Australia news as it happened: Liberal National Party holds on to Longman, Hume stands by foreign interference warnings

Thanks for following our live news blog. That wraps up our coverage for today. We will have more for you in our next live news coverage. Here’s a quick recap of the key stories:

• The federal Liberal Party shared confidential voter data with the Exclusive Brethren, a secretive Christian group that made nearly a million pre-election calls supporting the Coalition.
• Federal vice-president of the Liberal Party Fiona Scott made a joking remark suggesting Sussan Ley’s leadership could be short-lived, offering a lacklustre endorsement of Ley’s future leadership.
• Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price surprised colleagues by declining to run for deputy leader after Angus Taylor lost the leadership vote, leaving Phillip Thompson to step in unexpectedly.
• Liberal senator Jane Hume stood by her foreign interference warnings but conceded that a video referencing “Chinese spies” may have hurt the party’s campaign.
• Caleb List, a 25-year-old Australian who joined Ukraine’s foreign legion, is feared dead. The Prime Minister called the news “deeply troubling.”
• ASIC has accused Macquarie Group of misleading conduct for failing to report up to 1.5 billion short sales over 15 years, in a second action this week.
• Hannah Ferguson, founder of Cheek Media, announced she’ll run as an independent Senate candidate in NSW at the next federal election.
• Joel Cauchi’s psychiatrist reversed earlier claims that he was not psychotic during the Bondi Junction Westfield attack, now suggesting her evidence about his “hatred of women” was merely “conjecture”.
• Olympian cyclist Rohan Dennis received a suspended sentence following the death of his wife, fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins.
• The Liberal National Party’s Terry Young has held on to the seat of Longman, north of Brisbane, after a tight race with Labor candidate Rhiannyn Douglas.

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The Liberal National Party’s Terry Young has retained the seat of Longman, north of Brisbane, after a tight race with Labor candidate Rhiannyn Douglas. Young now leads by 335 votes with only about 750 still to count.

The Liberal National Party had previously held Longman with margin of 3.1 per cent but at the next election it will be among the most marginal electorates in the nation.

Terry Young has held the seat of Longman since 2019. His victory in Longman brings the Coalition’s seat total in the lower house of the new parliament to 43. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party’s Zoe McKenzie is ahead in the contest for the Melbourne seat of Flinders. It is likely the winner of that race will become clear tomorrow morning.

In the ultra-close count in the northern Sydney seat of Bradfield, Liberal contender Gisele Kapterian has maintained her advantage throughout counting on Wednesday; at 5pm she led by 80 votes with about 920 votes yet to count.

The Australian sharemarket swung into the green in afternoon trading, sent higher by energy and tech stocks, which more than made up for losses from big names such as Macquarie Group and Aristocrat that had kept the market in negative territory for most of the session.

The S&P/ASX 200 finished up 10.6 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 8279.6, rising for its sixth session in a row. Six of its 11 industry sectors advanced, with tech and energy stocks the big winners. Their gains were countered by falls in consumer stocks and utilities. The Australian dollar was flat at US64.71¢.

The ASX was down for most of the day, but ended up in the green.Credit: Louie Douvis

Tech stocks yet again followed their peers in the US, where chipmakers were leading a rally after AI giants Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices said they would supply semiconductors for a massive data-centre project in Saudi Arabia. The ASX tech sector rose 1 per cent, led by family member tracking app Life360, which soared a further 9.5 per cent after reporting huge sales growth this week.

The iron ore heavyweights also extended their recent gains amid hopes for easing global trade tensions since the US and China on Monday announced a 90-day truce in their trade war and agreed to temporarily reduce tariffs on each other’s goods.

BHP, the world’s largest miner, rose 0.6 per cent. Its CEO Mike Henry told a global mining conference overnight that the mining titan was well-positioned to navigate its way through the uncertainty created by Trump’s trade wars. Rio Tinto added 0.5 per cent and Fortescue climbed 2.2 per cent.

Read the full market wrap from today here. 

Climate change has already added about 10 extra days a year of extreme heat deemed harmful for pregnant women in Australia.

Darwin experienced a sharp 17-day jump in heat conditions threatening to pregnant people and newborns, the biggest increase of all Australian cities captured in the analysis by international non-profit Climate Central.

Heatwaves pose birth risks, with the World Health Organisation linking high temperatures to preterm birth and stillbirth as well as hypertension and gestational diabetes.

Climate changed induced heat waves have increased the chances of serious pregnancy complications.Credit: iStock

Climate Central vice-president for science Kristina Dahl said climate change added more than half of Australia’s pregnancy heat-risk days experienced over the past five years.

“That means climate change is already making it harder to have a healthy pregnancy, especially in regions where care may be limited,” Dr Dahl said.

She said each day of extreme heat increased the chances of serious pregnancy complications.

AAP

Labor senator Marielle Smith has clashed with Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing after McKenzie accused the Labor Party of investing all its power in the hands of “faceless men”.

“That’s when I know the Labor Party will have actually turned the corner on gender equality, when the people that hold the power can also wear a dress,” McKenzie said.

“Tanya Plibersek should be leading your party – what happened to Tanya?”

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Smith said McKenzie’s comments were “extremely offensive”, and recalled being heckled and called “quota girl” by McKenzie’s colleagues when she was elected and sworn in to parliament.

“This is very rude and very offensive,” Smith said.

Following reports that 25-year-old Queensland man Caleb List has been killed in combat while fighting in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Anthony Albanese said the news was “deeply troubling”.

“My heart goes out to the family and loved ones of the gentlemen concerned. DFAT are working in the way that they do to make sure the proper notifications are occurring,” Albanese said.

He said there was a travel warning in place “for a reason” given the danger, and that Australians should not be travelling to Ukraine.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has appeared for a short press conference in Perth ahead of his visit to Indonesia, telling reporters he spoke with Sussan Ley to congratulate her on her election.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke in Perth on Tuesday, alongside Foreign Minister Penny Wong.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“It is a great honour to lead a major political party in Australia, and I congratulate her and wish her well,” he said.

“I invited her at any time to engage with me, as Peter Dutton was always welcome to do on any issue to advance the national interest.”

Labor senator Marielle Smith has avoided commentating on whether Ley has been set up to fail in reference to the glass cliff phenomenon – where women are appointed to leadership positions during times of crisis.

“Sussan Ley’s appointment is a matter for the Liberal Party and the Liberal Party room,” she said.

Labor senator Marielle Smith.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“All I would say is that more broadly speaking I think it’s important that we see and continue to see greater representation of women and people from all sorts of walks of life across our institutions.

“... In that sense, I welcome it, but in terms of the nitty-gritty that’s really for the Liberal party room, which I definitely do not sit in.”

Ruston is asked if the Liberal Party needs to implement quotas to improve their female representation given the growing number of female voters turning away from the party.

“We need to be really analytical, but we also need to be really honest with ourselves about what went wrong so that we can make positive changes so that into the future we do provide an offering that Australians want,” Ruston said.

Caisley pressed Ruston on whether quotas were off the table, to which Ruston replied she has never been a “great supporter” of them.

“But I do believe that you have to take affirmative action to make sure that you have got representation,” she said.

“One of my roles going forward is to make sure we are supporting women so they are joining our party. I also want to support all young people because they are future of the party and I think for people like me who’ve been here for some time, part of our role must be to mentor and support young people.”

Liberal senator Anne Ruston has appeared on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing with Olivia Caisley, where she described Ley’s appointment as Opposition Leader as a “wonderful opportunity” for the party.

“She’s an extremely capable politician. She’s got a lot of experience both in the parliament and in the real-world having had a series of really quite extraordinarily diverse jobs,” she said.

Liberal senator Anne Ruston.Credit: AAP

“I’m very excited about the opportunity that the reset gave us yesterday to move forward and rebuild.”

Ruston said her party is “realistic” about the election result, and have their eye on the future.