Source : the age
Pauline Hanson barred The Age, the ABC, and The Guardian from her Melbourne press conference, with the new state leader Warren Pickering threatening legal action against journalists for “character assassination attempts”.
This masthead’s Victorian State Political Editor Chip Le Grand revealed in April that the Nepean by-election campaign committee collapsed under Pickering’s leadership as the state branch’s president, after he advised a candidate to use a personal bank account to accept campaign donations. If acted upon, that would put One Nation in breach of the state’s electoral laws. Pickering disputed the report confirmed by three sources.
“ABC were denied entry, enter here, and The Guardian. I’m not putting up with their rubbish. I’m not putting up with their spin, their lies whatsoever. I want truth and honesty. You get it from me. I expect it back from the media,” Hanson said.
Pickering jumped in: “To elaborate on that just a little bit, we expect and invite a healthy amount of scrutiny of our candidates and our policy positions. However, any blatant character assassination attempts based on fabrications of our candidates will be met with swift legal action.”
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is in Melbourne today to announce candidates in the upcoming November state election.
Hanson said she was proud to announce Warren Pickering, One Nation’s Victorian president, to run as the party’s leader in the Victorian upper house.
Pickering said the minor party was putting the major parties on notice, but would not detail the party’s policy platform, saying an announcement would come in the next few weeks.
“Top of the list is crime, crime and corruption,” Pickering said.
“As of today, One Nation is officially a part of the Victorian political landscape, and will remain so. We are officially putting the major parties on notice. We intend for this to be November to remember, and we are contesting to govern.”
Read more the other seven candidates announced today here.
Alan Jones, a former teacher, political candidate, speechwriter and coach of the Australian national rugby union team, dominated Sydney breakfast radio for decades before he retired from 2GB in May 2020.
More than four years later, in November 2024, he was arrested and charged over allegations he indecently assaulted, groped or inappropriately touched a number of young men.
His criminal trial starts today in the NSW Local Court in Sydney and centres on allegations by six men, who will give evidence over the coming weeks. Jones has always maintained his innocence and is defending the charges.
Follow along with our live coverage of Jones’ trial here.
Warning: This coverage may contain discussion of legal submissions and evidence that is confronting for some readers.
An inquiry into Labor’s gambling advertising package is being held in parliament today. First up are harm reduction advocates, many of whom have firsthand experience of gambling addiction.
One of them, Anna Bardsley, described the Albanese government’s laws as “piss weak”. Lead advocate Tim Costello said the gambling bill fails the government’s own aims, and said it was a “lineball” call as to whether this was any better than the status quo.
They have identified three main holes in the package. One, that there is no national gambling regulator. Two, that it does not deal with betting inducements. And three, that it does not stop the saturation of ads on streaming platforms and on television.
Former rugby league player Luke Bateman, 31, explained how these betting inducements work:
Cairo: President Donald Trump has said the US would hold off on a fresh attack on Iran as long as a deal could be reached quickly to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform on the weekend that Iran and other Middle Eastern countries had asked for time to complete a deal that would lead to “the Immediate, Complete and Total” reopening of the vital strait and “an end to Iran’s nuclear threat”.
He did not name the countries in the post, which followed a call with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, a US ally.
“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” Trump wrote. Israel “joins me in this commitment”, he said.
British trip hop legends Massive Attack have been banned from Singapore after reportedly unfurling a Palestinian flag during a show there last week.
The band also reportedly chanted “free Palestine” with audience members joining in.
In an Instagram post overnight Sunday (AEST) the band said that following their performance on July 29, “we were surprised and disappointed that our entire band was detained by the police, isolated and separately questioned”.
Some members had their hotel rooms searched and their passports temporarily confiscated, the Massive Attack post added.
Communications Minister Anika Wells has defended excluding a ban on betting inducements in Labor’s gambling reforms, saying people suffering from gambling harm can sign up to the self-exclusion register.
“I would say to people who are either suffering from gambling harm or … who have been advocating in the space of inducements, to assist the cause by making sure that people who might benefit from BetStop are aware of BetStop, and can take and use the benefits of BetStop, because it is really useful,” Wells told reporters in Canberra.
“If you are someone who is suffering from gambling harm, and you do not wish to receive a text message with an inducement … you can opt out forever using BetStop today.”
Labor has been under sustained pressure to strengthen its gambling reforms, which will face a Senate inquiry this week.
Labor is announcing the final details of its News Bargaining Incentive, which we brought you earlier today.
“Under the previous arrangements that we inherited under the News Media Bargaining Code, big tech platforms could walk away without any consequences, and so what we’re seeing with the incentive is that if they decide to walk away, they will actually have to pay more,” assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino told reporters in Canberra.
“The News Bargaining Incentive creates an obligation on big tech platforms based upon their digital advertising revenue … We estimate, in rough terms, that if they enter into reasonable, fair commercial dealings, that it should see benefits to the media in the order of 200 to 250 million dollars.”
Opposition spokesman for indigenous affairs Julian Leeser has called on the government to map out a clear direction for the nation’s Indigenous policy, saying it was a tragedy Labor had largely avoided the issue since the failed Voice to Parliament referendum.
“The prime minister before the referendum spent the first 18 months of his term making Indigenous affairs the absolute centrepiece of policy, and I campaigned ‘yes’ for the Voice alongside him. But after the failure of the referendum, having raised all of these issues about indigenous disadvantage, instead of cracking on with it … it became the topic that dare not speak its name,” Leeser told Radio National.
“That’s a tragedy because many of the challenges still remain.”
Leeser said he was calling for a new direction on Indigenous policy that focused on education, wealth creation and suicide prevention.
“They are three of the key things that I think, if you address them and get them right, they can set Indigenous Australians up for intergenerational success.”
Jim Chalmers said housing was a long-term investment and prices would rise in years to come as the national market experiences its deepest downturn since Albanese came to office.
Figures released by Cotality today show dwelling values in the nation’s capitals dropped by 0.9 per cent through July, led by a steep fall in the value of houses in Sydney and Melbourne.
“The budget assumptions were that over the course of the next couple of years, we will see prices continue to grow, but a bit more modestly than they have been, and obviously this is only the first couple of months of that two-year period,” the treasurer told Radio National after Labor wound back the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing in its May budget.
He said Cotality had also pointed to interest rates, higher fuel prices and cost of living as causes for the downturn, and said it was not uncommon for house prices to come off.
“If you look over the past couple of decades, even if we’ve had over that period, a period of extraordinary price growth, we’ve still had in that two-decade period, I think at least seven times, where prices have come off,” he said.
“Investment in housing is a long-term investment. People don’t make investments in housing from day to day or week to week, month to month, and so from time to time you will see movements in prices like these.”
