It’s not easy being Green after losing several seats and a party leader at the federal election.

But those who remain are preparing to choose a replacement and reflect on lessons from the campaign.

Adam Bandt, who had led the minor party since 2020, lost his seat of Melbourne on May 3.

The shock defeat ended Mr Bandt’s 15-year career in federal parliament.

His colleagues will meet in the Victorian capital on Thursday as they begin to pick up the pieces.

South Australian senator Sarah Hanson-Young and Mehreen Faruqi from NSW are expected to contest the Greens leadership.

Queensland senator Larissa Waters has not ruled out a tilt.

The Greens lost three lower house seats and failed to pick up any extras at the election.

However, they are confident of wielding influence in the Senate, where the party holds the balance of power.

Tim Read, who represents the Greens in the Victorian parliament, wants to focus on the positives.

He was encouraged by a close result in the seat of Wills, which the Greens tried to snatch from Labor.

“That gives me confidence that there is growing support for the Greens,” he told AAP.

“I’m also impressed by our increased Senate vote.

“The fact that the Greens senators have proven to retain their popularity and increased it, shows we’ll do well whoever is chosen.”

The Greens are left with the Queensland seat of Ryan and 11 senators following the election.

Labor has at least 28 seats in the Senate and with the support of the Greens has the numbers to get legislation through the upper house.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will look to deepen defence and investment ties with Indonesia in talks with the nation’s president Prabowo Subianto.

The prime minister will meet face-to-face with Mr Prabowo in Jakarta on Thursday, in his first overseas trip since Labor’s election victory.

Mr Albanese will travel with Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.

The prime minister flagged the Australia-Indonesia defence co-operation agreement, signed last August, would be a priority.

“There’s substantial progress that’s been made already, particularly in the area of maritime, and one of the things that we’ll be discussing as well is that progress going forward,” he told reporters in Perth.

As Canberra grows concerned over Indonesia’s developing relationship with  Russia and China, Mr Albanese will seek to strengthen his bond with Mr Prabowo.

Reports emerged during the election campaign that Moscow had requested to operate long-range military aircraft from an Indonesian base.

Mr Albanese said every senior official in the Indonesian government had reassured their Australian counterparts it wasn’t happening.

The prime minister reinforced the importance of the relationship with Jakarta in a phone call with Mr Prabowo, who called him to congratulate him on his election win.

“I want Indonesia to be my first visit. Not Washington, not Beijing, not anywhere else,” Mr Albanese told the president.

Security experts have warned Australia to heed Indonesia’s concerns about the AUKUS deal and growing US military presence in the region, which Jakarta viewed as increasing strategic competition.

The prime minister will fly to Rome after his trip to Jakarta to attend Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration mass on Sunday.

He will return to Australia next week, after he sits down with Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on Tuesday.

The Reserve Bank is watching closely as the last data domino falls before a pivotal rates meeting.

The RBA’s preferred measure of inflation – the trimmed mean – fell back into target at 2.9 per cent in April, but tightness in the labour market remains a concern for the central bank.

Joblessness is expected to remain at 4.1 per cent when the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases labour force data for the month of April on Thursday.

It’s the last major data news before the RBA board reveals its interest rate decision on Tuesday and could give it a final green light to cut rates.

The rates market has fully priced in a 25 basis point cut, while a majority of economists expect the board to drop rates for a second time this cycle, following its move lower in February.

The central bank has predicted the jobless rate to come in at 4.2 per cent for the June quarter but unemployment has held below that level since July 2024.

Wages data released on Wednesday revealed a stronger-than-expected rise in the March quarter but this was driven by changes to industry awards and enterprise agreements.

Slowdown in growth in individual arrangements, which provided a more relevant indicator of how the business cycle was influencing wages costs, indicated the labour market was loosening, CBA senior economist Stephen Wu said.

Moreover, US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements since the RBA’s last meeting have thrown the bank’s forecasts into disarray.

Expectations of slower economic growth and a rise in unemployment have taken the edge off of fears that tightness in the labour market could cause inflation to kick off again.

AMP economists Diana Mousina and My Bui expect the unemployment rate to climb to 4.5 per cent.

“(This) suggests that there will be some further downward pressure on wages growth, which we expect to slow towards 3 per cent over the next 12 months,” they said.

Cash-strapped Australians fear being cut off from their phone and internet services as telcos refuse to support struggling customers, resulting in a spike in complaints.

Reports to the telecommunications watchdog about financial hardship or repayment issues spiked by 71.9 per cent between January and March, compared to the same period in 2024.

Despite complaints falling 8.2 per cent since the previous quarter, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman remains concerned.

Telcos need to do more to make sure people get the support they need if they’re struggling to keep on top of bills, ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said.

“It’s a stark reminder that the cost-of-living crisis continues to impact communities across Australia,” she said.

Recurring themes included companies refusing payment plans or extensions, offering unsuitable payment arrangements and service disconnection, suspension or restriction.

Family violence and ongoing health issues rendered Parisa’s (not her real name) bills unmanageable.

She tried to work out a payment plan with her provider but the $200-per-month offer was unachievable.

She told the ombudsman late fees continued to accumulate and she worried her services could be cut off.

Telcos lack tailored support and repayment options for customers, the ombudsman said, suggesting disconnection should be a last resort.

“People don’t want to be in debt, but they need payment plans they can actually afford,” Ms Gebert said.

Australians lodged 15,385 complaints about their phone and internet services, marking a 0.6 per cent increase since the previous quarter and a drop of 2.1 per cent compared to the same period in 2024.

Poor mobile coverage reports rose 25.3 per cent, with Telstra accounting for more than half of them, while about one in 10 complaints involved the recent 3G network shutdown.

For Danny (not his real name), who lives in remote Australia prone to bushfires and flooding, the issue is one of life or death as he relies heavily on mobile service to contact emergency services and stay up to date with hazard information.

He is increasingly worried about his family’s safety due to ongoing problems with reliable mobile phone service, which means he can’t contact emergency services when he has no connection.

Small business complaints rose for the second quarter to 1767, up 6.9 per cent, with the most significant increases related to poor mobile coverage and intermittent service or dropouts.

Persistent mobile and internet problems are seriously impacting small businesses’ ability to provide good customer service and operate efficiently, Ms Gebert said.

“It can impact their reputation, customer service and ability to trade – ultimately it affects people’s livelihoods and ability to feed their families,” she said.

Inadequate fault testing, where issues were not fixed, had the largest increase in complaints – up 26.9 per cent.

Complaints were up across the board except in Queensland, where they fell 6.6 per cent since the previous quarter.

NSW had the highest number of reports with 4850, while Victoria had the highest complaints per 1000 people.

A strengthened relationship with Indonesia will boost Australia’s economy, the prime minister says, as he heads to Jakarta.

Anthony Albanese will travel to Indonesia on Wednesday for the first overseas visit of his second term to hold talks with President Prabowo Subianto.

As with his first term, Indonesia will be Mr Albanese’s first port of call for bilateral talks he says are crucial to strengthen ties with the region.

“When we look at the growth areas that will help drive the national economy, I look up to our north and you hit Indonesia,” he told reporters in Perth on Wednesday.

“It’s important in our own interest but also in the interests of the region that we have a strong relationship with Indonesia.

“There’s no more important relationship than we have with Indonesia.”

The visit comes after reports surfaced during the federal election campaign that Russia requested permission to build an air base in Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities reassured their Australian counterparts that this would not be the case but did not confirm if the request had been made.

Mr Albanese said the Indonesian government had assured him the Russian base was not going ahead.

“Everyone senior in the Indonesian government at the time said it wasn’t happening,” he said.

“We have a good relationship with Indonesia. Indonesia made the position very clear, that was understood by just about everyone.”

Defence ties and tensions in the Indo-Pacific will also be on the agenda when the two leaders meet.

The first state visit to Indonesia continued a legacy set up by the Howard government, which was symbolic in projecting Australia’s identity as being close to Asia, Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Gatra Priyandita said.

“Albanese is interested in maintaining that image of Australia as being independent of the United States and close to the region,” he told AAP.

“There is great interest in Indonesia’s developing relationship with both Russia and China, with Indonesia establishing some of its first naval exercises with Russia recently, so it will probably be under discussion.”

Dr Gatra said his concern was that the visit would be purely symbolic.

“I haven’t heard much in the context of practical deliverables,” he said.

“It’s very important for Australia and Indonesia to think about strategic co-operation … especially since both Albanese and Prabowo will likely be counterparts for quite some time.”

Concerns about what the increasing presence of the US military in the region meant for overall strategic competition might also be discussed, Dr Gatra said.

Mr Albanese will visit Jakarta before he travels to Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration at the Vatican on Sunday.

“It is also a great honour to represent Australia at Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration – a historic occasion for the Catholic Church,” he said.

“I look forward to reinforcing Australia’s strong relationship with the Holy See under Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate.”

Mr Albanese will return to Australia via Singapore, where he will meet with the island nation’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.

Success has come at a cost for one of Australia’s financial heavyweights, which is firmly in the sights of the corporate watchdog over “hubris and complacency”.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is taking investment banking behemoth Macquarie to court in the latest of a string of alleged compliance failures.

Known as the “millionaires’ factory”, Macquarie has become one of Australia’s most successful financial players, reporting a $3.7 billion profit for 2024/2025.

This time, ASIC alleges Macquarie Securities – Macquarie Group’s brokering division – failed to report up to 1.5 billion short sales over a 14-year period, putting at risk the nation’s financial stability.

The commission is seeking potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties from Macquarie Securities in the NSW Supreme Court as well as an independent review of its reporting systems to ensure it complies with the law.

The extent of the compliance action is “unprecedented”, says ASIC chair Joe Longo.

His patience is running out.

“One of the reasons we’ve taken these proceedings is because the previous assurances over this topic haven’t been followed through,” Mr Longo told AAP.

“What I would suggest has happened, so far as their risk management and compliance culture is concerned, is a hubris has crept in.”

He believes Macquarie’s strong market position has bred complacency.

“As a group, they’ve simply not invested in a sustainable way in their systems and processes and technology to ensure the standards of compliance they should be meeting,” he said.

Macquarie Securities’ reporting systems were so inadequate it was difficult for ASIC to determine how many short sales it failed to report between December 2009 and February 2024.

Its best estimate was between 298 million and 1.5 billion transactions.

Short sales refer to selling stock or other securities an entity does not own in the hope of buying at a lower price later on – essentially a bet the product will decline in value.

The method was used by traders to bet against the financial instruments causing the housing bubble that sparked the 2008 global financial crisis, as popularised in the Hollywood film The Big Short.

Reports of short selling can warn regulators of potential market risks before they occur. 

Macquarie Securities’ failure to do so made it harder for ASIC to monitor market stability and had the potential to mislead investors, Mr Longo said.

It’s not the first time Macquarie Securities has been put on notice for misreporting short selling and marks the fourth time ASIC has taken regulatory action against Macquarie Group in just over 12 months.

Earlier in May, ASIC imposed licence conditions on Macquarie Bank for misreporting hundreds of thousands of over-the-counter derivatives trades as well as failing to prevent and detect suspicious trading activity in its futures dealing business.

ASIC has increased its supervision of Macquarie over the past year and Mr Longo says it’s up to the board and senior management – including former Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens and CEO Shemara Wikramanayake – to seriously invest in its technology processes.

“Our confidence has been undermined through all these failures,” Mr Longo said.

Macquarie said the group’s brokering division first identified issues with its reporting of short sales and self-reported this to ASIC in late 2022.

“The reporting issues identified in the proceedings have been remediated with additional controls implemented,” Macquarie said in a statement.

“Macquarie takes its compliance obligations very seriously and continues to invest in programs to further improve systems and controls across the group.”

Decorated war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith will learn on Friday whether he had successfully overturned findings that he was, on the balance of probabilities, a war criminal. 

Justice Anthony Besanko delivered the bruising judgment in 2023 after the former elite soldier sued Nine newspapers and journalist Nick McKenzie over reports that claimed he had committed war crimes. 

Roberts-Smith launched an appeal, which was heard over 10 days in the Federal Court in February 2024. 

More than a year later, the Victoria Cross recipient is finally set to learn the outcome of his appeal when the Full Court delivers its decision on Friday. 

It will also rule on whether to reopen the appeal after Roberts-Smith argued there was a miscarriage of justice because McKenzie had unlawfully obtained details about his legal strategy. 

It came after a secret recording emerged of McKenzie telling Roberts-Smith’s ex-lover that two crucial witnesses were “actively briefing us on his legal strategy” during the initial trial.

“We’re not learning like we anticipated most of it. One or two things now we know, which is helpful,” the award-winning journalist is heard saying.

“I shouldn’t tell you. I’ve just breached my f***ing ethics in doing that, like this has put me in a s*** position now.”

Lawyers for Roberts-Smith said there was a real possibility the outcome of the trial would have been different if McKenzie hadn’t obtained privileged information. 

But McKenzie’s lawyers said there was no proof any information had been used or that the use would be so serious as to affect the outcome.

McKenzie maintains he didn’t know any of the information he received was privileged and says he passed on relevant communications to his lawyers. 

Roberts-Smith rose to prominence in 2011 after he was awarded Australia’s highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, for single-handedly taking out machine-gun posts to protect pinned-down colleagues in Afghanistan.

But his reputation was tarnished in 2018 when McKenzie wrote explosive reports alleging the special forces veteran was complicit in the murder of four unarmed men during his deployment in Afghanistan.

In June 2023, Justice Anthony Besanko found the reports had been proven on the balance of probabilities – a lower standard than in a criminal proceeding. 

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Australia’s aviation regulator has lost its bid to be removed from a lawsuit brought by the widow of Outback Wrangler star Chris “Willow” Wilson over her husband’s helicopter death. 

Mr Wilson plunged to his death in a remote area of the Northern Territory in February 2022 while dangling from a helicopter owned by his television series co-star Matt Wright as he collected crocodile eggs. 

His widow Danielle Wilson filed Federal Court proceedings in 2023 against Mr Wright, his company Helibrook, and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) over the crash.

The mother-of-two is seeking damages for personal injury and from the loss of her husband’s income. 

But the aviation authority argued on Wednesday it should be struck out of the lawsuit because Ms Wilson couldn’t reasonably succeed with the “frivolous” suit. 

Its lawyer said Helibrook was to blame for Mr Wilson’s death because it had failed to comply with the safety regulations set by CASA.

The helicopter operator was permitted to harvest crocodile eggs using a sling but only when the aircraft was less than five metres from the ground. 

“Had Helibrook and the pilot complied with CASA’s conditions, the accident wouldn’t have occurred and Mr Wilson wouldn’t have died,” Russell McIlwaine SC, acting for CASA, said.

Mr McIlwaine argued the regulator could not be held responsible for the TV star’s death when the helicopter operator did precisely what it was told not to do. 

But Ms Wilson’s lawyer said the regulator’s breach of its duty of care was a “significant cause” of Mr Wilson’s death. 

David Lloyd SC accused CASA of failing to undertake adequate risk assessment and conduct proper oversight over Helibrook’s operation, including its use of a sling for crocodile egg retrieval. 

“Mr Wilson should never have been in the air … and CASA should never have approved activities of that kind,” Mr Lloyd said. 

Justice Elizabeth Raper agreed the claims against the aviation regulator were not untenable. 

She dismissed CASA’s application and ordered it to pay the widow’s costs.

Outside court, Ms Wilson noted it has been more than three years since she lost her husband “in the most tragic of circumstances”.

“I’m pleased that today in court we heard that we do have an arguable case against CASA,” she said,

An Australian Transport Safety Bureau report into the accident found the chopper’s engine stopped mid-flight because of a lack of fuel.

During the emergency landing, pilot Sebastian Robinson released hooks and the sling line carrying Mr Wilson.

Mr Robinson, who survived the incident but suffered life-long injuries, was found to not have refuelled when necessary and had traces of cocaine in his system.

A former pilot and friend of Wilson who was on the scene soon after the crash, was later convicted and fined $15,000 for destroying the mobile phone of the Netflix series star.

Young people are turning to social media influencers and commentators to get their news, with politicians warned to either adapt or face irrelevancy.

The federal Liberals largely ignored influencers and it stopped them from reaching a large cohort of female voters, Cheek Media CEO and host of the Big Small Talk podcast Hannah Ferguson said.

Ms Ferguson, whose channel reached four million individuals during the election campaign, said media giant News Corp had weaponised the word ‘influencer’ to target progressive young women as part of a culture war.

“The agenda is clear – to undermine our intelligence, to paint us as untrustworthy, and to conflate us with green juice and a discount code,” she told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“There is nothing wrong with being an influencer, but the label is intended to cause significant reputational damage. The impact is deeply misogynistic.”

Large media corporations “want to invalidate and undermine a group of powerful young women who developed the ability to communicate with audiences in a way that traditional media can’t”, she said.

Painting every female podcaster with the same brush, depicting them as “friendly, unserious and surface level”, sought to delegitimise what they were doing, she added.

While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used podcast appearances to humanise himself, former opposition leader Peter Dutton had refused to engage, particularly with platforms run by women, she said.

“(It) was one small, yet huge, decision in a series of reckless refusals to attempt to communicate with the voter base that would eventually end his political career,” she said.

People paid for endorsements on social media needed to ensure this was made abundantly clear in all their posts, she said, adding she had turned down political parties offering payments.

Ms Ferguson intends to run as an independent for a Senate spot in 2028.

Influencers were invited to the federal budget lockup at Parliament House for the first time in 2025.

This helped the government get its message out to people who otherwise wouldn’t have paid attention, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said.

“It’s really clear that new media are going to feature in politics … and they have a legitimate place at the table.”

Ms Ferguson agreed, adding her audience was less concerned about the gritty details of a budget that traditional media would focus on and wanted to know what was in it for them in a digestible way they understood.

Economists still expect the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates at its next board meeting despite a surprise spike in wage growth.

Wages rose by a higher-than-expected 3.4 per cent over the year to March, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed on Wednesday, driven by new public sector pay deals and care workers benefiting from a Fair Work Commission ruling.

Analysts had predicted a 3.2 per cent rise in wages over the 12 months to March.

Strong wage growth and falling inflation means workers have enjoyed real annual wages growth for 18 months in a row.

“That is a very good thing, a very pleasing, very encouraging outcome that we see in today’s data,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers told reporters.

Wages grew one per cent in real terms over the year, with inflation at 2.4 per cent over the same period – the strongest real rise in wages in five years.

On a quarterly basis, wages lifted 0.9 per cent in the three months to March, from a 0.7 per cent rise in December.

Despite the surprise jump, KPMG chief economist Brendan Rynne did not expect the data to deter the RBA from cutting the cash rate by 25 basis points on Tuesday.

JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy agreed, saying wage growth was still running at levels consistent with the central bank’s inflation target of two to three per cent.

Public sector wages grew at a faster rate than the private sector, rising 3.6 per cent annually, up from 2.9 per cent in December.

Private sector wage growth was unchanged at 3.3 per cent.

A ruling by the industrial umpire the Fair Work Commission to correct historical underpayment for women resulted in workers in feminised industries such as childcare receiving pay rises of 10 per cent or more.

NAB senior markets economist Taylor Nugent said the pick up in private wage growth was attributable to increases in the health and care sectors, rather than a sign wages pressures were re-accelerating.

Public sector wage growth was boosted by state-based enterprise agreements coming online, ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt said.

“Jobs covered by enterprise agreements contributed to over half of all quarterly growth, for the first time since September 2020,” Ms Marquardt said.

Markets were fully pricing in the central bank to cut rates by 25 basis points at its next meeting on Tuesday.

Wednesday’s labour force release will be closely watched by the RBA board, given governor Michele Bullock has expressed concern tightness in the jobs market could stop inflation falling as quickly as she would like.

Continued wage growth without an increase in productivity could flow through to higher inflation, Dr Rynne warned.

Dr Chalmers said there had been no evidence of a wage price spiral, in which unsustainable pay rises cause business costs and inflation to rise.

“We’re getting wages growth at the same time as inflation is coming down,” he said.

“This shows just how spectacularly wrong some people have been when they’ve talked about fears of a wage price spiral in our economy.”

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said workers in healthcare and social assistance had benefited from the federal government’s changes to workplace relations laws.

The government is due to reveal its submission to the Fair Work Commission’s annual wage review by the end of the week.