Australia news LIVE: PM says Voice strikes ‘right balance’ as referendum legislation passes; Labor could bypass Senate to finance affordable homes

Thank you for joining our live coverage today. Here are this afternoon’s top headlines:

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has attacked the Greens in parliament for delaying a vote on the government’s $10 billion housing package.
• Albanese has defended the Voice to Parliament as the “missing piece” in the nation’s Indigenous representation structure, while Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney brushed off questions from the opposition about whether the Voice would advise on military matters.
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong has drawn attention to the mental health of Brittany Higgins in response to uestions from the Coalition targeting Finance Minister Katy Gallagher over former Liberal staffer Higgins’ government payout.
• A female Liberal MP has accused Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews of labelling her a “half-wit” in parliament.
• Power bills are likely to stay high because renewable energy projects are proceeding too slowly, a conference of key stakeholders in Melbourne has heard.
• Economic storms clouds are gathering over NSW and the state’s credit rating is under threat, state Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said.
• Actual rain clouds are gathering over Birmingham, England, threatening the final day’s play of the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston.
• The search continues for a submersible that went missing off the coast of Canada while taking tourists to explore the wreckage of the Titanic.

Power prices are on track to remain stubbornly high for east-coast homes and businesses as new modelling shows renewable energy is being built too slowly to wean Australia off fossil fuels, risking the Albanese government’s key election promises.

Macarthur Wind Farm in Victoria.Credit: The Age

The government set a target for renewable energy to comprise 82 per cent of the electricity grid as part of its goal to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 – a move it said would displace coal power with cheaper wind and solar and reduce power bills by $275 a year by 2025.

But McKinsey and Co analyst Peter Lambert told the Australian Energy Week conference in Melbourne the renewable rollout was only on track to reach 65 to 75 per cent of the grid by 2030 unless the construction of new wind, solar, batteries and transmission accelerates significantly.

Australian Energy Market Operator chief executive Daniel Westerman told the conference that renewable energy “is the cheapest form of new build energy” but projects were not “happening fast enough”.

Read the full story here.

Prime Minister has defended the Voice to Parliament against claims it would just add another layer of bureaucracy to Indigenous affairs.

He fielded questions on ABC Brisbane Drive radio from presenter Steve Austin about why the Voice was needed when there were already multiple Indigenous advisory groups and land councils.

“There is no advisory group to the national government and to the Australian Parliament at the moment,” Albanese said. “It’s not about supplanting existing organisations. It’s simply an advisory body.

“So that, when Indigenous Australians met in the Constitutional Convention back in 2017 at Uluru, they said that they wanted, through the Uluru Statement From The Heart, they wanted constitutional recognition, but they wanted to have a form, so it’s not just something that was symbolic, and the form that they wanted was to have an advisory body.”

Albanese said the Voice to Parliament would not cut across work being done by other Indigenous groups, but would complement them at a federal government level.

“This is simply a fact of filling in something that is, at the moment, a missing piece,” he said. “At the moment, there is no advisory group, there is no voice on national issues before the Australian Parliament.”

The weather is in danger of ruining what shapes as a dramatic last day of the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston in Birmingham.

Australia’s players have woken to steady rain and full cloud cover, with the forecast suggesting rain will persist all morning and hang around in the afternoon.

Australia require another 174 runs with seven wickets in hand but the world’s two highest-ranked batsman, Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith, are already out.

If the weather clears history suggests it will not be an easy run chase.

Stay tuned for our Ashes live blog later this evening.

The NSW budget is poised to remain in the red and not return to a predicted surplus next year as Treasurer Daniel Mookhey used his first major economic update to signal tough spending cuts in a bid to ease inflationary pressures.

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey held a briefing on the state’s finances on Tuesday.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

Mookhey’s economic statement to NSW parliament on Tuesday painted a gloomy picture for the state’s finances, with the treasurer warning that the state had lurched from a once-in-a-generation pandemic into a once-in-a-generation cost of living crisis.

“There are tough choices ahead, they will not be easy, but they cannot be avoided,” Mookhey said.

NSW Treasury this week provided him with the results of its early analysis of the state’s balance sheet, which he said would see the budget’s deficit “deteriorate further”.

Read the full report here, and analysis of the key reasons for the state’s financial woes by senior economics writer Matt Wade here.

Energy companies, miners and banks bolstered the Australian sharemarket on Tuesday after China, the country’s largest trading partner, cut two key benchmark lending rates for the first time in 10 months and Woodside gave the green light to a major oil project.

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 62.9 points, or 0.9 per cent, higher at 7357.8 as all sectors except healthcare traded in the green.

The full wrap of today’s new on the markets is here.

More than 800 children with flu symptoms have presented to children’s hospitals in Sydney this year with almost 40 percent requiring admission, prompting experts to urge the parents those eligible to book in for the influenza vaccine.

Infectious diseases paediatrician Dr Phil Britton said children under five fell into a high-risk group and had the potential to become life-threatening.

Parents are urged to vaccinate children against flu as cases spike.Credit: The Age

“Influenza can cause serious illness in children. While most cases are typically mild, some children experience complications such as severe chest infections, altered consciousness, seizures and heart inflammation,” Dr Britton said.

“Babies and immunocompromised children are particularly vulnerable to respiratory illnesses like flu, so now is the time to get the jab. If your baby is under six months of age and therefore too young to have the flu vaccine, the best way to protect them and reduce the risk of being admitted to hospital is by getting the whole family vaccinated.”

The figures, from January to May this year, revealed 300 children had presented to Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick emergency department, with more than 500 children attending The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

Parents looking for advice can contact their GP or HealthDirect on 1800 022 222.

We reported earlier that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used question time to lay into the Greens for siding with the Coalition to delay the government’s $10 billion signature Housing Australia Future Fund.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt jumped onto Twitter at the end of question time to defend his party’s role in pressuring the government to increase its ambition.

Here is what he had to say:

Despite claiming credit for improving the bill, his party still voted to delay a vote until October.

Read more about the issue here.

Turning now to question time in the Senate, Foreign Minister Penny Wong has drawn attention to Brittany Higgins’ mental health in response to a barrage of questions from the Coalition targeting Finance Minister Katy Gallagher over the former Liberal staffer’s government payout.

Rising in defence of her cabinet colleague, Wong said Gallagher “has answered question after question on this and has been upfront and transparent with the Senate”.

“We are now at the point where the opposition, in their desperate attempt to continue this tactic, despite what the DPP [ACT Director of Public Prosecutions] has said about Ms Higgins’ mental state at the conclusion of her trial,” Wong said.

Former Coalition ministerial adviser Bruce Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to raping Higgins in the office of their then-boss, Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, in March 2019. His trial was aborted in October 2022 due to juror misconduct and a retrial was abandoned in December due to Higgins’ mental health. Lehrmann continues to maintain his innocence.

Since last week, the Coalition has used question time to target Gallagher over what she knew about Higgins’ claim before she went public with her allegation in February 2021.

It has also questioned Gallaghers’ involvement with Higgins’ settlement with the federal government in December, given the money is delivered by the Department of Finance. Gallagher has denied involvement.

Gallagher said she was “mindful of the ongoing distress” caused by the Coalition’s tactic.

“We can continue to play this game, but in the meantime … we cannot stand here and say that we are creating a safe environment for staff, a safer workplace, or an environment where women are encouraged to come forward and raise complaints about the way they are treated,” she said.

In case you missed it, new evidence suggests up to half of Australian workers could be subject to some sort of restraint of trade in their employment contracts.

The research, commissioned by the federal government and compiled by the e61 Institute, found non-compete clauses are no longer the preserve of highly paid senior managers but increasingly across the economy.

The highest prevalence was among gig workers, 43 per cent of whom reported some sort of non-compete aspect to their contract.

Consultation by e61 found that apart from senior roles in law, finance and business services, non-compete clauses were affecting childcare workers, yoga instructors and IVF specialists. In many employment contract templates, such clauses have become a default.

Competition Minister Andrew Leigh is concerned the clauses are stifling wages and productivity.

Read the story here.