Australia news live: police issue ‘ditch the witch’ truck with defect notice; shares slump as Trump threatens Hormuz toll

Key events

LNP MP says Pauline Hanson’s association with UK far-right activist ‘extraordinary’

Liberal MP Garth Hamilton says it’s “extraordinary” Pauline Hanson has chosen to associate with UK far-right activist and convicted criminal, Tommy Robinson, as part of her “fact finding mission” there.

The shadow assistant minister for energy security told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing the decision will “play out poorly” for the One Nation leader.

I find it extraordinary that she’s chosen to associate with a convicted criminal, cop basher, amongst other things, someone that even [Reform UK leader] Nigel Farage - who knows him, you know, obviously has a closer connection geographically to him - even Nigel Farage would not associate with this gentleman. Look, I think this will play out poorly. Quite frankly, I’m not sure why Ms Hanson thinks this is relevant to Australian politics.

I lived briefly in a place called Bedford, just up the road from Luton, which is the town she went through. It’s a deeply troubled city. It really is. There’s a lot of problems there, but to try and draw a direct connection between there and what we’re experiencing in Australia, I think is tenuous at best.

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Member for Paterson monitoring One Nation’s campaign in her seat

Labor MP Meryl Swanson said she is considering One Nation’s approach to her seat, but cautioned against sentiment in her community that Pauline Hanson “tells it as it is”.

The member for Paterson – a seat that captures Maitland near its western boundary and the coastal towns of Port Stephens – said on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program:

Pauline cuts through because she says things and people are like: ‘yeah, I resonate with that. I get that’.

She does speak plainly. She’s actually an excellent communicator …

I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t… thinking about One Nation and how they’re approaching my seat.

But Swanson pushed back against those who say they support One Nation because of Hanson’s communication style.

These things are really interesting when you’re talking to people, and you sort of unpick it a bit …

I’m like, well, it’s actually not ‘as it is’…

You can sprout anything, but when you’ve got to back it up with real policies and real budget constraints. That’s the difference ….

I think that people think … you know, ‘we’ll blow the show up and vote One Nation’.

Be careful what you wish for.

In pictures: We have survived! Forty years of Aboriginal protest posters

Wiradjuri elder Ray Jackson was a prominent activist in Australia. He was the founding secretary of the New South Wales Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee in 1987 and a regular face at the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy up until his death in 2015.

His Waterloo home was filled with posters and memorabilia collected from rallies, protests, union meetings and film screenings over 50 years. A selection is now on display at Sydney’s Numbers gallery – in Ray Jackson Doing Time with Penrith Miers Archive, on until 2 August.

The Penrith Miers Archive is run by Jackson’s granddaughter Madika Penrith, a Wiradjuri/Yuin/Gumbaynggirr archivist, and her partner Sam Miers.

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Israeli-Australian tutor says he was ‘rushed’ by members of a pro-Palestine encampment at Deakin University

Israeli-Australian and former paratrooper for the IDF, Yotam Barazani, has told the antisemitism royal commission he was “rushed” by pro-Palestine protestors.

Barazani has worked as a part-time tutor at Deakin University since 2021. When encampments were established in 2024, he showed up with a sign reading: “I want peace for all. Let’s talk.”

I had many conversations with people that might have different political ideologies or understandings to me … Even when we disagreed … some ended in hugs, some ended in them comforting me because I lost my cousin [in the Middle East war] only a few days prior.

On 7 May, Barazani said he was sitting with his sign near the encampment when he “got rushed” by a student who “shoved me and tore the sign out of my hand”.

There was a sign of theirs next to me and I sort of picked it up with the hope to say, hey, give me back my sign and you can get yours … The moment I touched the sign, I just got rushed by what seemed to be 20 to 30 protesters.”

An individual who wasn’t a student or staff member began “assaulting” and “repeatedly shoving” him, he said, causing “injuries to my hip and leg and my arm”.

Deakin security intervened and he issued a student misconduct notice, but the complaint was later dismissed.

Who is ‘stealing’ Bali’s water? How tourism siphoned off a prized resource

According to the Bali national land agency, the island has lost more than 6,500 hectares (16,061 acres) of rice fields in the past five years, a decline of more than 9%, writes Christian Karim Chrobog.

A 2018 Transnational Institute report estimated Bali had already shed nearly a quarter of its agricultural land as tourism grew by 330% in the previous 25 years.

A popular holiday destination for Australians, Bali recorded more than 16 million tourists in 2024, four times its permanent population.

Rice fields are not only income – they are water infrastructure. A paddy slows runoff, stores water and recharges the aquifer below. When it is sealed under concrete, that function is permanently gone.

Read more from Christian Karim Chrobog here:

Listen: Can Labor save us from the risks of AI? – Full Story podcast

The Australian government is grappling with how to deal with the multi-layered disruption but so far reform has been slow as it weighs up regulation against the claims of investment opportunities an AI boom presents.

Could that change on Wednesday when the prime minister gives a landmark speech addressing the government’s approach to the technology?

The chief political correspondent, Dan Jervis-Bardy, speaks to Reged Ahmad about the tightrope the PM needs to walk between embracing new technology and protecting workers.

Listen here:

Translator tells royal commission ‘opposition of Israel’ was antisemitic

An interpreter working at Victorian universities who facilitates communication between students and teachers says she witnessed antisemitic comments as part of her translation services prior to 7 October but there was a “greater normality” after 2023.

The interpreter, appearing at the royal commission under the pseudonym ACK, is not Jewish but has close connections to the community. She pointed to one comment where a student said words to the effect of: “Hitler didn’t have anything against Jewish people. He just didn’t want them to suffer.”

No individual in the room other than myself found that comment inappropriate, offensive or distressing.

She reported the comment, and no longer received work at the institution. Another comment ACK believed was antisemitic involved a woman who spoke up during a class involving drug and alcohol counselling in support of Palestine.

Completely unrelated to the Middle East. And the issues there. But she said along the lines of that she demanded support for her family and for the Palestinian cause. And she did not at all acknowledge Israel … It was as if October 7 did not occur. And it was entirely accepted as an appropriate statement … It was more framed that she was in opposition of Israel.

First koala chlamydia vaccine implant administered

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology have developed a chlamydia vaccine implant that has been trialled on a wild koala for the first time, marking a “massive breakthrough” by giving two doses in a single procedure.

The first recipient, an 18-month-old koala named Bamse, was treated at Currumbin wildlife hospital and released back to her bushland the same day.

Bamse has been hailed “a trailblazer in the battle against a disease devastating to her species.”

Senior vet at Currumbin wildlife hospital Dr Michael Pyne said:

It’s absolutely critical the vaccine is rolled out en masse to at-risk populations to protect them. We’ve got more work to do. We want to improve the vaccine. But the progress we’ve made is truly exciting, it gives us hope and allows us to think there is a way to save koalas.

Former Monash student says she was asked if she liked ‘killing Palestinians’ after revealing her Judaism and connection to Israel

Legal associate and former Monash university student Paris Enten has told the royal commission that she was subject to antisemitism on her first in-person day on campus.

Enten started at Monash in 2021 and graduated in 2024. She described coming across a group of socialist students who were handing out flyers about a refugee rally. They asked if she knew about socialism and she replied excitedly: “Yes, I do, I’ve been on a kibbutz in Israel, it’s a socialist commune”.

He quite quickly changed his tone and said, well, we’re an anti-Zionist organisation. And I said, ‘that’s fine. It’s kind of not what we’re talking about’. He asked if I was Jewish and I of course said yes, because I didn’t think that anybody would have an issue with it. And it escalated quite quickly where another girl nearby started chanting, ‘we won’t stop until people like you are kicked off campus’.

People began joining in, and asked if she liked “killing Palestinians”. Enten’s grandparents were Holocaust survivors and she said she grew up in a “very traditional home”, without much contact with the non-Jewish world until going to university.

This idea that someone would hate this beautiful community around me was really, really foreign … It was unbelievable … I was quite upset and devastated. I don’t think at that stage I’d lost all hope in the institution yet … but I was very anxious going back.

That’s all from me. Ima Caldwell is here to take the reins. Enjoy your Tuesday!

Truck that displayed ‘ditch the witch’ ads issued default notice by Victoria police

A truck that displayed advertisements featuring the phrase “Ditch the Witch” alongside an image of the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has been issued a defect notice by police.

Victoria police confirmed the vehicle was issued the notice after a complaint on 16 April. The driver will be required to present the truck to Vic Roads for inspection.

A spokesperson for the police said:

The defect notice follows an investigation into the addition of billboards to the vehicle that falls outside the standards of regulation.

The Age was the first to report the news.

The billboards were seen travelling around Melbourne for weeks and included AI-generated images of Allan wearing a black pointed hat and with warts on her chin, in between advertisements for a brothel. The images prompted fierce condemnation from senior politicians, as well as former prime minister Julia Gillard.

Sam Neill remembered by his co-stars

The actors Lindsay Duncan and Charles Dance, alongside director Peter Webber, pay tribute to a practical joker, unpretentious craftsman and “very cool guy”.

Dance says:

In an industry that’s full of quite dubious people, Sam was one of the good guys. He was a wonderful, unfussy actor with immense charm who was also incredibly handsome. I always got the impression he was really balanced.

Read more here:

Teenage boy suffers life-threatening injuries after alleged altercation with another teen at Queensland school

A 17-year-old boy has been taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries after an alleged altercation with another teen at an education facility in a suburb of Brisbane.

Queensland police said they were called to the school in Karawatha around 11.45am amid reports of the fight between two boys who were known to each other. On arrival they found the 17-year-old with life-threatening injuries. Another boy, 16, is assisting police with their inquiries.

Officers are conducting patrols of the area and appealing for any dashcam footage that may be relevant.

Aerial surfer Hughie Vaughan on wave pools and holding himself accountable to the ocean – video

It was the surfing trick that broke the internet. A year ago, Australian teenage surf prodigy Hughie Vaughan landed a never-before-attempted air at a wave pool in Texas. The praise came quickly. “Insane,” said former world champion Ítalo Ferreira da Costa. “Is this AI?” asked American DJ Diplo.

Within hours, the performance was being hailed as the best air ever landed in a pool.

Read more here:

Australian shares slump as Trump threatens Hormuz toll

The Australian stock market has continued to decline after oil prices ripped higher on escalating conflict in the Persian Gulf, reigniting fears around energy supply and inflation, AAP reports.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index fell 0.4% as the broader All Ordinaries dipped 0.41%.

Fighting has intensified in the gulf, prompting the US president, Donald Trump, to reinstate a US blockade of Iranian ships and threaten to impose a toll for safe passage through the Hormuz strait.

The charge would work out to roughly $US32m ($A42.5m) for a fully loaded large carrier at current prices, according to Bloomberg, dwarfing a $US2m fee proposed by Iran that US officials had previously derided as unacceptable.

Brent crude prices have surged more than 12% since Friday, sending local energy stocks more than 3% higher in the first two sessions this week.

The Australian dollar was buying 69.21 US cents, down from 69.29 US cents after safe-haven buying buoyed the greenback overnight.

University of Sydney alumni tells royal commission he was ‘worried for his safety’ amid pro-Palestine encampments

Independent candidate for the NSW legislative council and CEO of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), Josh Kirsh, says pro-Palestine encampments at the University of Sydney caused a “febrile atmosphere”.

Kirsh attended University of NSW for his undergraduate degree and was at the University of Sydney for a master’s degree from 2024 to 2025. He told the royal commission:

I felt very worried about my safety going on to campus. There was a moment that I recall … I was in a class and I just heard this very loud chanting outside … The tone of it sounded very aggressive to me. I just remember feeling like, should I stay in class … should I make alternative arrangements for my safety?

Kirsh didn’t describe what was being chanted. He said the universities took an approach to the encampments that was about “a hierarchy or risk mitigation”. The camp at the University of Sydney ran for about two months until it was disbanded.

In another instance, Kirsh described a university lecture where the lecturer critically raised research showing participants were less likely to respond affirmatively that “Jews have too much power” when they thought the interviewer was Jewish. A student responded “Jews have all the power” and it’s the “golden age” for Jews. The lecturer shut them down. Kirsh told the royal commission: “What if this person finds out I’m Jewish?”

Universities ‘don’t want to take a risk’ to act on antisemitism, royal commission hears

Jeremy Suss says the way the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) operates is not akin to other student groups, pointing to “alarming” levels of security risk assessments and incident cataloguing used at an “alarming rate”.

He tells the royal commission into antisemitism:

It is a new constant task to be walking students through the difficult processes of following up from their awful experiences on campus … We very often found that universities have not dealt with incidents in a productive or meaningful way. We have many students that have waited months to hear back from incidents. Sometimes they are outwardly dismissed after that. Sometimes they never hear back.

Suss took up the role at the end of 2025, coinciding with the Bondi terror attack. He said it added a “very alarming” and “urgent” layer:

Suddenly I was stepping into an organisation whose members … whose loved ones were there, who were shaken and who were in deep distress as we all were … I think this role has shown me that above all, these universities are institutions that don’t want to take a risk.

At every point where there’s any political or reputational cost that may happen in taking action on antisemitism, they’ve waited for legal advice, they’ve waited for external review, or at times when that when public pressure reaches a point that that they can’t delay any longer, that’s only when we’ll see change.