Australia news live: Price hits back at ‘bitter’ Hughes after Liberal ex-senator claims conservative women exploited ‘by the boys’

12.45am GMT Peak university body issues warning over CSIRO research cuts The head of the peak university body warned that hundreds of research job cuts announced at CSIRO yesterday will leave Australia behind the rest of the world in research development. University Australia’s chief executive, Luke Sheehy, said CSIRO’s announcement to shed jobs and narrow its research focus demonstrated “Australia’s research engine is running short of fuel”. Sheehy continued: This isn’t just a CSIRO issue – it’s a warning light for the entire research ecosystem. Australia is being outspent and outpaced by the world, Australia currently invests 1.69% of GDP in R&D – well below the OECD average of 2.7% and far behind innovation leaders like South Korea and Germany who invest over 3%. If we continue to underinvest, we will lose the talent, infrastructure and breakthroughs that drive jobs, national security and technological strength. Read more here: Related: ‘Sad day for publicly funded science’: up to 350 more jobs to go at CSIRO Updated at 12.49am GMT 12.29am GMT More from former Liberal senator Hollie Hughes Former senator and ex-Liberal Hollie Hughes spoke to 2GB yesterday, where she was asked if the Liberal party was “broken beyond repair”. She said she was particularly disgusted by the recent meeting to dump the party’s net zero by 2050 targets, where, she says, female politicians were being “used” to do the party’s dirty work and undermine Sussan Ley: I mean, to be honest, I threw up in my mouth a little bit when I saw that big rightwing conservative group walking into the net zero meeting together, and they shove three women, one who no one’s ever heard of, and two who, you know, are being used, quite frankly, by the boys who want a challenge but don’t have the gumption to go out and say anything themselves. So [they] are pushing Sarah and Jacinta out there to make these undermining comments to Susan. And I just I think it’s disgusting. Updated at 12.34am GMT 12.19am GMT Government’s nature laws don’t consider fossil fuel projects’ risk to human health, experts warn Medical experts warn the government’s proposed nature laws will allow coal and gas projects to be approved without assessing their risk to human health. Doctors for the Environment Australia say that the draft reforms, the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and six other related bills, do not include human health effects when defining what is an “unacceptable impact”. The group says fossil fuel-induced climate change is the biggest health hazard humanity faces, with doctors already seeing the effects including mortality during extreme heat events and increasing climate-sensitive vector-borne diseases like dengue fever and Japanese encephalitis. The laws are expected to be debated in the Senate next week and the group are calling on the senators to amend the legislation to include human health. DEA’s executive director Dr Kate Wylie says “ we need to use the available science that can measure the toll on our communities from individual fossil fuel projects. We call for health impact assessments for all energy projects and for death and disease data to be included in the definition of unacceptable impacts. Surely if a project causes death it cannot be deemed acceptable? What price a life? What price our health? 12.05am GMT State funeral for John Laws begins later today in Sydney A state funeral for broadcaster John Laws will take place in Sydney in a few hours. Guests will begin arriving at 12.30pm, with the funeral set to begin at 1.30pm at St Andrew’s Cathedral. It’s expected to end around 2.45pm. An announcement for the event called Laws a “a towering figure in Australian radio whose voice resonated across the nation for more than seven decades”, adding: John’s career was extraordinary. Few broadcasters have left such a deep and lasting mark on Australian media … His legacy lies not only in the thousands of hours on air, but in the connection he forged with millions of Australians. You can watch a livestream of the event here. Related: John Laws, Australian radio’s ‘Golden Tonsils’ who dominated airwaves for six decades – obituary Updated at 12.11am GMT 11.51pm GMT Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says Hollie Hughes ‘clearly bitter’ after ex-senator quits party A war of words has erupted between current and former Liberal members after an ex-senator quit the party in disgust at the behaviour of some MPs, AAP reports. Hollie Hughes, who lost her Senate seat at the last federal election, resigned from the Liberals on Tuesday, accusing some of her former colleagues of undermining opposition leader Sussan Ley. “There are some people who are completely inept, who are lazy, who are not across the details,” she told 2GB radio. “It is an absolute rabble.” Hughes also accused the conservative faction of using women to do the undermining, singling out Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Sarah Henderson. (They) are being used, quite frankly, by the boys who want to challenge but don’t have the gumption to go out and say anything themselves. Price fired back at the remarks, also on 2GB: It’s pretty disappointing to hear that sort of commentary from a woman … it’s just a ridiculous notion. She’s clearly bitter, and that’s her issue to deal with herself. The former shadow minister was dumped from her senate spot in the lead-up to the 2025 election in a factional deal which she says was orchestrated by potential leadership contender Angus Taylor. Hughes rejected suggestions her comments were a reaction to losing her senate spot. Updated at 11.54pm GMT 11.38pm GMT ANZ boss issues ‘unreserved apology’ for failing vulnerable customers The chief executive of ANZ, Nuno Matos, has offered an “unreserved apology” for what he called “serious and unacceptable” failures by the bank, which included ignoring hundreds of hardship applications and not refunding fees charged to thousands of dead customers. Speaking at a parliamentary committee hearing this morning, Matos, who was appointed to the top job six months ago, said the bank “must put those we serve at the centre of everything we do”, as he admitted that ANZ “has not always lived up to these expectations”. The failings of non-financial risk management that led to regulatory actions were serious and unacceptable. Some of them occurred when our customers were at their most vulnerable, facing hardship, bereavement, or relying on us to act with integrity. The bank fell short of what is expected of us and for that, I offer an unreserved apology. In September, ANZ was fined $240m by Asic after the bank admitted to lying about bond trading data in its dealings with the federal government, alongside widespread misconduct in its retail division that affected tens of thousands of customers. Earlier this month, ANZ revealed it had stripped $32m in bonuses from current and former executives, including the former CEO, Shayne Elliott. Updated at 12.06am GMT 11.23pm GMT Roblox had seen ‘writing on the wall’, Inman Grant adds Inman Grant said Roblox had seen “the writing on the wall” of having children commingled in the one app with adults. This negotiation was specific to Roblox and based on the common grooming scenarios that our investigators had seen where offenders tend to use Roblox to connect with children and young people before they potentially move them to another platform where they will continue to groom them. They might also instruct a child or their avatar to perform sexual acts in games on the platform. And then we’re also seeing children are being coerced into sending explicit images in exchange for gifts like sneakers or Robux, which is the digital currency on the platform. Read more about reporter Sarah Martin’s week on Roblox here: Related: My chilling week on Roblox: sexually assaulted and shat on as a child avatar roaming the online world 11.14pm GMT eSafety worried Roblox was ‘playground for pedophiles’ before age-check change The eSafety commissioner said she was concerned gaming platform Roblox was “becoming a playground for pedophiles” before the company announced new age assurance measures to prevent kids and teens from chatting to random adults on the service. Related: Roblox rolls out age-verification features in Australia as gaming platform insists child social media ban should not apply As Guardian Australia reported, from next month in Australia, users who want to use the chat function in Roblox will need to go through facial age estimation that will group them into age groups that they will be able to speak to. Julie Inman Grant told ABC Radio Melbourne that the change came about after she had negotiated with the company over concerns raised in recent months, rather than the possibility of Roblox being included in the under-16s social media ban. She said: We’d been watching Roblox for a long time and had been concerned about some of their safety features and it becoming a playground for pedophiles. So we reached out to them around a formal warning and then it turned into a negotiation which they have to comply with by the end of December. Updated at 11.24pm GMT 10.59pm GMT Shark warning for small Australian town after lobster diver ‘bumped’ by large animal The Western Australia government issued a shark warning to the small town of Gnarabup after a diver reported being bumped by a large white shark while diving for rock lobster on Tuesday. The WA government’s SharkSmark program issued the warning for the area around Gnarabup and Prevelly after the diver said they encountered the shark just after 4.30pm. The animal, thought to be a 2.5m white shark, “bumped” the diver, who did not sustain any injuries. SharkSmart said yesterday: Take additional caution in the Gnarabup Boat Ramp area. Adhere to beach closures advised by Local Government Rangers, Parks and Wildlife Service officers or Surf Life Saving WA. DPIRD (Fisheries) advise that a shark warning has been issued for Gnarabup Boat Ramp near Prevelly following a reported shark interaction. See more: https://t.co/zarpbmZYC4— Surf Life Saving WA (@SLSWA) November 18, 2025 Updated at 11.01pm GMT 10.45pm GMT NSW to get 159 new EV chargers in regional hotspots NSW’s third round of grants boosting EV charging infrastructure will result in 159 new chargers being deployed in 48 regional hotspots, with drivers encouraged to check out towns and inject money into local economies before they hit the road, AAP reports. The chargers will be high-powered at between 22kW and 100kW, which can fully charge a standard EV SUV in about an hour. Exact locations are yet to be finalised but government officials said they would be installed at “iconic road trip routes” and at “key tourism destinations”, including at rest stops, visitor centres and holiday hotspots. Of NSW’s local government areas, Shoalhaven will receive the most charging ports at 19, Kempsey will get 11 and Lismore will get nine. 10.27pm GMT Gardener charged with manslaughter after Sydney woman dies A man was charged with manslaughter after the death of an 86-year-old woman in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe, following an alleged assault at her property last month. NSW police said the man, 53, was employed as the woman’s gardener. Officers allege the man entered her home in Glebe on 31 October before assaulting her and then leaving the premises. The woman was taken the hospital in a serious condition later that day and the man was subsequently arrested and charged with reckless grievous bodily harm and staking or intimidating to intending fear or physical harm. Police said they were later informed the woman died on 6 November in hospital. The man was formally charged with an additional count of manslaughter on Tuesday. He will reappear in court in January. 10.15pm GMT Victoria only state on track to meet national housing targets, report finds A new joint report from the Summer Foundation and YIMBY Melbourne reveals that Victoria is the only state on track to meet its national housing targets while also adopting the Livable Housing Design Standard (LHDS) – a national accessibility benchmark that NSW and WA have refused to commit to. The national housing accord aims to have Australia build 1.2m new homes from mid-2025 to mid-2029. Victoria is forecast to deliver 98% of its target of 306,000 dwellings by 2029 – the only state on track to come close to its target. NSW, for comparison, is forecast to achieve only 65% of its target of 376,000 homes. Joel Dignam, lead campaigner at the Summer Foundation, said: Victoria’s success shows that when you get the settings right, accessibility and affordability can go hand-in-hand. Delaying liveable housing standards in the name of supply is a Trojan horse for perpetuating housing discrimination. Every new home should be one that everyone can live in. NSW is reforming its planning system — that’s promising. But it must stop using accessibility as a scapegoat and commit to the LHDS. Updated at 10.25pm GMT 9.59pm GMT SA’s education minister urges federal government to launch national inquiry into asbestos bungle South Australia’s education minister will write to the federal government on Wednesday calling for an urgent national inquiry into how coloured sand products which have been contaminated with asbestos were allowed into the country. It follows the closure of a string of schools in the ACT and Tasmania that were confirmed to have used the products, and recalls from major retailers including Target, Kmart, Woolworths and Officeworks. A ban and import prohibition for asbestos in Australia has been in place since 2003. On Tuesday, border officials confirmed the coloured sand products were not required to undergo any testing for the hazardous material before they were imported. The minister for education, Blair Boyer, said the recall had led to costly specialist removal and cleaning in thousands of buildings nationwide. No public schools have closed in South Australia over the asbestos concerns however two Catholic special schools were shut for cleaning. How on earth does this happen in this day and age? It is completely unacceptable. There needs to be an urgent inquiry so we can understand how these products were allowed to be imported into Australia. This has affected thousands of schools right across the country, let alone the countless families who may have the product in their homes. While the risk to children this time has been low, we need to make sure there are stringent regulations in place to ensure this never happens again. Updated at 10.04pm GMT 9.40pm GMT ‘This is a government that believes in science’: says industry minister on CSIRO job cuts The government says the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) will go through a “process” in the coming weeks and months to ensure “all of its effort is directed towards the research priorities of the CSIRO”, in response to questions on the organisation’s announcement it will cut more than 300 jobs. The industry minister, along with the PM, addressed the media in WA on Tuesday evening. The CSIRO announced that 300 to 350 roles are expected to be cut, in addition to job losses earlier this year and in 2024. Minister Tim Ayres said he would support the CSIRO during this “difficult time” for the organisation. This is a government that believes in science. We believe in investing in science. We will continue to invest in science … I’ve watched the management and leadership of the CSIRO working through these issues with their staff. There’s still more work to do, but they have come forward with that announcement. It is obviously a difficult time for the organisation, but with prioritisation from a government that believes in our national science institution and its capacity to serve the national interest, that is a necessary process, and I support them working their way through those questions. Updated at 9.48pm GMT 9.26pm GMT Australia’s ‘right to disconnect’ laws helping to reduce unpaid overtime Workers are quietly exercising their right to disconnect, according to workplace experts, despite rarely lodging claims against overbearing managers. Last financial year, the Fair Work Commission received just seven applications under the right to disconnect provisions, designed to protect workers who refuse to respond to their employer after hours. While the small number of applications has raised questions over the reform’s effectiveness, Trent Hancock, principal at Jewell Hancock employment lawyers, says the laws are being used by employees “more as a shield than a sword”. You’ll have employees not responding to that out of hours communication. The employer recognises that if they then issue a direction to do so, they’ll find themselves on the receiving end of an application to the commission. The disconnect laws came into effect for all “national system employees” in August last year. Small businesses were brought under the reforms in August this year. Fiona Macdonald, from the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, says the protections have helped reduce unpaid overtime in workplaces. Its biggest effect was always going to be about shifting the culture. The institute’s annual “go home on time day” report found that while full-time employees have been exercising their right to disconnect, part-timers and casuals are doing more unpaid overtime. 9.10pm GMT NSW to ban Nazi chants and expand police powers after Sydney rally People in NSW who chant Nazi slogans could be imprisoned as part of a bid to punish and unmask far-right extremists, AAP reports. New legislation will be introduced by the NSW government on Wednesday after 60 black-clad neo-Nazis yelled Hitler youth chants at state parliament on 8 November. Though Nazi symbols are already banned in many jurisdictions, the bill will expand the ban to behaviour that shows support for Nazi ideology through imagery or characteristics associated with the ideology. Anyone who repeats Nazi chants will face up to a year in prison or a maximum fine of $11,000 – a punishment that could be doubled for those who do so near a synagogue, Jewish school or the Sydney Jewish Museum. Attorney general Michael Daley said: Nobody should be subject to this vile hatred because of their background or faith. We are giving police and the courts additional powers to hold Nazi extremists to account for their abhorrent views. Police will be able to order perpetrators to take down suspected Nazi symbols and those who refuse could be hit with a $2,200 fine or three months’ prison. 9.00pm GMT Sussan Ley dodges questions about how much net zero by 2050 would cost Sussan Ley, the opposition leader, refused to say how much it would cost to transition the economy to net zero emissions by 2050. Ley just had a heated back and forth on RN Breakfast, where she repeatedly declined to say if the Coalition knew how much the transition would cost: Labor doesn’t have a figure, we have a plan. And the point is that if you look at our plan, it injects more supply into the system, which pushes costs [down] if we’re arguing about cost … I just know that the cost is blowing out under Labor, which is why the cost of your power bill is going up. Sally, have you asked the PM what the cost is? Have you got a straight answer from him? The government is in charge of all of these levers for energy policy right now. What we’re saying is: if we are fortunate enough to be elected, this is what we would do. The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, and other Coalition MPs have regularly bandied about a $9tn figure for that transition. That claim is false, with the group behind that number saying it had been misrepresented. Academics actually found the additional cost of building an energy system to reach net zero by 2050 was closer to $300bn. My colleague Adam Morton has more on those figures here: Related: Factchecking five Coalition claims about net zero, from power prices to the $9tn cost Updated at 9.04pm GMT 8.50pm GMT Home affairs minister adds conversations ongoing to make sure laws are ‘fit for purpose’ after neo-Nazi rally Burke added that officials had “significant” powers under current law, but there were ongoing discussions following the neo-Nazi rally. As you’d expect, there are conversations that I’m having with my department to make sure that all the laws that we have are fit for purpose, not only with my department, but obviously the different intelligence and law enforcement and security agencies that are within my portfolio as well. The home affairs minister said he was always “pressure testing” different laws with Asio, the AFP and the criminal intelligence commission, adding you never get to a point where you say, “okay, laws, they’re all fixed”. You’re always reviewing because the nature of the attack and the nature of what people want to do to our social cohesion is always changing. 8.42pm GMT ‘He’s not heading back into the Australia community’, Burke says of man detained after neo-Nazi rally Tony Burke, the minister for home affairs, said the South African man who had his visa cancelled after attending a neo-Nazi rally in Sydney is not welcome in Australia and would soon be on his way to his home country. Related: South African man detained in pre-dawn immigration raid after attending Sydney neo-Nazi rally Burke spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying the decision to cancel Matthew Gruter’s visa also sent a message “to the rest of Australia about what we find acceptable”. He went on: He’s not heading back into the Australian community. I think there’s a really simple concept here: that when someone’s on a visa, they’re a guest in Australia, and almost every visa holder is a very welcome guest, and they treat Australia with incredible respect. But if someone turns up as a guest in your home and they just want to create arguments, abuse people, and wreck the place, then you ask them to leave. And this bloke, for whatever reason, has decided that he can arrive in Australia and then tell a whole lot of Australian citizens that they’re not welcome here. Well, the person who’s not welcome is him and he can leave. Burke added that his decision was linked to the need to send a “strong national message out” that “modern Australia and multicultural Australia are the same thing”. Updated at 9.04pm GMT 8.24pm GMT Following on from last post Daley said in his reading of the bill that the court had acknowledged in its findings that there would be a lesser burden on this freedom if the power was narrowed so that it only affected those who are seeking to access or leave a place or worship. He said that this was “always the New South Wales government’s intention”: This bill proposes to clarify the move-on power to give effect to the original intention of this measure … In doing so, the bill clearly expresses the government’s intention to protect people who are entering or exiting the place of worship. He said the maximum penalty for refusing to comply with a police move in this instance would be $220. The catalyst for the first version of the place of worship bill was a protest outside the Great Synagogue where a member of the Israel Defense Forces was speaking. Some Labor MPs had warned their premier, Chris Minns, in an internal meeting before the laws passed that the expanded police powers could be found constitutionally invalid. Updated at 8.26pm GMT 8.15pm GMT NSW government introduces fresh laws restricting protests outside places of worship The NSW government has introduced a fresh bill to restrict protests outside places of worship, with the state’s attorney general telling parliament last night that the new legislation clarifies the scope of police powers after an earlier version was found constitutionally invalid. Michael Daley told parliament in the first reading of the bill last night that the new legislation would give police powers to issue a move-on direction to people participating in a protest taking place in or near a place of worship, but only if the conduct is harassing, intimidating or threatening a person accessing or leaving or attempting to access or leave the place of worship. He said a person can also be moved on if police find they are intentionally blocking, impeding or hindering a person from accessing or leaving a place of worship. Daley acknowledged the supreme court’s findings that struck down an earlier version of this law in October after it found the police powers were constitutionally invalid because it impermissibly burdened the freedom of political communication implied in Australia’s constitution. Those laws, which were successfully challenged by the Palestine Action Group, had given police broad powers to move on someone protesting in or near a place or worship, regardless of what the protest was about. Related: NSW anti-protest law ruled unconstitutional after Palestine Action Group court challenge 8.11pm GMT Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday. Nick Visser here to mind the blog today. Let’s jump in. 7.57pm GMT Job market locking out those who need work the most, says Anglicare Australia’s job market is locking out people who most need a chance to work, Anglicare Australia’s annual Jobs Availability Snapshot has revealed. The Snapshot measures how many jobs are available for people who don’t have qualifications or recent experience. It finds that: For every entry-level vacancy, there are 39 people on the JobSeeker payment. Of those, 25 have barriers to work. This is the highest ratio ever recorded by the Snapshot. Entry-level jobs now make up just 11% of all vacancies. This is their lowest share in a decade. Anglicare Australia executive director, Kasy Chambers, said: All of this shows that people are being failed by a system that treats unemployment as a personal fault instead of a policy failure. Taxpayers are spending billions of dollars on private employment providers whose business model depends on compliance and punishment. They profit whether or not people find work. Meanwhile, people are stuck in endless appointments and meaningless activities – all while competing for jobs that simply aren’t there. It’s time to end this failed experiment. The for-profit model has been running for over 20 years, and long-term unemployment has only grown. 7.50pm GMT Follows on from previous post The proposed reforms to work health and safety laws clarifies the responsibility around the use of these systems and will allow union representatives to gain access to the algorithms behind the systems so they can fully understand how they are impacting workers – and take action to enforce labour standards, if required. The amendments will place an obligation on the person legally responsible for the business to ensure these digital tools do not lead to unsafe workloads, unreasonable performance tracking, excessive surveillance or discriminatory work allocation. The NSW minister for industrial relations, Sophie Cotsis, said. As digital systems become more common in workplaces, the Minns Labor government is making sure that these systems help businesses without undermining the health and safety of workers. This is about protecting workers’ mental health, preventing harm before it occurs, and giving everyone confidence that workplace technology is used responsibly. The Minns Labor government has also committed to continuing to work with other jurisdictions through the SafeWork Australia process on how digital systems can be kept safe at work. The bill responds to relevant recommendations of a 2022 select committee on the impact of technological on the future of work in NSW (reported in 2022) regarding the rise of digital systems and their real impacts on worker psychosocial health. 7.43pm GMT NSW targets ‘dehumanising’ work systems such as Amazon’s The Minns Labor government will today introduce new laws to put guardrails around the use of digital programs designed to optimise workers’ workloads. Digital work systems, often powered by artificial intelligence, are deployed by companies such as Amazon and Uber in retail and in logistics to devise the most efficient way to determine staffing and to pick and pack items and deliver them. But there are growing concerns that these types of systems can become dehumanising, measuring everything from the speed at which workers work, to the time they spend going to the toilet. Bernie Smith, the NSW secretary of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), the union that covers retail and warehousing workers, said that often these systems were purchased off the shelf from the US, where labour standards were different from those in Australia. These systems take out every gap in a worker’s work day, but it is often the gaps that make us human and make our work bearable. Amazon does it to the nth degree but many other workplaces are using them too. It’s not working smarter, it’s just working harder. 7.37pm GMT Optus fined over $826,000 for customers losing $39,000 after scammers compromised ID checks Optus has paid a fine of $826,320 after its subsidiary, Coles Mobile, fell victim to scammers who were able to exploit a vulnerability in third-party ID checks used by Optus to bypass the required verification and gain control of at least four mobile accounts. Telcos are supposed to have strong ID verification settings in place to prevent scammers from porting a number to a different telco. Scammers who successfully port numbers can then intercept the multi-factor authentication verification for banking if SMS is the method the bank uses. In this case, the scammers then used those mobile services to access the bank accounts of those customers, resulting in reported losses of $39,000. Coles Mobile breached anti-scam rules on 44 occasions between September and October 2024, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) said. Acma member Samantha Yorke said it was a one-off issue that was quickly fixed, but it was inexcusable for any telco to not have robust customer ID systems in place, let alone the second-largest telco in Australia. She said: Scammers are always looking for any weaknesses in systems, and on this occasion Optus left a vulnerability which directly exposed people to harm. This is the maximum financial penalty the Acma was able to give in this matter. It reflects the serious nature of the breaches. 7.30pm GMT Welcome Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the best of the overnight stories before passing the news baton to Nick Visser. Optus has been fined $826,320 after a subsidiary, Coles Mobile, was targeted by scammers who exploited a weakness in third-party ID checks and gained control of at least four mobile accounts, stealing $39,000 from bank accounts. More details shortly. The NSW government has introduced a fresh bill to restrict protests outside places of worship, with the state’s attorney general telling parliament last night that the new legislation clarifies the scope of police powers. It’ll be another busy day in Macquarie Street as the government introduces new laws to protect workers from digital work systems which unions says can be dehumanising, with controls on toilet breaks and the like. More coming up.