Australia news LIVE: No campaign submits text for Voice referendum to AEC; ACTU boss warns unemployment not answer to inflation

Thank you for joining me this afternoon. For those just catching up, here are some of the main headlines:

• The official Yes and No arguments for the Indigenous Voice to parliament have been submitted to the Australian Electoral Commission, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he won’t announce the date of the referendum until about six weeks beforehand.
• A Senate inquiry has heard from a former PwC director about the firm’s culture, while a former KPMG partner said there should be a royal commission into the sector.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers told a G20 meeting that inflation was moderating around the world, while Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe said nations needed to focus on productivity.

The S&P/ASX200 finished Monday’s session just 4.6 points or 0.06 per cent lower to 7298.5.

The S&P/ASX200 finished flat in today’s trading.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Tech and consumer stocks posted gains, as blue-chip stocks in each sector advanced. Wesfarmers was up 0.6 per cent to $49.15 and WiseTech Global was ahead by 1.7 per cent to $80.38.

BHP finished down 0.6 per cent to $45.26 and Woodside was 0.9 per cent lower, closing at $35.94. IGO dropped by 4.5 per cent on writedowns of Western Areas assets to $15.40, and Endeavour Group lost 9.9 per cent to $5.64 after new Victorian gambling reforms were announced.

Read the full story.

A WA man given just months to live after a terminal cancer diagnosis walked free this afternoon after spending the last four years locked up and fighting deportation back to a country he left as a baby.

Robert Taylor, 49, was just 10 months old when his family moved to Australia from Britain, but in 2019 was convicted of aggravated burglary in 2019 and wound up with a 3½-year prison sentence.

Robert Taylor, 49, is facing deportation to the UK.

After being released on parole halfway through his sentence, Taylor was picked up by immigration officers, locked up in a detention centre, and told his Australian visa had been revoked and he should await deportation.

Taylor has been fighting the visa revocation ever since, with appeals and letters to ministers and visa officials.

Then in April he was given a devastating lung cancer diagnosis and told he had just 12 months to live.

Taylor just wanted to spend his last few months with his children and grandchildren, a wish he was granted this afternoon when he was given a bridging visa allowing him to stay in Australia temporarily.

Speaking from Perth Royal Hospital moments after he received the news, Taylor said he felt “awesome”.

Read the full story.

Staying on the G20 meeting in India, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it appeared that inflation was moderating around the world, though it still remained higher than it should be.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers arrives at the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in India.Credit: AP

Chalmers told the meeting there remained substantial risks including the weak growth of many important economies. Figures out of China today showed growth there was 6.5 per cent over the past 12 months, well short of market expectations of 7.3 per cent.

Chalmers said nations have to focus on ways to strengthen economies.

We also need to recognise that now is not the time to take our focus away from the defining challenge, which is still inflation, but now is the time to think about what kind of economies we want to build as we emerge from the softness and the weakness in GDP growth over the course of the next 12 months or so.

We need to focus on the supply side. Obviously, making our supply chains more resilient is a huge part of that, but it’s not the only part of that.

We need to be more ambitious than to just catch up and patch up and go back to the sorts of economies that we had before COVID-19.”

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has used his first public appearance since being overlooked to continue in his job to make an international call for governments and policymakers to embrace productivity-enhancing reforms or else condemn future generations to poor wages growth.

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe arrives at a G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in India.Credit: AP

Lowe, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers, is in India for a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers.

It is the first time Lowe has spoken in public since Chalmers chose RBA deputy governor Michele Bullock to take over the institution when Lowe’s seven-year term ends in mid-September.

Lowe said that while the focus of central banks and governments had to be on reducing inflation, a bigger long-term problem was the global slowdown in productivity growth.

It means lower sustainable growth in real wages, it means a limited increase in output as well.

It means a slower expansion in the public services we want for our society, and it means an increased tension in the distribution of income.

So low productivity growth means economic and social problems.”

Lowe, who has spoken previously about the need to lift Australian productivity, said there were already many “sensible” ideas around the world.

But another reality we face is the challenge here is a political one. It’s not about not knowing what to do, it’s a political one.

And the political challenge is to get these good ideas that are already out there, through our political systems.

If we don’t do that, then we are condemning our citizens to slower growth in real wages, smaller public services and an increased tension on income distribution.”

Circling back to the Senate inquiry into consultancy firms, a former KPMG partner said a royal commission was needed to investigate how the sector had been allowed to operate “beyond the law”.

Professor Brendan Lyon, an ex-infrastructure partner with KPMG, said the big four accounting and consulting firms – PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY – should not be able to enjoy legal protections offered to the industry.

The big four consultancies are EY, KPMG, PwC and Deloitte.Credit: Les Hewitt

He said a royal commission was needed to examine the structure and regulation of the profession.

“The bastardisation of the partnership model by the big four firms to form a risk-free, tax-free and consequence-free business model is not in the public interest,” Lyon said.

“It is clear on the evidence that these firms have been able to operate beyond the law, beyond sanction and beyond regulation.”

The Senate inquiry was set up following a tax advice scandal involving PwC, where a former partner passed on confidential government information to clients.

Lyon said a federal regulator was also needed to enforce standards within the profession, as well as improved transparency measures.

“The big four sit in every boardroom and cabinet across Australia but face no oversight and operate beyond the law,” he said.

AAP

Sickly, skinny tiger snakes living in Perth’s urban wetlands have high levels of so-called forever chemicals used in firefighting foam and household goods including cookware and textiles.

Researchers have studied the livers of snakes to better understand the impacts of PFAS, the shorthand name for a large family of chemicals valued for their heat, water and stain-repelling properties.

Tiger snakes are top predators and prone to accumulation of PFAS chemicals,

But the chemicals – some of which are now banned – are an emerging global problem because they don’t easily break down but readily move through the environment in water and in the air, building up in plants, animals and humans.

Investigative reporter Carrie Fellner has published a series of articles on this masthead about the devastating environmental and human health effects of the chemicals, and how Defence knew about the risks for decades.

A new study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment has shed light on what’s happening to wild tiger snakes living in Herdsman Lake, near Perth’s CBD, and Lake Joondalup, on the city’s urban edge.

Lead researcher Damian Lettoof, from Curtin University and the CSIRO, said: “Tiger snakes in Perth’s urban wetlands are ingesting these harmful chemicals and are noticeably skinnier and appear sickly compared to healthy tiger snakes. They are also experiencing poor muscle and body tone, as well as decreased energy levels.”

Lettoof said tiger snakes are a top predator and get most of their pollution exposure from the creatures they eat, such as frogs, birds and lizards.

With AAP

Flu vaccines will be free for all Queenslanders amid concern about the disease spreading among children as students return from holidays.

The state has recorded more than 51,400 cases of influenza this year, compared to less than 44,450 cases in 2022.

Since the start of July, almost 80 Queenslanders aged between six months and four years were hospitalised with the flu, 50 with the B strain and only one who was vaccinated.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the B strain was particularly severe and experts had warned of low vaccination rates in the state.

“I don’t want there to be any barriers to getting the flu jab, which is why I am reinstating free flu vaccinations for all Queenslanders,” she said today.

“If you are sick, please stay at home, that includes children going to school.”

The program will run from Saturday until the end of August and those with appointments scheduled for this week will qualify for a free jab.

The move comes after an 11-year-old girl died on the Sunshine Coast earlier this month after contracting the flu, which followed reports of the death of a student on the NSW Central Coast.

Western Australia implemented a free influenza vaccine program in May and June, while other states and territories provide complimentary jabs for at-risk groups.

Influenza cases in Victoria are also affecting young people, with almost half of cases occurring in children aged under 15 years.

AAP

Staying with the prime minister’s interview on Sky, Anthony Albanese said he was likely to visit China this year.

Albanese said he had been invited to go to China, and arrangements were being discussed.

“I’ve said very clearly that we will cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must, and engage our national interests. I think that engagement and diplomacy is always a good thing.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meeting China’s President Xi Jinping in Bali last November.Credit: James Brickwood

Albanese said that was why he was pleased to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and various ministers had met with their Chinese counterparts.

He said he had sat next to the Chinese defence minister at a dinner during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last month.

Defence ministers from the United States, Britain, Indonesia and Cambodia and the acting prime minister of Singapore were also at the table.

Staying on the topic of the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed he will not formally announce the date of the referendum at the Garma Festival in the Northern Territory next month.

He insisted the referendum will succeed and dismissed calls to pull the proposal, and instead having a vote on constitutional recognition.

“I don’t plan to announce the date at Garma because that’s just in a couple of weeks and there needs to be at least 33 days’ notice of the referendum campaign, but there certainly doesn’t need to be that very long campaign,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Voice referendum will succeed.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

He added that the formal campaign might be a little longer than 33 days, but that was the general timeframe because “Australians [don’t] appreciate very long campaigns”.

Some sources within the federal government suggest that the referendum will be held on October 14, after the AFL and NRL grand finals, but the prime minister has thus far only committed to it being held between October and December.

The Yes and No campaigns will publicly release their official pamphlets for and against the proposed Voice at midnight tonight. Albanese said the release of the Yes pamphlet would help the campaign.

The prime minister said the Yes campaign “needs to be stronger in putting the case because we know that referendums in Australia have been difficult in the past, only eight out of 48 [have succeeded]” .

Polls show support for the Voice is slipping.

But Albanese instead the referendum would go ahead.

“We are having a vote on this in the constitution. That’s it. We are having a vote, that is what Indigenous Australians have asked for.”