Peter Dutton has rubbished polling which shows women are less likely to vote for the opposition leader than men, claiming women are more often responsible for household budgets, and unhappy with the economy under Labor.
Key inflation figures expected to show price pressures at lowest level in three years
By Shane Wright
Figures to be released on Wednesday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics are expected to show inflation over the past 12 months at about 2.5 per cent as prices for goods and services, particularly in the housing construction sector, ease.
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Underlying inflation, closely watched by the Reserve Bank, is also tipped to ease to 0.5 per cent in the December quarter. Many economists note at that level, the annualised rate of underlying inflation over the final six months of 2024 would be at its lowest rate since late 2021 and at the mid-point of the RBA’s 2-3 per cent inflation target.
But the steep fall in both overall and underlying inflation may not be enough for the Reserve Bank to use its February 17-18 meeting to begin cutting interest rates for the first time since the depths of the COVID pandemic in late 2020.
But the steep fall in both overall and underlying inflation may not be enough for the Reserve Bank to use its February 17-18 meeting to begin cutting interest rates for the first time since the depths of the COVID pandemic in late 2020.
Barrenjoey chief economist Jo Masters said several factors could force the Reserve to hold fire.
She said subsidies, such as those reducing the prices of electricity and rents, were distorting the overall inflation rate. The recent fall in the Australian dollar was adding to inflationary pressures while growing uncertainty over the global economy, including President Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs, made the outlook difficult to decipher.
Jo Masters, chief economist, Barrenjoey. Credit: Oscar Colman
Masters also said the make-up of the RBA board changing in coming weeks, with the bank’s new monetary policy board with incoming members Renee Fry-McKibbin and Marnie Baker due to start from February 28, would affect the decision.
“It’s a big change to the board membership. Do you start a new policy direction when you’re going to have a new board?” she said.
No lives lost in Victorian bushfire, but firefighters face weeks-long battle
By Cassandra Morgan
A bushfire ignited by lightning in Victoria’s far west on Monday razed 63,000 hectares of land, destroying a beloved nature lodge and two farmhouses in its path.
The fire forced the evacuation of the town of Dimboola – population 1635 – and the neighbouring hamlet of Wail, but some in Dimboola’s hospital and an aged care facility had to stay behind.
The view from the Horsham Aerodrome in Victoria’s west on Monday night as a fire near Dimboola turns the sky orange.Credit: Kath Papst/Facebook
Emergency management commissioner Rick Nugent addressed reporters earlier today, saying: “I’m incredibly thankful that no lives have been lost from this fire, and we have no reports of injuries either”.
But watch and act alerts remain in place for the fire, and south-east of the blaze, firefighters are facing a weeks-long battle in the Grampians National Park once again.
A fire that began in the Grampians late last year destroyed 76,000 hectares over three weeks, and crews face a similar timeframe to fight against its latest blazes, which ignited on Monday.
Lightning strikes started five fires in the Grampians between 5pm and 6pm on Monday: three of them, in its unburned north north-western part, and two in its unburned south south-western part.
“Those fires will continue to grow and they will become what we would describe as a campaign fire,” Forest Fire Management Victoria chief fire officer Chris Hardman said earlier today.
“Those fires in the southern part of the Grampians will progress and eventually meet up with those fires in the northern parts of the Grampians.”
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Science minister would ‘be very careful’ about downloading China’s AI
By Angus Delaney
Federal Science Minister Ed Husic said he would be “very careful” about downloading Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek due to privacy concerns.
“Given what we do know I think you have to be careful, I’m just being completely frank and direct on that,” Husic told ABC News.
“The Chinese are very good at developing products that work very well. They have got a big market … that market has [become] accustomed to some of the [country’s] approaches on data and privacy.
DeepSeek’s rapid ascent this week took Wall Street by surprise. Credit: Bloomberg
“It works in that market [but] as soon as you export it to markets where consumers have different expectations around privacy and data management, the question is whether those products will be embraced in the same way as what might happen ... in China.”
Husic said he expected Australians to make their own decisions about how comfortable they are using DeepSeek, which is quickly becoming the number one app in the Australian app store.
“I think it does come down to governments and businesses doing some of the thinking around this and obviously if there are any issues that present themselves, particularly from a national security perspective, we’ll always keep an open mind and act if we need to.”
Global sea turtle populations are recovering, Australian and US study reveals
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
In good news for the environment, global sea turtle populations have started to recover thanks to the success of conservation efforts.
All seven types of sea turtle had dwindled by the end of the 20th century because of hunting, fishing net entanglement and habitat loss.
But the research by Deakin University and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published today in Nature Reviews Biodiversity found a worldwide increase in sea turtle populations.
A green sea turtle swimming in shallow waters of the Great Barrier Reef. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
More turtles are nesting on beaches that have implemented conservation measures, such as reducing artificial lighting, which disoriented hatchlings. Hunting has also decreased significantly.
A 2024 analysis found population increases were occurring six times more often than declines, including for green turtles and loggerhead turtles.
Data is limited for hawksbill, olive ridley, Kemp’s ridley, and flatback turtles, but signs are positive. However, Pacific leatherback turtles continue to decline because of their long migrations.
Across all species, climate change remains a threat, including warmer seas leading to skewed sex ratios.
Chief scientist lights fuse on nuclear energy debate
Australia’s top scientist faces a showdown with a future Coalition government, casting doubt on the opposition’s plan to establish nuclear energy.
Oceanography professor and former CSIRO chief Tony Haymet has been named new Australian chief scientist, to provide independent advice and research to the federal government.
Haymet, a former director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and chief of marine research at the CSIRO, is concerned about a Coalition proposal to establish seven nuclear power plants in Australia in the next decade using small modular reactors.
Chief scientist Tony Haymet said he backed the CSIRO report, which said the nuclear proposal did not provide the most effective solution for low-emissions energy.Credit: Ben Appleton
Haymet said he backed a CSIRO report, which said the proposal did not provide the most effective solution for low-emissions energy, despite Opposition Leader Peter Dutton criticising the findings.
“I was quoted as saying I’d like to go and see [a small modular reactor]. The fact that I can’t means they don’t exist yet,” Haymet said in Canberra today.
“You may not be surprised to hear that I think the CSIRO report is a very fine piece of work. I don’t know of any mistakes in it.
“The evidence (on small modular reactors) is not looking positive in the short term.”
Haymet said the nuclear industry needed to demonstrate it could build a reactor on time and ensure it operated safely.
“The nuclear industry has accepted the fact that they have to rebuild their social license to operate,” he said.
But Dutton said he was not concerned by the chief scientist’s comments, noting other Western countries had the energy source.
“The chief scientists in the United States, the United Kingdom, in Canada, what do they know? What do the ministers there know that you know or don’t know that [Energy Minister] Chris Bowen somehow has worked out,” he said in Western Australia today.
“It just doesn’t make sense.”
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Worst in 30 years: What Hottest 100 says about the state of Aussie music
By Thomas Mitchell
Triple J has defended the lack of Australian representation in its Hottest 100 after this year’s countdown saw just 29 local artists included, down from 52 the previous year.
American artist Chappell Roan took out the top spot with Good Luck, Babe, edging out Sydney band Royel Otis, who came in second with their Like A Version cover of English singer Sophie Ellis Bextor’s 2001 track Murder on the Dancefloor.
This year’s poll is the third-lowest-ever showing for local talent, behind the first two in 1993 and ’94 (and equal to 1996). And it reignites a conversation about how to safeguard the future of Australian music in the era of globalised streaming.
Since 1993 the Hottest 100 has crowned the most popular song played on Triple J the previous year.Credit: Monique Westermann
Lachlan Macara, head of Triple J, suggests there were both cyclical and structural factors at play in the result.
“It’s the first time in a long while that Australian artist representation in the countdown has dipped below 50 per cent,” he says, attributing the result to “a confluence of events. There were some massive international releases – namely Billie Eilish, Charli XCX and Kendrick Lamar – that the listeners loved, and we’ve seen that reflected in the votes.”
The under-representation of Australian artists in the Hottest 100, alongside the fact that just five Australian songs finished in ARIA’s top 100 for 2024, speaks to a broader issue facing the local music scene: visibility and discoverability in the streaming era.
According to Tim Kelly, a UTS researcher and former executive with Sony and Universal, a couple of big players dominate the country’s listening.
“The Australian music industry is highly concentrated; over half the revenue derived from recorded music in Australia comes through Spotify, while Universal Music is the dominant record label,” says Kelly.
“Along with Sony and Warner, these three labels were responsible for more than 95 per cent of the Australian top 100 single and album charts. We are becoming a one-shop town with a dominant supplier, which doesn’t leave room for diversity.”
Queensland government stops hormone services in children’s gender clinics
By Sean Parnell
Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls has cited concerns over paediatric gender services in Cairns as the reason to “pause” the provision of hormone therapies to children across the state until 2026 at the earliest.
While the majority of young people with gender dysphoria seek treatment in public health facilities, Nicholls said there was “widely contested international evidence” around the use of puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormone therapy.
“Queensland has not yet undertaken its own considered review of that evidence,” Nicholls told reporters today, as he announced a review likely to report back in early 2026.
Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls.Credit: Matt Dennien
Nicholls, whose party opposes the provision of puberty blockers, said the previous evaluation only asked “how is the service delivered, not whether the service ought to be delivered”.
Allegations around the “apparently unauthorised” provision of services in Cairns will be the subject of two separate investigations, he said, with those findings to also be considered by the broader review.
“While this review is taking place, there is a need to maintain confidence in the public health services … so today I am also announcing an immediate pause on new public patients receiving hormone therapy for those who are under the age of 18,” he said.
Nicholls said patients already receiving hormone therapy would be able to continue, and other services would still be available to young people with gender dysphoria.
What is China’s DeepSeek, and why is it freaking out Wall Street?
By David Swan
DeepSeek was founded in 2023 and develops open-source AI models, meaning the developer community at large can inspect and improve the software.
The app distinguishes itself from other chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT by articulating its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt.
Though not fully detailed by the company, the cost of training and developing DeepSeek’s models appears to be only a fraction of what’s required for OpenAI or Meta’s best products.
DeepSeek has found a way to disrupt America’s AI dominance.Credit: Bloomberg
DeepSeek’s success may push OpenAI and other US providers to lower their pricing to maintain their established lead. It also calls into question the vast spending by companies like Meta and Microsoft – each of which has committed to capex of $US65 billion ($103 billion) or more this year, largely on AI infrastructure – if more efficient models can compete with a much smaller outlay.
That roiled global stock markets as investors sold off companies like Nvidia and ASML that have benefited from booming demand for AI services.
Shares in AI giant Nvidia tanked 17 per cent and the company lost a record $US589 billion ($936 billion) in market capitalisation, with the net worth of its CEO and largest shareholder Jensen Huang falling by some $US20 billion in mere hours.
Dutton denies he has a problem with women voters, says they are upset with Labor and economy
By Angus Delaney
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has dismissed polling that suggests he is unpopular with female voters.
Speaking to the media in Western Australia, he said that as many women were responsible for household budgets, they were upset with the prime minister.
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“The reason a lot of women are unhappy with the prime minister at the moment is that, largely, they’re responsible for household budgets for making everything add up.”
He also dismissed today’s Australian Financial Review/Freshwater Strategy polling showing that, among some voting demographics, Dutton is far more popular with men than women.
Thirty-seven per cent of male voters aged between 18 and 34 prefer Dutton as prime minister, compared with 27 per cent of women of the same age. 44 per cent of men aged between 34 and 55 prefer Dutton, compared to 34 per cent of women.
The Freshwater analysis backs findings from this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor polling, published on December 31, 2024, which found that while male and female voters have similar support for Labor, 29 per cent and 28 per cent respectively, there is a big divergence in their support for more conservative parties.
Male voters have increased their support for the Coalition from 37 to 41 per cent since the election, compared with an increase of just 34 to 36 per cent among women
