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May 11, 2024

David Rowe cartoons for May 2024

David Rowe is a multiple Walkley award-winning cartoonist. He draws a daily political cartoon and one for the Chanticleer column.

  • Updated
  • David Rowe
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher discuss the budget

Labor to spend $11.3b on social housing

The new package to be detailed in the budget aims to enable states and territories to combat homelessness and repair social housing.

  • Updated
  • Phillip Coorey

Chinese debt trap diplomacy blamed for grounding Vanuatu airline

Air Vanuatu has gone into voluntary liquidation, putting pressure on the Albanese government to bail out the national carrier.

  • Andrew Tillett and Ayesha de Kretser

Trade partners applaud gas certainty; trouble brews for Labor at home

Gas, not wishful thinking, is needed to get to net zero, says Anthony Albanese.

  • Updated
  • Phillip Coorey, Andrew Tillett and Jessica Sier

High Court hands Labor rare win on immigration detention

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles welcomed the ruling in the case of the man known as ASF17, who says he would face persecution if he was sent back to Iran.

  • Updated
  • Tom McIlroy

‘Unprecedented’ migration blamed for jump in WA spending

Treasurer says the state government had been forced to spend more on education, housing and healthcare after 95,000 people moved to WA last year.

  • Tom Rabe

Opinion & Analysis

A call for destruction can mean, well, just about anything really

Confused about what “from the river to the sea” means? It’s been a common mistake right through history.

Rowan Dean

Satirist

Rowan Dean

Australia wants more than the Lucky Country can deliver

Successive terms of trade booms – the envy of other nations – have allowed Australian governments to splurge. But now it seems that even that is not enough.

The AFR View

Editorial

The AFR View

GST and gas show a government that’s still out of tune

A huge GST handout to WA and a report that gives a free pass to the state’s gas industry show how far parochial toadying in the west will go.

Laura Tingle

Columnist

Laura Tingle

The budget that could be make or break for Labor

Jim Chalmers is gearing up for his third and most important budget. If he spends too much and stokes inflation, he knows he’ll own the next rate increase.

Phillip Coorey

Political editor

Phillip Coorey
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Yesterday

Education Minister Jason Clare with a phrase that could mean anything.

A call for destruction can mean, well, just about anything really

Confused about what “from the river to the sea” means? It’s been a common mistake right through history.

  • Rowan Dean

This Month

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

Australia wants more than the Lucky Country can deliver

Successive terms of trade booms – the envy of other nations – have allowed Australian governments to splurge. But now it seems that even that is not enough.

  • The AFR View
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese basks in WA’s GST-fuelled budget this week.

GST and gas show a government that’s still out of tune

A huge GST handout to WA and a report that gives a free pass to the state’s gas industry show how far parochial toadying in the west will go.

  • Laura Tingle
The Victorian government has cut funding to its energy department, which includes its solar program, by more than 30 cent despite touting its “nation-leading” target of net-zero emissions by 2045, budget papers show. 

Energy funding chopped under weight of Victoria’s debt

Experts say this week’s state budget shows the Victorian government has prioritised major transport projects over the energy transition.

  • Gus McCubbing

The budget that could be make or break for Labor

Jim Chalmers is gearing up for his third and most important budget. If he spends too much and stokes inflation, he knows he’ll own the next rate increase.

  • Updated
  • Phillip Coorey
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Bruce Lehrmann leaves the Law Courts after losing his defamation case with Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in Sydney on April 15, 2024. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer .

Justice Michael Lee rules Lehrmann to pay trial costs

Bruce Lehrmann has been ordered to pay the vast majority of Network Ten’s legal costs for his failed defamation case; Air Vanuatu enters liquidation; Wong undecided on UN Palestine vote. How the day unfolded.

  • Updated
  • Euan Black
Message from the bench: the current High Court (from left) - Justice Jayne Jagot, Justice Simon Steward, Justice Michelle Gordon, Chief Justice Stephen Gageler, Justice James Edelman, Justice Jacqueline Gleeson and Justice Robert Beech-Jones.

No more gaming the system, says High Court

The High Court has sent a clear message: those “manipulating the system” won’t be rewarded with a get-out-of-detention free card.

  • Michael Pelly
Australia has protested to Beijing that a Chinese fighter jet endangered an Australian navy helicopter over international waters.

Military tensions flare on the road to stability with China

A near miss between a Chinese fighter jet and Australian helicopter show that friction remains despite improvement in ties between Beijing and Canberra.

  • Andrew Tillett

Rio investors’ fear; Tesla slashes Oz jobs; Perpetual’s bigger story

Read everything that’s happened in the news so far today.

Labor goes to war with Meta in far-reaching inquiry

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk could be called on to face federal parliament, as part of a new inquiry into social media algorithms.

  • Tom McIlroy
Resources Minister Madeleine King has always argued internally that there can be no energy transition without gas as a firming fuel,

New gas projects receive support amid Labor unease

Resources Minister Madeleine King has backed the development of the Narrabri gas field in NSW, and the Queensland Labor government has given the green light to four new projects in the Bowen Basin.

  • Phillip Coorey
Low and medium density housing in Sydney.

NSW, developers at loggerheads over infrastructure contributions

Scrapping two new developer levies in NSW would clear the way for at least 50,000 extra homes over five years, according to the property industry.

  • Campbell Kwan
Peter Dutton will at least send strong signals on housing, immigration and energy in his budget reply.

Budget week is time for Dutton to roll a few Jaffas down the aisle

In the same week Peter Dutton went in to bat for the koalas, Labor flew the flag for gas.

  • Phillip Coorey
Protesters outside University of Technology Sydney on Thursday.

‘Show leadership’: Palestinian plea ahead of key UN vote

The Albanese government is being lobbied heavily over whether to support a symbolic vote upgrading Palestine to full membership of the UN.

  • Andrew Tillett
A Seahawk helicopter prepares to take off from the deck of HMAS Hobart.

Australia’s defence chief rejects Chinese spying claims

In his first comments on dramatic helicopter near miss, General Angus Campbell said a Chinese pilot had acted unsafely and unprofessionally.

  • Andrew Tillett
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WA budget winners/losers

WA Budget Winners and Losers

Households and prospective home buyers are expected to benefit from new spending measures, while there is no additional funding for farmers, and still no changes to the state’s payroll tax system.

  • Updated
  • Tom Rabe and Brad Thompson
WA budget

WA infrastructure spending goes ‘up another gear’

Premier Roger Cook has vowed to shift infrastructure spending “up another gear” as the state splashed billions on cost-of-living and housing, to absorb the record 95,000 people who moved west last year.

  • Tom Rabe
Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media has demanded a 100 per cent price increase to continue printing The Australian Financial Review in Perth.

Kerry Stokes ‘cannot cop criticism’

Teal MP Zoe Daniel has accused billionaire Kerry Stokes of anti-democratic behaviour after Seven West Media doubled the cost of printing the AFR. Here’s how the day unfolded.

  • Updated
  • Gus McCubbing
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down the budget on Tuesday.

A responsible pre-election budget is a delicate balancing act

The treasurer must not stimulate the economy, but cannot ignore the fact that some Australians are bearing more than their share of the pain.

  • Aruna Sathanapally

CBA profit falls; Accenture’s $40m pay risk; Best private dining rooms

Read everything that’s happened in the news so far today.