Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories:

• Barnaby Joyce formally resigned from the Nationals, ending his 20-year parliamentary career with the party he twice led as he confirmed he was “strongly considering” running for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as a Senate candidate.

• Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in more than half a century spotlighted its risky use of flammable bamboo scaffolding and mesh for building work in a tradition dating back centuries to mainland China. The death toll from the disaster continues to climb, and we have been following developments in a dedicated live blog here.
• DFAT is not aware of any Australians affected by the Hong Kong fire at this stage.

• The Albanese government secured a historic deal with the Greens to pass major reforms to national environment laws.
• In NSW, the Liberal Party is on the hook for more than $100,000 in legal costs incurred by teal MP Nicolette Boele in defending its challenge to her election in the Sydney seat of Bradfield.
• Tasmania’s credit rating has been downgraded by a second credit agency over concerns about the size of its debt and deficit.
• And, in further world news, US President Donald Trump has declared the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, an act of terror and a crime against America, as a fresh political war over immigration looms following the crime.

Thanks again for joining us, we will be back tomorrow with more live news updates. This is Cassandra Morgan, signing off.

Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

To conclude, here’s a look back at the day’s major stories:

• Barnaby Joyce formally resigned from the Nationals, ending his 20-year parliamentary career with the party he twice led as he confirmed he was “strongly considering” running for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as a Senate candidate.

• Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in more than half a century spotlighted its risky use of flammable bamboo scaffolding and mesh for building work in a tradition dating back centuries to mainland China. The death toll from the disaster continues to climb, and we have been following developments in a dedicated live blog here.
• DFAT is not aware of any Australians affected by the Hong Kong fire at this stage.

• The Albanese government secured a historic deal with the Greens to pass major reforms to national environment laws.
• In NSW, the Liberal Party is on the hook for more than $100,000 in legal costs incurred by teal MP Nicolette Boele in defending its challenge to her election in the Sydney seat of Bradfield.
• Tasmania’s credit rating has been downgraded by a second credit agency over concerns about the size of its debt and deficit.
• And, in further world news, US President Donald Trump has declared the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, an act of terror and a crime against America, as a fresh political war over immigration looms following the crime.

Thanks again for joining us, we will be back tomorrow with more live news updates. This is Cassandra Morgan, signing off.

A 15-year-old challenging the government’s teenage social media ban says young Australians’ rights are “being stripped away” with the change.

Noah Jones, who is one of two teenage plaintiffs fighting the ban in the High Court, told ABC Radio Melbourne the real issue wasn’t with children using social media.

“It’s what’s on social media that’s the problem,” he said.

Jones suggested the money and resources social media platforms used to avoid fines should be diverted to taking action against “predators and inappropriate content” on their platforms.

“We could easily work with the Australian government and these platforms to make it a safer place for under-16s,” Jones told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“Honestly, I feel that we will become invisible with this ban. We won’t be able to share our ideas, we won’t be able to hear any ideas, and we won’t be able to communicate with the world around us.

“As young Australians, our rights are being stripped away from us, as this is how we are prevented from engaging in politics, and we will be banned from information and engagement in the years leading to the legal age to vote.”

The Digital Freedom Project, a campaign group established to oppose the government’s under-16 social media ban, filed the challenge to the nation’s highest court on Wednesday on behalf of the two teenage plaintiffs, who are members of the group.

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Floods and landslides brought about by torrential rain in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province have killed at least 28 people, as rescue efforts are hampered by what an official described as a “total cut-off” of roads and communications.

The floods are one of a series of weather disasters to hit South-East Asia this week. More than 30 people were killed by floods in Thailand and Malaysia. Water levels were high enough to submerge hospitals.

A rare tropical cyclone blew across Indonesia’s Sumatra island, inundating the nearby Malacca Strait and causing floods and landslides.

Another 10 people were still missing, Abdul Muhari, a spokesperson for the country’s disaster mitigation agency, said earlier today.

Up to 8000 people across North Sumatra have been evacuated, and roads remain blocked by landslide debris. Aid and logistics was being distributed via helicopter, Abdul said.

More flooding is expected in several other Sumatran provinces, including Aceh and Riau, over the next two days, the meteorological agency said.

Thailand airlifted patients and flew in critical supplies, including oxygen tanks, into the submerged southern city of Hait Yai yesterday, as the death toll rose to 33 people.

Floods have swept through nine Thai provinces and eight Malaysian states for a second successive year, prompting both countries to evacuate nearly 50,000 people.

Reuters

Turning now to some more Tassie debt problems: Tasmania’s credit rating has been downgraded by a second credit agency over concerns about the size of its debt and deficit.

S&P Global today joined Moody’s in cutting its rating for Tasmania, taking it down to AA stable. It is now level with Victoria.

“The downgrade reflects Tasmania’s weak financial outcomes,” S&P Global said in a statement.

It follows the Rockliff government’s interim budget, which revealed an expected deficit of $1 billion this year, with state debt climbing to $10.4 billion by the end of the decade.

S&P expects deficits to continue until 2027-28, and noted that the deterioration in the state’s budget was due to “robust growth” in spending.

The state’s “tax-supported debt” is expected to climb to 130 per cent of operating revenue by 2028-29. It was 60 per cent in 2023-24.

The agency warned it could cut Tasmania’s rating even further if operating budget deficits persisted or if debt climbed “materially higher”.

Improving the rating would require “sustained operating surpluses”, it said.

Independent MP Allegra Spender has asked a particularly meta question during question time, on the topic of … question time.

“Many constituents complain to me that question time is question time and not answer time, and that’s driven by the standing orders that don’t actually force real answers from the government,” Spender said.

“They say to me that it means that we don’t hold the government to account in the same way that they expect us to in this House. I ask the prime minister, have you considered reforming question time to give a greater expectation of answers, and in narrowing of relevance, so we can get better answers in this house?”

Anthony Albanese said Australia had the “most accountable parliament in the world”, and compared it with countries like Indonesia, India and the UK.

“There’s no parliament in the world in which a government is more accountable than this government, and Australian governments of both persuasions. That is just a fact,” Albanese said.

The prime minister did not say if he was considering reforming question time.

The Greens will lead a Senate inquiry into the Albanese government’s deportation and detention arrangements in an attempt to further scrutinise Labor’s $2.5 billion deal with Nauru.

Greens senator David Shoebridge this week read into Hansard a report from financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC, which identified that Nauru President David Adeang was suspected of money laundering and corruption in 2022.

This masthead and 60 Minutes have also revealed that members of the Finks bikie gang won a taxpayer-funded contract to provide security on Nauru to the deported cohort, while a transcript of a suppressed interview this week showed Adeang is hoping to send deportees back to their home country.

“We have seen scandalous evidence of Labor’s rotten Nauru deal this week. From bikie gangs to crooked politicians and contractors, this whole project of disappearing people offshore is offensive to basic decency,” Shoebridge said.

“It is about time the Australian public knows what our tax dollars are buying and who is raking them in.”

Labor’s secretive 30-year deal with Nauru allows Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to deport hundreds of former immigration detainees released into the community after a High Court ruling in 2023.

As reported in our last post, Burke defended the arrangement when pushed on its lack of transparency by MP Monique Ryan in question time earlier, saying people were being sent to Nauru because their visas had been cancelled for committing crimes.

“As a nation, it is right and proper that any country is able to have control of its visa system,” Burke said.

“I am grateful that the government of Nauru has given us a pathway for the third country resettlement arrangements which were put through this parliament.”

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Independent MP Monique Ryan has asked Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke about the government’s dealings with Nauru, on the last parliamentary sitting day of the year.

Here’s Ryan’s question:

In the last three months, the government has signed a secret MOU to pay Nauru at least $2.5 billion to house an undisclosed number of asylum seekers.

Allegations of corruption have been made against multiple members of the Nauru government, and it’s been reported that Australian bikie gangs have won contracts to manage security on Nauru.

Minister, is it your position that the opacity, wastefulness and cruelty of these arrangements reflects well on this country?”

Burke responded by saying:

When I first came into that portfolio, the boats were at the highest rate they had ever been and there was a real human cost in that. I had 33 people die on my watch, drown at sea.

The youngest of them was a baby. His name was Abdul. Today, he should be 12. He should be 12 today. But he’s not. And to make sure that we have a pathway to stop that trade in misery is an important and decent thing for Australia to do.”

The minister said Ryan had ignored people “who have committed serious crimes in Australia” in her question.

“As a nation, it is right and proper that any country is able to have control of its visa system. And almost everybody, almost everybody who is in Australia on a visa, is a good guest in this country, respects this country and is welcome here,” Burke said.