Australia news live: Taylor ‘definitely wasn’t opposed’ to rightwing Liberal faction’s activities, Icac hears; Neil the seal’s Tasmanian antics cost $36,000

Key events

Public reports to Victorian bird flu hotline go from 10 a week to more than 100 a day

Continuing the update on Victoria’s first H5N1 detection, the state’s chief veterinary officer, Dr Graeme Cooke, said bird flu reports from members of the public had gone from about 10 a week to “well over 100 some days”, with about 10% being tested.

He said there was now “clear evidence of transmission” in South Australia, with the disease moving from one bird to another.

Victoria’s chief biodiversity officer, James Todd, said:

We know from elsewhere in the world that if the virus were to be established in Victoria, then – particularly in wildlife – there’d be little we could do to actually minimise the spread or the impact on wildlife. If it were to establish, our focus would be on surveillance, ensuring public safety, ensuring communications with the public, but also looking to protect at-risk species where that’s possible.

“Establishment” means the disease has taken hold. But Cooke said that threshold required more evidence of the disease spreading between multiple types of birds and native species, and evidence of the disease mixing and changing within native populations.

On Wednesday, a national group of federal, state and territory officials enacted a national agreement for responding to H5 bird flu incursions, based on advice that: “H5 bird flu in wildlife is not technically feasible to eradicate following recent detections and evidence of local transmission of H5 bird flu in a small number of wild seabirds”.

Members of the public are urged to avoid contact with any dead or sick birds or animals showing signs of bird flu. Report sightings to the emergency animal disease hotline 1800 675 888 or birdflu.gov.au.

Labor unimpressed with Hanson’s terror plan

The federal government has dismissed Pauline Hanson’s plans to introduce new laws to block the return of Australian citizens with links to terror groups including Islamic State.

After the One Nation leader’s appeal to work with the Coalition on the plans to block people found to have worked with or assisted terror groups was rebuffed, Hanson told media outlets on Thursday she would seek to introduce her own legislation that would make it easier to cancel passports and block returns.

But the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, is less than impressed.

He said Labor was using laws introduced by the former Coalition government, describing them as going “right to the limit of what you could do constitutionally”.

“Every Australian, me included, doesn’t want these individuals back,” Burke said in Queensland.

You know, when people have made a decision to join something as horrific as that, you don’t want them back.

The reality is every country in the world has to take back its own citizens. And I would just say people should be very wary of letting go of the principle that countries have to take their citizens back.

Burke said it was in Australia’s national interest that countries took back their own citizens, even if they’re accused of terror offences overseas.

Anyone who wants to depart from that principle needs to explain why they think it would be OK for the 750 people every year who I make leave, for them to have to stay here because I don’t think Australians would cop it.

Icac witness says ‘we didn’t think the law applied to us’ over political donations

Returning to the NSW Icac’s Operation Rosny, Reformers member Jeremy Assaf has been asked about how the group funded its efforts.

Icac is investigating the first allegation that Liberal figures including Assaf “solicited or accepted” donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts which were undeclared or exceeded caps, to recruit or renew members to the party, and whether this alleged conduct involved possible offences under NSW’s Electoral Funding Act.

Counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer SC, has asked about Assaf’s awareness of electoral funding laws. He says he “wouldn’t know” that the Liberal party’s constitution sets out rules for political donations and fundraising because he did not read it in full after joining the party.

Asked if he was aware about legislation governing political parties, he says “broadly, I knew, I knew laws like that existed”, including prohibitions in NSW on property developers making donations and donation caps, but says he was “not really aware” of who was a prohibited donor at a federal level. The following exchange takes place:

Dwyer: “You accept that in your work in the Reformers … you were building a movement that would introduce members to the Liberal party of NSW?”

Assaf: “I accept that, yes.”

Dwyer: “And it was incumbent on you, wasn’t it, to understand the laws that governed fundraising … for political parties?”

Assaf: “No, because we didn’t see ourselves as a political party.”

Dwyer: “You accept, don’t you, that ignorance of the law is no excuse?”

Assaf: “We just didn’t think the law applied to us. Because it was an electoral law, we’re not campaigning in elections in that sense. We’re internal Liberal party machinations. My understanding the whole way through was, until very recently, was it’s internal. It doesn’t count as anything to do with electoral laws or any other law.”

Victoria ramps up surveillance of wildlife areas after state’s first bird flu detection

Providing an update on Victoria’s first H5N1 detection, the state’s chief biodiversity officer, James Todd, said a greater crested tern was found sick in Portland, in the south-west of the state, and later died.

The bird was reported by a member of the public, with samples returning preliminary positive results for H5 bird flu at the state’s laboratory as well as the CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong.

In response, the state was ramping up ground and aerial surveillance in the Portland area, but also further to the west, to the South Australian border. Todd said:

There are a number of important wildlife areas in that vicinity – seal colonies, the Australasian Gannet colony at Point Danger, but further to the west as well around Discovery Bay and the Glenelg estuary are important Ramsar sites which hold a heap of values in terms of migratory birds and the like.

We’re asking the Victorian public to continue to keep their eyes open, particularly around coastal areas looking for shorebirds, seabirds, marine mammals that might be at risk.

H5N1 posed a risk to over 600 native species in Victoria, he said, particularly four species – the helmeted honeyeater, orange-bellied parrot, plains wanderer and regent honeyeater.

AstraZeneca will continue to supply Zoladex, critical breast cancer and endometriosis drug, for free after removal from PBS

The drugmaker AstraZeneca will continue to provide women with breast cancer and endometriosis free access to the vital medicine Zoladex, which the company said last month would be removed from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The company said it “understands that maintaining continuity of care is essential” and that it would provide Zoladex monthly implants at “no cost” from 1 November 2026, when it comes off the PBS. Standard pharmacy dispensing fees may still apply.

AstraZeneca added in a statement:

Health care professionals have been notified of the change in process for prescribing the Zoladex monthly (3.6mg) implant for patients without suitable treatment pathways. This includes patients who are currently prescribed and patients who may need to be prescribed the implant as a treatment option after 1 November 2026.

The decision to discontinue the Zoladex monthly (3.6mg) implant from Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme reflects the way the PBS currently works, which means that the price offered is too low, making it unsustainable to supply the medicine on the PBS.

Neil the seal’s bollard-breaking bill is in

Neil the seal has captured hearts and global attention for his visits to Tasmania, and racked up a bill of more than $36,000 for his most-recent stay, AAP reports.

The five-year-old elephant seal hauls out twice each year to rest and moult in the island state’s south-east, where he was born. His antics, including crushing bollards, fences and lounging on quiet beachside streets, have drawn millions of views on social media.

His 15-day stay at Seven Mile beach cost the local Clarence city council a total of $31,540.53 – the majority relating to staffing and labour. There is also a repair bill for one flattened street sign, 10 knocked-over bollards and one crushed fence, costing council $1,297.70 in materials.

Council mayor Brendan Blomeley said the overall bill was relatively small:

Neil is a wild animal and the over-exposure and constant public attention he received could have led to a more dramatic outcome.

Wherever he decides to come ashore next, I hope he is given the space and time he needs.

Angus Taylor ‘definitely wasn’t opposed’ to Reformers activities, inquiry hears

Asked about federal members, Assaf told the commission Tony Abbott was supportive of the Reformers’ work and spoke at multiple Reformers events, and names former federal Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, but then pauses:

I’m just trying to remember. There’s one, at least one, I’m pretty sure one more. Angus was around it, but I don’t think he was really that involved.

Asked by counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer SC, if this means federal opposition leader, Angus Taylor, Assaf says yes. The inquiry hears the following exchange:

Dwyer: “OK, and [Taylor was] somebody who was aware of the work that the Reformers was being, were doing?”

Assaf: “I’m not sure how aware. He would have been told at some point that we were doing things.”

Dwyer: “OK, well, you understood him to be supportive of the work the Reformers were doing?”

Assaf: “He definitely wasn’t opposed.”

Dwyer: “All right. Well, I might take you to some messages later and ask you about some more questions about other people supporting the Reformers that might prompt your memory.”

Assaf says former vice-president of the federal Liberal party Tina McQueen was supportive of the Reformers work.

On Monday, Dwyer told the commission that branch stacking was not of itself corrupt conduct. None of the Liberals members named here are accused of any wrongdoing.

Dominic Perrottet ‘pretty absent’ but supportive of Reformers, inquiry hears

Returning to Icac’s Operation Rosny, Reformers witness Robert Assaf has been asked which current and former federal and state Liberal MPs were aware of the efforts to shift the party towards the conservative right.

Assaf claimed current NSW Liberal state members Damien Tudehope, Anthony Roberts and Tanya Davies were supportive. He told the commission former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet, whose brothers Jean-Claude and Charles Perrottet are named in allegations, was “pretty absent in the whole thing, but supportive from what I understood”.

The commission hears Dominic Perrottet spoke at at least one Reformers event. On Monday, the commission heard that branch stacking was not of itself corrupt conduct. None of the Liberals members named here is accused of any wrongdoing.

Things can move quickly, but financial markets see minimal chance of rate hike next month

While Sarah Hunter was cautious not to get carried away, financial markets have now completely erased any chance of a fourth rate hike at the RBA board’s next meeting on 10-11 August, according to ANZ.

Nobody should rule out another move in this cycle, however: market pricing also suggests a 50% chance of a rate rise by the end of the year.

And things can move quickly, particularly during a time of widening conflict in the Middle East, as Hunter pointed out.

The international Brent crude oil benchmark pushed back above US$90 a barrel this morning before most recently trading a little below that mark.

RBA’s chief economist says inflation ‘a touch softer’ than expected

Sarah Hunter, the Reserve Bank’s chief economist, is not getting carried away with yesterday’s softer than expected consumer price figures, saying weaker fuel prices through the June quarter explained the “small undershoot” in underlying inflationary pressures through the quarter.

Speaking at an investment bank event this morning in Sydney, Hunter said that putting lower than anticipated pump prices aside, there were no big surprises in the data. She said:

It was certainly a touch softer than we thought, though some of those domestic components in there were actually pretty much what we expected to see.

I mean, that’s the right direction given where we are. We want inflation to come down. So that’s good.

Headline inflation dropped to 3.8% in the year to June, from 4% – that’s still miles above the central bank’s 2.5% official target.

NAB home loan applications fall 15%

Home loan applications at Australia Bank have dropped sharply amid subdued demand across the property sector, according to a business update published this morning.

NAB data shows that Australian home lending applications fell 15% over the June quarter during a period marked by rising mortgage repayments and less favourable tax settings for investors.

The drop in applications is in keeping with data released from the wider financial sector that suggests investor demand has slumped, while prospective owner-occupiers remain cautious.

The Reserve Bank has lifted rates three times this year. Changes to negative gearing and the treatment of capital gains announced in the May budget have also made properties less attractive to new investors.

Optus, communications minister respond to Acma court case

Optus has acknowledged the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) court case launched today over last year’s triple-zero outage we reported earlier.

The company said it is inappropriate to comment on the legal proceedings but said:

Our focus remains on building a stronger and better Optus. We continue to invest in network resilience, strengthen our systems and processes, build and foster a culture of transparency and accountability, and improve the services our customers and communities rely on every day.

Separately, the communications minister, Anika Wells, said she welcomed the regulator’s decision.

These are serious alleged failures by Optus.

Australians rightly expect to reach triple zero when they need it most, and telcos are legally obligated to ensure that connection occurs.