Australia news LIVE: Labor sanctions neo-Nazi network; Top political donors revealed

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has addressed the Labor party caucus saying his party begins with a great sense of optimism.

As politicians return to parliament house for the first sitting week back of the year, Albanese spoke to his party saying 2025 will be a good year.

“We begin 2025 with a great sense of optimism. Inflation is down, wages are up, unemployment is low – indeed our average rate of unemployment is the lowest that it’s been in many many decades, going back more than 50 years and that is something that we can be proud of,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has launched his latest attack against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, accusing the Coalition of opposing its cost-of-living measures.Credit: Chris Hopkins

“I think the hard work this group have done in making sure that we provided cost-of-living relief for people who are most in need in a way that helped to put that downward pressure on inflation.”

Albanese shifted his speech to attack the Coalition, accusing them of being against all cost-of-living relief measures introduced.

“They want to go back, and being worse off under Peter Dutton. Now, we know that they opposed all of our cost-of-living measures,” he said.

“They don’t want workers to get a tax cut, but they do want bosses to get a free lunch and that is the big distinction, and they want workers to pay for it. They want every Australian to pay for up to $20,000 ... a pop for people to engage in meals, entertainment.

“And we know as well, that they didn’t put forward any costing of it.”

Families of victims of the deadliest US air disaster since 2001 visited the crash site on the weekend and divers scoured the submerged wreckage for more remains after authorities said they had recovered and identified 55 of the 67 people killed.

Washington, DC Fire and EMS chief John Donnelly said officials were confident all would be found. Divers are working diligently to locate remains as crews prepare to lift wreckage from the chilly Potomac River as early as Monday morning, US time, Donnelly said at a news conference.

Family members of those killed in the Washington crash were taken in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding.Credit: AP

Colonel Francis Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said divers and salvage workers were adhering to strict protocols and would stop moving debris if a body was found. The “dignified recovery” of remains took precedence over all else, he said.

“Reuniting those lost in this tragic incident is really what keeps us all going,” Pera said. “We’ve got teams that have been working this effort since the beginning, and we’re committed to making this happen.”

Divers had high-definition cameras with feeds monitored on support boats, Pera said, putting “four or five sets of eyes” inside the wreckage. Owing to the frigid conditions, one diver was treated at a hospital for hypothermia, Donnelly said.

AP

Two-thirds of Australian schools are at high risk of climate perils such as floods, bushfires and storms that could set back students by disrupting their education.

Disadvantaged schools are more likely to be in the firing line of climate change-fuelled disasters, a finding Mandala Partners’ Adam Triggs says could further entrench gaps in education outcomes.

“The same schools already facing socio-educational disadvantage are often those most exposed to climate impacts, creating a double burden for vulnerable communities,” he said.

The site of a school being rebuilt in Lismore after flooding ravaged parts of the Northern Rivers in 2022.Credit: Danielle Smith

The consultancy has teamed up with insurance firm Zurich Australia to model the climate exposure of the individual sites housing the nation’s 9829 primary and secondary schools.

A “pretty alarming” two-thirds of all schools were in the three highest-risk categories.

By 2060, as many as 84 per cent of schools could face significant climate risk, assuming 2 degrees of warming.

NSW and Queensland have the highest volume of schools significantly exposed to climate-driven weather events, upwards of 90 per cent in both states.

Bushfire and hail pose the greatest climate risk nationwide.

AAP

Sam Kerr is set to appear in a London court on Monday night (AEDT) for the first day of a criminal trial in which she is accused of the racially aggravated harassment of a police officer.

Kerr is accused of calling a police officer a variation of “stupid white bastard” (according to the UK Newspaper The Sun) or “stupid white cop” (according to News Corp Australia) after a dispute over a taxi fare in south-west London.

Sam Kerr outside Kingston Crown Court on January 14, 2025.Credit: Nine

The Matildas captain could face time in jail if she is found guilty of the offence from the incident which occurred on January 30, 2023.

Read everything you need to know ahead of the first day of the trial here.

Hannah Hammoud here. I’ll be helming our live blog for the rest of the day, taking over from Josefine Ganko.

If you’re just joining us, here’s what you need to know:

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has postponed an election commitment to create a new Environmental Protection Agency until after the upcoming election, stating the reform won’t be brought to parliament this term.
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong says she advocated for Australia’s continued free trade with the US during her meetings with key stakeholders in Washington last month for President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
• White supremacist network Terrorgram will be the first entirely online group to be slapped with counter-terrorism financing sanctions, in an unprecedented move by the federal government to combat antisemitism.
• Employment Minister Murray Watt has confirmed federal Labor will not be introducing mandatory minimum sentencing for acts of Commonwealth terrorism, despite the Coalition’s pre-election promise to legislate the measure in response to rising antisemitism.
• Data from the Australian Electoral Commission released on Monday morning revealed top political donors in the last financial year, with climate activists backing the teals and packaging mogul Anthony Pratt donating $1 million into Anthony Albanese’s campaign fund around the time he attended a Katy Perry concert at Pratt’s house.

A blockbuster trial to determine whether Antoinette Lattouf was illegally sacked by the ABC begins in the Federal Court in Sydney today.

The names of members of a private WhatsApp chat used to allegedly lobby the ABC chair and managing director into sacking Antoinette Lattouf have been suppressed following an application by Rebekah Giles, a high-profile defamation specialist, on Saturday in an attempt to keep the names of the members of the WhatsApp group “Lawyers for Israel” out of court.

Antoinette Lattouf arrives at court. Credit: Edwina Pickles

Members of the group made attempts to lobby both former ABC chair Ita Buttrose and outgoing managing director David Anderson into sacking Lattouf in December 2023 while she was employed as a stand-in radio presenter on a five-day contract.

Read more about the case here.

Australian consumers may have finally got their mojo back with new figures showing the biggest lift in the volume of retail sales in almost three years.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Monday reported that the value of retail sales edged down by a much smaller-than-expected 0.1 per cent in December.

More importantly, through the final three months of last year the volume of sales lifted by a full percentage point. It was the strongest quarterly increase since the March quarter of 2022 which was recorded before the Reserve Bank started lifting official interest rates.

In per capita terms, volumes lifted by 0.5 per cent, the first increase since mid-2022. Per person purchases had fallen for two consecutive years until the September quarter when they finally stabilised.

The volume growth was the strongest quarter since the Reserve Bank started lifting interest rates in 2022.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Despite that increase, the bureau noted retail spending is $34.60 lower per person over the past year and down $227.10 since their June 2022 peak. While down, spending is up by $129.70 from their pre-COVID levels.

Analysts had been expecting a pullback in sales, but with Cyber Monday falling in December it delivered a boost with the biggest lift across household goods. Sales of electronic goods were up by 2.9 per cent while furniture and houseware goods bumped up by 2.5 per cent.

The head of macroeconomic forecasting for Oxford Economics, Sean Langcake, said the figures suggested consumer pain was starting to ease.

“Slower inflation, easier policy settings and cost of living subsidies are all working to help boost discretionary spending,” he said.

“While growth is not spectacular, there are signs that consumer spending is turning for the better.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has expressed his concern at right-wing appeals to “toxic masculinity” in global elections, pledging not to engage in a Trump-like campaign ahead of the 2025 federal election.

Responding to a question about US President Donald Trump’s election victory, supported by the votes of young men, Albanese said, “What we won’t do is engage in some of the campaign strategies that we’ve seen from some of the right internationally.”

Speaking to The Daily Aus, Albanese said he wants to focus on the common interests of both young men and women.

“Toxic masculinity that is being appealed to is a concern. [It] doesn’t benefit societies as a whole,” he said.

“We need to work towards bringing together a common interest, from my perspective of young men and young women, both have an interest in a strong economy, both have an interest in equity, both have an interest in the planet that they are inheriting and that their children will inherit as well.”

The PM also touched on his government’s response to the conflict in Gaza, specifically how his government was combating antisemitism at home in Australia through “education”.

“Just this week we announced funding for a National Centre to be in Canberra, and increased funding as well in Western Australia, at the centre that I visited there for Holocaust education,” Albanese said.

He remarked that Australia was seeing a rise in antisemitism that he hadn’t seen in his lifetime,

“It’s beyond my comprehension how anyone either does or funds the fire attack, arson attack on a child care centre that is near a synagogue there in Maroubra. That, to my mind, is just appalling.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been briefed on the extreme weather events taking place around Australia, after one person died in floodwaters in northern Queensland over the weekend.

The PM said national aerial assets and the Australian Defence Force had been deployed to assist with evacuation and rescue efforts.

Both state and federal emergency funding has been activated for residents, as regional centres including Townsville and Ingham continue to be threatened by floodwaters.

Albanese also acknowledged the ongoing heatwave stretching from Western Australia to Tasmania, including active bushfires still raging in Victoria, before thanking emergency service workers across the country for their efforts.

Young Australians can expect further cost of living policy announcements in the lead-up to the federal election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed.

In an interview with youth publication The Daily Aus, Albanese promised more help was on its way, but wouldn’t go into details.

“I’m not going to make announcements now. But I will say that one of the things that we’ve done is not just talk about what we have done this term, but we’ve already foreshadowed our action in the second term,” Albanese said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“So we’ll cut student debt by a further 20 per cent because we want to address these issues. We think that it is unfair. And we’ll also change where it kicks in and the amount that has to be paid back as a measure as well.”

The PM said he believes intergenerational inequality is the biggest issue facing young people, citing buying a home and the influence of technology as reasons for the phenomenon.

Elaborating on the housing crisis, Albanese said there was no short-term fix, and that increases to supply were being held up by state and local government planning and delays in passing the Build to Rent legislation, which only got through the Parliament in December last year with support from the Greens.