As it happened: PM announces NRL deal with PNG; Australia supports UN vote for Gaza ceasefire

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:

• Anthony Albanese and PNG Prime Minister James Marape announced at a joint press conference in Sydney today that a Port Moresby-based rugby league team will enter the NRL from 2028, costing Australian taxpayers $600 million over 10 years.
• Australia has backed an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza while rebuking Israel’s attempt to block a key aid agency from working in the Palestinian territories in overnight votes at the United Nations.
• The prime minister’s hopes of back-to-back interest rate cuts before the next election are under threat after jobs figures today revealed a fall in unemployment and ongoing demand for full-time workers.
• In NSW, Sydney street artist Anthony Lister was revealed as the high-profile man found not guilty of sexually or indecently assaulting three women after a years-long suppression order on his identity was lifted today.
• In Victoria, Opposition Leader John Pesutto has vowed to stay on as Liberal leader after a damning court judgment today found he defamed ousted Liberal MP Moira Deeming.
• In Queensland, the LNP government’s controversial youth justice laws are set to pass state parliament in hours.
• In Western Australia, the state government has green lit Woodside’s plan to run its North West Shelf plant for another 50 years, ending a six-year-long approval process and clearing the way for its contentious $30 billion gas project.
• In business news, Rupert Murdoch has been spotted in public for the first time since losing his bid to shift the terms of his family trust, appearing at News Corp’s Melbourne headquarters and visiting a firebombed synagogue in the city’s inner south-east.
• In world news, Sunni Islamist fighters torched the mausoleum of Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez as the main commander of the rebels who toppled Assad said anyone involved in the torture or killing of detainees during the ousted Syrian president’s rule would be hunted down.

Thanks for your company. Have a good night.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has suggested Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is “a risk to our economy” as Labor intensifies its attacks on the cost of the Coalition’s nuclear policy ahead of the next election.

Chalmers was in the remote Queensland town of Longreach today alongside Labor senator Anthony Chisholm to open a new regional university study hub.

In a short doorstop interview, the treasurer used a question from a local journalist about NDIS costs on the federal budget as an opportunity to criticise the economics of the opposition’s plan to build seven nuclear reactors across Australia.

According to a transcript released by the treasurer’s office late today, Chalmers said:

Peter Dutton’s position on nuclear energy is economic insanity which turns Australia’s back on all of our natural advantages.

Our combination of advantages, when it comes to our renewable future, are the envy of the world. We have everything we need from cleaner and cheaper energy and Peter Dutton instead wants to go for the most expensive option which takes the longest and which would only, at best, provide about 4 per cent of our power.

[...]

We are at the end of the last full year before an election and these characters still don’t have any credible, costed, or coherent economic policies. Let’s see all of the details and one of the reasons why people think Peter Dutton is a risk to our economy and a risk to household budgets is because he hasn’t come clean on the real costs of the economic madness which is his position on nuclear power.

The Coalition is yet to reveal the cost of its plan, but will reportedly claim it will be cheaper than Labor’s renewables-led approach.

In news that will have come as a surprise to many ticket purchasers but to almost nobody in the music industry, Bluesfest organiser Peter Noble has confessed that his claim that next Easter’s event would be the last ever was nothing more than a ploy to put the squeeze on the NSW state government.

In August, Noble issued a message via the Byron Bay festival’s social media channels claiming “after the 2025 festival, as much as it pains me to say this, it’s time to close this chapter”.

Peter Noble previously said Bluesfest would be a shadow of its former self if it lingered past 2025.Credit: Joseph Mayers

That announcement came amid a time of great turmoil for the festival sector, which had been rocked by a raft of postponements, cancellations and closures that prompted a federal parliamentary inquiry that is still running.

But on Wednesday, Noble told music masthead IQ that he was already booking acts for the 2026 edition. “I will always find a way for Bluesfest to go forward,” he said. “That is my job.”

He said the announcement that 2025 would be the “last ever” festival was a response to the NSW government’s refusal to offer his festival help, when it was supporting other events, such as South by Southwest.

He asked rhetorically: “So what do we have to do? Do we have to say it’s the last Bluesfest to get people to focus on us?”

The answer, apparently, was yes.

Noble has in recent years produced economic impact statements that position his festival as a major event that generates local employment, inbound tourism, and enormous promotional opportunities for the region. He claims Bluesfest brought $1.1 billion to NSW through inbound tourism between 2012 and 2024.

“That is a tsunami of gold but it seemingly doesn’t count,” he told IQ. “The [state government] just wanted to put it in their coffers and not take responsibility for Australia’s great events.”

He described his fake news about the imminent ending of Bluesfest as a “clarion call” that meant “we’re potentially going to have our most successful festival yet”. But others might see it more as a case of the old man who cried wolf – and as an act that does no favours to the festival sector as a whole, as it genuinely struggles to find a path to viability.

Fans enjoy the show by Taj Farrant at Bluesfest in Byron Bay in 2024. Credit: Taj Jones

Did the subterfuge work? For Noble, perhaps. He claims to be in negotiations with the NSW government now about potential support for a festival that will next year sell around 90,000 passes.

“I’m trying to get some degree of an understanding with the new government that festivals have a great cultural value, but underneath that is this great economic stimulus that occurs,” he said. “The government needs to recognise that in times of difficulty.”

The Australian sharemarket closed lower on Thursday after it swung into the red following the release of stronger-than-expected employment data, which put a dampener on investors’ rate cut hopes, wiping out the market’s early gains.

Having opened higher, the S&P/ASX 200 ended the session down 23.3 points, or 0.3 per cent, at 8330.3 points.

The Australian sharemarket edged lower again on Thursday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Nine of the bourse’s 11 industry sectors closed in the red.

The Australian dollar made gains following the unemployment rate announcement, and was trading at US64.13¢ as at 4.13pm AEDT.

Downer EDI slumped 6 per cent after the competition watchdog said it started civil cartel proceedings in the Federal Court against Downer’s subsidiary Spotless Facility Services. Ventia Australia is also caught up in the court proceedings over alleged price fixing relating to maintenance and operation services for the Department of Defence. Ventia shares dived 22.7 per cent today.

Read the full market wrap here.

Alice Springs is reeling from a vicious home invasion that seriously injured a baby girl.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro and Police Commissioner Michael Murphy flew to Alice Springs on Thursday morning. Police allege a two-month-old baby suffered severe head fractures in a home invasion in the town on Wednesday.

The infant was airlifted to Royal Adelaide Hospital where she remains in a stable condition.

In a press conference today, the police commissioner said several serious crimes had occurred in Alice Springs since December 3, including abduction, sexual assaults, burglaries and home invasions.

He said it was “totally unacceptable” people didn’t feel safe in their own homes, and he would dedicate more resources to the outback from Darwin. However, Murphy stopped short of using his powers to implement another curfew in Alice Springs, as seen earlier this year.

The chief minister told reporters the people involved in the alleged assault on Wednesday were “well-known to police and currently on bail”.

NT Police said two teens, aged 16 and 17, had been arrested by police shortly after the assault.

AAP

Rupert Murdoch has been spotted in public for the first time since losing his bid to shift the terms of his family trust, appearing at his Melbourne headquarters where he met former colleagues and executives.

News Corp staff were informed of Murdoch’s visit to The Herald and Weekly Times Southbank building on Thursday. He appeared alongside News Corp Australia executive chair Michael Miller for a mid-afternoon town hall.

Rupert Murdoch leaves News Corp’s Melbourne offices alongside Sky News’ Andrew Bolt.Credit: Calum Jaspan

During his visit, Murdoch, alongside wife Elena Zhukova, met former News Corp Australia chief executive Julian Clarke, as well as recently departed columnist Terry McCrann, who was spotted arriving at lunchtime and leaving with a framed and signed cartoon several hours later.

Murdoch departed in a Range Rover alongside Sky News presenter and Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt.

On Monday, a Nevada probate commissioner rejected Murdoch’s bid to alter his family trust and hand control of his global media assets in the event of his death to his eldest son, Lachlan, at the expense of his other children James, Elisabeth and Prudence.

Read the full story here.

Victorian semi-professional soccer club Dandenong Thunder and governing body Football Victoria have pledged their co-operation with Victoria Police’s investigation into alleged sports corruption offences involving the club.

This masthead revealed the Thunder’s headquarters and the nearby homes of several supporters and a senior club official were raided by police on Wednesday morning in search of evidence that matches may have been rigged to deliver betting windfalls.

Victoria Police raiding the clubrooms at NPL soccer club Dandenong Thunder FC on Wednesday.Credit: The Age

There is no suggestion that any of the Thunder’s players or coaches are implicated in any wrongdoing, and the police raids are yet to lead to any match-fixing charges.

The Thunder play in the National Premier League Victoria, which is the highest level below the A-League and involves players from Australia and some signed from overseas.

The club issued a short statement on Facebook on Thursday.

“Dandenong Thunder FC is deeply concerned about allegations connected to our club,” the statement read.

“We take this situation very seriously and will continue to fully cooperate with Victoria Police’s investigation.

“The club will not make any further statement whilst an investigation is ongoing and appreciate your understanding regarding this matter.”

Football Victoria, who operate NPL Victoria, also expressed its full support for the investigation.

“Football Victoria is aware of serious allegations of match-fixing potentially involving a Victorian-based football club,” FV’s statement read.

“Football Victoria takes these allegations very seriously and will fully support Victoria Police’s investigation. As this is an active police matter, we are unable to provide further comment at this time.”

Five men have been arrested over the alleged shooting of a former bikie near the prime minister’s residence, Kirribilli House, on Sydney’s lower north shore.

Former Bandido Abdul Baghdadi was shot in the leg on Upper Pitt Street in October last year. A major manhunt was then launched shortly after, and three cars believed to be linked to the shooting were found on fire over the following days.

Police at the scene of the daylight shooting at Upper Pitt St in Kirribilli last year.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Across three days this week, Strike Force Marlton detectives arrested five men – including four teenagers – in raids across Sydney.

Today, a 19-year-old man was arrested and charged at Riverstone police station with shooting with intent to murder and destroying property worth more than $5000. He was refused police bail and will face Burwood Local Court on December 18.

On Tuesday, two 18-year-old men, who were children at the time of the shooting and cannot be legally named, were arrested in Guildford and Merrylands.

One 18-year-old was charged with shoot at with intent to murder, destroying property worth more than $5000 in company using fire, and participating in a criminal group. The second 18-year-old was charged with destroying property worth more than $5000 in company using fire and participating in a criminal group. Both were refused police bail to appear in a children’s court next week.

Joseph Wakim, 19, was also charged with shoot at with intent to murder and participating in a criminal group. He will face the Bankstown Local Court on February 5.

On Wednesday, police stopped and arrested a 35-year-old man driving in Yagoona and charged him with damaging property by fire or explosion. He was granted police bail to face Bankstown Local Court on January 23.

Tech giant Apple this morning released a new update for iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems, debuting ‘Apple Intelligence’ – the company’s generative AI features – to Australian users.

The new AI-powered features, many of which are possible via a partnership with ChatGPT, include writing tools, Image Playground, AI notification summaries and Camera Control.

Apple has launched its generative AI feature ‘Apple Intelligence’ to Australian users.Credit: Apple

And with a new feature dubbed ‘Genmoji’ users can type their ideas for an emoji and have it generated in real-time.

To access Apple Intelligence, users need to update their devices with the free software update, released today.

“I think the great thing about Apple Intelligence is there’s so many ways in which people can interact with it and have fun with it and explore it and make their lives more efficient and more helpful,” Apple vice president of worldwide product marketing Bob Borchers told Nine News.

“I think there’s just so much choice. It’s going to be exciting to see how people adopt it.”

Meanwhile in Melbourne, Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto has just declared he will not resign as Liberal leader after the Federal Court found he defamed ousted MP Moira Deeming.

Speaking at a press conference moments ago, Pesutto said none of his parliamentary colleagues had told him to step down.

“We need better leadership in Victoria. That’s why I have this job. That’s why I intend to continue in this role,” Pesutto said.

“Now, today’s decision by the Federal Court is obviously a very disappointing outcome, but I respect the court’s decision.”