Australia news live: Taylor ‘definitely wasn’t opposed’ to rightwing Liberal faction’s activities, Icac hears; Neil the seal’s Tasmanian antics cost $36,000

‘Not good enough’: pleas to act on Closing the Gap targets

Authorities are being urged to work more closely with Indigenous groups as Closing the Gap targets fall badly behind expectations, AAP reports.

Out of 19 targets towards the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, five areas are improving but are not on track to be met and four are worsening. Just three areas targeting socioeconomic disparity are likely to be met on time, a Productivity Commission report found.

First Nations preschool enrolments are the sole target being met nationally, more than halfway through the 2031 agreement period.

Achieving that milestone was important, Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy told ABC RN on Thursday. She said.

That is because of the work of the Aboriginal and community-controlled sector and those involved in the preschool sector.

But it was clear “challenges remain” in addressing all other targets, including ones to do with incarceration rates.

The outlook is so bleak national commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children Sue-Anne Hunter warned officials should be stood down for the lack of progress. She told the ABC.

If this was any other national agreement that was going backwards or just staying still, someone would actually lose their job.

We can’t have an agreement that we’re not adhering to … it’s not good enough.

Coalition of Peaks lead convener, Donnella Mills, added her voice to the growing concern, saying federal, state and territory governments needed to work more collaboratively with Indigenous groups. She said:

Governments need to do more to embed the priority reforms in their work to close the gap and achieve the outcomes our people have fought for over decades, especially those governments where targets are going backwards or have stalled.

Dominic Perrottet’s brother allegedly said he paid for new Liberal party memberships, Icac hears

Reformers member Robert Assaf is giving evidence again, as NSW Icac hearings resume after a break for lunch.

This morning, the commission heard from Assaf that despite an agreement between the Reformers that they would not pay for the memberships of new members they were signing up in alleged branch-stacking efforts, he had “suspicions from conversations” that some people working with the Reformers were in fact paying for memberships.

Under Liberal party rules, if a person discloses that their membership had been paid for, their local branch could be frozen. Counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC, resumes this line of questioning about which prominent Reformers he was concerned were paying for membership, but Assaf says:

They didn’t like didn’t confess it to me, but I got enough of a rumour. I had to tell them be careful in case that is happening.

Dwyer reads to Assaf from an interview he gave to Icac before public hearings in which he claimed that Jean-Claude Perrottet, younger brother of former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet, had paid for memberships in the Hills Shire.

Dwyer: “You told the commission, didn’t you, that Jean-Claude Perrottet told you that he had to pay or that he would pay for memberships because he was relying on a lot of his friends doing it, and there needed to be some incentive?”

Asaf: “Correct.”

Today, Assaf says he never witnessed Jean-Claude Perrottet paying for memberships, but understands that he would reimburse the cost of signing up or buy a new member dinner to cover the cost. Jean-Claude Perrottet has previously denied any wrongdoing.

Victorian government ministers Lily D’Ambrosio and Harriet Shing have announced they will step down from cabinet and quit politics at the election.

The duo are among the closest supporters of Jacinta Allan, who resigned as premier on Tuesday before a leadership spill brought on by Ben Carroll.

In a statement this afternoon, Carroll said both D’Ambrosio and Shing have “brought compassion, determination and a strong sense of purpose to their roles, delivering outcomes that have improved the lives of Victorians and strengthened the communities they represent”.

D’Ambrosio has been the MP for Mill Park for 24 years and is the longest-serving energy minister in Australia. She said:

Back in 2014 not a lot of people thought about energy too much. Of course, the decade that followed changed all that. Under Labor, Victoria has led the nation, paving the way for Australia’s transition to renewable energy. Where Victoria has gone, the rest of country has followed.

Shing was recently promoted to health minister. She has also previously served as minister for equality, housing, the Suburban Rail Loop and water. She told Carroll of her plans to step down on Tuesday afternoon, after his elevation to premier. Shing said:

This chapter has been the honour of my life. I have worked hard, with and for the communities and people I have represented. And it has been a labour of love and determination.

Carroll said the Labor caucus will meet on Monday morning to elevate new ministers and then he will announce his cabinet “shortly following”. Expect a lot of jostling by MPs and their respective factions over the weekend.

That’s all for me. Achol Arok will take things from here. Enjoy your arvo!

Extra precautions for threatened species at Zoos Victoria

Victoria’s chief biodiversity officer, James Todd, has said the state government has been working with Zoos Victoria over the past two years to improve biosecurity measures in response to H5 bird flu for threatened species held at Victorian facilities, including captive insurance populations of helmeted honeyeater, orange-bellied parrot, plains wanderer and regent honeyeater.

He said:

Zoos Victoria has been doing a range of work around increasing the biosecurity of the facilities that hold those species, so they’re not at risk from visits from either wild birds or the public, but also enhancing biosecurity processes and arrangements to adequately protect those captive populations.

Otherwise, he said, there had been no change to zoo operations in Victoria.

Since the arrival of H5 bird flu in Australia, Perth zoo has installed precautions including additional barriers, hand sanitizer stations and signage, while Adelaide zoo has temporarily closed its walk-through aviaries and suspended its bird show.

Dwelling approvals rise, but not fast enough to meet target

Dwelling approvals jumped to more than 205,000 in 2025-26, reaching the highest level in five years but still well short of what’s needed to meet the government’s ambitious homebuilding target.

The latest figures from the ABS showed 17,305 more approvals in the last financial year versus the previous, an increase of 9%.

House approvals were at their highest since 2021-22, and approvals to build non-house dwellings (apartments and townhouses and so forth) were at the highest since 2017-18, the ABS said.

Labor has set a target of 1.2m homes being built over five financial years to mid-2029, but few expect it to be achieved.

Master Builders Australia said there needed to be 253,000 approvals in 2025-26 to catch up to the Housing Accord target, and that the industry was being held back by high costs, low productivity and a shortage of workers.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council estimates the 1.2m new homes target will be met by September 2030 – so about 15 months late.

Denita Wawn, Master Builders CEO, noted that building a home costs 50% more now than it did before the pandemic. This year’s global oil crisis has also sent the price of some building materials soaring.

A Productivity Commission interim report this week found that regulation has become “a handbrake” on new housing supply. Among the PC’s interim recommendations was sweeping land-use reform to allow higher density dwellings in our cities.

Public reports to Victorian bird flu hotline go from 10 a week to more than 100 a day

Continuing the update on Victoria’s first H5N1 detection, the state’s chief veterinary officer, Dr Graeme Cooke, said bird flu reports from members of the public had gone from about 10 a week to “well over 100 some days”, with about 10% being tested.

He said there was now “clear evidence of transmission” in South Australia, with the disease moving from one bird to another.

Victoria’s chief biodiversity officer, James Todd, said:

We know from elsewhere in the world that if the virus were to be established in Victoria, then – particularly in wildlife – there’d be little we could do to actually minimise the spread or the impact on wildlife. If it were to establish, our focus would be on surveillance, ensuring public safety, ensuring communications with the public, but also looking to protect at-risk species where that’s possible.

“Establishment” means the disease has taken hold. But Cooke said that threshold required more evidence of the disease spreading between multiple types of birds and native species, and evidence of the disease mixing and changing within native populations.

On Wednesday, a national group of federal, state and territory officials enacted a national agreement for responding to H5 bird flu incursions, based on advice that: “H5 bird flu in wildlife is not technically feasible to eradicate following recent detections and evidence of local transmission of H5 bird flu in a small number of wild seabirds”.

Members of the public are urged to avoid contact with any dead or sick birds or animals showing signs of bird flu. Report sightings to the emergency animal disease hotline 1800 675 888 or birdflu.gov.au.

Labor unimpressed with Hanson’s terror plan

The federal government has dismissed Pauline Hanson’s plans to introduce new laws to block the return of Australian citizens with links to terror groups including Islamic State.

After the One Nation leader’s appeal to work with the Coalition on the plans to block people found to have worked with or assisted terror groups was rebuffed, Hanson told media outlets on Thursday she would seek to introduce her own legislation that would make it easier to cancel passports and block returns.

But the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, is less than impressed.

He said Labor was using laws introduced by the former Coalition government, describing them as going “right to the limit of what you could do constitutionally”.

“Every Australian, me included, doesn’t want these individuals back,” Burke said in Queensland.

You know, when people have made a decision to join something as horrific as that, you don’t want them back.

The reality is every country in the world has to take back its own citizens. And I would just say people should be very wary of letting go of the principle that countries have to take their citizens back.

Burke said it was in Australia’s national interest that countries took back their own citizens, even if they’re accused of terror offences overseas.

Anyone who wants to depart from that principle needs to explain why they think it would be OK for the 750 people every year who I make leave, for them to have to stay here because I don’t think Australians would cop it.

Icac witness says ‘we didn’t think the law applied to us’ over political donations

Returning to the NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny, Reformers member Jeremy Assaf has been asked about how the group funded its efforts.

Icac is investigating the first allegation that Liberal figures including Assaf “solicited or accepted” donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts which were undeclared or exceeded caps, to recruit or renew members to the party, and whether this alleged conduct involved possible offences under NSW’s Electoral Funding Act.

Counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC, has asked about Assaf’s awareness of electoral funding laws. He says he “wouldn’t know” that the Liberal party’s constitution sets out rules for political donations and fundraising because he did not read it in full after joining the party.

Asked if he was aware about legislation governing political parties, he says “broadly, I knew, I knew laws like that existed”, including prohibitions in NSW on property developers making donations and donation caps, but says he was “not really aware” of who was a prohibited donor at a federal level. The following exchange takes place:

Dwyer: “You accept that in your work in the Reformers … you were building a movement that would introduce members to the Liberal party of NSW?”

Assaf: “I accept that, yes.”

Dwyer: “And it was incumbent on you, wasn’t it, to understand the laws that governed fundraising … for political parties?”

Assaf: “No, because we didn’t see ourselves as a political party.”

Dwyer: “You accept, don’t you, that ignorance of the law is no excuse?”

Assaf: “We just didn’t think the law applied to us. Because it was an electoral law, we’re not campaigning in elections in that sense. We’re internal Liberal party machinations. My understanding the whole way through was, until very recently, was it’s internal. It doesn’t count as anything to do with electoral laws or any other law.”

Victoria ramps up surveillance of wildlife areas after state’s first bird flu detection

Providing an update on Victoria’s first H5N1 detection, the state’s chief biodiversity officer, James Todd, said a greater crested tern was found sick in Portland, in the south-west of the state, and later died.

The bird was reported by a member of the public, with samples returning preliminary positive results for H5 bird flu at the state’s laboratory as well as the CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong.

In response, the state was ramping up ground and aerial surveillance in the Portland area, but also further to the west, to the South Australian border. Todd said:

There are a number of important wildlife areas in that vicinity – seal colonies, the Australasian Gannet colony at Point Danger, but further to the west as well around Discovery Bay and the Glenelg estuary are important Ramsar sites which hold a heap of values in terms of migratory birds and the like.

We’re asking the Victorian public to continue to keep their eyes open, particularly around coastal areas looking for shorebirds, seabirds, marine mammals that might be at risk.

H5N1 posed a risk to over 600 native species in Victoria, he said, particularly four species – the helmeted honeyeater, orange-bellied parrot, plains wanderer and regent honeyeater.

The drugmaker AstraZeneca will continue to provide women with breast cancer and endometriosis free access to the vital medicine Zoladex, which the company said last month would be removed from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The company said it “understands that maintaining continuity of care is essential” and that it would provide Zoladex monthly implants at “no cost” from 1 November 2026, when it comes off the PBS. Standard pharmacy dispensing fees may still apply.

AstraZeneca added in a statement:

Health care professionals have been notified of the change in process for prescribing the Zoladex monthly (3.6mg) implant for patients without suitable treatment pathways. This includes patients who are currently prescribed and patients who may need to be prescribed the implant as a treatment option after 1 November 2026.

The decision to discontinue the Zoladex monthly (3.6mg) implant from Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme reflects the way the PBS currently works, which means that the price offered is too low, making it unsustainable to supply the medicine on the PBS.

Neil the seal has captured hearts and global attention for his visits to Tasmania, and racked up a bill of more than $36,000 for his most-recent stay, AAP reports.

The five-year-old elephant seal hauls out twice each year to rest and moult in the island state’s south-east, where he was born. His antics, including crushing bollards, fences and lounging on quiet beachside streets, have drawn millions of views on social media.

His 15-day stay at Seven Mile beach cost the local Clarence city council a total of $31,540.53 – the majority relating to staffing and labour but also including a repair bill for one flattened street sign, 10 knocked-over bollards and one crushed fence.

Council mayor Brendan Blomeley said the overall bill was relatively small:

Neil is a wild animal and the over-exposure and constant public attention he received could have led to a more dramatic outcome.

Wherever he decides to come ashore next, I hope he is given the space and time he needs.

Right to information documents obtained by the ABC show Tasmania’s natural resources and environment department spent more than $45,000 managing Neil’s four haul-outs in 2025 and 2026.

Neil’s June haul-out cost the department $4,794, but it was still calculating the full price tag.

Asked about federal members, Assaf told the commission Tony Abbott was supportive of the Reformers’ work and spoke at multiple Reformers events, and names former federal Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, but then pauses:

I’m just trying to remember. There’s one, at least one, I’m pretty sure one more. Angus was around it, but I don’t think he was really that involved.

Asked by counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer SC, if this means federal opposition leader, Angus Taylor, Assaf says yes. The inquiry hears the following exchange:

Dwyer: “OK, and [Taylor was] somebody who was aware of the work that the Reformers was being, were doing?”

Assaf: “I’m not sure how aware. He would have been told at some point that we were doing things.”

Dwyer: “OK, well, you understood him to be supportive of the work the Reformers were doing?”

Assaf: “He definitely wasn’t opposed.”

Dwyer: “All right. Well, I might take you to some messages later and ask you about some more questions about other people supporting the Reformers that might prompt your memory.”

Assaf says former vice-president of the federal Liberal party Tina McQueen was supportive of the Reformers work.

On Monday, Dwyer told the commission that branch stacking was not of itself corrupt conduct. None of the Liberals members named here are accused of any wrongdoing.

Dominic Perrottet ‘pretty absent’ but supportive of Reformers, inquiry hears

Returning to Icac’s Operation Rosny, Reformers witness Robert Assaf has been asked which current and former federal and state Liberal MPs were aware of the efforts to shift the party towards the conservative right.

Assaf claimed current NSW Liberal state members Damien Tudehope, Anthony Roberts and Tanya Davies were supportive. He told the commission former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet, whose brothers Jean-Claude and Charles Perrottet are named in allegations, was “pretty absent in the whole thing, but supportive from what I understood”.

The commission hears Dominic Perrottet spoke at least one Reformers event. On Monday, the commission heard that branch stacking was not of itself corrupt conduct. None of the Liberals members named here is accused of any wrongdoing.

Things can move quickly, but financial markets see minimal chance of rate hike next month

While Sarah Hunter was cautious not to get carried away, financial markets have now completely erased any chance of a fourth rate hike at the RBA board’s next meeting on 10-11 August, according to ANZ.

Nobody should rule out another move in this cycle, however: market pricing also suggests a 50% chance of a rate rise by the end of the year.

And things can move quickly, particularly during a time of widening conflict in the Middle East, as Hunter pointed out.

The international Brent crude oil benchmark pushed back above US$90 a barrel this morning before most recently trading a little below that mark.

Sarah Hunter, the Reserve Bank’s chief economist, is not getting carried away with yesterday’s softer than expected consumer price figures, saying weaker fuel prices through the June quarter explained the “small undershoot” in underlying inflationary pressures through the quarter.

Speaking at an investment bank event this morning in Sydney, Hunter said that putting lower than anticipated pump prices aside, there were no big surprises in the data. She said:

It was certainly a touch softer than we thought, though some of those domestic components in there were actually pretty much what we expected to see.

I mean, that’s the right direction given where we are. We want inflation to come down. So that’s good.

Headline inflation dropped to 3.8% in the year to June, from 4% – that’s still miles above the central bank’s 2.5% official target.

NAB home loan applications fall 15%

Home loan applications at National Australia Bank have dropped sharply amid subdued demand across the property sector, according to a business update published this morning.

NAB data shows that Australian home lending applications fell 15% over the June quarter during a period marked by rising mortgage repayments and less favourable tax settings for investors.

The drop in applications is in keeping with data released from the wider financial sector that suggests investor demand has slumped, while prospective owner-occupiers remain cautious.

The Reserve Bank has lifted rates three times this year. Changes to negative gearing and the treatment of capital gains announced in the May budget have also made properties less attractive to new investors.

Optus, communications minister respond to Acma court case

Optus has acknowledged the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) court case launched today over last year’s triple-zero outage we reported earlier.

The company said it is inappropriate to comment on the legal proceedings but said:

Our focus remains on building a stronger and better Optus. We continue to invest in network resilience, strengthen our systems and processes, build and foster a culture of transparency and accountability, and improve the services our customers and communities rely on every day.

Separately, the communications minister, Anika Wells, said she welcomed the regulator’s decision.

These are serious alleged failures by Optus.

Australians rightly expect to reach triple zero when they need it most, and telcos are legally obligated to ensure that connection occurs.