That’s a wrap. Thanks for following the AFR’s live coverage this Friday, May 16, 2025. We will have more for you in the next live news coverage.
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Here are some of the stories we covered today:

• Bradfield will have a recount, Sky News projects: Sky News is projecting that the Northern Sydney seat of Bradfield will go to a recount, as 42 seats separate the candidates.

• New Greens leader sticks to $2m super tax threshold demands: Freshly minted Greens leader Larissa Waters will stick to the party’s demands for the Albanese government to lower its threshold from $3 million to $2 million for proposed superannuation tax reforms.

• Pesutto ordered to pay Deeming $2.4m: Former Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto has been ordered to pay $2.4 million of his colleague Moira Deeming’s legal fees, potentially pushing him into bankruptcy and forcing a byelection in his inner-Melbourne electorate of Hawthorn.

• Roberts-Smith fails to overturn defamation loss: Disgraced soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has failed in his appeal to overturn an emphatic defamation loss against Nine newspapers.

• Gilmour Space scrubs rocket launch attempt: Gilmour Space’s campaign to launch its rocket into space this week has ended after an electrical fault caused the rocket’s nose cone to open.

• Musk takes on eSafety tsar in court over content duty: Social media platform X is back in court sparring with the eSafety Commissioner over keeping Australians safe online.

• Millionaires using super for tax avoidance: Cbus chairman and Labor Party president Wayne Swan says millionaires are using self-managed funds as tax avoidance vehicles, so Treasurer Jim Chalmers is right to tighten the tax breaks.