Australia is being urged to use its prominent international climate diplomacy role to show leadership on ocean health and fill a void left by the United States.

Ahead of mid-year climate talks in Germany, oceans expert Terry Garcia said the global community could not count on the US as a reliable partner and leader on ocean and climate policy in the next two-and-a-half years.

“If progress is to be made, others will have to shoulder the burden,” the former senior bureaucrat with the top US climate and weather agency said while delivering the Talbot Oration at the Australian Museum.

“In that regard, Australia and the Asia-Pacific region have the credibility, institutions and scientific capacity this moment urgently requires,” he said on Thursday in Sydney.

The Trump administration has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement and stripped funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where Mr Garcia previously served as deputy administrator.

Deep-sea mining – involving mineral extraction from the ocean floor, where little is known about the environmental consequences – has also been fast-tracked by the US, including in international waters.

“These actions could have far-reaching consequences, measured in harm to reefs, coastlines, fisheries, and the well-being of people around the world,” Mr Garcia said.

Australia was “perfectly positioned” to assert international leadership as president of negotiations at the upcoming United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) summit, he said, to be hosted by Turkey with pre-meetings in Pacific island countries.

Australia’s Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will attend the annual mid-year meetings in Bonn, Germany, which typically lay the scientific and technical groundwork for the main event later in the year.

His Turkish counterpart, COP31 president Murat Kurum, will also lead discussions and sound out national priorities.

Clean energy and electrification have emerged as priorities for Mr Bowen and Mr Kurum, as the biggest oil shock in history sparks renewed focus on energy security.

Electric vehicle uptake in Australia has exploded since the Middle East conflict began, with hybrid, plug-in hybrid and EVs making up more than 46 per cent of all new cars sold in May.

International climate negotiations are also heating up as the World Meteorological Organisation ascribes an 80 per cent chance of an El Nino forming in months, of at least moderate strength.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said El Nino conditions would “pour fuel on the fire of a warming world”.

In a wide-ranging speech on the perils facing marine landscapes, Mr Garcia said ocean degradation and climate change were “inextricably intertwined”.

“Sea-surface temperatures have hit record highs,” he said. 

“And right now, we are living through the most widespread coral bleaching event ever recorded.

“My old agency, NOAA, has had to add three new alert levels to its coral bleaching scale – the equivalent of adding category six and seven to the hurricane scale, because the existing categories couldn’t capture what we were seeing.”

The family of a former governor-general who resigned over his handling of child sexual abuse in the Anglican church has reflected on the shadow cast over his final years.

Peter Hollingworth served as the Archbishop of Brisbane for more than a decade before being appointed governor-general in 2001.

He died after a fall on May 19, aged 91, and was farewelled at a requiem eucharist at Christ Church, in Melbourne’s South Yarra, on Friday.

Friends, former colleagues and family paid tribute to Dr Hollingworth’s years of service as a cleric and social welfare advocate and organiser.

The funeral was attended by Governor-General Sam Mostyn, Victorian Governor Margaret Gardner and former prime minister John Howard.

Delivering a eulogy on behalf of the family, Deborah Hollingworth reflected on the “long shadow” overhanging her father’s final years.

Appointed governor-general by Mr Howard in 2001, Dr Hollingworth used his position to advocate for Indigenous rights and disadvantaged people.

But his tenure was short-lived, resigning less than two years into the role amid scrutiny of his handling of child sexual abuse complaints within the Anglican church.

“He became the public face and lightning rod for the institutional failures to prevent and address child sexual abuse,” Ms Hollingworth said.

“He bore that burden heavily, as did we.”

The fallout tarnished not just his public standing but that of the church he represented, Ms Hollingworth said.

“He knew that in the public imagination he had come to stand among the bad men, and that knowledge grieved him profoundly,” she said.

“And yet he understood how it had happened and why.

“He also knew that there was a dark shadow over the church that he had served and been committed to.”

Born in Adelaide in 1935, Dr Hollingworth was later raised in Melbourne, studying theology at the University of Melbourne.

He studied under the late Anglican priest Gerard Kennedy Tucker, who inspired his turn towards frontline social work.

He was ordained as a priest of the Anglican Church of Australia in 1960, before going on to join the Brotherhood of St Laurence.

Founded by his university mentor, Dr Hollingworth served the welfare organisation for 25 years, including as executive director.

The father-of-three was consecrated Bishop of the Inner City in Melbourne in 1985 before being elected Archbishop of Brisbane four years later.

It was there that Dr Hollingworth failed to act on knowledge of abuse, a 2003 board of inquiry into the handling of complaints of sexual abuse in the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane found.

He allowed two priests, Donald Shearman and John Elliot, to remain in the church despite knowing they had sexually assaulted children.

A church inquiry in 2023 found he had committed misconduct by allowing the pedophiles to remain in the church but said he remained fit for ministry.

Dr Hollingworth accepted the investigation’s findings, saying he “made mistakes and I cannot undo them” but had committed no crimes.

While Dr Hollingworth continued his community work after leaving office, he was forever changed by the sustained public scrutiny, Ms Hollingworth said.

“When he returned to Melbourne, he was like a battle-wounded, shell-shocked soldier, not at all the same man that left in 1990,” she said.

“The successive public inquiries, each covering the same four matters that he was involved in, that had transpired in Brisbane, took their toll.

“In his later years, he lived in the long shadow cast by those successive inquiries and by the enduring pain that he knew surrounded them.”

He announced in 2023 he would no longer practise as an Anglican priest to “end distress” for survivors.

Following a series of strokes that same year, Dr Hollingworth resided in an aged care home in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Malvern.

Dr Hollingworth wrote a number of leading texts on poverty and social welfare and was named Australian of the Year in 1991.

He was expected to be farewelled at a private cremation following the ceremony on Friday.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

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Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (for people aged 5 to 25)

Disabled Australians could be left without the ability to regularly work or access medical appointments as a result of sweeping funding cuts, a senate committee has heard.

Revealed in May, social participation budgets in the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be slashed by 50 per cent to curb the $50-billion-a-year scheme’s growth. 

The funding can be used for things like hobbies, grocery shopping, and getting to and being assisted with work. 

Those with vision impairments and Down syndrome are likely to be most affected by the cuts, government modelling shows.

Greens disability spokesperson Jordon Steele-John said having community services “all mixed up together in the same pot” would stop many people, particularly those with Down syndrome, from being able to work or access meaningful group activities. 

“How are you proposing then to reinforce the employment funding if it’s just an across the board cut?” he said. 

Health Department officials said the government did not intend to cut funding for work specifically, but did not confirm how they would stop that from happening. 

“The intended cuts to social and community participation clearly will have an effect … the category will still remain, it will just have less funding,” health deputy secretary Mary Wood told a senate estimates hearing. 

Advocacy groups such as Down Syndrome Australia, which has echoed Senator Steele-John’s concerns, will only be consulted after the bill has passed.

Independent senator David Pocock said this form of consultation seemed pointless. 

“The government has already baked this into the (federal) budget. If the 50 per cent cut is happening, what good is consultation after the fact?” Senator Pocock said. 

“Many people with Down syndrome rely on their social and community participation budgets to work – something that they very much cherish.”

If the bill passes, the health minister will be able to decide ratios of social and wellbeing support for people of different disability categories, rather than it being decided through assessment. 

Meanwhile, the amount of taxpayer money spent dealing with disability complaints has surged.  

The National Disability Insurance Agency has spent $170 million in the past three years fighting NDIS participants appealing decisions about their packages.

About $66 million has been spent in the current financial year, up from $60 million in 2024/25 and $44 million the year before that. 

The agency resolved 1979 applications in the last quarter alone, after receiving almost 7000 in the financial year to March. 

Three days of hearings into the NDIS bill will take place from Tuesday.

The corporate watchdog has launched a formal investigation into a top-tier consultancy firm following allegations it misused confidential information.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission told a budget estimates inquiry it had begun the investigation into KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms, expanding a preliminary probe.

The firm’s Australian head Andrew Yates resigned in May following the treatment of and the mishandling of allegations by a whistleblower, after an internal investigation into the claims of misconduct was found to have fallen short of the firm’s expectations.

ASIC’s chair Sarah Court said the larger investigation began earlier in June.

“We have deep concerns about what has been revealed in the press, and we are trying to get to the bottom of the evidence as to those various incidents,” she told the inquiry on Friday.

“This is an ever-moving feast at the moment as more information comes our way, so I don’t know that that will be the end of it.”

Ms Court said ASIC had provided KPMG with multiple notices about the formal investigation.

“ASIC has been engaging proactively with KPMG and that level of engagement has intensified,” she said.

Three of KPMG’s four registered company auditors are within the scope of the probe, Ms Court said.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the federal government was reviewing the contracts it had with the consultancy firm.

“There’s also a briefing coming up from the department, from Treasury to me, in relation to whistleblower activity in light of this,” he told ABC Radio.

“One of the issues that we’re going to need to examine is the extent to which whistleblower protections in relation to corporations apply to partnerships.

“It’s not a straightforward area, and that’s one of the issues that we’ll look at as part of the whistleblower inquiry.”

Mr Mulino said the powers of ASIC under corporations laws and how they interacted with partnerships also needed to be examined.

“There was already a process underway, but the allegations against KPMG have just heightened the urgency of this,” he said.

Ms Court said ASIC did not have the information to hand about why Mr Yates resigned as Australian chief executive.

Audit head Julian McPherson also resigned from KPMG following the allegations.

A probiotic strain developed by an Australian biotechnology group over a number of years has produced good results in early trials, its owner says.

Biome Australia has licensed a number of probiotic strains exclusively for use in its pills, which are sold under its name in pharmacies across the country.

But the listed biotechnology company also owns the intellectual property rights to BMB 18, a proprietary strain of L. plantarum, which is a probiotic commonly used for weight loss and to improve gut and mouth health.

Initial Petri dish testing shows “one of the strongest results we’ve seen, certainly in mechanistic data around immune support on inflammation,” founder and managing director Blair Vega Norfolk told an investor briefing on Friday.

A 240-participant clinical trial evaluating BMB 18 began in May at La Trobe University in Melbourne and Harokopio University in Athens, to generate the first data in humans of the strain’s efficacy.

“We’ll be expecting that we’ll be able to show some really material p-values and results within the next 12 months on gut health and also mental health,” Mr Norfolk said.

The hope is that Biome Australia will be able to add BMB 18 as a “hero” to some of its existing probiotic strains that are selling well, further protecting its intellectual property and brand. 

“It will also create a very unique opportunity for us to do new product development into areas where we have no competition at all,” Mr Norfolk said.

The strain could also be licensed out to some of the world’s major probiotic manufacturers.

Biome Australia has a low-single-digit share of Australia’s $600 million probiotic market, with $12.4 million in sales in the first half.

Its brands are the leading probiotics in community pharmacies and No 2 in the Terry White Chemmart chain, the company says.

Last financial year, Biome Australia delivered its first net profit, of $214,656.

Pauline Hanson has been forced to confirm how One Nation’s housing policy would work after multiple party members misspoke or could not provide crucial details in separate interviews.

Under the party platform, foreign owners of homes in Australia would have two years to sell their property or have it repossessed by the government.

When asked if the measure also applied to permanent residents who were not citizens, One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said they would also be forced to divest their properties.

“Become an Australian citizen and that’s going to deal with the issue, right? Become an Australian citizen,” he told Sky News on Thursday night.

Mr Joyce later conducted a second interview on Sky, in which he confirmed the party’s policy did not extend to permanent residents, after making several phone calls to verify the platform.

“On further investigation and discussions with One Nation, no, we are not going to be kicking permanent residents out of their house,” he said.

The interview prompted party leader Pauline Hanson to confirm the measures would not affect permanent residents.

“If you are a temporary visa holder or a foreign citizen residing overseas, One Nation will give you two years to sell their property to an Australian,” she wrote on social media on Friday.

“One Nation would remove the ability for international students, non-permanent residents, and non-Australian citizens from buying future property within Australia.”

But confusion over the policy continued when One Nation senator Sean Bell could not provide details on what would happen if homes were not sold within the two-year time frame and whether the government would still be able to repossess them.

“That is an excellent question, but what we’re saying, and it is perfectly reasonable to expect that homes in Australia go to Australian citizens,” he told radio 2GB Sydney.

The interview ended early after host Mark Levy said it was “turning into a train wreck” and the senator needed clarity on the policy.

“You can’t come on the radio and say ‘we’re going to give people two years to divest their property’ and then not answer the question,” Mr Levy said.

Deputy opposition leader Jane Hume said One Nation was at a loss to explain how its housing plan would work.

“I’m not entirely sure even One Nation knows their policy here, but if their policy is to kick people out of their homes, I think that that should set off alarm bells for millions of Australians, because that is a very new development,” she told Sky News.

“Even Barnaby Joyce said, ‘well, this policy is formative’. 

“What does that mean? It’s a slogan. It’s not a policy. It’s got no substance behind it.”

Australians lost almost a quarter of a billion dollars in the first three months of 2026, with online cons driving the largest losses.

Scammers cheated Aussies out of $248.3 million in the period, according to 60,657 reports received by Scamwatch and ReportCyber.

However, the number of scam reports and losses fell by roughly a sixth compared to the same three months in 2025, in a sign that efforts by governments, regulators, industry, and police are working.

“That said, we caution against drawing too much from one quarter of data as reports and losses typically move around somewhat,” the consumer watchdog, which oversees Scamwatch, said in a statement.

“We will continue to monitor closely to see whether this quarter’s data represents the beginning of a trend.”

Investment scams accounted for the highest reported losses to Scamwatch in the first quarter, amounting to $45.5 million.

Relationship scam losses rose to $7.5 million, while phishing scams remained one of the most commonly reported grifts, with more than 13,400 reported over the period.

Email remains the most common method scammers use to snare victims.

Australians lost $2.2 billion to scams in 2025, down from a peak of $3.1 billion in 2022.

Showing the scale of the problem, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s National Anti-Scam Centre disrupted thousands of scam operations over the quarter.

They took down almost 5,900 scam sites, including 1,960 fake online gambling – or scambling – websites.

”Online platforms give scammers the ability to reach large numbers of people quickly, cheaply and convincingly,”  commission deputy chair Catriona Lowe said.

”Disrupting scam websites is one of the ways we can make it harder for criminals to reach Australians online.” 

The Anti-Scam Centre also referred 511 advertisements, profiles and groups on Fecebook to platform-owner Meta for investigation.

Scammers are increasingly using polished and professional-looking content to appear legitimate.

”Consumers should be cautious if a website or advertisement creates urgency, promises high returns or asks for payment or personal information up-front,” Ms Lowe said.

People should always pause before sharing personal information and be wary of high-pressure situations.

“Say no, hang up, or delete suspicious messages,” the watchdog said.

“Contact the person or organisation directly using phone numbers or email addresses you find on their official website or app.”

People should contact their bank immediately if they think they’ve lost money or shared financial details.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET SCAMMED

* Contact IDCARE (www.idcare.org or call 1800 595 160) if you want support to recover – they can help you create a plan to mitigate the damage

* Report to Scamwatch (www.scamwatch.gov.au) to help protect others

* Report to police (www.cyber.gov.au)

* Change passwords and security details if you think they’ve been compromised

* Monitor your bank statements and credit reports for unusual activity

* Report the scam to the impersonated organisation and platform where the scam is happening

Lifeline 13 11 14

beyondblue 1300 22 4636

Australia’s share market is on track to wipe nearly two weeks of gains in two sessions, as soft metals prices weigh on mining stocks.

The S&P/ASX200 fell 53.2 points by midday on Friday, to be down 53.2 per cent, to 8,632.9, as the broader All Ordinaries lost 53.4 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 8,863.5.

The top 200 is now down 1.1 per cent since Monday, after a sharp midweek turnaround in mining stocks and continued weakness in the banking sector.

“The materials sector, which has been the backbone of the ASX200 this year, was hit hard as metal prices retreated,” IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said.

“Adding to the gloom, concerns mounted over accelerating iron ore exports from Guinea’s giant Simandou project, a development expected to pressure Pilbara volumes.”

Iron ore futures fell to 13-week lows below $US102 a tonne, while copper prices have retreated almost four per cent since nearly breaking their record high on Tuesday.

Mega miners BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue were all under pressure as the basic materials sector dived 1.9 per cent.

Gold stocks were also a sea of red, as the precious metal slipped to $US4,445 ($A6,226) an ounce, while battery minerals and rare earths producers also sold off.

The financials sector was also under pressure, down 0.7 per cent as all big four banks traded lower, as slowing economic growth, a cooling housing market and concerns about the federal government’s tax shake-up continued to weigh.

Energy stocks dragged as Brent crude eased to $US95.50 a barrel despite ongoing uncertainty around the Persian Gulf conflict, weighing on local fossil fuel producers.

The traditionally defensive consumer staples and health care sectors rallied for a second day, with strong leads from Woolworths, CSL and Pro Medicus.

ASX-listed tech stocks surged as Megaport rallied nine per cent after completing its $518  million equity raising as part of its artificial intelligence push.

In other company news, Resolute Mining was one of the top 200’s worst performers, tumbling almost seven per cent after its Syama project was impacted by security and supply chain issues in Mali.

Shares in investment group Perpetual jumped two per cent after it entered a sale deed to buy 70 per cent of asset servicing tech company Interfi Systems.

Insurer Nib gained 1.8 per cent after selling its travel portfolio to Allianz for $50 million.

The Australian dollar was buying 71.19 US cents, down from 71.35 US cents on Thursday at 5pm.

Ministers have denied tax-reform measures are being rushed through parliament despite just two days being set aside for an inquiry into the “once-in-a-generation” changes.

Changes limiting negative gearing to new houses from July 2027 and scrapping the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount to a rate based on inflation passed the House of Representatives on Thursday.

But the laws face an uncertain future, with the Greens yet to indicate if they will back the federal budget reforms through the Senate.

A two-day Senate inquiry will scrutinise the laws later in June before they go to the upper house, with the opposition and crossbenchers saying the measures are being rushed.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the laws were not being raced through as issues surrounding tax and housing had been on the agenda for a long period, alongside 17 hours of debate in parliament so far.

“It is one of the most exhaustive discussions I’ve seen in the parliament,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.

“It was in that broader context that the budget was framed and so there has been a long-running discussion around these kind of issues, and in fact, a lot of the issues dealt with in the budget have been looked at in previous tax inquiries.”

While the government has come under fire for seeking to legislate the tax changes first and then potentially introduce carve outs and exemptions at a later date, Mr Mulino said that was par for the course.

“There’ll be consultation over the next few months around some of the detailed issues around trusts. So this is very normal,” he said.

“When you go back to previous pieces of major tax reform, like the GST under the Howard government, there were similar tranches of legislation.”

But deputy opposition leader Jane Hume said the changes had not been approved by voters.

“If they’re generational reforms, well, surely they should have been taken to an election so that the Australian people could decide that,” she told ABC Radio.

“Two days simply is not enough. There is no need to rush these changes through because they don’t kick in until 2028.”

The clashes over the legislation come as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese doubles down on the tax reforms, saying changes to the measures would undermine their purpose.

The prime minister is expected to tell the Australia’s Economic Outlook summit hosted by News Corp on Friday that the reforms are needed to stop growing levels of voter discontent.

“We can choose whether the social and economic dislocation we see overseas is a warning that we act on or a preview of what is to come,” he will say in the speech, according to extracts provided to The Australia.

”If you look around the world, you can see what happens to countries and economies when people make up their minds that the system is broken beyond repair.”

Mr Albanese will say a long process to exempt large groups from the tax changes would only fiddle around the edges of the status quo.

“Our government has no intention of standing around and wringing our hands about the consequences of a system that isn’t working for people. Instead, we are acting to fix it,” he will say.