Key events
Benita Kolovos
Jacinta Allan says state government to host housing summit on Monday
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has been asked whether the increases in land, vacant property taxes and a Covid-19 levy on investment properties are to blame for Melbourne’s housing prices falling four months in a row. She replies:
The vacant residential land tax … was designed in a way to not have properties and land left vacant for long periods of time … [and] to deal with some of the challenges around land banking. But also providing a bit of encouragement for property owners to consider the best use of that property.
This is another example of how we are using every lever we can to build more homes [and] make more homes available to more Victorians.
Allan said the government would be hosting a housing summit with stakeholders and ministers on Monday:
A number of ministers are coming together with a large number of organisations and people who represent all parts of the building industry but also local government representatives. Again, we’re wanting to use every lever to build more homes, we’re wanting to make sure every voice every organisation that can be part of that work … I want it to be an ideas factory on how we can continue to build on the work we’ve done to date to build more homes for more Victorians because we know there’s more to do. We have released the housing statement, but there’s more that needs to be done.
Asked whether it was a good or bad thing that property prices were falling, she says:
That is a little bit in the eye of the beholder in terms of where you sit … in the world of ownership or otherwise of real estate.
Graham Readfearn
Australia ‘deeply disappointed’ by Japan adding massive fin whales to hunt
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, says Australia is “deeply disappointed” by Japan’s decision last month to add fin whales to its commercial whaling program.
In a statement, she said the move expanded Japan’s long-running whale hunts beyond the Bryde’s, minke and sei whales that are already killed. She said:
Fin whales are the second largest of all whales and are considered vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Australia is opposed to all commercial whaling and urges all countries to end this practice. Australia’s efforts through the international whaling commission have contributed to a whaling-free southern ocean and a decline in commercial whaling around the world.
Australia will continue to advocate for the protection and conservation of whales and the health of our ocean for future generations.
Benita Kolovos
Jacinta Allan provides update on legionnaires’ disease outbreak
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is providing an update on the legionnaires’ disease outbreak in the state. She says she spoke to the chief health officer yesterday about the “increasing number of cases”.
She continues:
I spoke with the chief health officer yesterday and she advised very clearly and requested that I reinforced the message that if people are experiencing symptoms to go and seek urgent medical care, because particularly for people who may have other underlying conditions or who may be vulnerable or immunocompromised this can be quite a severe illness. And many of there are many people in ICU and many who have are currently hospitalised as they’re getting treatment for this illness.
Allan says the source of the outbreak is yet to be identified other than the general location of north-west Melbourne, but the process takes time.
People who present with the illness provide tests – they take between five to seven days to be processed. And obviously firstly someone has to first be identified as having legionnaires’, and then there’s that further testing that’s undertaken. And so that is why a very strong a precautionary message is to be delivered around people who may have been in that broader geographic exposure area to go and seek medical attention if they feel that they have those symptoms that can be quite debilitating.
Jonathan Barrett
Financial complaints surge as scams take hold
Australians have lodged a record number of complaints against their financial institutions, with scams and insurance issues driving a 9% increase to 105,000 disputes, according to the financial ombudsman.
Fiscal year data from the Australian Financial Complaints Authority shows scam-related complaints increased by more than 80% in 2023-24, averaging 913 a month compared with 504 a month the previous financial year.
That was reflected in disputes related to personal transaction accounts, which were the most complained about financial product overall.
Consumers typically lodge complaints with AFCA after receiving an unsatisfactory response from their bank or lender.
“Our view is that firms could be resolving more complaints themselves, or preventing them in the first place,” chief ombudsman David Locke said.
We continue to take steps to be able to keep up with the increasing demand for our service, but it’s in everyone’s interests that rising complaints are tackled at the source.
In 2023, Australians lost $2.74bn to scams, according to the competition regulator, and there are fears the sophistication of such schemes will escalate through AI advances, such as voice cloning.
Consumer groups have described the federal government’s reforms to help consumers as “too vague” and “a mess”.
Indigenous Australians ‘frustrated’ at slow progress
Indigenous Australians are “somewhere between disappointed and frustrated” at a lack of traction on socio-economic targets, after a scorecard found most aren’t being met.
Only five out of 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track, the Productivity commission’s annual data compilation report, released today, shows.
Catherine Liddle, the CEO of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care and co-convenor of the Coalition of Peaks (a representative body of more than 80 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups), said the federal government needed to do better because “screaming from the rooftop for ages” wasn’t working.
“Somewhere between disappointed and frustrated and I always find that a very uncomfortable place to be, because I’m a person that likes to see light,” she told ABC TV in response to the commission’s report.
You see those datasets that again reinforce what we heard even at the beginning of the year, and that is governments are not moving fast enough on this, it’s frustrating.
A fresh approach was not needed, though, because the evidence showed areas that are succeeding were the ones that gave communities control of decision-making processes, the Arrernte and Luritja woman from Central Australia said.
It’s not about finding a new pathway – certainly that’s not what the productivity commission is saying. It’s saying: share the decision-making – this is commonsense, governments talking to the people about the issues that impact them, and the solutions to solve that.
Read more about the report here:
– Australian Associated Press
Two Victorian men charged over alleged betting on the Australian of the Year awards using inside information
Two Victorian men, charged with allegedly using inside information to bet on the outcome of three Australian of the Year Awards, are expected to appear in Dandenong Magistrates’ Court today, according to an AFP media release.
A Mount Martha man, 38, is alleged to have used information from a Commonwealth employee to place a series of bets on the awards between 2017 and 2019. A Mornington man, 39, is alleged to have provided the information to the Mount Martha man.
Operation Maridun began in February 2021, when ACIC provided a report to the AFP about betting irregularities in the 2021 Australian of the Year Awards.
The Mornington man has been charged with three counts of abuse of public office. The maximum penalty is five years’ imprisonment.
The Mount Martha man has been charged with three counts of aiding, abetting, counselling, or procuring offences of abuse of public office, which also has a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
The AFP will allege the Mount Martha man received $13,302 from the bets.
Gallagher rejects criticism Labor spending too much
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, has rejected opposition criticism Labor was spending too much, saying inflation was largely in line with the Reserve Bank forecast, AAP reports.
She told ABC TV:
We believe the decisions we have taken have been very responsible, they’re being targeted indeed to sort of help people with those cost-of-living pressures but not add to the inflation challenge.
You can see that some of those policies, whether it be energy [bill relief] or some of our rent assistance, are actually putting downward pressure on inflation.
Australia must be reimagined, disability advocate says
The federal government released its response to the disability royal commission yesterday, 10 months after the final report was released – and advocacy groups have reacted with dismay after only 13 of the 222 recommendations for which the commonwealth has full or joint responsibility were accepted.
People with Disability Australia’s interim president, Marayke Jonkers, said the plan was insufficient and lacked a concrete timeframe when change was so urgently needed. She told AAP:
Every day we wait on this, someone is suffering further abuse, neglect, experiencing PTSD.
These people could be part of the community, they’re people’s loved ones – you could be one slip, fall or illness away from this.
The government should accept every suggestion to completely reimagine Australia as an inclusive society rather than try to fit people with disability into existing systems, Jonkers said.
What we want to do is create a special community for all of us – whether we have a disability or not – where we know how to understand each other, how to communicate with each other and how to include each other so we can all live up to our full potential.
Over four years of public hearings, private sessions and written submissions, more than 10,000 stories were heard. The commission found “transformational change” was needed, and proposed reforms across human rights law, advocacy, guardianship, schooling, employment and the justice system.
– Australian Associated Press
Rex may need to offer board seat for more goverment funding
Any government bailout for embattled regional airline Rex would need strict conditions and could require the government taking a seat on the board, an expert says.
The airline has appointed administrators and grounded the Boeing 737s on its intercity routes, while its regional services remain operational.
The federal transport minister, Catherine King, said the government was working closely with administrators to ensure the airline’s “absolutely vital” regional presence remained.
Further government funding could require conditions allowing some control in the boardroom, according to Helen Bird, a law and corporate governance specialist at Swinburne University:
Whoever is the new investor, be it government or otherwise, is essentially taking up fixing a corporation that got to where it is because of poor governance and poor management.
Private investors take advantage of that opportunity all the time, she said. “But we’ve got to be very careful before we let taxpayers’ money go down that route, and certainly we need to put some pretty strict conditions on it,” Bird said.
A failing company would not attract unconditional funding. Bird said:
Unless you saw it as an essential service, which it is in regional Australia, and you said, ‘Well, if we are going to give that kind of money as a government we’ll need to have a shareholding stake’.
We haven’t done that in the past, certainly with Qantas, and the government gave lots of money to Qantas during Covid. They didn’t require that but I note that a number of airlines overseas did … in return for funding.
– Australian Associated Press
Chalmers says he understands ‘people under pressure’ in the current economy
Asked whether he accepts that “people feel like we’re living in a recession,” treasurer Jim Chalmers said:
I certainly understand that people’s experience of the economy right now is an economy which is soft and people are under pressure. And those two things are related.
You know, we’ve had these interest rate rises in the system already putting people under pressure and slowing the economy, and we’ve got other issues as well, a lot of global economic uncertainty. And those things combine to create an economy which is pretty soft.
We saw in the first three months of the year, the economy barely grew at all. We’ve seen household savings come off. We got numbers yesterday showing retail trade is soft. And none of those things would come as a surprise to Australians. They know that things are difficult right now, and that’s the primary motivation for all of this cost-of-living relief that we’re rolling out in the most responsible way.
Chalmers agrees ‘housing pipeline is not where we want it to be’
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says the “housing pipeline is not what we want it to be” on ABC RN:
This is really a defining issue in the economy right now. The housing pipeline is not what we want it to be. Rents are too high, even with the help being provided by our two increases to Commonwealth rent assistance. And that’s why that $32bn of new investment, including an extra $6bn in the May budget, is so important because we need to build more homes. We need to build more rental properties. We need more homes for Australians.
That’s really one of the big features of that budget we handed down in May. A lot of that is still to roll out. It’s rolling out right now. It’s a tribute to Julie Collins, the former housing minister, and it’s a big job for the new housing minister, Clare O’Neil, and it’s a very, very high priority for us.
We’re helping out in the near term with these increases to rent assistance, but building more homes is really the key here, and that’s why we’ve got tens of billions of dollars invested in that task
Chalmers acknowledges inflation ‘more stubborn than any of us would like to see’
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is speaking on ABC RN this morning, getting straight into “persistent” inflation:
The strategy that we have deployed here – which is to get the budget in much better nick and to roll out all of this cost of living help in the most responsible way that we can – has helped ensure that inflation, which had a six in front of it a couple of years ago, now has a three in front of it.
We know that people are still under pressure. We know that this inflation is more persistent, stickier, more stubborn than any of us would like to see.
Australians urged out of Lebanon amid ‘real risk’ of escalation, Wong says
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, has warned of “a real risk that the conflict in [the Middle east] escalates seriously” in a video message last night after Israeli airstrikes killed the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut in the space of 12 hours, crushing hopes for an imminent Gaza ceasefire and raising fears of a “dangerous escalation” in the region.
Wong said:
My message to Australian citizens and residents in Lebanon is: now is the time to leave. If you are in Australia and thinking of travelling to Lebanon – do not.
Some commercial flights are still operating. If you can leave, you should.
Beirut Airport could close completely if the situation worsens. And if that happens, the government may not be able to help Australians still in Lebanon to evacuate. You may not be able to leave Lebanon for an extended period.
I know, Australians, in particular the Lebanese Australian community, are worried. We share your concerns. We are working with partners in the region to push for restraint and de-escalation. But now is not the time for Australians in the region to wait and see what happens. Now is the time to leave.
Welcome
Good morning, and welcome to another day on the live blog.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, urged Australian citizens in Lebanon to leave on available commercial flights in a video message last night, warning “there is a real risk that the conflict in the region escalates seriously” and the security situation could deteriorate quickly and with little notice.
A man and woman believed to be in their 50s and 60s were found dead on a 47ft Sydney yacht overnight, according to a NSW police media release. Emergencies services were called to a mooring at Tunks Park about 9pm yesterday. Sydney water police boarded the vessel to find the bodies. Fire and Rescue NSW were sought due to concerns of fumes detected on board.
The number of Indigenous Australians imprisoned, taking their own life and losing children to out-of-home care have all increased in the first Closing the Gap report since the voice referendum was defeated.
Cheating at Australian universities has risen exponentially since the rise of generative AI, but the old-school practice of simply paying someone to do the work is far from dead, integrity analysts have said – and sites offering cheating services to students are hard to trace, with some run by criminals willing to make threats of violence.
And Adelaide homes may soon be more expensive than Melbourne, with property prices falling in the Victorian capital for the fourth month in a row – Melbourne homes are now worth 4.4% less than they were at their peak in 2022 and fell 0.21% in July.
I’m Rafqa Touma, and I’ll be rolling today’s live news updates. If there is anything you don’t want the blog to miss, shoot it my way on Twitter @At_Raf_