source : the age
Hello and welcome to our national news live blog for Tuesday, August 25. Here’s what is making news today.
- Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has been caught on camera taking a tumble during the Pollie Pedal bike ride in Queensland.
- Anthony Albanese has promised to keep a special deal to protect Western Australia’s share of the GST as long as he is prime minister, effectively killing the recommendations of an independent inquiry that signalled the arrangement needed to change.
- The Richmond Tigers are also facing questions about its players’ conduct after footage emerged last night of the club’s playing group during a Mad Monday celebration at a pub in Gippsland.
- Embattled western Sydney housing developer Bathla Group has collapsed into voluntary administration, leaving hundreds of buyers who purchased off-the-plan homes in limbo.
- And the US has launched “Operation Economic Outcast” in an attempt to isolate Iran from the world. It issued deadlines to countries to cease all financial dealings with the regime in Tehran.
Corrections officers have voted to walk off the job at prisons and courts across NSW after a prisoner who bashed an officer was released from custody.
The Public Service Association of NSW released a statement on Tuesday saying corrections officers wouldn’t return to work until 7am on Wednesday.
“Our members are livid. A corrections officer gets bashed and left with life-changing injuries and the guy [responsible] gets released back into the community without being charged? It’s outrageous,” union secretary Stewart Little said.
The union said a corrections officer suffered a broken eye socket and broken nose in the bashing a few weeks ago.
According to the union, inmates involved in court proceedings were being trucked back to prisons after workers voted to walk off the job.
Seven people have been injured and more than three dozen homes destroyed or damaged by a wildfire near Reno in the US state of Nevada.
The Hawk Fire, north-west of the city in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, has burnt more than 6100 hectares and prompted the evacuation of more than 20,000 residents. Three of the injured are firefighters.
The blaze is just 27 per cent contained, Truckee Meadows fire chief Richard Edwards said during a media briefing. Another 43,000 people have been put on alert they might need to flee.
The conflagration that erupted early on Saturday was “human-caused” and was still under investigation, officials said.
Bloomberg
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said Australia’s Jewish community was being betrayed after The Australian reported the antisemitism royal commission would finish its public hearings days early.
“It is absolutely the wrong thing to do,” Taylor told News24.
“This is a government that has never wanted this royal commission. They did it under duress, and there are clear witnesses that need to be called that haven’t been.
“They include senior bureaucrats, ministers who haven’t been called, vice chancellors* and others, and they’ve run out of time.
“I think it’s convenient from the government’s point of view that they’ve run out of time because frankly, they don’t want to be held to account for what was such a tragic event.”
Coalition MPs have called for the royal commission’s deadline of December 14 to be extended, though the nation’s peak Jewish bodies have declined to support the push.
Angus Taylor is used to the rough and tumble of federal politics, but an incident in the Pollie Pedal bike ride would have been more painful than even the most bruising question time.
Footage shows the opposition leader falling off his bike as a convoy of cyclists navigates a roundabout on the annual 1000km charity cycle, which kicked off in Toowoomba on Saturday.
Taylor “fessed up” to the crash, poking fun at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s denial he fell off a stage during the election campaign last year.
“I’m not in denial,” Taylor told Seven’s Sunrise on Tuesday. “Everything’s pretty sore at this moment.”
“It’s not the first bike crash I’ve had. I’ve been riding for many, many years, so I’ve had some worse ones than that, but it’s never fun. You just get back up and go again.”
This year’s Pollie Pedal is raising funds for Wandering Warriors, an initiative that supports veterans and their families to transition from military to civilian life.
Victoria’s MPs will spend the lead up to the AFL Grand Final in parliament after the government scheduled an additional sitting week to push through its changes to the state’s anti-corruption commission.
MPs were notified this morning of the last-minute change to the sitting calendar, which will make both houses sit between September 22-24. This will be followed by a two-month election campaign before Victorians go to the polls on November 28.
Premier Ben Carroll and his Special Minister for State Ingrid Stitt last week flagged that the proposed changes to IBAC, which includes giving the agency long called-for, follow-the-dollar powers and a broader jurisdiction to tackle grey corruption across the public sector, would be treated as an urgent bill and dealt with in the one sitting week.
The opposition, which supports giving IBAC more powers, also wants to remove the current restrictions on the agency’s use of public hearings. As the law stands, IBAC can only publicly examine witnesses in exceptional circumstances.
The most important business before Victorian parliament this sitting week is the government’s work from home legislation, which Carroll has promised to amend to address business concerns.
Greens housing and finance spokeswoman Barbara Pocock has announced she will not recontest her seat at the 2028 election.
“The reasons are personal: for the past year my partner has had brain cancer and despite his good prognosis, I’ve reached the view that running for a second term is not right for me,” the South Australian senator said in a statement.
“The next federal election is a long way off and I still have plenty of work to do on housing, securing super for under 18-year-olds, holding KPMG to account and reforming the Big Four firms. I remain committed to continuing my work on climate and environmental justice.”
The Greens have a consistent base of support in South Australia, having held at least one Senate spot since 2007, suggesting the minor party will hang onto the seat.
The NSW government has suspended a planned aerial cull of invasive animals, including feral horses, deer, pigs and foxes, while a court considers a bid by a pro-brumby activist to have the operation abandoned.
Shooting was to have been conducted in sections of Yuraygir National Park and Yuraygir State Conservation Area on the state’s north coast between Monday and Friday this week.
Protests against aerial shooting of horses have intensified since the state government recommenced culling in Kosciuszko National Park.
The population of feral horses within Kosciuszko National Park was estimated to be at least 6476 and reached up to 16,411 in late 2025, about triple the previous year’s count.
In the year to June 30, the National Parks and Wildlife Service removed more than 87,000 feral animals from national parks using aerial shooting, mustering, ground shooting and trapping, and undertook more than 1500 hours of aerial shooting in 144 NPWS parks, reserves and state conservation areas.
Brumby activist Carmen Jackson filed an application to halt the cull on Monday morning claiming it was unlawful. On Tuesday morning the government agreed to suspend the operation until the matter was heard.
Anthony Albanese has declared the WA Liberals are “running dead” in a state byelection where One Nation is trying to seize a safe Labor seat.
The Secret Harbor byelection, sparked by the resignation of a long-serving Labor minister, is the first test for One Nation in WA and the prime minister dismissed the Liberals’ chances.
“Libs are running dead in Secret Harbor. Let’s get real here. The Libs are running dead,” Albanese told Perth Radio.
“One Nation don’t know what they stand for. I don’t know who their candidate is, but I’m sure if he was asked about migration policy, if they can’t get that right, they can’t get anything right at all,” he said.
“If people of Secret Harbor want a voice in government and want that influence that comes with being a voice in the Cook Labor government, they should vote for Georgia Tree. She’s a good candidate.”
Corporate Travel Management said it has concluded negotiations with the UK government potentially concluding an overcharging scandal that has so far resulted in the firing of its chief executive and resignation of its founder.
In April, the company said it planned to reverse revenues of up to £118 million ($224.8 million) in respect to fiscal year 2025 and prior years “as result of certain issues identified in the UK business”.
On Friday, it said it had received binding offers from key impacted UK customers that collectively account for £102 million (or 86 per cent) of a total estimated liability of £118 million.
Those offers will require Corporate Travel Management to refund a total of £87 million to the relevant customers, £11 million of which has already been paid.
“Reaching agreements with impacted UK customers representing 86 per cent of the total estimated liability is a major milestone for CTM and reflects our commitment to doing the right thing by customers,” said Ana Pedersen managing director and group CEO.
“These outcomes are the result of months of constructive engagement between CTM, its advisers and affected customers, whose cooperation and support throughout this process has been greatly appreciated.”
Shares in the Australian company have been in a trading halt for a year after it revealed overcharging of the UK government in 2025. The company fired its European and UK chief executive in December. Founder and managing director Jamie Pherous resigned in February.
Anthony Albanese has defended meeting business leaders at a $10,000-a head-dinner, saying Labor did not have wealthy benefactors donating million-dollar planes like One Nation.
The prime minister met with stakeholders at a wealthy director’s riverside mansion last night, The Australian Financial Review reported. Albanese came under fire last month for attending an exclusive event hosted at a home linked to a billionaire accused of funnelling huge sums of money from China into Australian bank accounts and mansions.
Asked three times what was in it for those putting up the cash to rub shoulders with the prime minister, Albanese said donors got to contribute to the political process.
“What they get is engagement,” he told ABC Perth.
“Election campaigns do cost money. We do have to raise money in order to campaign … We’re being transparent. We don’t have a single donor donating a plane worth millions of dollars to us. We don’t have a single benefactor like some other political organisations do. So we go out there and we engage.”
