Australia news live: Sussan Ley says ‘I’m not going to comment on commentary’ as leadership speculation swirls

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

Weekend thunderstorms forecast for much of the east

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting rain storms for much of eastern Australia this weekend, with severe weather possible for parts of NSW and southern Queensland on Saturday.

Severe thunderstorms are possible across the east coast tomorrow from Wollongong up through Sydney and into southern parts of Queensland and Brisbane’s western suburbs.

BoM meteorologist Jonathan How says thunderstorms are more likely in some areas, bringing heavy rainfall, damaging winds and large hail.

We also do have an area of red where severe thunderstorm is likely. That extends from Newcastle and the Hunter, up into the mid-north coast and then southern parts of the tablelands … We may also see the additional risk of destructive winds gusts which can cause significant damage.

A cold front, a low pressure system and a warm front moving through eastern Australia will also bring rain and the risk of minor flooding to South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, before conditions ease into Sunday.

Ley goes on to say she values “every single member of my team”, including Henderson.

In order to interrogate her view, you should probably ask her … What I am saying is that every one of my team is absolutely united behind the focus that we have right now, which is to hold this Labor government to account for an energy policy that is destructive of households, businesses and, indeed, harming the economy.

Asked about backbencher criticism, including of her recent calls for the US ambassador, Kevin Rudd, to be sacked, and her decision to go after Anthony Albanese for wearing a Joy Division T-shirt, Ley says:

I’m proud of my team and I know that every single member of that team is contributing to the serious credible policy agenda that I spoke about.

Asked about how she plans to fix disunity in the Liberal party, including around net zero emissions policy, Ley says:

I’ll clearly have more to say after the Liberal party meets, and I’m not going to presuppose the outcome of that meeting. Because I made it clear when I became leader that every single member of my party room would be enfranchised to contribute to the policy discussion about energy, and they have. That includes the working group, led by Dan Tehan, that has heard from industry and experts. It includes backbench committees.

Ley won’t 'comment on commentary' amid leadership concerns

The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, is speaking now in Canberra, after the Liberal senator Sarah Henderson expressed concern about her hold on the Coalition in an interview with Sky News this morning.

Asked about Henderson’s comments, Ley says:

I’m not going to comment on commentary. You wouldn’t expect me to. Because I’m not focused on comments that other people relay to me, or that might be made in a variety of contexts. The only thing I care about is working hard for the Australian people, and I lead a team of very … a very proud team.

Police appeal for information after four found dead in Queensland house fire

Police are appealing for information after four people were found dead after a house fire in Emerald, a town in central Queensland, yesterday.

Emergency services were called to the address just before 7am on Thursday and found a property fully engulfed in flames. The blaze was extinguished shortly afterwards, but four people were found dead inside the property.

Formal identification is ongoing, but police say a man, 36, a 15-year-old girl, a one-year-old girl and a five-month-old boy were killed in the blaze.

Two other women, aged 25 and 38, escaped the fire and were treated at a nearby hospital. Det Acting Insp Brett Richard said in a statement:

It has been a very sad and tragic scene, and we have a lot of families gathering around to provide support to each other.

A crime scene has been established and an investigation is ongoing. Police said during a press conference today there is not yet a known cause for the fire.

NSW government considering changes to legal protection for 10 to 14-year-olds

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, says the government is considering legislative changes to the common law presumption of doli incapax, under which children between 10 and 14 are protected from criminal prosecution.

The centuries-old presumption, from the Latin for “incapable of evil”, offers protection on the basis 10 to 14-year-olds don’t understand the difference between right and wrong, although it can be rebutted.

The premier, speaking in Tamworth earlier to announce an investment to tackle regional youth crime, said the government was also considering changes to “the situation as it’s currently constituted”.

It’s not necessarily about driving high conviction rates, it is the current situation. But for many youth, there is no consequences at all … we just can’t be in a situation where we’re asking the police to arrest the same person over and over and over again, because it’s not good for anyone.

It’s not good for the community. It’s not good for the families involved. And lastly, perhaps most importantly, it’s not good for the child involved either.

Following a high court decision in 2016 clarifying the presumption, the proportion of 10 to 13-year-olds prosecuted in court fell from 76% in 2015-16 to 16% in 2022-23.

A review into doli incapax commissioned by the NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, has recommended the common law presumption be made statutory law, although Minns says the review shows the principle is “not working”.

The review said while youth crime was a concern, only a small proportion in the 10 to 13 age group engaged in serious or persistent offending, and the principle remained an “important safeguard against the possibility of inappropriate findings”.

Liberal party to head to trial over Pesutto loan after mediation fails

A dispute over the $1.5m loan issued to the former Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto is set to go to trial after attempts to settle the matter outside court failed.

Five members of the Victorian Liberal administrative committee – recently renamed the state executive – launched supreme court action against the directors of the party’s finance vehicle, Vapold, and the remaining 14 members of the executive over the loan.

They argued that the party’s constitution prohibited the loan, which was approved by the executive after a vote in June.

The loan was used to help cover $2.3m in legal costs after fellow MP Moira Deeming successfully sued Pesutto for defamation.

If he had failed to pay, Pesutto would have had to declare bankruptcy, forcing a byelection in his marginal seat of Hawthorn.

Senior Liberal sources confirmed that formal mediation, ordered by the supreme court, came to an end on Thursday after the parties were unable to reach an agreement.

It means the case will now proceed to an expected five-day trial, which has been set down to begin on 16 March, just eight months out from the state election.

The opposition leader, Brad Battin, will be among defendants likely to take the stand to be examined over his role in approving the loan.

Defence submissions, seen by Guardian Australia, argue that the interpretation of the constitution is not a matter for the courts.

Three pedestrians seriously injured after being struck by car in western Sydney

Three people have been taken to hospital in a critical condition after being struck by a car at an intersection in western Sydney.

In a statement, NSW police say emergency services responded to reports just after 9am following a crash in Blacktown.

Police say the three men, believed to be aged in their 30s, were standing outside a business when the cars collided, causing one to mount the curb and allegedly strike the pedestrians.

NSW Ambulance paramedics treated the men at the scene for multiple injuries, with all three taken to Westmead hospital. A crime scene has been established.

The drivers of both vehicles, believed to be aged in their 20s and 30s, have been taken for mandatory testing. No charges have yet been laid.

Nine asks for compensation if gambling ads are banned

Nine Entertainment has asked the Albanese government to pay it compensation if it bans gambling advertisements, and not to limit any ban to broadcast media.

The Albanese government has resumed negotiations with the wagering industry to restrict ads, with industry sources expecting to see legislation by the end of the year, Guardian Australia reported in October.

Nine chair Catherine West confirmed the company had been discussing ad restrictions with the government, seeking “some type of compensation” and a commitment to make any ban apply broadly across all media types. She told Nine’s AGM:

We believe that gambling across the society is a collective responsibility … We already have a lot of regulation.

It would not be fair for us to not be able to do gambling and gambling companies to be able to sponsor word searches on Google. That will just mean that the revenue is diverted away from us across the board.

West did not directly answer when asked whether Nine had asked the government to resist moves to limit gambling ads. She said the ads accounted for the “low single digits” of Nine’s revenue, which was nearly $2.7bn in the year to June.

West said Nine was not considering allowing viewers to opt out of gambling ads, a method pioneered by SBS in 2024.

The Guardian has not accepted gambling advertising across all of its global platforms since 2023. You can read more about the decision in this piece by Guardian Australia’s editor Lenore Taylor:

New neurotechnology gets $54m investment from federal government

A brain-computer interface (BCI) that promises to help paralysed people control digital devices with their minds has scored a $54m investment from the federal government.

Synchron, which started at the University of Melbourne, has developed neurotechnology that has been described as “miles ahead” of Elon Musk’s Neuralink.

The federal funds come from the Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) as part of its latest $305m funding round.

The NRFC said in a release “the company’s status as an industry pioneer means that it will likely set the standards for BCI integrations with products such as iPhone, Apple Vision Pro, and Chiral AI – the world’s first cognitive AI”.

Synchron founder Tom Oxley said the investment would help the company fund their final clinical trials.

Overnight, Unesco adopted new guardrails for the “wild west” of neurotechnology amid ongoing concerns about mental privacy and freedom of thought.

Read more here:

NSW premier’s department to assume control of regional youth crime services

The New South Wales premier’s department will assume control of coordinating efforts to end reoffending in regional communities, under a $23m investment to tackle youth crime.

The targeted funding, announced today, includes $12m for youth crime responses in Moree and to expand those in Tamworth and Kempsey. It also includes $6.3m towards bail supervision, including four new caseworkers and the completion of the Moree bail accommodation service, for which a site has been secured.

In addition, the premier’s department itself will coordinate the delivery of services by frontline agencies and NGOs in Tamworth, Kempsey, Walgett, Coonamble, Brewarrina and Bourke. It has already taken an active role in services in Moree.

As Guardian Australia has reported, youth crime dropped in regional NSW by more than 12% in the two years to June 2025, with even sharper drops in crime hotspots including the area around Moree. Experts and advocates have said the overall drop is likely due to a number of factors, including local-led initiatives.

In April last year, the Minns government toughened bail laws for young repeat offenders for break and enter and car theft offences, and committed more than $26m in other initiatives, including the Moree bail accommodation. It later extended the bail laws for three years, amid concerns from some Labor MPs it was not yet clear how effective they had been.

The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said today that youth crime in regional areas involved “complex issues that won’t be solved overnight”.

What we don’t want to see is young people wrapped up in the justice system again and again, which is why this package is a balance of intervention, prevention and wrap-around support measures.

Nine calls for action against US tech giant AI scraping

Nine Entertainment has called for political action as US tech giants’ artificial intelligence platforms scrape news sites without paying the publishers.

The chair, Catherine West, singled out American tech platforms as the targets of Nine’s ire, telling shareholders at the company’s AGM:

Our industry is facing increasing pressures from predominantly US-centric international tech platforms that have demonstrated little regard for accurate information, or Australian culture and democracy.

She pointed to one example, reported in the Nine papers in October, where an AI platform summary incorrectly suggested a Nine employee was responsible for a “heinous crime”.

Matt Stanton, Nine’s chief executive, called for the Albanese government to amend the news media bargaining code, which forces tech companies to pay for news as AI threatens business models. He said:

Generative AI platforms [are] scraping our news platforms to train their systems without Nine’s permission or any payment. This requires decisive political action to ensure this theft cannot go on without consequence or commercial arrangement.

Nine this morning reported advertising revenues have been lower than expected since June but digital subscriptions to the Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age had grown steadily. Stanton will say Nine plans to attract further subscriptions to the news sites and streaming service Stan.

Qantas sees no impact to US services amid government shutdown, but domestic US connections could face issues

Qantas currently has not had any impact to its US services from the ongoing government shutdown in the country, which will soon see 40 major airports limit flights. But customers making domestic connections in the US to or from their Qantas flights could be affected, facing delays or cancellations on parts of their journeys.

The Australian airline is monitoring the situation on a day-to-day basis and will work with customers travelling on any domestic connections in the US that may be affected.

The Associated Press recently published a list of “high-volume markets” where the US Federal Aviation Administration said air traffic must be reduced by 6am eastern time on Friday. The move will force airlines to cancel thousands of flights and create mass scheduling issues and delays at some of the US’s biggest airports.

Banking insider accused of being part of multimillion-dollar fraud syndicate

A NAB insider accused of using his position at the bank to deliver around $10m worth of dodgy business loans is accused of being part of a major fraud syndicate, AAP reports.

The Sydney man’s arrest is the latest in a string of busts targeting a group that allegedly used stolen personal information to apply for loans to buy non-existent luxury “ghost cars”.

The 36-year-old was hit with 19 charges after he was arrested in the city’s south-west on Thursday.

NAB, which worked with NSW police on the matter, confirmed the man’s employment had been terminated. No customers had been affected by the alleged fraud, it confirmed.

The man was the 15th person charged by a NSW Police strike force targeting the same syndicate, while the NSW Crime Commission has seized $60m in assets.

He was charged with nine counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, among other offences. He will appear in Fairfield local court on Friday.

More from News Corp’s quarterly financial results

The media conglomerate recorded a sharp drop in advertising revenue at its global stable of newspapers, down 4% from a year ago, driven by lower levels of print and digital advertising.

This was mainly attributed to weakness at its Australian mastheads, which include the Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun.

News Corp has been trying to increase subscription revenue from Australia by increasing cover prices. It recorded a lift in digital subscribers in Australia.

News Corp chief says AI needs intellectual property so it is not ‘empty, ignorant infrastructure’

The News Corp chief executive, Robert Thomson, says he expects to announce further partnerships with technology companies after describing artificial intelligence as “empty, ignorant infrastructure” without the intellectual property that informs it.

The comments, made at News Corp’s quarterly results in the US, come amid a broader tussle between publishers and the tech sector over access to content.

Publishers around the world have been vocal critics of AI models that access news content without paying for it.

There’s also a debate in Australia over whether technology firms should be exempt from copyright rules that stop companies mining text and data to train their models.

Thomson said:

Our wooing has gained increasing traction and we expect to announce further partnerships in the near future, which we expect to have a positive impact on our results.

Information and sophisticated data are the essence of AI and, without these essential ingredients, AI is but empty, ignorant infrastructure.

The media conglomerate reported a 2% lift in its quarterly revenue to $US2.14bn ($3.3bn). The result was helped by strong earnings at News Corp’s majority owned REA Group, the owner of realestate.com.au.

News Corp, a US-headquartered company that is also listed on the ASX, owns mastheads in the US, the UK and Australia.

The Guardian has also sought commercial licensing deals with AI companies. In February, it signed a global licensing deal with OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT.

Illegal tobacco burns $3.3bn hole in Australia’s tax revenue, crime agency says

The illegal tobacco market has left a $3.3bn hole in the federal government’s finances, with Australia’s national criminal intelligence agency warning organised crime’s dominance of the market is continuing to grow.

The Australian Taxation Office believes the illegal trade now accounts for one in five tobacco sales, which has led to reduced tax revenues despite the government’s excise on legal cigarettes reaching almost $30 for a pack of 20 in September. The excise has increased almost eightfold since 2006, when it was $4.65.

The excise increase – designed to reduce rates of smoking – has drawn critics, including the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, who has called on the federal government to undertake a review.

Read more here:

Sixty-four students will compete today in the NSW premier’s Spelling Bee

Nearly 200,000 students from across 1,000 public schools participated in the spelling bee this year, a new record, with the 64 junior and senior finalists from years 2 to 6 travelling to Penrith’s Q theatre this morning.

Half of the finalists are from regional, rural and remote NSW, and more than a third speak a language other than English at home. The premier, Chris Minns, said:

It’s fantastic to see students from every corner of NSW coming together to put their skills to the test in one of our state’s great public school traditions.

This year’s record participation shows how much young people across the state value literacy and education.

My colleague Caitlin Cassidy will bring you updates from the bee later today.

‘I am desperate for us to do better,’ Henderson says

Sarah Henderson is stoking leadership tensions within the Coalition this morning, further criticising the state of play for the opposition under Sussan Ley.

After stopping short of endorsing her leader on Sky, Henderson has told journalists in the Canberra press gallery something has to change.

“All I can say to you, authentically and honestly, is I don’t support the way things are at the moment,” she said.

She conceded the comments were not an endorsement of Ley.

At the end of the day, we need to do better and I’m very hopeful that we can turn this ship around.

I think a lot of my colleagues are very concerned about the way things are going.

Asked if Ley could turn the situation around, Henderson said: “I don’t know.”

I don’t support the way things are, and I am desperate for us to do better.

I think there’s increasing concern in our party as to the way we are going but there’s also a great deal of conviction that, if we get our policy act together, if we start focusing on the Australian people, not on ourselves … the infighting has been terrible.

I think, at the end of the day, Australians are depending on us to be the best opposition we can be to be effective, to fight hard and that’s my determination.

She refused to answer if conservative leadership hopefuls Andrew Hastie or Angus Taylor could do a better job.

Man dies after workplace accident in northern NSW

A man died after a workplace incident in northern NSW overnight.

NSW police said emergency services were called to a construction site on the New England Highway just before midnight on Thursday night. The worker, 45, was reportedly standing behind a parked truck when he was allegedly hit by a materials transfer vehicle that was travelling towards the truck.

The man died at the scene.

Police said the driver of the transfer vehicle was taken to a local hospital for mandatory testing. A crime scene has been established and an investigation is ongoing.