As it happened: Albanese flags Fatima Payman may quit Labor in coming days; New data shows retail spending lift

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

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

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has flagged renegade Labor senator Fatima Payman may quit the party in coming days, telling parliament in question time today he expects “further announcements” soon.
• New data released today showed an early start to end-of-financial-year sales and shoppers keen for a bargain boosted retail turnover in May, but ongoing cost-of-living pressures mean spending remains weak.
• Anthony Albanese is facing calls to hold a snap election over the Coalition’s contentious nuclear plan as his opponent, Peter Dutton, readies for an early poll and rumours swirl about a cabinet reshuffle.
• In NSW, rugby personality Paul Kent has pleaded guilty to affray after failing to convince a court his depression and alcohol problems should spare him from punishment three months after a drunken brawl outside a Sydney pub.
• In Victoria, former Home and Away star Orpheus Pledger, who stomped on a woman’s head and later fled hospital, was granted bail this afternoon after telling a court about his improved mental health.
• In Queensland, the trial of a fringe religious group accused of killing an eight-year-old Queensland girl will be pushed back to allow time for the 14 defendants to have a four-hour meeting beforehand.
• In Western Australia, university students have spoken out in support of Fatima Payman, a WA senator, stating the federal government had “taken a stronger stand against Payman than they have against the genocidal state of Israel”.
• In business news, Booktopia has gone into voluntary administration weeks after suspending its shares on the ASX as rival Dymocks considers snapping up some of its assets.
• In world news, US President Joe Biden has blamed his recent travel to Europe in the weeks before his devastating debate against Donald Trump for his poor performance on stage.

Thanks again for your company. Have a lovely night.

The nation’s corporate regulator is not working, letting down millions of investors and failing to chase business and financial service criminals, a damning inquiry into the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has found.

Demanding that the 33-year-old commission be split into a regulator and a financial conduct investigator, a Senate investigation revealed an overwhelmed ASIC is failing to deliver justice to mum and dad investors while its timid legal approach does not deter criminal behaviour.

The Senate’s final report, released moments ago, has proposed financial rewards for corporate whistleblowers if their revelations deliver significant public benefit, while those whose careers are destroyed by their actions should receive compensation.

Stay tuned for updates.

Anthony Albanese is facing calls to hold a snap election over the Coalition’s contentious nuclear plan as his opponent, Peter Dutton, readies for an early poll and rumours swirl about a cabinet reshuffle.

The prime minister has repeatedly said he wants to run the full length of the three-year term and hold an election around May next year. Labor MPs privately believe an election later this year remains a chance but is not the preferred option.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, independent MP Monique Ryan and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Waiting until May to hold an election would be economically reckless, according to teal MP Monique Ryan, because Dutton’s nuclear plan had “jammed a stick into the spokes of the Australian economy” by throwing the green energy transition into doubt.

Ryan wrote to Albanese urging an early poll, allowing Australians to decide which climate mitigation policies they supported.

Read more of this exclusive story here.

The larrikin galah has earned the dubious honour of being the most common Australian bird species to have its life ended by the fuselage of an aircraft.

In the past decade, 727 of the iconic pink cockatoos have perished in aircraft strikes, according to an interactive dashboard published by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau today.

Galahs beat magpies and plovers, which were involved in 490 and 421 incidents respectively. Bats and flying foxes also featured heavily on the list, accounting for more than 1300 incidents between them.

The dashboard details all wildlife strikes in the past decade and includes information such as species of animal, severity of collision, location and aircraft involved.

Understandably, many pilots were unable to identify the species of animal annihilated on their aircraft, with the source of almost 6000 bird strikes unknown.

It is hoped the granular data will help pilots, regulators and other aviation industry participants understand and manage the hazards of bird strikes.

“Wildlife strikes – particularly bird strikes – represent around a third of the 5500 aviation occurrences reported to the ATSB each year,” chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said. “While the vast majority of these do not result in any injury to flight crew or passengers, they are a potential safety risk, and present a significant economic cost for aerodrome and aircraft operators.”

AAP

Miners and tech stocks drove the Australian sharemarket higher on Wednesday after two days of losses, helped along by a positive lead from Wall Street, which hit a record high overnight.

The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 21.7 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 7739.9 at the close, with seven out of the 11 sectors trading in the green.

The Australian dollar was stronger, fetching US66.72¢.

The mining sector (up 1 per cent) was among the strongest sectors on the local bourse, with iron ore heavyweights BHP (up 1.1 per cent) and Fortescue (up 1.6 per cent) climbing, along with Rio Tinto (up 1.2 per cent).

Meanwhile, financials (down 0.5 per cent) and utilities (down 0.8 per cent) were the weakest sectors, with Suncorp falling 2.3 per cent, IAG dropping 1.7 per cent and Origin Energy losing 1.4 per cent

Read your five-minute recap of the trading day here.

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley says the Coalition’s new competition policy, which could force supermarket and hardware giants to sell off shops, corresponds with her party’s ideological history.

Speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing this hour, Ley said the policy unveiled yesterday was “well and truly within the Menzies tradition of the Liberal Party to back in small business 100 per cent”.

Liberal MP Sussan LeyCredit: Rhett Wyman

“And farmers are small businesses,” Ley said. “To back in our farmers, to back in our rural communities, and to back in those who are struggling with the cost of living – I’m comfortable with that as a proud Liberal!”

As this masthead reported in March, the opposition has spent months working on laws aimed at reducing the market powers of supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths. Opposition Peter Dutton announced the Coalition’s proposed new laws yesterday, outlining that they would include the creation of a supermarket commissioner to deal with complaints from farmers and suppliers about the supermarket giants.

Labor announced last month a new code of conduct and billion-dollar fines for supermarkets accused of price gouging, but the Coalition has taken the crackdown a step further by revealing it would allow the Federal Court to force divestiture.

This afternoon, ABC host Greg Jennett asked Ley to explain how the Liberals, typically a party which supports more free market economics, were now aligned with the more interventionist Greens and the ACTU.

“This policy has come from the joint party room, and it is not just one party’s policy,” Ley said.

“It is a big stick, [but it] is a last resort. It is about competition. It is about making sure that supermarkets do the right thing. But overwhelmingly, it’s about protecting consumers [and] families … We want to make sure that those who are struggling to cope with the cost of living actually have policies from us that back them in.”

Ley said the Coalition would not extend the divestiture powers to regulators of other sectors.

The federal government introduced laws for its signature Future Made in Australia policy to parliament today, further adding to the pile of legislation Labor hopes to pass in coming sitting days.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers spruiked the green subsidies, worth $22.7 billion across a decade, as a boost to manufacturing that will set Australia on course to be a renewable energy superpower for years.

“Australia has been dealt the most incredible set of cards to make ourselves the primary beneficiaries of the net-zero economy,” he told parliament today.

The policy, announced in the federal budget this year, has also been seen as an ambitious attempt to break China’s dominance in the clean-tech global supply chain.

Chalmers has previously called for urgent action to invest in clean technology, but most of these funds will not become available until mid-2027 and will be spread over a decade, highlighting the challenge for the government’s home-grown green vision.

Under the laws setting out the strategy, a national interest framework would be set up to oversee what projects would be funded.

Projects receiving funds would have to ensure jobs were safe and well paid, engage with communities, strengthen supply chains and develop skilled and inclusive workforces.

“We know just pumping capital into the transformation won’t be enough if we don’t pay attention to how we deploy it,” Chalmers said.

An innovation fund will be set up to support emerging technologies such as green metals and manufacturing in clean energy.

Independent analysis by the Treasury would determine which sectors would benefit most from the investment.

However, deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley has said the proposal would do little to alleviate pressure already experienced by the manufacturing sector.

AAP with Lachlan Abbott

Military veterans will have fewer hoops to jump through to receive compensation for their years of service under new laws that ex-serving personnel cautiously welcomed today.

Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh introduced legislation to federal parliament on Wednesday that would roll three laws into one to streamline the process for veterans and families making claims.

Minister for Defence Personnel Matt Keogh.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Simplifying the system was the first recommendation of an interim report by the royal commission into defence and veteran suicide. The inquiry found the complex compensation claims process had harmed the mental health of former soldiers, sailors and air personnel.

Keogh said the simplification would alleviate much of the stress and anxiety veterans experienced when lodging claims.

“This legislation is a significant step in ensuring a better future for defence personnel, veterans and families,” he said.

The royal commission recommended new legislation be in place by July 2025. But the bill put forward by the government won’t kick in until July 2026.

Army veteran and ex-RSL sub-branch president Lucas Moon, who was a Liberal candidate at the last Victorian state election, said initial feedback had raised concerns about “ambiguity” surrounding dependent and family payments under the legislation.

“In the modern context of separations and blended families, there is uncertainty about how these provisions will be applied,” he said. “There is a collective hope that future generations of veterans will not face the [same] delays.”

AAP

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has batted away another question about embattled senator Fatima Payman, saying occasionally party members depart due to differing points of view.

Taking a question from Greens Leader Adam Bandt, who asked why Albanese imposed more sanctions on Payman compared to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister said his party has taken a principled approach to the Gaza conflict.

Greens leader Adam Bandt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“I am asked about the political party that I belong to, and I have been loyal to my whole life, and people making a decision to distance themselves from their former party … [such as] Senator [Lidia] Thorpe, of course was elected earlier in the last year as a member of the Greens party and chose to depart from that,” he said.

“From time to time, that happens and that has happened in terms of the senator [Payman] making a decision that she wished to be able to take an independent position when it comes to the Middle East.”

Currently, Payman is still part of the Labor Party, although she has been indefinitely suspended from the federal parliamentary caucus. But Albanese’s comments moments ago in the House of Representatives, comparing her current suspension to crossbenchers who eventually left their respective parties, highlights just how close Payman appears to be to leaving Labor altogether.

As James Massola and Paul Sakkal reported yesterday, the WA senator has already sought advice from controversial election strategist Glenn Druery, a political operative known as “the preference whisperer” for his success in securing seats for upper house independents and minor party candidates.

University students have spoken out in support of renegade West Australian Labor MP Fatima Payman, stating the federal government had “taken a stronger stand against Payman than they have against the genocidal state of Israel”.

Labor MPs unanimously endorsed a motion to suspend Payman from the caucus until she decided she could “respect” party rules, after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had shown “strength in compassion” by staring down Coalition demands to sack her.

Anthony Albanese and Fatima Payman.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

She became the party’s first member to cross the floor in decades after she voted with the Greens to recognise Palestinian statehood last week.

“I think it’s outrageous that Fatima Payman has become more of a target of ire for Labor than the historic crime against humanity that’s playing out right now,” Students for Palestine member Eddie Stephenson said.

“They’ve done more to crack down on principled voices of opposition to that genocide, than they have to even raise criticisms of the genocide itself.”

National Labor Students president Ngaire Bogemann said caucus solidarity should not be used to block debate and silence activists.

Members of the two groups have said their next step was to protest outside the US Consulate in Perth on Thursday afternoon.

Payman was first elected in 2022 in the difficult-to-win third position on Labor’s WA Senate ticket.