Minns says Labor will be under pressure in some seats from One Nation
Penry Buckley
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, says Labor will be under pressure in some seats from One Nation at the March 2027 state election, after the party’s historic victory in the federal byelection in Farrer.
At the opening of a pre-public school in western Sydney this morning, the premier said David Farley’s victory in the NSW electorate marked “a seismic change when it comes to politics in Australia”.
We will be under pressure in some of our seats and there’ll be some Labor voters that don’t want to vote Labor and are prepared to vote for Pauline Hanson. We’ve got nine months to try and get them back.
Minns again took aim at the state opposition for not ruling out a preference or coalition deal with One Nation. Asked what his message was for western Sydney voters after Barnaby Joyce’s comments that One Nation will move on to targeting the region, he said:
I don’t think it’s enough to say we’re coming. You’ve got to deliver the policies and you have to explain to the public in western Sydney how you’re going to make life better and not have us all just ripping each other apart in a divisive political campaign.
Key events
Aussie shares drop as ceasefire frays
The local share market has slipped after the US rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal to end the Middle East war, AAP reports.
Shortly after midday on Monday, the S&P/ASX200 index was down 49.7 points, or 0.57%, while the broader All Ordinaries had fallen 47.1 points, or 0.52%.
EToro market analyst Josh Gilbert said that risk-off sentiment was likely to prevail after the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar all reported drone strikes in the region and US President Donald Trump slammed Iran’s offer to end the war.
Trump calling the offer ‘totally unacceptable’ is exactly the kind of headline that markets hate.
The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, Gilbert added, and each failed negotiation is a reminder that there is no quick fix to the biggest oil supply disruption in history.
Domestically, investors are also waiting for details of Australia’s federal budget, which treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down on Tuesday night.
At midday five of the ASX’s 11 sectors were higher and six were lower.
The budget papers are hot off the press
In a good year (read: a non-volatile period) the budget is always down to the wire because forecasts are being updated constantly.
The timing has been even tighter this year due to the war in Iran with even bigger changes to those forecasts.
But time’s up for the hard workers of the treasury department, because the documents have been printed, and handed over to the treasurer, Jim Chalmers (who immediately posted about it on social media).
We might even get some pics this afternoon of the glossy covers – you’ll never guess what colour they are (they’re always dark blue).
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Greens the victim of ‘tactical voting’ in Farrer, says Waters
Waters was also asked about the Greens performance in the Farrer byelection, where it polled just 2.2% after suffering a 2.6% swing.
The poor showing was despite Labor not running a candidate, which in theory left more progressive votes up for grabs.
Waters speculated that the Greens were the victim of “tactical voting”, suggesting its supporters swung in behind Michelle Milthorpe in the hope of defeating One Nation.
The Greens were not setting out to win the seat of Farrer. But what’s really clear from the weekend’s result is that this was a rejection of both major parties, and this was a vote against the system. But Pauline Hanson’s approach to blame migrants so that she can protect the system, like her mate, Gina Rinehart, will not help anybody’s rent or groceries or cost-of-living become more affordable.
Greens say ‘time for tinkering’ on housing is over ahead of federal budget
Dan Jervis-Bardy
The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, says the “time for tinkering is long gone” as she demands ambitious reform to fix the housing crisis in Tuesday’s budget.
Housing is expected to be a major focus of Jim Chalmers’ economic update, with changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount part of a strategy to get younger people in the market.
The Greens have campaigned to abolish the two concessions, which have been blamed for turning housing into investment vehicles for older and wealthier Australians.
Labor will almost certainly need the Greens’ support to get any changes through the Senate, meaning the minor party’s position is critical. Speaking to reporters in Parliament House, Waters said:
Housing affordability is the biggest crisis that this government is facing and people are seriously hurting. We are in a deep housing crisis and what people don’t want to see is tinkering. They would like the housing crisis to be fixed and that is the job of the government. They don’t want to see tinkering. And the Greens have been calling for the abolition of these property investor tax perks for years now.
Colin Boyce changes tune, declares he’s ‘absolutely committed’ to the Nationals
Josh Butler
LNP MP Colin Boyce now says he is “absolutely committed to the National Party” despite telling Guardian Australia over the weekend that he was reconsidering his political future after the Farrer byelection result.
Asked at a press conference today, Boyce said he was not joining One Nation. Boyce, member for the central Queensland seat of Flynn, said he’d been successful in his local electorate because “I’ve always been very clear where I sit on a range of issues, including dumping net zero, support for the mining and resource sector, the alumina sector, the gas sector, the cement sector, all of those blue-collar jobs that make up the industrial heartland of central Queensland”.
So the short answer to your [question] is, am I joining One Nation? No.
Over the weekend, Boyce told Guardian Australia: “I think everybody should be thinking about their political future, particularly the people who are the organisers in the hierarchy. If this isn’t a wake-up call for conservative politics, what is?”
I’m only facing the reality of what I’ve been trying to point out for a very long time. The point is, central Queensland is quite happy to vote One Nation.
For good measure, Boyce also hit the socials on Monday, professing his commitment to his current party:
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PM should sack Wells over expenses issue, says shadow communications minister
Sarah Henderson is calling for Anika Wells’ head, over reports in the Australian Financial Review, casting more doubt over her claimed travel expenses.
That comes after the communications minister repaid $10,000 in incorrect travel expenses last week. Read here for the full recap:
Wells told the travel watchdog that she had held an official meeting with South Australian Labor minister Chris Picton on the same night she attended his wife’s birthday party in South Australia, and had claimed travel for the journey. But Picton would not answer questions or corroborate the evidence.
Henderson told Sky News a few moments ago that the latest reports were “beyond the pale” and that Wells should be stood aside.
The whole thing has a very very bad smell about it … The prime minister must now stand down his minister and investigate this particular weekend travel. She’s got a pretty sordid track record when it comes to managing her travel.
Josh Butler
Canavan suggests Nationals could win Farrer at next election
The Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, has waved off the Coalition’s poor showing in the Farrer byelection, suggesting his party would keep trying to win the seat back despite polling under 10% in the weekend’s poll.
Canavan denied that his party was under existential threat from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation but said the Coalition needed to keep working to show voters what they stood for.
We got a good vote. We’re happy with that and we’re going to be back. We’ll come back and fight for Farrer again. There’s another election very soon. This is like a two-legged final, perhaps we played an away match on the weekend, where it was difficult circumstances at a byelection. Next time, we might be on a home ground advantage when the choice of government is up for grabs.
Canavan rejected the Coalition splits over the past year – where the Nationals twice walked away from the Liberals in policy disputes – were a factor in the byelection result, where the Liberal and National candidates struggled to attract a combined 22% of the vote.
What I’m going to be focused on doing is beating David [Farley]. Sorry to say. I congratulate him but I want to beat him in the next election with the Nationals candidate … that was an election where we were kicking into the wind and we’ll dust ourselves off and have another crack.
$100m to speed up Canberra to Sydney rail line
The federal, ACT and NSW government’s have promised a chunk of cash each to help speed up the rail line between Sydney and Canberra.
Currently it takes four-and-a-half hours to go between the two cities, while the bus is an hour faster.
Speaking to reporters this morning, Katy Gallagher the finance minister and former ACT chief minister, made the announcement, saying the aim is to get the journey to under four hours. The federal government is chipping in $50m while the state and territory governments will hand over $25m each.
Gallagher says the Labor government cares about the territory, unlike previous governments.
It’s very easy to write Canberra off politically. It’s a small city punches above its weight. But I think in the past, when I was in the chief minister’s job working with the Coalition government, [they] didn’t care about Canberra.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland clears backlog of 601 rape kits after DNA lab scandal
Queensland has cleared a backlog of 601 rape kits, left untested after a series of scandals at the state’s forensic DNA lab.
A string of investigations, including two commissions of inquiry, found a series of errors and failings at Forensic Science Queensland.
The lab proved unable to keep up with demand. By November 2024, the lab had a backlog of 601 rape kits and 11,700 “major crime” samples left untested by the lab, according to the attorney general, Deb Frecklington. The government subsequently outsourced testing to a lab in the United States.
Frecklington said on Monday that all rape kits had been tested, and the major crime backlog was down to 3,488.
This means victims of sexual violence, in particular, can get answers sooner. It means police can get their evidence to courts sooner and, importantly, it means offenders being bought before the courts much quicker.
The director of Forensic Science Queensland, Mick Fuller, said the lab would restart testing rape kits in July.
We never want another backlog with the sexual assault kits and my guarantee, as long as the labs are standing, that we won’t have a backlog again in that place.
You might say this has been one of the leakier pre-budget periods, with many of the key budget announcements already in the public sphere.
So, ahead of Jim Chalmers’ handing down his fifth budget tomorrow, here’s everything we already know from my colleague Tom McIlroy:
Minns says Labor will be under pressure in some seats from One Nation
Penry Buckley
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, says Labor will be under pressure in some seats from One Nation at the March 2027 state election, after the party’s historic victory in the federal byelection in Farrer.
At the opening of a pre-public school in western Sydney this morning, the premier said David Farley’s victory in the NSW electorate marked “a seismic change when it comes to politics in Australia”.
We will be under pressure in some of our seats and there’ll be some Labor voters that don’t want to vote Labor and are prepared to vote for Pauline Hanson. We’ve got nine months to try and get them back.
Minns again took aim at the state opposition for not ruling out a preference or coalition deal with One Nation. Asked what his message was for western Sydney voters after Barnaby Joyce’s comments that One Nation will move on to targeting the region, he said:
I don’t think it’s enough to say we’re coming. You’ve got to deliver the policies and you have to explain to the public in western Sydney how you’re going to make life better and not have us all just ripping each other apart in a divisive political campaign.
Cait Kelly
Priority social housing waitlist more than doubles in four years
The number of NSW households on the priority social housing waitlist has more than doubled in four years, with some communities recording increases up to 500%, a new report by Homelessness NSW has revealed.
The report found 12,478 households are on the priority waitlist in NSW, up 115% from 5,800 in June 2021.
The Homelessness NSW chief executive, Dominique Rowe, said:
People who are extremely vulnerable are being forced into desperate circumstances including homelessness due to the severe lack of social housing in our state.
Rowe said the chronic shortage of social housing was the result of decades of neglect by successive governments:
We are calling on the state government to adopt a target of 10% of all homes being social housing, and to commit continued investment into growing our social housing stock until we get there.
Wagga Wagga, where a newborn infant recently died in homelessness, recorded the highest increase, with a 500% rise since 2021. Over the same period, median rents in Wagga rose 41%. The priority list rose 450% in Griffith and 330% in Tamworth, which both suffered rent increases of 31%.
Nino Bucci
Australian women charged with slavery offences over time in Islamic State face court
Two Australian women charged with slavery offences that allegedly occurred while they lived under Islamic State rule in Syria have faced a Melbourne court.
Kawsar Ahmad, 53, also known as Abbas, and her daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, were arrested by officers from the Victorian joint counter-terrorism team at Melbourne airport on Thursday.
Police allege the pair travelled to Syria in 2014 with their family and knowingly kept an enslaved woman in their home, and that Kawsar was complicit in the purchase of an enslaved woman for US$10,000.
The pair appeared before the chief magistrate, Lisa Hannan, on Monday.
But the Melbourne magistrates court heard that they would not be applying for bail, as had been foreshadowed on Friday.
Zeinab is expected to apply for bail at a hearing on 4 June, with Kawsar’s application expected on 16 June.
Neither woman was required to speak or enter a plea during the short hearing, before they were remanded in custody.
The AFP will allege the offences were terrorism-related and are expected to oppose bail.
Court documents released to the media on Friday show Kawsar is accused of intentionally exercising “any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership” over a person, in circumstances “where the conduct was committed intentionally or knowingly as part of a widespread or systemic attack directed against a civilian population”.
She is also accused of “intentionally exercising” the “powers attaching to right of ownership” regarding the use and possession of a slave. Zeinab faces the same two charges.
The offences allegedly occurred between 1 June 2017 and 1 November 2018 at Mayadin, Hajim, Gharanij, Bahra, Abu Hamam, Walaa and other places in Deir ez-Zur province, in eastern Syria.
On or about 1 June 2017 in Mayadin or elsewhere in the same province, Kawsar Ahmad is also accused of intentionally engaging in slave trading.
Ben Doherty
Royal commission hears criticism of Israel not inherently antisemitic
Julie Nathan, appearing before the commission in her capacity as research director for the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said criticism of Israel was not inherently antisemitic, “even though a lot of it is incredibly offensive”.
But Nathan argued criticism that invoked Nazi Germany or anti-Jewish tropes should be considered antisemitic.
For example, if it uses older anti-Jewish tropes, you know, such as the blood libel, or Jews are Satanic … they might say ‘Israel is satanic’. So then that kind of feeds into that.
She said “no other country in the world is compared to Nazi Germany, only Israel”.
Nathan said pro-Palestinian protest material, such as posters and stickers, were not inherently antisemitic but could be considered examples of Jew-hatred dependent on context.
We don’t count anything pro-Palestinian as anti-Jewish unless, for example, if there’s a ‘free Palestine’ sticker and it’s stuck on a synagogue or outside a Jewish school.
If they’re using pro-Palestine material to target Jews, that in itself then becomes antisemitic.
Nationals launch petition to build inland rail
The Nationals have launched a “rescue our rail” petition today to save the northern half of the inland rail project, scrapped by the Albanese government last week, after its pricetag skyrocketed (once again) to a hefty $45bn.
Matt Canavan donned a flannel shirt today, a hangover perhaps from his visit to Farrer where he stayed overnight in a swag (which he has brought with him to parliament today), and looks a little different to his suited up colleagues.
On the byelection, Canavan says he showed up and spent time on the ground across the electorate “to take our medicine to hear the views of everyday Australians who clearly want change”. Moving on to the inland rail, he says:
This broken promise on the inland rail is one that cuts very very deeply for lots of the businesses and communities that have invested so much on the promise of multiple governments that we would finally build a proper rail line between Brisbane and Melbourne and open up the inland of this country.
The shadow infrastructure minister, Bridget McKenzie, accuses the government of cancelling the project to instead spend it on Victoria’s contentious suburban rail loop.
If you wanted any other indication of what Anthony Albanese and the Labor party thinks about the 9 million of us that don’t live in capital cities, you didn’t need to go to Farrer to work that out.
The prime minister has decided to give [Victorian premier] Jacinta Allen, his factional mate in the ALP, a couple of extra lazy billion dollars.
Wilson walks back comments suggesting Liberals open to forming coalition with One Nation
Jumping back to Tim Wilson’s doorstop a bit earlier: the shadow treasurer changed his tune slightly on whether the opposition would form a coalition with One Nation.
So far some in the Liberal party – including shadow cabinet minister Ted O’Brien – as well as One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce and leader, Pauline Hanson, have said there would be no joining of the parties.
Yesterday, Wilson was asked on the ABC’s Insiders whether there could be a coalition between the three parties, and he said “we traditionally form a coalition with the National party, but it’s up to the Australian people to decide who they want to vote for”.
But today, he took a little step back and slammed that door shut.
I have never, ever, ever – and never, ever, ever will – make such a statement in favour of such an alliance. The reality is the leader of that party has already declared that she won’t form a coalition with us, and I have no interest in forming a coalition with them.
How Farrer swung towards One Nation – in maps
Here’s a look at how the swing was on for One Nation across the booths in Farrer on Saturday, by my colleagues Josh Nicholas, Nick Evershed, and Andy Ball.
Disability charity warns people with complex needs risk going without adequate support under NDIS changes
One of Australia’s largest disability charities has warned the national disability insurance scheme already does not adequately fund services for some people with complex needs, and changes to the scheme risk continuing that gap.
The Endeavour Foundation, a charity supporting more than 6,500 clients with disabilities, says if people with complex needs continue to have inadequate funding, charities like theirs risk becoming unsustainable.
The chief executive, Andrew Chesterman, says the announcement of a new commissioning model to support independent living “sounds promising”, but there is an urgent need to provide funding to NDIS participants that have inadequate plans.
He says:
We feel we cannot abandon our clients with the greatest needs, who need the most support, just because their NDIS plans are inadequate. We will continue to do our best for all our clients, but these challenges are exactly why so many charities are going broke. People with complex disabilities need complex support.
Haines welcomes Labor’s funding for housing infrastructure, following her advocacy
Independent MP Helen Haines has welcomed the government’s budget funding for housing infrastructure this morning, saying that Labor took a little peak at her homework to build the policy.
The regional Victorian MP says she has been calling on the government to invest in critical infrastructure such as water, sewerage and power for years to get more homes built – particularly in regional Australia.
She says:
I’ve been building the case for targeted investment in this infrastructure, because without it, we simply cannot build the homes our communities need.
This is exactly the kind of practical, targeted policy regional communities have been crying out for – and it’s encouraging to see the government has listened and adopting this approach.
