Tony Burke to reveal Labor migration policy tomorrow
Guardian Australia understands Labor is set to release its migration policy tomorrow after it was stalled for weeks.
You might remember last month Tony Burke pulled out of a National Press Club address where he was due to unveil the plan at the 11th hour.
We know there were talks between Labor and the Coalition on migration in the background, but they also seemed to have stalled.
But we now know that it will drop tomorrow, just before the PM jets off to the US.
Key events
Andrew Messenger
Qld government to create 24/7 hotline for victims of crime
Queensland’s LNP government will create a 24/7 hotline for victims of crime – and reform its own domestic violence prevention process as “a top priority”.
Minister for victims Laura Gerber said she will table legislation today to create a “victim advocate service”.
Queensland already has an victims’ commissioner, to advocate on their behalf. The new organisation will be a “one stop shop”, with the ability the ability to record the a person’s individual details and then share them across departments rather than sharing the details of a crime multiple times, she said.
It’s the second bill of the week Gerber, who tabled legislation yesterday that would increase the bar for a convicted criminal to get bail, and expand the state’s ‘restricted prisoner’ laws to cover all prisoners sentenced to life behind bars. Restricted prisoners can be banned from applying for parole.
Meanwhile, police minister Dan Purdie announced that the state is working to fix its own police protection notice system, created last year.
It’s a top priority at the moment. It’s top priority for the police union. It’s a top priority frontline police, and I’ve visited well over 100 police stations now, and it’s priority for victims. So it’s something that we are working on at the moment.
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Immigration debate is ‘overcooked’ and could damage Australia in long term, Bill Shorten
The former Labor leader and the University of Canberra vice-chancellor Bill Shorten says the immigration debate has been “overcooked” and that it’s an issue that people aren’t thinking about front and centre in their daily lives.
Speaking to News24, Shorten says Australia is also at risk of damaging foreign relations if the government cuts international student numbers too deeply
I think that just to translate the noise in Canberra to the world that I see with universities, or indeed the broader communities in which I move, I think some of this debate about immigration is overcooked.
While we chase the issue, while people are chasing the issue, the reality is it’s not the most important thing for people in their daily lives. And the problem is, as we chase the issue, even though it’s not crucial to a lot of Aussies at the end of the day, we could potentially be damaging Australia for the long term.
Shorten says his university doesn’t have as many international students as other institutions, so isn’t as exposed to cuts, but points out that they are a key source of revenue for universities underfunded by the government.
If we cut too tough, we’re going to damage Australia’s foreign relations, we’re going to damage the fact that every international student generates about $70,000 in surplus revenue for Australia.
All the universities, because universities are underfunded, use international students to cross-subsidise local research and local students. So I think this issue has got a more disproportionate importance in the political class’s head than it does out with the punters.
Most senior Brethren Church members called to face election inquiry
The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church will be hauled back in front of a parliamentary inquiry examining Australian elections.
The joint standing committee on electoral matters has issued a summons for Bruce Hales and Gareth Hales, the most senior leaders in the church, to appear at a hearing.
Members of the church volunteered to support Liberal candidates, including at polling booths across the country during the 2025 election. A representative of the group denied this was a coordinated effort during the election at a previous inquiry hearing last month.
The chair of the committee, Jerome Laxale, told the media:
It’s time that the Liberal party show up to the hearing and fess up about this group that they themselves describe as a ‘support group’. Defending democracy should be above politics, and the Liberal party need to play their part.
Greens say big tech’s ‘audacity is gobsmacking’, urging Labor to ‘stand up’ to AI companies
The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says big tech is trying to “blackmail” the government into handing over the intellectual property of creatives, after reports that Labor is considering a model that would require artists to “opt-out” of their work being scraped by AI.
Hanson-Young says the government should “stand up” against AI companies that want to mine Australian culture for profit and “leave artists, creators and small businesses with nothing”.
The government has said it will not water down copyright protections for creatives.
Hanson-Young says:
It is the role of the government to protect the interests of Australian workers and businesses. Undermining the principles of copyright will only serve the interests of big tech companies …
While tech bros are warning that they cannot be trusted to not end humanity, they are also asking our government to give them free access to all of our content. Their audacity is gobsmacking.
One in five Melbourne units sold in June quarter made a loss
Patrick Commins
One in five Melbourne apartments, and more than one in 10 Sydney units sold in the June quarter made a loss, according to Cotality’s latest “pain and gain” report.
Gerard Burg, Cotality’s head of research, said house prices in the capital cities had grown much more quickly than unit prices over the past decade.
The national median house price in June was 37% more expensive than the median unit price – five years ago houses were only 21% pricier.
“Unit losses are also highly concentrated,” Burg said.
Most apartment owners are still selling for a profit, but the risk of a loss is considerably higher in parts of Sydney and Melbourne where value growth has been weaker. In the Melbourne and Parramatta LGAs [local government areas], unit values are still below peaks recorded back in mid-2017.
Across the country and types of properties, Cotality’s analysis showed 95.4% of property sales in the June quarter were profitable. The typical gain was $371,000, and the median loss was $45,000.
The share of profitable sales was down from a 21-year peak of 96.1% in March, but still “exceptionally high”, Burg said.
Most sellers are still benefiting from the significant value growth accumulated over the past five years, which is providing considerable protection against the early stages of the downturn.
‘Serious questions’ for ministers to answer over invite-only grants program, McKenzie says
Bridget McKenzie says the prime minister and his cabinet have serious questions to answer, following an ABC report of an invite-only grant given to a project in health minister Mark Butler’s electorate.
The former infrastructure and sport minister had to resign from her role following the sports rorts saga and says the government needs to answer questions about how the grants were approved and whether there were any conflicts of interest.
The key difference between McKenzie’s sports rorts and the current situation was that McKenzie was the minister in charge of administering her grants and was a member of a club that received one of the grants.
She tells News24:
I think there are serious questions, not just for the prime minister, but for other ministers involved in this grants program, how did their projects get approved?
I made my decisions, and then there was criticism of those decisions. But ultimately, I resigned from my ministerial portfolio as a result of a breach of the ministerial code over a perceived conflict of interest, with one of the successful clubs, I was gifted a membership I didn’t know about.
[Albanese] declared that he was a member of the Sydney Royal Golf Club, but not Marrickville, when it’s clear he has had a longstanding relationship with the club. So that’s why we’ve been pursuing this in question time. We’ve also been successful in getting a Senate inquiry up into this, to really unpack who knew what when.
Tom McIlroy
Burke to appear at the National Press Club to announce migration policy
Tony Burke, is finally headed to the National Press Club tomorrow – a month after his eleventh hour cancellation.
Just in the past few minutes, we have confirmation that he will address the club in Canberra on Thursday.
The speech is titled: “The work of managing the migration program: Who arrives, who stays, who leaves”.
Labor’s efforts to regain the initiative on immigration comes as One Nation surges in the polls and as community sentiment on the number of overseas arrivals remains a key issue motivating voters.
Labor is expected to make it harder for some migrants to stay in the country, limiting visa hopping and ending some appeal rights for people looking to extend their time in the country.
Burke’s speech will be closely watched by all sides, especially after prime minister Anthony Albanese tried to secure Coalition support for legislative changes in talks with the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, last week.
Tony Burke to reveal Labor migration policy tomorrow
Guardian Australia understands Labor is set to release its migration policy tomorrow after it was stalled for weeks.
You might remember last month Tony Burke pulled out of a National Press Club address where he was due to unveil the plan at the 11th hour.
We know there were talks between Labor and the Coalition on migration in the background, but they also seemed to have stalled.
But we now know that it will drop tomorrow, just before the PM jets off to the US.
NDIA says job cuts necessary, as it offers voluntary redundancies
Henry Belot
A quick update on a story we brought you yesterday: voluntary redundancies at the National Disability Insurance Agency for the first time in its existence.
In a statement, the NDIA says these job cuts are necessary to meet the federal government’s budget requirements.
The budget papers show the agency’s average staffing level will need to drop from the 10,509 positions recorded in the 2025-26 financial year, to 9,840 by July 2027.
An NDIA spokesperson said the agency had “significantly strengthened its frontline workforce to reduce wait times” and improve quality in recent years.
Like all government agencies, the NDIA is required to operate within Government-approved average staffing levels.
These workforce measures are designed to help us meet these requirements while maintaining frontline services and having the right people, skills and capability in place to deliver the next phase of NDIS reforms.
Hanson has shown ‘greater depth of character’ than PM, Joyce says
Barnaby Joyce has backed his leader, Pauline Hanson, saying she gets “10 out of 10” for yesterday issuing a lukewarm, qualified apology over her comments about Indigenous Australians and to Anthony Albanese.
Speaking to News24, Joyce says Hanson didn’t need to be told by him to apologise, and that she’s shown great depth of character.
A reminder here: yesterday Hanson said she’s sorry “if I offended people”.
For some reason Joyce brings up melon-gate and says the prime minister still hasn’t apologised for that, nor when he fell off a stage during the election campaign and tried to claim he hadn’t “fallen”.
I’m still waiting for the apology from the prime minister of Australia, to the prime minister of Japan, about the melon issue, and we haven’t had that. So I think what Pauline has shown is a greater depth of character than the prime minister on this issue.
When it was replayed for her, she very quickly said, ‘well, no, that is not the message I want out, nor is it the view I hold’. And we understand completely that some people would be offended by, Aboriginal people would be offended by that.
And it must be corrected and she gets 10 out of 10 for character for doing it straight away.
Antic goes rogue – again – and debates his bill to repeal ‘no jab, no pay’ laws
Liberal senator Alex Antic, who has been openly trying to move his party to the right, is debating his private member’s bill to scrap immunisation requirements for families receiving government assistance.
The bill is destined for the bin, because no one in the government nor his party wants to touch it with a 10 foot pole, but best believe it’ll end up on his social media. Antic is also running to be president of the South Australian Liberals.
The bill was introduced in late 2025. Antic is backed by fringe independent Ralph Babet who has brought the bill up for debate today. Babet says independents are only allowed to bring up one private member’s bill for debate each year and he’s chosen this one. He gave some of his time to Antic – who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to debate it.
Antic has long held anti-vaccine views, and was a loud critic of the Covid vaccine rollout.
Nick Visser
Stewart unsure when she’ll get back in the ocean after shark bite
Stewart said she is still adjusting to life with just one hand, saying her partner helps her with her hair most days.
I still don’t trust him, but I don’t have any other choice. At the beginning, I couldn’t brush my own teeth. And so my mum or [partner] Fernando brushed my teeth every day for me.
Stewart said she hopes to return to teaching, but is still deep in her recovery process. She’s planning to visit the school she worked at soon, where she will likely answer questions from students. She told 2GB:
I’d love to sort of give them some encouragement that you can get through hard things because for me, this felt impossible.
Fordham asked if Stewart planned to get back in the water. She said her leg is still healing after the shark took a large bite out of her body, saying the wound is still open and she recently had a skin graft.
Once my leg’s better, I’m locking in. I’m going to get stronger. I’m going to get better. I’m maybe not going in the ocean, but I would love to get back to swimming in a pool. …
I don’t know. If the drones are up and there’s a shark net. Yeah, potentially.
