Australia news live: Minns accuses federal government of inaction on income tax; AI nudify service ordered to block children’s access

Shadow treasurer blasts government empowered to ‘kick the lemonade stands’ of the next generation

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson is speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra following last week’s release of the federal budget.

He described the budget as an “earthquake” that will require a “substantial clean-up job” – presumably when the Coalition comes to power – but said it is not a time to despair. Wilson told the crowd:

We need courage to fight for a new dawn – a dawn that restores living standards and protects our way of life. A dawn that fills young Australians with hope, aspiration and confidence. …

To build an economy that favours the Australian people, rather than Labor, big union, and big superfund oligarchs. And not a government that is empowered to kick the lemonade stands of the next generation.

Coalition says government hasn’t done enough to stop return

Opposition immigration spokesperson Jonno Duniam told Sky News he believed the government had not gone far enough in stopping the women returning, AAP adds.

“They are the government. They can do something about it. I don’t buy the story that they’re running, that they can’t stop them from coming back. They can and they should,” he said.

Duniam continued:

The fact that there was a brief of evidence available to authorities to arrest these people on arrival, yet it wasn’t enough to apply a temporary travel ban or revoke a travel document like a passport, beggars belief.

Albanese rules out help for second group with links to Islamic State fighters

More Australian women linked to terror group Islamic State look likely to leave Syria within days, but the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, insists no government help will be provided to the group, AAP reports.

The six women, along with their children and grandchildren, have been living in a camp for former IS fighters and their families.

Logistics are being negotiated between Kurdish and Syrian officials for the 10-hour drive from the al-Roj refugee camp to Damascus, multiple media outlets, including the ABC, have reported. The group is then likely to board flights to Australia.

Albanese told ABC radio earlier today:

There wasn’t a government person on the plane (with the previous cohort), because we weren’t providing any assistance, and won’t.

If there have been any breaches of Australian law, they will face the full force of the law, which is what happened to people when they arrived back just a couple of weeks ago.

The US state department has been very keen on people leaving those camps.

NSW police say alleged Sydney shooting may be linked to organised crime

New South Wales police are investigating the possibility last night’s alleged shooting attack in Sydney’s south-west, which killed one man and injured four others, was linked to organised crime.

However, Det Supt Craig Middleton said police believed the alleged incident in Canley Heights was “targeted” but said the motive remained “quite unclear” at this “very early” stage of the investigation.

Speaking to reporters outside Fairfield police station a short time ago, Middleton described the alleged attack as “brazen and violent”, and said:

We are aware of some organised crime links although I can’t confirm that as this stage.

I can also confirm that we believe that this is a targeted attack although the motive for this attack is unclear at this stage and we’re working through a number of inquiries.

At this stage, as you can appreciate, it’s very early [in the investigation].

Middleton said all five alleged victims knew each other.

He could not confirm many details of how detectives believe the alleged incident transpired but said police were looking for two men who entered a home on Arbutus Street, Canley Heights before “a number of gunshots” were allegedly heard.

Middleton said:

They fled that premises and decamped in a vehicle that has not been recovered by police at this stage.

AVO against Mark Latham over domestic violence allegations withdrawn

Mark Latham’s former partner has withdrawn a restraining order against the One Nation turned independent NSW MP after alleging he engaged in a “sustained pattern” of abuse against her.

A three day hearing over the domestic violence allegations was to begin before the Downing Centre local court on Wednesday, but it was vacated after the court heard the apprehended violence order (AVO) had been withdrawn by consent.

Outside court, Latham’s lawyer, Zali Burrows, told reporters:

The AVO application has been withdrawn and dismissed.

Latham’s former partner, Nathalie Matthews, had outlined last year allegations of a “sustained pattern” of abuse and manipulation in an application for a restraining order against him.

Latham, 64, had denied the claims, describing them as “comically false and ridiculous” and maintaining he has not broken any laws.

Police did not lay any charges against the one-time prime ministerial candidate and the local court had refused to release the documents as they contain untested allegations.

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has again criticised what he has characterised as the federal government’s inaction on income tax, saying working families are being “stung” by bracket creep.

Asked at a press conference this morning if he would have liked to have seen greater income tax cuts alongside the federal budget’s changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, Minns said:

We do need to make sure we’re taking urgent action when it comes to personal income taxes, because at the moment, a lot of working families are getting stung.

Minns’ criticism of this year’s federal budget has focused on those in the highest bracket. Today, he said:

The top marginal rate of 47%, as I said in parliament last week, you’re working Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday for yourself and then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the government. It’s a tough burden for a lot of families to hit.

As part of modest changes in this year’s federal budget, taxpayers will receive a $250 offset on earned income and an instant $1,000 tax deduction.

‘Foolish’ CSIRO job cuts will mean Australia unable to provide climate projections to global reports, scientists warn

Job cuts at the national science agency mean Australia will no longer be able to submit climate projections to form part of global reports and will have significantly reduced ability to forecast future damage to the country, leading researchers have warned.

Multiple sources told Guardian Australia that CSIRO planned to sack a third of the team working on the national climate model that provides projections relied on by governments, councils, industry and farmers as they plan for the future.

Senior scientists said it would result in Australia no longer having an international-standard climate model to contribute projections to major assessment reports by the world’s leading climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

CSIRO management is expected to confirm at a staff meeting on Thursday that it is making about 100 scientists redundant as part of a plan announced last November to cut full-time research positions by between 300 and 350. It follows the sacking of 818 support staff last year.

Read more here:

The Israeli foreign ministry said it had detained 430 people travelling onboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was attempting to transport humanitarian aid to Gaza before it was intercepted off the coast of Cyprus yesterday.

Israeli officials wrote on social media that all of those detained had now been transferred to Israeli vessels and were making their way to the country, where they will be met by consular representatives. Israel called the flotilla “another PR” stunt “at the service of Hamas”:

Another PR flotilla has come to an end … Israel will continue to act in full accordance with international law and will not permit any breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza.

The flotilla had a slightly different figure, saying 428 detained activists from over 40 nations remain “unaccounted for”, the Associated Press reports.

A spokesperson for the Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said yesterday the government was engaging with the Israelis on the welfare of the Australians involved in the flotilla and would visit them at the earliest opportunity. The spokesperson said:

We want to see all detained Australians released as soon as possible.

Australian officials continue to make clear to Israel our expectation that any detainees receive humane treatment in line with international norms.

Wong’s office said it continues “to encourage those wishing to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza to do so through established channels”.

The Victorian Greens have criticised Jacinta Allan’s government for bringing the weapons expo Land Forces back to Melbourne in 2028, saying they are “completely out of touch”.

It comes after the government announced it would be bringing the expo back in 2028 on Tuesday afternoon. The expo was cancelled in Melbourne and announced in Perth for 2026.

In 2024, there was a public outcry and protests at the conference and allegations of excessive police tactics and force used against protesters.

The Greens spokesperson for peace and disarmament, Gabrielle de Vietri, said:

The public have made it very clear that they do not want this weapons trading expo in our peaceful city. Jacinta Allan’s Labor Government would prefer to prop up an industry designed to kill than listen to the people they are supposed to represent.

Jacinta Allan’s Labor Government couldn’t be more transparent – they moved Land Forces to Perth in an election year to avoid scrutiny and mass protests just before an election but are happy to keep dealing in war and weapons in plain sight once the election is done and dusted.

NSW upper house establishes inquiry into dingo management

The New South Wales upper house has agreed to establish a parliamentary inquiry to examine the treatment of dingo populations in the state’s national parks.

The probe will consider the genetic status of dingoes and legislation and policies that inform their management.

Animal Justice Party MLC Emma Hurst said it was “a chance to hear from voices that want to change the way dingoes are managed within national parks” with the species currently exempt from protection under the state’s biodiversity conservation laws.

Humane World for Animals Australia said it was “a milestone in the effort to end persecution of the species” and the organisation was “particularly glad that this inquiry will examine the genetic status of dingoes in New South Wales and the distinction between dingoes and wild dogs”.

Alix Livingstone from Defend the Wild said the state’s management of dingoes did not reflect the important role they played in ecosystems and the inquiry was a chance to “bring together a growing body of evidence, on-ground experience, and Traditional Owner knowledge to better understand the role dingoes play on Country”.

Kylie Minogue announces she had second cancer diagnosis in 2021

Kylie Minogue has revealed that in early 2021 she was diagnosed with cancer for a second time, after diagnosis and successful treatment for breast cancer in 2005.

The pop star discussed the previously unannounced diagnosis in a new Netflix documentary entitled Kylie, available from today. “My second cancer diagnosis was in early 2021. I was able to keep that to myself … Not like the first time,” she said, referring to her highly publicised first treatment.

Thankfully, I got through it. Again. And all is well. Hey, who knows what’s around the corner, but pop music nurtures me … my passion for music is greater than ever.

Minogue said that after her treatment, she struggled “to find the right time” to announce it publicly, including after the huge success of her Grammy-winning 2023 single Padam Padam.

Read more here:

Hanson says office staff cuts are ‘serious issue’ for staffer health

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has called on the Albanese government to allocate more staff to her party, stating she had begged and pleaded for more employees to deal with the “heavy workload”.

Hanson said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that her office has been “inundated with thousands of calls, emails and messages every week and it’s not possible to respond to all of them”.

She said the federal government cut staff allocation to One Nation after the last election, and despite requests to restore staffing levels, the government “hasn’t even responded and couldn’t care less”.

She said:

My staff have continued out of loyalty, and they want to help the Australian people but their health has now become a serious issue.

As the leader of One Nation, I have 5 electorate officers and just 2 Parliamentary Advisers.

The leader of the Greens, Larissa Waters, has 5 electorate officers and 15 advisers.

The prime minister has 59 personal advisers. Adding his other ministers, the Government employs a total of 504 personal advisers.

This is the prime minister using his powers to disadvantage his political opponents who don’t agree with his agenda.

Hanson said she didn’t want to air the issue publicly, but the government had given her no choice.

I am the leader of a political party that is polling more than major political parties. The government has failed to staff One Nation anywhere close to a functional level. This is pure, bloody-minded politics by the Labor party.

No indication new group with links to Islamic State have plans to leave Syrian camp, sources say

Government sources say there is no indication a group of women and children linked to IS fighters have made plans to leave a camp in northern Syria.

Media reports today suggest six Australian women, their children and grandchildren, look likely to leave the al-Roj camp in Syria very soon.

But so far the federal government has not had any information to suggest any of the group have made plans to come to Australia.

If and when they come home, the group is certain to face scrutiny from law enforcement agencies.

Vanuatu says it is ready to sign economic and security deal with Australia

Vanuatu will sign a major cooperation agreement with Australia after renegotiating the deal, prime minister Jotham Napat told the Pacific island nation’s parliament on Tuesday, according to AFP.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese travelled to Vanuatu in September in the expectation the leaders would sign the $500m Nakamal Agreement to strengthen security and economic ties, but a ceremony was cancelled at short notice after concerns from some Vanuatu lawmakers.

Vanuatu has maintained a non-aligned foreign policy since independence from France and Britain, and fiercely protects its position of “friends to all and enemies to none” amid jostling for influence by China, Australia and the United States in the strategically located Pacific.

Napat said the agreement with Australia was not a security pact, but contained a security clause where Vanuatu agreed not to allow any outside force in its territory.

Australia is wary of China’s police presence in the nearby Solomon Islands, and has struck a series of treaties with Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea and Nauru seeking to curb Beijing’s security inroads to the region.

Authorities are preparing for another six Australian women, along with their children and grandchildren, to return home from Syria, amid speculation the group may leave in the coming days.

The group – linked to IS fighters and stuck in the al-Roj camp in the country’s north – will be closely watched by government and law enforcement agencies if they do return home.

Their arrival could be as soon as next week.

Earlier this month, four women and nine children took commercial flights to Sydney and Melbourne. The Australian federal police arrested and charged three of the women.

The assistant minister for multicultural affairs, Julian Hill, told Sky News this morning he had no information about the group, though added intelligence agencies and police were monitoring their movements.

“I’m not going to prejudge the operations of law enforcement agencies or security agencies but I’ll say this very clearly and very deliberately to anyone who’s listening,” Hill said.

Law enforcement agencies are well aware of this cohort … including those who’ve come back over many, many cycles, including under the Morrison government.

Hill would not be drawn on whether members of the group would face arrest on return to Australia.

Agencies are prepared … and we don’t want these people back in.

The eSafety commissioner has issued a direction to comply to restrict Australian children’s access to an unnamed nudify service that uses AI to generate sexually-explicit deepfakes of people based on uploaded images.

The regulator – which declined to name the platform so as to not add to its growing popularity – issued the direction to comply with age verification requirements after seeing the traffic from Australian users growing in the past few months, with 40,000 Australian visitors per month as of March this year.

Using recently introduced codes requiring age verification for adult content, eSafety initially had sought to engage with the Argentina-based company about compliance, but it failed to respond, leading to the formal warning.

The company now has 14 days to meet the requirements, after which eSafety has flagged it could seek fines of up to $49.5m against the company, and issue delisting notices to search engines.

In September last year, the Albanese government pledged to pass legislation banning nudify services being used to generate non-consensual content, but without that in place, the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant indicated she was using her existing powers to take the action she could for now.

Inman Grant said:

I like many others struggle to see a positive use case for such services as it is, and services like these demonstrate where AI is causing irreparable harms today.

Thankfully, eSafety was able to ensure our world-leading codes required the purveyors and profiteers of such services to put measures in place to, at the very least, prevent children from accessing their platform.

A $1m reward has been announced for information relating to the suspicious death of an opal miner more than 30 years ago, AAP reports.

Paul Murray was last seen alive on the outskirts of Lightning Ridge, an outback town in north-western New South Wales, on 19 March 1995.

Murray, then aged 40, owned an opal mining field about 8km north-west of the town and lived in a camp at the site. A local resident had picked him up and dropped him off at the edge of town, becoming the last known person to see him alive.

Murray was reported missing one week later. After an extensive search, two graziers found his body in scrubland, about 2km from his campsite. A postmortem examination found no obvious cause of death and no signs of trauma.

Authorities will again lift the reward on Wednesday, more than three decades on from Murray’s death, to $1m.

Consultation with tech sector on CGT changes about ‘unique arrangements’, finance minister says

The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, says tech companies and startups have “unique arrangements” that required the government to consult with them on proposed changes to capital gains tax in last week’s federal budget, but the government had not taken a position on whether the sector will get a carve out from the changes.

Amid fury and memes from the sector over the change – which replaces the 50% tax discount on profits with cost-base indexation – Gallagher told ABC’s 7.30 there had been a “level of misinformation around how some of these changes will impact” businesses. When asked why the tech sector was being consulted after the budget, she said a final conclusion could not be reached until the budget was released.

Asked whether a carve-out for startups and tech companies was being considered, and if it would create a two-tier system for businesses in Australia, Gallagher said the government wants “to talk further with that sector about some unique features of their industry”, adding:

And I think that is a responsible thing to do.

She said the government “hasn’t taken a position on carve-outs” for particular sectors:

What we’ve said is we want to work with that sector to understand a little bit more about the concerns they are raising, and it is particularly about some of the costs … the way that their business is structured, particularly when they start, when they are early, young businesses – that we want to work through that with them further and the treasurer has undertaken to do that, and it is clear in the budget papers.

Gallagher said the government will be proceeding with its decisions in legislation to be introduced into parliament in the coming weeks, “and we would want to pass those bills as soon as [we’re] reasonably able to.”