Australia news as it happened: Greens elect new leader, recount in Bradfield, Goldstein, on the cards

Thanks for following our live news blog. That wraps up our coverage for today. We will have more for you in the next live news coverage.

Here’s a quick recap of the key stories:

• The Greens elected Queensland senator Larissa Waters as leader, with NSW senator Mehreen Faruqi as deputy.
• PM Anthony Albanese and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto issued a joint statement after their bilateral meeting in Jakarta.
• Independent senator Lidia Thorpe said she has no intention of returning to the Greens, following her 2023 departure over disagreements with the party on the Voice to Parliament.
• Deputy PM Richard Marles backed the new ministry but dodged questions about his role in the factional reshuffle that ousted Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus.
• In the Victorian seat of Goldstein, Liberal Tim Wilson’s lead has narrowed to 292 votes, with teal independent Zoe Daniel still in the race with 736 votes left to count.
• In the Sydney electorate of Bradfield, Liberal Gisele Kapterian leads teal challenger Nicolette Boele by just 43 votes, with 303 ballots left to count.
• Jailed Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun wrote to PM Anthony Albanese from his Beijing cell, describing this as “the hardest and darkest chapter” of his life. Albanese praised the letter as a display of “profound courage and resilience”.
• Zoe McKenzie has won the seat of Flinders for the Liberals after a tight race with independent candidate Ben Smith.
• Unemployment held steady at 4.1 per cent in April, with 89,000 jobs added – far exceeding forecasts.

Thanks again for joining us. Good night!

Tim Wilson is claiming that informal votes are being counted for Zoe Daniel as the Liberal candidate’s lead over the incumbent teal narrows further to 292 votes.

Screenshots from Wilson’s WhatsApp group chat – named “Goldstein Blue Tsunami” and leaked to this masthead – show alarm over the fast-closing margin, with Friday the final day for postal votes to arrive and be counted.

Wilson messaged the group calling for more Liberal scrutineers to “knock out informal votes that are being counted for the teals” – something Wilson says he is “extremely good” at but legally prohibited from doing as a candidate in this election. He also warns supporters to prepare for a recount.

At 4.30pm Thursday, Wilson led by 292 votes with 736 votes waiting to be counted. More votes will be added if they arrive by post by Friday.

An automatic recount is triggered if the margin is as low as 100 votes, but either candidate can request a recount.

This masthead has also obtained Daniel’s scrutineering guide, which Wilson said is a “leaked how-to guide” on knocking out votes intended for him.

The guide for scrutineers states: “We only challenge Tim Wilson’s vote.” It also notes that Wilson’s volunteers will challenge Daniel’s votes, so there is no need for her scrutineers to do that.

Liberal candidate for Bradfield Gisele Kapterian (left) and teal candidate Nicolette Boele.Credit: Thomas Wielecki

Goldstein is not the only seat where the battle between teal and Liberals remains.

In the Sydney electorate of Bradfield, Liberal contender Gisele Kapterian clings to a 43-vote lead over her teal rival, Nicolette Boele, with about 303 votes still to be counted as of 5.30pm Thursday.

On current trends a recount seems likely in Bradfield and possible in Goldstein.

There is a fundamental contradiction in the Trump administration’s energy policy. It wants a boom in US oil production, but it also wants lower prices. There’s conflict between those ambitions, writes Stephen Bartholomeusz.

That tension between the desire to pump more oil and also have lower prices shows up in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) latest monthly assessment of the outlook for the oil market, issued on Wednesday.

Donald Trump’s energy policy is a key plank of his economic strategy.Credit: AP

It is projecting an increase of 800,000 barrels a day in non-OPEC+ supply for both this year and next, reducing its forecasts of a month ago by 100,000 barrels a day for each year. US production is expected to rise by 130,000 barrels a day this year – about 100,000 barrels less than OPEC was forecasting last month – but by only 44,000 barrels a day in 2026.

Non-OPEC+ investment on exploration and production is expected to fall by 5 per cent this year and 2 per cent next year, with US investment declining 9 per cent this year and another 7 per cent in 2026.

Those projections suggest that the boom the Trump administration envisages in oil production – “drill, baby, drill” – isn’t going to eventuate. The increase in output this year may be the tail end of the boom that actually occurred under the Biden administration, when drilling and production in the US reached record levels.

Read more of Stephen Bartholomeusz’s opinion piece here.

Financial crimes watchdog AUSTRAC has ordered the Australian financing arm of Mercedes-Benz to appoint an external auditor over concerns about the business’s compliance with money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.

AUSTRAC made the announcement on Thursday, raising various concerns about the compliance of Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia, as it also warned of risks in the wider, non-bank lending industry.

AUSTRAC has ordered the Australian financing arm of Mercedes-Benz to appoint an external auditor.Credit: Bloomberg

The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) imposes strict rules on a range of businesses, with the aim of detecting and curbing financial crime.

The regulator said its concerns about the financier’s compliance included that it lacked systems to identify suspicious matters, that it assumed most customers were “low-risk”, and that it had inadequate transaction monitoring.

The move to require an external audit follows a campaign from AUSTRAC to improve compliance among non-bank lenders, including non-bank mortgage providers and businesses that provide motor vehicle leasing and financing.

“This industry is vulnerable to money launderers and organised criminals. We need to get better at shutting down avenues for criminals to profit from crime,” AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas said.

“The outcomes of this audit will help Mercedes-Benz better meet their compliance obligations and will inform us if any further regulatory action is required.”

A Mercedes-Benz spokesperson said: “Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia takes compliance very seriously. We will continue to work with AUSTRAC and comply with our AML/CTF obligations.”

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has shut down any rumours of her making a return to the Greens after she quit the party in 2023 over disagreements on the Voice to parliament.

“Even if my daughter became the leader of the Greens, I would not join the Greens. Absolutely not,” she told the ABC.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe during a rally at the front of Parliament House in Canberra last year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I left the Greens for very, very, good reasons and I have no intention on returning. Good luck to them in all honesty.

“I love being an independent. I get to decide what is best based on the Blak Sovereign Movement guiding me, and sometimes that doesn’t sit well with the Greens.”

The glass-cliff phenomenon has been brought up again. This time it’s Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie who is asked whether Sussan Ley has been set up to fail after being elected as the Liberal Party’s first female leader following the party’s heavy election defeat.

“The Liberal Party has been around for 81 years, and we have never had a female leader. I am very proud to be part of that party room now that is led by a woman,” she said.

“Sussan has all the accomplishments needed. She’s not there because of quotas or anything else. She’s there because of … talent.”

McKenzie is asked about the challenge her party faces now to attract and retain women.

“Look, I think all options need to be on the table. I’ve always been nervous about quotas only because I couldn’t bear to be somebody about whom it was said, ‘she only got there because of a quota’,” she said.

“That’s the terrible potential consequence of implementing them in a cack-handed way, so we must look at how we bring more women into the party.”

Re-elected Flinders MP Zoe McKenzie has appeared on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing after securing the seat for the Liberals in Melbourne’s south-east.

McKenzie says she “absolutely” believes Sussan Ley and Ted O’Brien will guide the party to a strong position before the next election.

Liberal MP for Flinders Zoe McKenzie has held the seat, seeing off a challenge from independent candidate Ben Smith.

“Australian politics is changing and has changed forever. It’s not a Labor-versus-Liberal competition any more,” she said.

“It is absolutely about re-engaging the Australian population, with the democracy, with how it works, with what we both can offer as parties of government – because one way or the other, one party, or one side, will form government.”

Sarah Hanson-Young, who remains Greens manager of business, had been touted as a possible leadership contender.

She said she decided not to run because she believed the team that has been elected was the best offering.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young arrived in Melbourne earlier today before the party’s leadership election.Credit: Penny Stephens

“We have just been through what has been an extraordinary election campaign, an extraordinary election campaign. We had strong results in the Senate, and we sadly lost not just colleagues, but our leader in the house.

“This team provides stability. This team provides the skills and the grunt that we are going to need.”

Hanson-Young said newly elected leader Larissa Waters asked her to take the role of Greens manager of business.

Asked why a proposal for co-deputies was not pursued, Waters said: “We have a wealth of talent, and we’ve had co-deputy leaders before. I was a co-deputy leader under Richard [Di Natale] and Adam [Bandt]. But people didn’t choose to nominate that way today.”

The deputy position was ultimately a contest between senators Mehreen Faruqi and Dorinda Cox. Faruqi was the successful nominee.

Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi with former leader Adam Bandt last year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Waters also disputed suggestions that independent Lidia Thorpe, who quit the party in 2023, was seeking a comeback.

“I’m not sure she wants that, my friend,” Waters said.

“I think the media’s got a bit excited about that issue and I think it’s actually completely concocted, with great respect.”

New Greens leader Larissa Waters said her party intended to work constructively with the re-elected Albanese government but rejected that she was making a veiled criticism of former leader Adam Bandt.

Speaking moments after a party room meeting in Melbourne, the Queensland senator said her team was elected to “get shit done, and that’s what we intend to do”.

Newly elected Greens leader Larissa Waters.Credit: Penny Stephens

“It’s definitely not a reflection of anything that’s come before. It’s, I think, a reflection of what people want from their parliamentarians. They’re sick of the arguments, they’re sick of the navel-gazing,” Waters said.

She said she had nothing but positive things to say about Bandt, but acknowledged her leadership came with a new approach.

“I’m a different person to Adam, I’ll take a different approach.

“I lead a really strong team, and we are committed to delivering ... We will be firm but constructive under this government and any future government.”

We are on increasingly short odds for a recount in the NSW seat of Bradfield with only a cigarette paper’s worth of votes between the Liberal Party’s Gisele Kapterian and independent Nicolette Boele.

After starting the day about 80 votes behind, Boele has made ground through the declaration pre-poll and postal counts to be just 43 short at 3pm.

Gisele Kapterian and Nicolette Boele.

There are 314 votes to be counted (plus any other postal votes that come in tomorrow).

To get in front, Boele needs to secure about 57 per cent of the remaining votes.

In the event of the result being within 100 votes, there will be an automatic recount of all votes. The last recount occurred in 2016 when Labor’s Cath O’Toole won the seat of Herbert by just 37 votes.

That seems like luxury compared with the closest ever election, in the seat of Ballarat all the way back in 1919. On that occasion, Nationalist Edwin Kerby won by a single vote over sitting member, Labor’s Charles McGrath.

That result was challenged in the Court of Disputed Returns where a young justice, Isaac Isaacs (who would go on to be the nation’s first Australia-born governor-general), criticised the handling of the election by officials.

He ordered a new election which McGrath comfortably won.