Australia news LIVE: Federal budget could fall off ‘debt cliff’; Researchers say FINA decision based on ‘opinion, not science’

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading our live coverage. Here are some of the news headlines:

• Home buyers are being warned by the Reserve Bank to prepare for more interest rate rises, saying it has to get the cost of money back to a normal level to head off inflation pressures that would leave all Australians worse off.
• NSW Treasurer Matt Kean revealed his government’s $27 billion budget spending spree. It takes the deficit to $11.3 billion, triple what was forecast six months ago. New measures include savings for toll road users, stamp duty reform and power bill relief for some households.
• The trial of the man accused of raping former political staffer Brittany Higgins has been delayed after a judge said media reporting around a speech by television reporter Lisa Wilkinson at the weekend’s Logie Awards put the hearing’s fairness at risk.
• Public school and Catholic school teachers in NSW are set to stage a historic joint 24-hour strike on June 30 as anger escalates across the profession over staff shortages, mounting workload and pay.
• Rugby league has banned transgender athletes from competing in this weekend’s Test matches and the upcoming women’s World Cup. FIFA and World Athletics are also reviewing their policies after swimming’s peak body passed new rules that restrict transgender participation in women’s events.
• The Victorian opposition has stared down internal dissent from a few MPs and committed to support the Andrews government’s plans for an independent body that will oversee treaty negotiations with the state’s First Nations people.

• The Queensland government released its state budget today, announcing it will impose a new levy on big business to generate an ongoing funding source for mental health services in the state, expected to deliver an annual windfall of $425 million within three years.

We’ll be back early tomorrow morning. Have a good night.

The Bureau of Meteorology has declared the end of La Nina – for now.

But the weather pattern that brings above-average rainfall is about a 50-50 chance of returning this summer, with four of the seven climate models the bureau surveyed suggest La Nina could return in spring.

“This is approximately double the normal likelihood,” the bureau says.

“Sea surface temperatures are currently warmer than average around much of the Australian coastline, particularly to the north and west. This pattern is likely to increase the chance of above average winter–spring rainfall for Australia.”

During the La Nina weather event, eastern Australia copped a wet summer and autumn which led to record-breaking flooding in northern NSW, as well as cooler temperatures.

As a giant island, Australia cops weather from all directions. One of the main drivers of our climate, particularly for those living in eastern parts of the country, periodically roars out of the Pacific. Whether it’s an El Nino bringing extreme droughts or a La Nina whipping up severe tropical cyclones and floods, farmers and firefighters and almost everybody else have cause to keep a wary eye on subtle temperature changes in the waters to Australia’s north-east.

The Australian sharemarket has snapped a seven-day losing streak, climbing by 1.4 per cent on Tuesday on the back of a lift in resources and banking stocks.

The ASX 200 index finished 90.4 points higher to close at 6523.8 points, with only the real estate, health care and utilities sectors declining.

Strong Wall Street futures helped push the market higher during the session, with the energy sector rising the most (2.8 per cent) as oil prices edged up due to the ongoing lack of supply.

Stabilising iron ore prices also helped the major miners recover from Monday’s losses. BHP rose 1.7 per cent, Rio Tinto was up 2.8 per cent and Fortescue grew by 3.5 per cent.

The big four banks also rose at least 2 per cent each, with the financial sector posting its largest gain in three months.

Read more here.

The trial of the man accused of raping former political staffer Brittany Higgins has been delayed after a judge said media reporting around a speech by television reporter Lisa Wilkinson at the weekend’s Logie Awards put the hearing’s fairness at risk.

Bruce Lehrmann, also a former Liberal staffer, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent, relating to an alleged incident in Parliament House in 2019.

Lisa Wilkinson won a Logie award for her interview with former staffer Brittany Higgins.Credit: Getty Images

ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum said she was not satisfied any directions to a jury to disregard reporting of Wilkinson’s speech or any preconceptions they might have about the case would ensure a fair trial.

“Regrettably and with gritted teeth, I have concluded that the trial date of 27 June, towards which the parties have been carefully steering, should be vacated,” she said.

The court heard Drumgold had met with Wilkinson on June 15 to discuss evidence she would give at the trial. At the end of that meeting, Wilkinson flagged she had been nominated for a Logie for her reporting of Higgins’ allegations and that she had prepared a speech.

Crown prosecutor Shane Drumgold warned her that further publicity around the case could lead to the trial being delayed.

Read more here.

The Queensland government will impose a new levy on big business to generate an ongoing funding source for mental health services in the state, expected to deliver an annual windfall of $425 million within three years.

Big retailers such as Woolworths and Coles, mining companies, and major construction firms are expected to contribute the most from their bottom lines to fund a five-year $1.6 billion mental health spend.

“We must have a sustainable funding model,” Treasurer Cameron Dick said of mental health support funding in his budget speech.Credit: Composite

The staged rollout of yet-to-be detailed mental health service beds – including for perinatal and eating disorders – 1400 new staff and capital investments through the program will form part of the state’s broader health budget, worth $23.6 billion in the coming financial year.

A recent parliamentary committee inquiry into mental health had urged the government to increase funding and expenditure for mental health and drug and alcohol services, and create a dedicated funding stream, after finding the state reported the lowest national per capita spend in 2019-20.

Read more here.

A NSW electricity company has been placed into voluntary administration, declaring soaring east-coast power prices and the imposition of price caps have made it “impossible” for it to remain viable.

“The market is broken and does not support small retailers,” Enova chief executive Felicity Stening said. “The current diabolical state of the energy market combined with the high wholesale market energy prices and the cap on customer prices has made it impossible for Enova Energy and many other small retailers to operate.”

Enova Energy, which described itself as Australia’s first community-owned electricity retailer, supplied 13,200 customers across NSW and south-eastern Queensland. It was ranked No.1 on Greenpeace’s list of Australia’s greenest electricity suppliers this year. Cathro Partners has been appointed administrators, according to a filing with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Wholesale power and gas prices are surging across the eastern seaboard as a burst of cold weather drives up demand for heating and a series of simultaneous coal-fired power station outages have forced gas-fired generators to fill the gap.

Last week, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) was forced to set rarely used price caps to halt runaway wholesale prices at $300 a megawatt-hour, before making the unprecedented decision to suspend the entire electricity market as it neared a meltdown.

Enova’s collapse comes after NSW gas provider Weston Energy, which had supplied more than 400 large industrial customers, closed last month due to rocketing prices. Other small electricity retailers have told customers to seek other providers to avoid triple-digit price rises.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese assured national cabinet that Australia’s expert medical group was investigating whether a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose should be mandated for all healthcare workers.

Andrews said he told his state and territory counterparts during Friday’s meeting that hospital chiefs had raised a second booster shot as a “real priority” following a recent spate of coronavirus outbreaks seeded by staff bringing the virus into work.

Andrews at last week’s meeting.Credit: Rhett Wyman

“I said, ‘Look, this is what I’m hearing out of hospitals’ ... fourth doses need to be made available and I think the federal government know and understand that, and I think ATAGI [Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation] are doing the work they need to do to hopefully get us closer to that,” Andrews said outside of Parliament on Tuesday morning.

“They said no to that in May, but in COVID terms, May is a long time ago.”

There are no plans to mandate a fourth dose for healthcare workers in Victoria. However, it is mandatory for workers in healthcare, aged care, disability, emergency services and correctional facilities to be “up to date” with their vaccination doses. At present, this means they require a third dose to work on site and must have it within a set timeframe once they are eligible.

Health Minister Martin Foley lifted some mask and vaccine mandates on Saturday. Healthcare workers were among the first group of people to be vaccinated, and there are now concerns over their waning immunity.

Public school and Catholic school teachers in NSW are set to stage a historic joint 24-hour strike on June 30 as anger escalates across the profession over staff shortages, mounting workload and pay.

It has been more than two decades since the NSW Teachers Federation and the Independent Education Union of Australia have taken joint action, which the unions say is a direct result of the “manifest failure” of the state government and Catholic employers to deal with the teaching crisis.

School teachers march along Macquarie Street in May.Credit: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Negotiations over an enterprise agreement are at a stalemate, with the federation calling for a pay rise of 5 per cent a year with an extra 2.5 per cent to recognise extra experience, as well as two more hours of planning time a week.

Last week we reported many Victorian state school teachers are quitting the Australian Education Union, accusing it of signing a weak workplace agreement that delivers a 2 per cent pay rise for the next four years, but in the context of inflation above 5 per cent.

It will be the third time NSW public school teachers have voted to strike in just over six months, and the second time NSW and ACT Catholic diocesan schools have voted to take industrial action this year. Together, the unions represent more than three quarters of the state’s teachers.

Read more here.

Health Minister Mark Butler has defended world swimming governing body FINA's decision to effectively ban transgender athletes from competing, saying elite sports had to weigh "factors of strength and stamina" when deciding who could participate.

"Ultimately, sports governing bodies need to govern the operations of their sport, particularly at an elite level," Butler told the ABC on Tuesday.

Mark Butler deferred to sporting authorities on the matter of transgender participation.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

"Sports have had the legal tools available to them for many years here in Australia, to make decisions about participation in their sport, particularly where their sport involves factors of strength and stamina. And that's apparently happened at a global level in relation to swimming. So that's as it should be."

FINA announced on Monday that it had decided transgender athletes could only compete in women's swimming events if they had completed their transition by age 12, meaning they would need to have taken puberty blockers from a young age.

International Rugby League announced on Tuesday it will follow FINA's lead and the NRL is weighing its position.

Butler said transgender sporting rules were part of "a highly sensitive debate that needs to be conducted as respectfully as possible".

"We need to be very careful not to politicise [this debate], and not to put vulnerable Australians in the middle of a political debate," he said.

Asked if Australia should invest more in transgender medical research to enable sporting bodies to inform their decisions with better science, Butler said research expenditure was decided by independent experts "in a peer-reviewed way, rather than politicians making decisions about a particular research project."

On the rising COVID-19 cases and ongoing pandemic death toll, Butler said Australia still had “quite a way to get through this pandemic” and that he wanted to improve booster rates, particularly in aged care.

Butler said COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5 could be approved within weeks, with the Therapeutic Goods Administration currently assessing Moderna’s application for its jab to be approved for this age group.

“It’s appropriate that those authorities feel that they are able to conduct their work, their legislative work, in a timeframe that’s proper,” he said. “And I’d expect that to happen over coming weeks.”

Thanks for reading our live news blog today. Here’s a recap of what has been making headlines:

• Home buyers are being warned by the Reserve Bank to prepare for more interest rate rises, saying it has to get the cost of money back to a normal level to head off inflation pressures that would leave all Australians worse off.
• NSW Treasurer Matt Kean handed down details of his government’s $27 billion budget spending spree. The government has billed this as a budget for families and reform. New measures include up to $750 in savings for toll users every year and up to $600 a year for power bills for eligible households installing rooftop solar and energy-efficient appliances.
• Health Minister Mark Butler said vaccinations for children aged under five could be approved within months, with a vaccine application from Moderna being analysed by Australia’s medical regulatory agency. “I think it’s appropriate that those authorities feel that they are able to conduct their legislative work in a timeframe that’s proper, and I’d expect that to happen over the coming weeks now,” he said of the TGA and ATAGI.
• A federal policy to spend $1 billion on new energy projects has failed to add any power to the national electricity market more than three years after the Coalition unveiled the plan with a promise to fix supply shortages and ease pressure on prices.
• Rugby league has made a ruling on transgender athletes, banning them from competing in this weekend’s Test matches and the upcoming women’s World Cup, which will be held concurrently with the men’s event in October and November in England. World soccer’s governing body FIFA and World Athletics are also reviewing their transgender eligibility policies after swimming’s prak body passed new rules that restrict transgender participation in women’s events.
• The Victorian government will spend $200 million expanding mental health services at 1800 government and low-fee non-government primary schools across the state as part of a push to tackle mental illness among young students.

I’m off for the day, but Josh Dye will be taking you through the afternoon. Thanks again for your company and hope you have a lovely week.