Australia news live: Karl Stefanovic and Eddie McGuire sign to co-host weekly radio show; diphtheria outbreak spreads to three states

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

Sydney hikes developer taxes to fund $320m for affordable housing

The City of Sydney has hiked its levies on property developers, aiming to collect an extra $320m revenue to fund dedicated housing for people on lower incomes over the next decade.

The city charges developers a 3% levy on residential projects, 1% on commercial and extra for rezoned extensions, collecting at least $20m annually which it gives to community housing providers. The program has supported the delivery of 1,525 affordable homes to date, which are rented out at a maximum of 30% of the tenant’s income.

The new proposal, approved on Monday night, will boost those levy base rates, with developers charged more if they’re in more expensive suburbs or fail to deliver actual apartments.

Sylvie Ellsmore, a Sydney Greens councillor, said:

The City of Sydney now has the most ambitious affordable housing program in the country.

Every year Council generates millions in wealth for private landholders when we rezone land: because of our changes we’ll raise an additional $320 million for rent-controlled homes over the next ten years.

You can read more about the affordable housing projects funded by Sydney’s developer levies here:

Greens say federal government has refused to ‘stand up’ for Australians detained by IDF

The Greens have accused the federal government of “refusing to stand up” for its Australian citizens after 11 were detained in international waters off Cyprus overnight.

The Australians were part of the Global Sumud flotilla that has been attempting to transport humanitarian aid to Gaza. Twenty-two ships were previously intercepted off the coast of Crete a fortnight ago, including six Australians.

The Greens deputy leader and spokesperson for international aid and global justice, senator Mehreen Faruqi, said “it is frightening how little the Australian government cares”.

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, and the Israel foreign ministry have been approached for comment.

Budget receives ‘very mixed’ review from gloomy consumers

Households remain “deeply pessimistic” despite a small improvement in consumer confidence as petrol prices retreated from their March peaks, as the federal budget received a “very mixed” review.

Westpac’s latest monthly survey showed households are about as gloomy as they were at the depths of the pandemic. Easing concerns around family finances thanks to lower fuel costs was offset by worries about higher interest rates and the outlook for the economy amid the global oil shock.

The survey asked participants whether their family finances would be better or worse off under the budget.

The share of respondents saying they would be worse off was 34%, versus 15% saying they would be better off.

After excluding the 7% who said they didn’t know, that represented a gap of 21% and was about the 16-year average, said Matthew Hassan, a senior economist at Westpac:

While that’s typical, it is a significant deterioration on the 10% gap last year, and well down on the 3% gap in 2024 when the ‘stage 3’ tax cuts were centre stage.

Hassan said the “intergenerational” aspect of the budget – including proposals to raise investor property taxes and abolishing negative gearing – was evident in the response to the budget by age.

Among baby boomers and generation X, those expecting to be worse off outnumbered those expecting to benefit by 30-36% compared with a gap of just 9% for millennials and small net positive spread (+1%) among generation Z.

Violet Coco’s husband says Australian government must ‘publicly condemn’ Israel’s detainment of its citizens

The husband of prominent activist Violet Coco, who has been detained while attempting to transport aid to Gaza on a flotilla, says Australia should “follow the lead” of Spain in accusing Israel of violating international law.

Brad Homewood said he last spoke to Coco via FaceTime on Monday evening when they went into an “orange alert”. Coco was onboard the Perseverance alongside seven others, including fellow Australian Helen O’Sullivan.

Her spirits were good. She’s obviously very concerned, but they’ve had a lot of training. She was very determined to follow through with the mission.

Footage showed the Perseverance being boarded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the activists being detained. Homewood said the French embassy had provided advice that they would be transported to Ashdod prison in Israel, a claim not verified by Guardian Australia.

Homewood described his wife as a “genuine humanitarian with a heart of gold”.

We’ve both wept on numerous occasions about the situation in Gaza … She was determined to … put her body on the line with one of the most vicious regimes that the world has ever known.

What we’re calling on the Australian government to do is follow the lead of the Spanish prime minister and publicly condemn these blatant acts of piracy, but also call for justice in the international court and for an end to the genocide and an end to the ethnic cleansing.

Albanese government secures 100m litres of jet fuel from China and new fertiliser shipments from Brunei

The Albanese government announced a new deal with China this morning, securing 100m litres of jet fuel for the country. The jet fuel will arrive in three cargos from China from early June.

Anthony Albanese also said the government had secured 38,500 tonnes of fertiliser from Brunei, bound for Australian farmers to keep the country’s “food and fiber production systems strong”. The prime minister said:

The additional 600,000 barrels of jet fuel will help keep Australia moving, and the extra fertiliser will help provide certainty to our farmers.

To put that in context, according to the latest government statistics, Australia has 970 megalitres of aviation kerosene as at 10 May, which amounts to 35 days of supply. So the new shipment of 100ML corresponds to about 3.6 days of supply.

Four in five tobacco purchases among young adult smokers are illegal

New research from the Cancer Council NSW Generation Vape found illicit tobacco has become normalised among young adults, with almost 80% of their recent tobacco product purchases likely to be illegal.

The findings come as the government faces growing pressure from the tobacco industry to weaken evidence-based tobacco control measures, including tobacco tax settings, which have been shown to discourage smoking uptake while promoting quitting.

Earlier this month, health experts accused the Coalition of secretly giving tobacco giants access to a parliamentary inquiry into illicit tobacco, a move they say undermines more than 15 years of precedent to protect public health. The companies want the tobacco tax lowered.

Chief investigator on the study, Prof Becky Freeman, said the push by the tobacco industry to lower tobacco taxes would only further push down the price of illicit tobacco and increase availability.

“Making all cigarettes cheaper, both taxed and illicit products, will in no way improve public safety or public health,” she said.

Burnet Institute deeply concerned by Australia’s biggest diphtheria outbreak in decades

Dr Milena Dalton, the head of immunisation at the Burnet Institute, has said the spread of diphtheria from the Northern Territory into Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia is “deeply concerning”.

Dalton released a statement a short time ago, after the federal health minister, Mark Butler, said the outbreak was Australia’s biggest in decades and that almost all of the cases were in Indigenous Australians.

Speaking to ABC radio, Butler confirmed that there had been reports of a death from the outbreak, but said the NT government was still investigating.

In her statement, Dalton said:

This is no longer an isolated outbreak and it highlights how quickly vaccine-preventable diseases can re-emerge when there are immunity gaps.

Diphtheria remains rare in Australia because vaccination works. But this outbreak is a reminder that rare does not mean impossible, and that protection needs to be maintained through timely boosters for adolescents and adults.

The most important message is that diphtheria is preventable.

Dalton said that the fact the outbreak was affecting Aboriginal communities highlighted the need for a rapid and culturally safe public health response, working with community-controlled health services, trusted local leaders and frontline workers to make testing, treatment and vaccination as accessible as possible.

ARN signs Karl Stefanovic and Eddie McGuire amid Kyle and Jackie O stoush

ARN Media, the broadcaster battling Kyle Sandilands and “Jackie O” Henderson over their $100m contracts in federal court, has signed Karl Stefanovic and Eddie McGuire for a weekly radio show.

McGuire is a former co-host of the Hot Breakfast on Triple M and Stefanovic is co-host of the Today show on Nine and has his own eponymous podcast and YouTube show.

The new format, The Long Weekend, will broadcast live on ARN’s Gold network on Fridays from 12 to 3pm and will be live-streamed and available on demand on iHeart.

Michael Stephenson, chief executive officer of ARN, said:

Karl and Eddie are two of the biggest stars in Australian media and they are now at ARN. The Long Weekend is an excellent example of our strategy coming to life: premium audio and video content distributed across every platform, amplified on social and distributed across the globe on the iHeart Network. This is going to be brilliant.

Stefanovic’s network, Nine, will stream the three-hour The Long Weekend on 9Now and Stan, as part of a multiplatform arrangement with ARN Media.

Melbourne psychiatrist refuses new patients who don’t consent to AI note-taking

A Melbourne psychiatrist has refused new patients unless they agree to allow her to use an AI scribe to transcribe the conversations in their sessions.

AI-driven note-taking tools are becoming popular within the medical industry – with two in five general practitioners now using such scribes, according to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

But there have also been concerns about the security of the data and how it might be used by the AI companies, along with the accuracy of the transcriptions.

Read more here:

Angus Taylor dismisses criticism from Liberal senator over migration policies

Angus Taylor has dismissed criticism from his colleague, Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan, who said this morning he had “deep concerns” about the Coalition’s migration policies.

McLachlan spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying the country shouldn’t take a “negative approach to migration” and that such a stance risked “alienating” migrant communities. Taylor was asked about those remarks, saying:

It only alienates the government, that has got it wrong, this has nothing to do with communities. We think migration is incredibly important to this country. It always has been and always will be.

The numbers cannot be too high and the standards cannot be too low, or Australians say it’s got to be fixed.

Taylor went on to say the government had failed, not communities, when it came to migration.

NSW premier ‘devastated’ after alleged murder of woman and two children in Sydney

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said the government will continue to push for reforms on bail conditions and for tougher stances for those who commit certain crimes.

His comments come after a man was charged with three counts of murder, after a woman and two children were found dead inside a Sydney home. Minns said earlier this morning:

We need to make sure that justice is served for those who lost their lives, and family members.

I’m devastated by this because I know that New South Wales police and domestic violence prevention centres have been putting enormous amount of resources and money, and we were starting to see glimmers of progress, but then an event like this happens, and it reminds you that there are violent people out there that need to be confronted.

Minns was asked if he would increase funding to police, adding it was something “we’ll look at very closely”.

I’ll try and do everything I possibly can to ensure we don’t see repeats of this, but I can’t promise it. I can’t promise it because despite the best efforts and the tireless dedication of New South Wales police and domestic violence prevention offices, it continues to happen and it’s heartbreaking.

Albanese says all quarantined travellers from hantavirus-affected cruise remain well

Albanese says every traveller from the MV Hondius, the ship at the centre of the hantavirus outbreak, remains well.

It was a difficult task to take people from the other side of the world to bring them here.

The restrictions we have imposed are the strongest in the world, but that is the right thing to do to keep people safe.

He said those who helped bring the travellers back to Australia were doing well so far too.

Albanese maintains that WA will get its ‘fair share’ of GST

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking in Perth. He said he maintains his support that WA gets its “fair share” of the GST.

I will continue to back WA consistently as I have throughout my time … I back WA across the board.

WA has an important role to play in our economy and we have a very strong WA contingent in our caucus.

The WA premier, Roger Cook, was asked if he could trust the prime minister.

“Absolutely,” Cook said. “The prime minister gave us a rock-solid commitment that WA will receive its fair share of the GST.”

Man charged with three counts of DV murder after woman and children found dead inside Sydney home

A man has been charged with three counts of murder after the bodies of a woman and two children were found inside a Sydney home.

Officers attended the home in Campbelltown, in the city’s south-west, on Monday night “following a call from the home to triple zero” at about 7.50pm, New South Wales police said.

The bodies of a 46-year-old woman and two boys, aged 12 and four, were found inside.

A 47-year-old man was arrested at the house and taken to Campbelltown police station.

Early on Tuesday morning, he was charged with three counts of domestic violence murder.

Read more here:

Researchers find illicit, contaminated alcohol at many Australian bottle shops

Unsuspecting Australians could be drinking contaminated illicit alcohol stocked in regular bottle shops, leaving them at risk of serious health consequences, AAP reports.

Almost one-in-three bottle shops visited in Victoria contained suspected illicit alcohol products, researchers from the Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW and Drug Research Institute found.

The team have since gone to over 200 stores across different socioeconomic areas in NSW, Victoria and Queensland to find the same proportion of bottle shops stocking suspected illicit alcohol. Some products stocked in bottle shops were found by researchers to contain methanol and plastic debris.

Postdoctoral research fellow Michala Kowalski said methanol concentrations in products they tested were lower than the deadly threshold. “But finding it at all is a really big concern about product quality, and we don’t know what’s out there in other products,” she told AAP.

Consumers could reduce their risk by sticking to their trusted brands and shops, keeping an eye on prices that don’t make sense, and paying attention to bottle quality, including missing pregnancy warnings or barcodes on labels.

Rate hikes now to prevent recession later, Reserve Bank says

The Reserve Bank fears it would have to push the economy into recession if soaring fuel costs from the global oil shock become part of a wider and more entrenched inflationary outbreak.

Sarah Hunter, the RBA’s chief economist, in a speech this morning explained that the central bank was bent on preventing a temporary oil shock from getting “baked into” higher prices across the economy.

Central to this was containing “inflation expectations” – an intangible measure of whether employers and workers believe rapidly raising prices will continue beyond the Middle East war.

“If businesses and households expect high future inflation, this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as these expectations get baked into contracts for goods, services and wages,” Hunter said.

She then warned that if that were to happen, the RBA may have to engineer a dramatic slowdown in the economy to get entrenched high inflation back towards the 2-3% target.

Doing so may require a more substantial slowing of economic activity, as we saw during the early 1990s recession. So it’s crucial for central banks to keep inflation expectations anchored around the inflation target.

The central bank’s board has hiked its cash rate target three times this year, to 4.35%. Financial markets are pricing in only a small chance of a hike at the next meeting in mid-June, but a much higher 76% chance at the August 10-11 meeting.

Dfat ‘urgently seeking’ welfare updates of 11 detained Australians on Global Sumud Flotilla

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) says it is “urgently seeking” confirmation of the welfare of 11 Australian citizens it believes have been detained off the coast of Cyprus.

A spokesperson said in a statement:

We will continue to make clear our expectation that any detainees receive humane treatment in line with international norms. We understand people want to respond to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but we continue to urge Australians not to join others seeking to break the Israeli naval blockade as they will be putting themselves and others at risk of injury, death, arrest or deportation.

The spokesperson said Dfat encouraged those wishing to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza “to do so through established channels”.

Australia has been part of the international call on Israel to comply with the binding orders of the Court of Justice, including to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance at scale.

Dfat remains in contact with local authorities in Israel. Last month, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, arranged for Dfat to provide a briefing on the most current travel advice for the region and consular services ahead of future flotilla departures.