they breach their obligations?

You know, last time we were talking about how you allowed, I think it was Sportsbet, to edit the press release after you’d actually found them to have to have breached.

O’Loughlin rejected the claim:

Senator, I don’t believe we are going light on gambling companies.

Acma defends not fining betting giant over 500 BetStop breaches

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) has confirmed it was unable to fine Entain, the company behind gambling platforms Neds and Ladbrokes, for more than 500 breaches of national self-exclusion rules.

Acma announced earlier this month it found that Entain opened accounts for and provided wagering services to people registered with BetStop and also failed to close wagering accounts for self-excluded customers.

Acma accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from the company but no fines were issued – Acma can issue fines of up to $59,400 per breach. In Senate estimates on Wednesday, the Acma chair, Nerida O’Loughlin, confirmed reporting from the Nine newspapers that Acma had not been able to fine Entain because the investigation took longer than the 12 months allowed for fines to be issued since the alleged breaches.

O’Loughlin said some of the breaches reported to Acma were quite old by the time they were reported to Acma, and at the end of the 14-month investigation period Acma could no longer issue fines.

O’Loughlin told independent senator David Pocock:

We usually try and bring these investigations in within 12 months. But with this particular investigation, we were looking at information from complainants where we’re already out of time but we thought it was important to investigate the matter fully.

The 535 breaches related to seven complainants, and 449 of them relate to breaches for each day the gambling accounts for two of those complainants remained open. Those two did not gamble using those accounts, officials said.

There were 59 contraventions related to people registered on BetStop who placed a bet with the company and four contraventions related to two people who were able to register new accounts while registered on BetStop.

Inflation eases to 4.2% but interest rate rise still on horizon, economists warn

Inflation slowed to 4.2% in the year to April as the government’s fuel excise relief fed through to lower petrol prices, even as economists warned the Reserve Bank may still need to hike interest rates later this year to tame stubborn inflationary pressures.

You can read more on that story here:

Decision not to lay charges in Kumanjayi White case spark calls for justice reform

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, Katie Kiss, says the decision by the Northern Territory director of public prosecutions not to lay charges in the Kumanjayi White case underlined the need for independent investigations of deaths in custody.

White, a 24‑year‑old Warlpiri man who lived with cognitive disabilities, died on 27 May last year during a confrontation with police in a Coles supermarket.

Police alleged White was shoplifting and said plainclothes officers had stepped in after an altercation with a security guard.

White’s family are suing NT police over the death, alleging that two officers involved acted unlawfully in apprehending him and taking him into custody.

Kiss said in a statement on Wednesday that the case underlined the need to implement outstanding recommendations handed down 35 years ago by the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. Kiss said:

This case yet again highlights the urgent need to ensure that deaths in custody should be independently investigated. Police should not be investigating other police.

In the Northern Territory, the police investigate and gather the evidence about a possible crime. The DPP assesses the police evidence. Police should not be investigating other police in death in custody matters. This undermines community confidence and leads to risks of flawed investigations.

We support the calls from Aboriginal community leaders and justice advocates for justice sector reform. This case underscores the urgent need for governments to fully implement the recommendations of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Kiss said there had 634 Indigenous deaths in custody since the commission, and 16 in 2026 alone.

Thank you all for riding along on the blog with me today!

I’ll leave you with the great Nino Bucci for the rest of the afternoon, and see you back here bright and early tomorrow.

Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time

• Capital gains tax and the women returning from Syria were the main game for the opposition today – again trying to corner the prime minister on carve-outs for start ups and small businesses.

• Tim Wilson had a cracker of a day, with his book getting another plug from the PM, before he was kicked out for being too loud.

• Independent Sophie Scamps asked the attorney general about the transparency of appointments to the national anti-corruption commission.

• The government was also tested on safeguards around automated AI assessment tools by independent MP Kate Chaney.

• And Anthony Albanese was asked by independent MP Andrew Wilkie to come to Hobart for a roundtable on domestic violence. He wouldn’t commit to attending but said the government is working on a second national plan to end violence against women and children.

Question time ends

Jason Clare gets the final dixer on childcare, before the PM calls time on QT.

Just one more to go this week.

Every act of family violence ‘abhorrent and completely unacceptable’: Albanese

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie asks if the prime minister will come to Hobart to attend a roundtable on domestic violence – with two women in Tasmania killed in alleged family violence incidents in the last two weeks.

Anthony Albanese says it’s “horrific” that two women killed in the last two weeks.

He won’t commit to going to the roundtable but says the government has opened consultation for the second national plan to end family violence – which will hear from academics, experts, frontline workers, employers, community members, victims, survivors, and children and young people.

Albanese says:

Every act of domestic and family violence is abhorrent and completely unacceptable.

I’m always happy to meet constituents where it’s possible. Sometimes it’s difficult to fit 50 hours into a day but certainly I engage with the member when I’ve been in Tasmania. As he knows, the focus of the second action plan will be on what works to deliver practical and systemic solutions.

Labor shuts down question on repatriating women and children from Syria

We’re back to the women and children who arrived from Syria last night – with Liberal MP Garth Hamilton asking point blank if the government or government agencies have provided operational support to repatriate any of the “Isis sympathisers”?

Pat Conroy, representing the minister for foreign affairs (Penny Wong), gives us a very short (both in length and tone) answer:

I’ll just repeat what the government’s already said. We have not and will not provide assistance to anyone in that cohort.

Butler acknowledges more work to do on bone marrow donor register

Bob Katter asks the government why it hasn’t done more to act on blood cancer, and help patients find donors. He says the health minister, Mark Butler, has previously promised to grow the registry of bone marrow donors but not enough has been done.

For Katter, this seems personal – he says that 18,000 Australians have died from blood cancers in three years, including his own nephew.

Butler acknowledges that he has previously said more can be done in Australia and that the government has released some funding for organisations to “undertake additional activity to recruit new stem cell donors to that registry”.

Tomorrow is World Blood Cancer Day and the Speaker, Milton Dick, will be holding an event. Butler says:

You’re right to say there’s more that we should be doing. The registry is still relatively small and I look forward to hearing more ideas at tomorrow’s events.

Australian women returning from Syria not arrested but remain ‘under consideration’

The Australian women who arrived in Sydney and Melbourne from Syria last night with their children have not been arrested but remain “under consideration”, the home affairs secretary has told Senate estimates.

The department is facing inquiry today and the discussion has turned to the Australian wives, widows and children of jailed or dead Islamic State fighters, who are returning to the country after being held at the al-Roj detention camp for years.

The secretary, Stephanie Foster, told senators today:

The cohort who arrived last night, none of the women were arrested on arrival, as was the case in the first cohort, but activities in both law enforcement and intelligence agencies are ongoing, and so … they remain under consideration.

Read more:

Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh is up next and asks how many of the women and children that arrived in Australia last night from the Syrian detention camp have been arrested or charged for entering a declared terrorist zone.

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, says of the two cohorts that have arrived in recent weeks, there are three currently behind bars.

Of those three who are currently behind bars: one was charged with entering a declared area, two charged with crimes against humanity.

I would remind those opposite, before we came to office, 45 people who had gone there to fight had self-managed their return.

We know that none of the women who arrived last night in Sydney and Melbourne have yet been charged. More on that in a moment.

Where are the safeguards on AI, Chaney asks

Independent MP Kate Chaney asks the government why it hasn’t legislated a robodebt royal commission recommendation to put safeguards and oversight for automated decision-making in government.

She says that automated AI decisions are only increasing across aged care, the NDIS and social services.

The social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, says the government has discussed safeguards around AI.

We don’t just hand over decision making to abstract computer programs, as was the case under robodebt, which caused such great suffering for 430,000 Australians

Those opposite came up with an automated decision-making program that was designed simply to raise revenue. It was used to attack the most vulnerable people in our community. There is certainly no way that our government would ever, would ever do such a thing.

An opposition MP shouts back at Plibersek, asking if she’s spoken to anyone in the aged care industry recently. The government has faced criticism over automated assessment tools in the industry that has no human override ability.

Collins tells opposition to ‘stop running scare campaigns’

The Nationals deputy leader, Darren Chester, is up next and asks the government to confirm that more than half of Australian farmers are not eligible for the CGT concession and will be exposed “to massively higher tax bills when transferring family farms to their children”.

The agriculture minister, Julie Collins, tells Chester that the question is wrong and that primary producer income will be exempt from the new 30% tax on discretionary trusts.

They really should stop running scare campaigns and they should be presenting the farmers with the facts.

Collins says that the National Farmers Federation supports the measures in the budget:

Family farms are generational businesses built over decades and often represent a family’s life savings and retirement plan. We’re pleased the government has listened, and that’s from the National Farmers Federation.