News live: Ed Husic says Labor ‘allergic to dissent’ and Australians want to see politicians ‘stand up for something’

Peak union body calls Hanson’s comments on family violence leave “shockingly out of touch”

The Australian council of trade unions (ACTU) has condemned Pauline Hanson’s comments on paid family and domestic violence leave as “shockingly out of touch”.

It comes after the One Nation leader described paid family and domestic violence leave as “holiday leave”, questioned whether it was “a scam”, and said police were spending too much time on domestic violence.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil described Hanson’s remarks as “reckless and dangerous” and said people who use the leave “are not on a holiday, far from it”. O’Neil said:

Pauline Hanson needs to be reminded that on average, a woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner in Australia. One Nation is wrong, and unions will not allow attacks on this hard-won leave to stand.

Unions campaigned and won paid family and domestic violence leave because survivors told us they needed the time, so they didn’t have to choose between going to work to put food on the table or being able to make the break to safety.

An ex-Asio agent who allegedly has information on the Bondi shooting gunmen has reportedly been denied an Australian visa despite the royal commission’s reported interest in his evidence.

The former undercover agent known as Marcus, had reportedly attempted to apply for a visitor visa in hopes of giving evidence at the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion.

He had previously told ABC that he had warned the spy agency about the two gunmen six years before the massacre.

A letter sent to his lawyers from the royal commission said they were “eager” to facilitate a way of receiving his submission or taking a statement from him, ABC reports.

But his request was reportedly rejected by the Department of Home Affairs over concerns he did not have a “genuine intention” of staying in Australia temporarily, saying he did not have enough ties to the country he is currently staying in to act as a significant incentive to return.

Information Rights Project, which is paying for Marcus’s safehouse in his current country of residence, has called on the federal government to reverse its decision, with its founder, Gabriel Shipton – who is also the half-brother of Julian Assange – telling Guardian Australia:

He’s facing credible death threats from ISIS and he’s trying to protect this family’s lives by being in this third country.

He really wants to come and give testimony as a whistleblower, he’s taken this big risk in revealing himself and becoming a source, and now the minister’s denied him a visa.

It’s bizarre and I hope they can reconsider.

Though he could give evidence to the royal commission from overseas, doing so would not offer him the same legal protections compared to giving onshore evidence, the Greens senator David Shoebridge said as he called on the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, to approve Marcus’s visa during a press conference on Thursday:

Minister Burke really has a choice now. He can choose to do the right thing and intervene in the public interest and ensure a visa is granted, and this evidence can be given in person to the royal commission with full protections for the witness, or refuse to act., let this refusal stand, and that will inevitably undermine the credibility of the royal commission and the credibility of the minister.

Burke’s office did not respond to a request for comment by the Guardian and the royal commission told Guardian Australia it would not comment on its engagement with particular individuals.

In a statement sent to Guardian Australia, Asio said:

Witness appearances are a matter for the royal commission, and Asio will support its decisions.

In the same Afternoon Briefing interview reported earlier, Ed Husic dismissed concerns that the party’s proposed position on Israel and Palestine would become a point of friction at the party’s conference because of “the way that debate is managed internally”.

Husic described his party as being “allergic to dissent and dispute”, but warned that this may not work “in our long-term interests as a party”. He said:

We have become so obsessed about not showing disunity, because we figure that that translates into some negative sense in the public’s mind. I’d actually argue the counter.

The public want to see politicians, particularly in our camp, stand up for something. We don’t sign up for the status quo. We sign up for change. That is not always going to be an easy process.

And the thing is, if you can’t argue your point on a conference floor or in a caucus room, how do you argue it outside?

Labor MP Ed Husic has called for stronger “practical steps” from the federal government in relation to Israel and Palestine, on the sidelines of the first day of the party’s conference in South Australia.

Husic said he did not think “statements are going to cut it any more with the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government”.

Speaking to ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, he said:

They basically take them up and roll them up and ignore them, chuck them over their shoulder, ignore them. We do need to take a number of steps, and we need to take those practical steps.

When asked about his reaction to Israel’s embassy complaint ahead of Labor’s national conference on the party’s proposed position on Israel and Palestine, he said:

I do think that it is inappropriate and I do think that it is out of their playbook … And if this type of leverage that they seek to use, it’s quite frankly not right. I could never imagine an Australian government, through our embassy, our officials issuing such public commentary in that way.

Former Liberal cabinet minister attends Labor fringe event

Here’s a name you might not expect at the ALP National Labor conference … it’s the former Liberal defence minister, Christopher Pyne.

The former Liberal moderate – who calls South Australia home – is appearing as the now independent chair of the Council on the Ageing (COTA).

COTA is hosting a fringe event (a bunch of events that take place alongside the conference) calling for aged care reforms. Pyne is on a panel with a group of other advocates and experts.

Financial markets reckon RBA will hike by the end of the year

Financial markets now fully expect another Reserve Bank interest rate rise by the end of the year, with the chance of a hike as soon as next month doubling to 36% after solid jobs figures this morning.

The jump in oil prices after the collapse of the US-Iran ceasefire has been accompanied by rising fears of a fresh inflationary pulse as fuel costs climb higher.

Bets that the RBA will have to hike for a fourth time have now firmed after ABS data showed employment rose by 76,000 in June, even as the key jobless measure stayed at 4.4%.

Financial markets are now fully pricing in a lift in the RBA’s cash rate from 4.35% to 4.6% by December against an implied 80% chance before today’s release of the official labour stats.

Similarly, the probability of a hike on 11 August jumped to 36%.

But Taylor Nugent, a senior economist at NAB, said he believed unemployment would push higher through the rest of 2026 and that the central bank would stay on hold as the economy slowed.

Nugent, however, recognised that next month’s RBA board meeting would be “live”, estimating a 30% chance of a hike.

We think the RBA is most likely to stay on hold, but we certainly acknowledge these inflation risks are real and that in the near term they may feel compelled to lean against them more forcefully.

Labor conference closes day one sans drama

The first day of Labor conference is coming to an end with no major controversies or drama.

The second part of the afternoon began debate on the environment and energy security portfolio.

Anthony Albanese runs a tight ship in his caucus (ie there’s no room for dissent), and it’s clear a tight ship has been run at the conference too – known in the past for big fights and plenty of shouting. While we’ve seen a few impassioned speeches today, there haven’t been any spicy debates.

Tomorrow the conference will debate motions on gambling – the wording of those amendments is still being worked out but we know a few of the key issues will be around a national regulator for the sector and a ban on inducements. Those were both recommendations from the landmark, “You win some, you lose more” report.

Queensland social housing wait times blow out to 31 months

The average wait time for a social housing dwelling in Queensland has blown out to 31 months, parliamentary estimates has heard.

The state minister for housing, Sam O’Connor, said the state’s social housing waiting list has dropped to 41,298 people from a record 58,927 people last year, though only 5,300 households were housed, with most applications cancelled or ruled ineligible.

But the average wait time for high and very high social housing applicants spiked from about 21 months last year to 31.7 months, the hearing heard.

During the estimates hearing, Labor tabled leaked documents showing the government had quietly cut $42m from its immediate housing response program, which pays to accommodate homeless people in hotels and motels.

The document revealed this would lead to less funding to a string of homelessness services including the Salvation Army and the Brisbane Youth Service, causing job losses. The document dubbed these decisions as of “high political sensitivity”.

The Department of Housing’s director general, Mark Cridland, told the committee that the number of people covered by the program had dropped from 2,150 households last March to 1,237 currently. He said 3,252 households had been found a home, drastically reducing the demand on the program.

Labor shadow minister Meaghan Scanlon told media outside the hearing that there had been no reduction in rough sleeping and “the only reason there would be less demand on homeless services is because he changed the rules, which has reduced the number of people who can now even ask for help”.

Read more here:

The energy company Origin has confirmed customers’ addresses and partial bank account data has been accessed in a hack that was revealed yesterday.

In a statement to the ASX this afternoon, the energy company said impacted data may include: “name, address, date of birth, contact phone number and account information, as well as the last four digits of a credit card, or the last three digits of a bank account.”

Origin’s statement noted that incomplete credit card or bank account information cannot be used to make purchases or access accounts.

It said it would advise customers once it confirmed they had been impacted but was still confirming which and how many customers had been affected.

Origin has 4.8m customer accounts in Australia and provides electricity, natural gas, LPG, and internet services to homes and businesses.

Origin’s chief executive, Frank Calabria, said the company was securing its systems and ensuring there was no further unauthorised access by working with independent cyber experts and authorities. He said:

I’m sorry this has happened. Customers trust Origin with their information, and I apologise for the impact this may cause.

Origin said the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner were all engaged.

The ACT education minister, Yvette Berry, has resigned from her cabinet role after a ACT Integrity Commission report found “serious corrupt conduct by two ACT public officials”.

The commission investigated whether the process to procure a firm for the Campbell Primary School Modernisation Project was conducted with probity and whether public officials “failed to exercise their official functions honestly and or impartially”.

In a video statement posted to social media, Berry said she would take “full responsibility” for the findings relating to her staff, despite the report making no findings of corruption against her. She said:

When you are a minister, you have significant responsibilities. I have always held those responsibilities and myself to high standards.

I will take full responsibility for the findings made about my staff. You know I have never backed down from responsibility, even when it gets hard, and this is no doubt hard. I have made this decision because I don’t want a parliamentary public circus to follow this report. My family don’t deserve it and my colleagues don’t deserve it, and I have no intention of giving the Opposition and the Greens political party that satisfaction.

Berry will remain in parliament as a backbencher.

Macquarie chair predicts fossil fuel funding will continue ‘for some time’

Macquarie’s chair has predicted fossil fuel funding will continue “for some time” as the company avoided a shareholder push for climate transparency.

At its AGM today, 17.9% of shareholders voted to force Macquarie to disclose how its fossil fuel financing aligns with its commitment to the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Glenn Stevens, Macquarie’s chair, told the AGM this morning Macquarie remains committed to the goals of the Paris Agreement through an “orderly transition” to green energy.

Ian Dunlop, a former chair of the Australian Coal Association and former executive and oil and gas company Shell, told the meeting Macquarie was backing “fossil fuel expansion” in practice. Stevens said in response:

The basis of Macquarie’s approach is our understanding that there will need to be some fossil fuel investment for quite possibly some time yet … The [emissions] targets that we set several years ago are the same targets now.

Kyle Robertson, the research director at Market Forces, the advocacy group that backed the resolution, said this afternoon:

Investors from across the globe have sounded the alarm on Macquarie’s fossil fuel finance, but many have let the group off the hook for enabling massive new gas projects which are hurtling us towards climate catastrophe.

The supreme court of Western Australia has dismissed in full a case brought by Woodside Energy against three activists.

The case relates to a protest on 1 June 2023, in which Kristen Morrissey caused approximately 2,500 Woodside employees to be evacuated by a hoax “gas leak” using “stench gas”.

The oil and gas company alleged that other people were involved in the protest and asked the court to order Emil Davey, Joana Partyka and Kristen Morrissey to reveal the identities of any other such people.

The three anti-Woodside campaigners had already been charged and convicted in relation to the protest.

In 2025, Morrisey was charged with doing an act with intent to annoy and doing an act to create false belief. Partyka and Davey, who were not present at the protest but were arrested in WA counter-terror police raids weeks later, were charged with doing an act to create false belief.

All activists pleaded guilty to the charges and were convicted in the district court of Western Australia.

Woodside’s legal action sought access to information about other people involved. But in a decision on Thursday, Justice Matthew Howard said the evidence and submissions presented by Woodside did not “rise above mere conjecture or speculation”.

Joana Partyka, a ceramic artist and campaigner represented by Climate Defenders Australia, said:

After three long years of Woodside’s legal threat hanging over our heads, we stand vindicated in the eyes of history – Woodside is completely humiliated.

The case was the first time since the “Gunns 20” in Tasmania in 2005 that a large resources company had sought to target an activist campaign using Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (known as a SLAPP suit).

The amendment is adopted unanimously and without any drama (none of the delegates vote against), which gets a huge round of applause from the spectator benches.

The room is divided by the 400 delegates on the floor and then spectator benches which includes media, lobbyists, and other observers.

There’s a contingent of around a dozen LEAN supporters in green T-shirts sitting in the room, who erupt in cheers as the amendment is supported.

But as we noted a little earlier, this doesn’t doesn’t mean that the fuel tax credits will necessarily be wound back by the government, even though there’s plenty of appetite for it within the caucus – and the rank and file.

A few MPs around the conference today say they’re hopeful the changes will be made at some point, but don’t think it’ll be done very soon as the globe continues to grapple with fuel insecurity due to the war in the Middle East.

New South Wales firefighters to help battle Californian wildfires

Two dozen New South Wales firefighters will be deployed to the United States to assist with ongoing wildfires hitting California, the state’s Royal Fire Service has confirmed.

The NSW contingent includes 26 incident management and specialist firefighters, part of a contingent of 74 people across Australia that were formally requested by the National Interagency Fire Centre in the US.

The group will help battle more than 72 large wildfires which have burnt millions of hectares across the United States.

The NSW contingent will head off on Friday morning.

Last month, three firefighters were killed and two others were hurt while responding to wildfires along the Colorado–Utah border. And a fortnight ago, a pilot who was helping to fight a wildfire in Colorado has died after the aviator’s aircraft crashed into a reservoir

We’ve arrived at one of the policy sticking points of the day – fuel tax credits.

The Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) has put forward an amendment to the platform to “remove disincentives for orderly decarbonisation” – ie wind back the generous fuel tax credits that go to miners, farmers and other industries.

The group says 355 branches have supported the motion around the country.

Federal MPs including Sally Sitou, Jerome Laxale, and assistant minister Ged Kearney speak on the amendment.

Laxale says that Labor’s platform should “scream” that the party is serious about the climate.

This amendment and our platform should send a message to the haters that Labor can and Labor will double down on decarbonisation. Our new platform, our new platform, should scream that Labor are serious about climate action, and no one who reads it should be surprised when we use our time in government to deliver it. Our job is not done. There are new policies that we need to reach our climate goals and targets.

The amendment is quickly adopted unanimously (none of the delegates vote against) – which gets a huge round of applause from the spectator benches.

The room is divided by the 400 delegates on the floor and then spectator benches which includes media, lobbyists, and other observers.

There’s a contingent of around a dozen LEAN supporters in green T-shirts who erupt in cheers as the amendment is supported.