OECD says Australia should increase EV and renewable energy take up amid fuel crisis – as it happened

Thanks for staying with us through a busy news day. We’ll wrap up the live blog there.

Here were some of the day’s top stories:

• The Queensland childcare commission of inquiry has recommended controversial changes to adoption rules for Indigenous children.

• Victoria has announced a crackdown on the strata sector and real estate underquoting.

• Australian troops will be sent to Poland to train with Ukrainians.

• One of the Greens’ co-founders, Drew Hutton, has quit the party.

• The former ACT Liberal leader, Leanne Castley, quit the Canberra Liberals over what she described as a “toxic culture”.

• The Solomon Islands prime minister, Matthew Wale, says he will a review security pact with China and progress a treaty with Austalia.

• In Canberra, question time got fiery as Anthony Albanese labelled the opposition the “Liberal One National party” – an amalgamation of the Libs, Nats and One Nation – and dubbed Angus Taylor a “Temu Abbott”.

• Andrew Bragg, the Liberals’ shadow housing minister, has said house prices should fall.

• Pauline Hanson has been booked to deliver a “leader’s address” at the National Press Club later this month.

• Penny Wong said Donald Trump’s phone call opposing a planned Israeli attack on Beirut was “significant”.

• Australia is facing another 10% US tariff over “forced labour” claims.

• The OECD has recommended countries adopt more EVs and renewable energy to address fuel insecurity.

• The University of Melbourne changed its wifi terms of use to allow the network to be monitored by the university, a report found.

Krishani Dhanji will be back with you tomorrow morning. Have a good night.

Neo-Nazi party to learn fate over hate group listing

Neo-Nazi group White Australia faces “extinction” if its hate group designation is not overturned, the organisation has argued, ahead of a crucial legal judgment, AAP reports.

The group is challenging laws passed following the Bondi Beach terror attack, which the government has used to criminalise joining, supporting, fundraising or recruiting for White Australia.

At a high court hearing on Wednesday, lawyers for the organisation pushed for the hate listing to be put on ice, at least until the full case could be heard in September.

A decision on the injunction would be handed down at 2pm on Thursday, Chief Justice Stephen Gageler said.

“Unless restrained, there will be an extinction of the organisation,” White Australia’s lawyer Peter King told the court on Wednesday.

Allowing the neo-Nazi group to be designated a hate organisation would render the broader legal question about the hate laws moot, because White Australia, which had brought the case, would no longer exist, King said.

King also said the Victorian corporations registrar had sent a “show cause” notice which meant that because of the anti-hate laws, White Australia would effectively cease to exist on 25 June.

Commonwealth lawyer Brendan Lim SC said the party had other options, including asking for its registration to remain in place until the high court battle is resolved.

Lim argued granting the injunction would set a precedent that could have consequences far beyond the White Australia party.

As a result of overturning the current law, “persons may apprehend that they can commit crimes with no risk of punishment or detection”, he told the court.

He also warned the risks of allowing White Australia to continue in its current form, including the potential for its rhetoric to incite violence, far outweighed the harms of listing the organisation as a hate group.

Context of neo-Nazi court battle

This context from AAP: in a video posted to encrypted messaging site Telegram on Tuesday night, notorious neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell said the move to ban his organisation breached the constitution’s implied right to freedom of political communication.

White Australia is also seeking to register as a political party.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke declared the neo-Nazi organisation a prohibited hate group in May after receiving advice from spy agency ASIO.

White Australia’s predecessor, the National Socialist Network, announced it was disbanding when the hate laws were introduced.

But in reality, Mr Burke said, the group had “phoenixed” – changing its name to White Australia and continuing operations with largely the same members.

Under the government’s declaration, it is now a crime to support, fund or join the group.

Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir has also been banned under the post-Bondi laws.

Cohealth responds to independent review finding ineffective management

Continuing from our previous post: in a statement, Cohealth responded to an independent review into its clinics which have been running at a loss and at risk of closure, saying:

The recommended reforms represent an important win for the communities of Collingwood, Fitzroy, and Kensington.

The clinics provide low-to-no cost health and social support services to members of the Victorian community most in need.

Following public pressure, the independent review into Cohealth was made public on Wednesday despite being delivered to the state and federal governments in March.

The review found: “ineffective governance and management … contributed significantly to cohealth’s financial problems”.

Medicare funding arrangements also need to change, the review found.

Cohealth said:

We reaffirm our commitment to rebuilding trust, strengthening services, and working towards a more stable and sustainable future for the communities who rely on these services.

cohealth will work to implement the review’s recommendations to deliver greater certainty, stronger local healthcare services and long-term community healthcare presence communities have been calling for, and need, to help keep people healthy, connected and well.

This includes significant work to redesign a more sustainable future model of care.

Financial details were redacted from the public version of the review.

Ineffective governance and management driving cohealth woes, review finds

An independent review into the closure of three cohealth clinics in Melbourne has found ineffective governance and management contributed significantly to the financial problems affecting the low-to-no cost health and social support service.

“We met with about 100 people – patients, staff, community members, and leaders of cohealth,” the review, completed in March but only made public today, said.

We confirmed that the GP clinics were indeed running at a loss.

Contrary to the views expressed publicly by cohealth… that Medicare did not provide funding for appropriate services for the population served by cohealth … we found that ineffective governance and management had also contributed significantly to cohealth’s financial problems.

Financial information was redacted from the published report.

The report acknowledged that “even with the best management in the world, the three clinics would still run at a marginal loss” and that the Medicare Benefits Schedule does need to change to better weight for complexity and need of patients.

Four key recommendations were made including inviting cohealth to show cause why the Victorian health minister “should not form the view that cohealth is ineffectively managed… and has failed to meet one or more performance standards”.

The federal government provided cohealth with $1.5m in funding across one year so the clinics could remain open while the review was underway and while the recommendations are implemented. The review recommended this funding be extended for a further two years while a new funding model is established.

AliExpress to take ‘corrective actions’ against vendors selling banned products after Choice report

Online retail giant AliExpress says it will take “appropriate corrective actions” against vendors who the consumer group Choice identified as selling banned products to Australians.

Earlier today, Choice formally asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to take action against several online retailers after it bought and received a range of toy-like novelty lighters, cigarettes and tongue piercings, as well as Sky Lanterns.

Guardian Australia contacted the retailers named by Choice for comment. We heard back from Shein, Amazon and Temu yesterday, but AliExpress and eBay responded today.

In a statement, AliExpress said it “strictly prohibits” non-compliant products on its platform and that:

Upon notification regarding the flagged products, we are taking swift action to remove the listings in question while thoroughly investigating the matter.

The sellers involved are being thoroughly reviewed, and appropriate corrective actions will be taken in accordance with our platform policies, up to and including store suspension or financial penalties.

In its own statement, an eBay spokesperson said:

After the listings were brought to our attention by Choice, we conducted a review and those identified as non-compliant with eBay’s product safety policy were promptly removed—including novelty lighters, toy cigarettes, and fake tongue piercings.

We continue to take proactive steps to monitor and prevent the sale of unsafe products in this category.

You can read more here:

Australian government, businesses to gain access to frontier AI models

Overnight, Anthropic announced it was expanding Project Glasswing – which gives companies and government early access to the frontier Mythos AI model – to 150 new organisations in 15 countries.

Mythos has not been released publicly as Anthropic has said it is too powerful, and can quickly find security vulnerabilities in software that were not previously as quick to discover.

The early access to companies and governments is designed to allow them to find those vulnerabilities and patch them first.

Australia did not get access to Project Glasswing when it was first announced – and the Australian government has denied questions on whether Anthropic was seeking a more favourable treatment under Australian copyright law in order to be added to the list.

The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, told reporters last week:

This notion that access to Mythos depends on Australia weakening its current copyright regime is a false one and will not be entertained by the government.

On Wednesday, the federal government confirmed it was now included in the project.

A spokesperson for the Australian Signals Directorate said:

We welcome Anthropic’s announcement to expand Project Glasswing to approximately 150 additional entities globally, including the Australian government and other Australian private companies.

The OECD says Australia should respond to the global oil shock by accelerating our uptake of electric vehicles and renewable energy.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s chief economist, Stefano Scarpetta, recognised that governments had a variety of ways they could ease the strain of soaring fuel costs, particularly for the most vulnerable households.

“But this crisis also demonstrates that the need to wean our economies off the dependency on fossil fuel imports is increasingly urgent,” he said.

The Paris-based organisation, commonly referred to as the club of rich countries, pointed out that Australia among its member nations is “particularly” reliant on diesel.

But in contrast to the Coalition’s call to expand oil and gas production, the OECD said:

Australia’s vulnerability to fuel supply disruptions underlines the case for accelerating progress with electric vehicle adoption and renewables generation, with improved grid links and increased storage capacity.

The OECD also backed doing more to encourage the supply of new homes in well-located areas. The report said:

Other needed policies, such as easing restrictive land-use regulation, especially in urban areas, could also help to curb fuel consumption and improve energy security, while at the same time boosting productivity growth and addressing affordability challenges.

The OECD predicted higher inflation and “slightly” slower economic growth for Australia in this year and the next as a result of “the evolving Middle East conflict”.

Guardian Australia understands Drew Hutton resigned today from the Greens, which he cofounded over 30 years ago.

Hutton and the party have fought over his membership for almost four years, over social media posts about trans people.

A Queensland Greens spokesperson said:

In years past, Drew Hutton made a significant contribution to progressive and green politics in Queensland, and we thank him for that.

The Greens will continue to defend the rights of trans and gender diverse people, just as we fight to protect the environment, climate, and people.

Punching down on trans people is wrong, and billionaires use it as a distraction from the urgent fight to take back wealth and power from big corporations ripping off regular people.

We wish Drew well.

Hutton today shared a Facebook post promoting a rally in support of Sall Grover, founder of the Giggle for Girls app which in May lost its appeal after being found to have discriminated against trans woman Roxanne Tickle.

You can read context about Hutton’s clash with the Greens here:

Defence reveals Australian aircraft providing intel to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Bahrain

An RAAF E-7A Wedgetail aircraft, currently deployed to the United Arab Emirates in the Israel-US war with Iran, is also providing intelligence information to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Bahrain, senate estimates has heard.

Senate estimates has been asked about the information provided by the E7 Wedgetail, deployed in March after attacks on Iran. The E7 Wedgetail is an early warning and control, long-range surveillance aircraft.

“The support that the E7 is providing is the indications of airbase threats to those [Gulf] countries,” chief of defence force Adm David Johnston told estimates.

The information is also provided to the US Air Operations Centre in the Middle East.

We are not providing information to Israel. We do provide it into the Air Operations Centre.