As the petrol crisis continues, Australia’s peak grape body is hoping to transform wine into fuel.

The country’s $51 billion wine industry is on the precipice as it faces a significant oversupply of product, with more than 350 million bottles of wine now sitting in storage.

With a lot of that wine rapidly becoming unsaleable, Australian Grape and Wine chief executive says Lee McLean says distillation options are being explored to help bolster fuel stocks. 

“I don’t think it’s going to be a silver bullet for fuel security issues that we’ve got in this country, but it can contribute,” he told the Rural Press Club on Tuesday.

Mr McLean acknowledged there were questions that needed to be addressed around the wine distillation process, how it would be stored, and how the product would be taxed, but believed the situation could present a rare opportunity.

Biochemical fuels can be derived from alcohols and have previously been floated as a way to produce more sustainable jet fuel.

King Charles III also ran his Aston Martin on “surplus English white wine and whey from the cheese process” with a fuel blend made up of 85 per cent bioethanol and 15 per cent unleaded petrol.

However, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation associate professor Karine Chenu believes there are better ways to produce biofuel.

“Wine is already used for consumption and there are other products that are waste products which could be used much more efficiently,” Dr Chenu told AAP.

Australia grows a lot of crops like sorghum or sugarcane which produce unused biomass like leaves and stems that could instead be used for biofuel.

Ever since China imposed tariffs as high as 218 per cent on Australian wines, the domestic industry has faced significant oversupply.

Though these levies have been lifted, consumers are also drinking less.

Some wine companies have attempted to cater to changing consumer tastes by producing zero-alcohol wines, but few have been able to strip out the alcohol without also stripping out the flavour, Mr McLean said.

The sector has now called on the federal government to help it transition to a smaller industry by offering loans and helping offload the excess wine.

Love triumphs over evil.

A simple yet powerful message was at the centre of a small and heartfelt ceremony marking 30 years since the Port Arthur shooting massacre.

Thirty-five people were killed and two dozen injured by a lone gunman who opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at the historic tourist site on April 28, 1996. 

It remains the most deadly mass shooting in Australia’s modern history.

Jane Scholefield, who hid behind a wall in the penitentiary building to avoid the bullets, said the day was etched in her memory in ways words could never explain.

“Every year when the anniversary comes around, the memories return with a weight that never fully lifts,” she told the ceremony at the site. 

“Even when the world moves on … for those of us touched by that day, it is never forgotten. It lives within us.” 

Among the crowd was 70-year-old Carolyn Loughton, whose 15-year-old daughter Sarah was murdered on the pair’s first big holiday together. 

“I gave birth to my daughter and I lay on top of her when she took her last breath,” she said before the ceremony. 

Ms Loughton was shot in the back, forcing doctors into a marathon procedure and the removal of her left fibula and half of her hip to use as bone grafts. 

She said Sarah was a keen horse rider and tennis player and an empathetic, intelligent teenager with a bright future.

“When you lose your children, you lose your future. It is the continual loss of what could have been for her and for me,” she said.

Flowers and wreaths were placed at a memorial cross, while attendees were encouraged to share words of love on paper leaves. 

A moment of silence was held at 1.30pm, the time the shooting began, and the names of the 35 people who died were read out. 

“At the heart of survival, of remembrance, of change is something simple but incredibly powerful: love,” Ms Scholefield said.  

“Love for those lost, love for those who stood beside us and love for the lives we continue to live.

“Love is stronger than hatred, it is stronger than fear, it is stronger than evil.”

The tragedy prompted landmark gun law reform under then-prime minister John Howard and a buyback scheme that led to the destruction of more than 640,000 weapons.

Gun laws have been under a recent microscope since 15 people were killed in a shooting targeting the Jewish community at Bondi in December. 

“The shootings … just five months ago, showed that there are still rapid-fire guns in the hands of the community,” Ms Loughton said.

“These guns must be put out of reach for the safety of all.” 

Ms Loughton and Gun Control Australia’s Roland Browne said they supported Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s proposed cap on the number of guns a person can own.

“The lessons from the late ’80s and early ’90s remain,” Mr Browne said.

“Work still needs to be done and our group will continue to do it.”

Mr Albanese thanked Walter Mikac, who lost his wife Nanette and daughters Alannah and Madeline in the shooting, for leading the call for gun reform in 1996.

“Australia is a better place because the government and the parliament of the day came together to answer Walter’s call,” he said.

“This is what we hold on to – the abiding memory that somehow, amid the most terrible darkness, the best of humanity found a way to shine.” 

Mr Mikac said the government’s commitment three decades ago to community safety remained “as important as ever”.

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the state would never forget the lives lost and every person whose life changed forever. 

Gunman Martin Bryant, who is now aged 58, is serving 35 life sentences and will never be released from Risdon Prison in Hobart.

Public transport commuters using a ticketing system as old as the BlackBerry and Blu-Ray player are set to benefit from sweeping technology upgrades.

Online accounts that can locate buses in real time and see a live passenger count are set to be some perks from the NSW government’s $800 million boost to the system.

Other upgrades include real-time information about fare deductions and receiving automatic compensations through a digital-based account.

The new system is set to address the phantom bus issue burdening the state’s most popular mode of transport, NSW Premier Chris Minns told reporters.

“We’ve heard repeatedly about phantom buses on the network, an app that seemed to indicate a bus was on its way, but it never arrived,” he said.

“This latest Opal upgrade will mean those buses arrive (and) you’ll know exactly where they are.”

Sixty per cent of public transport users in NSW currently pay by credit card, but NSW Transport Secretary Josh Murray said all existing forms of payment would remain.

He said the current Opal card system was 30 years old and mirrored off London’s Oyster card.

“Just like the BlackBerry or the Blu-Ray player, which were invented at the same time, they’ve done their job,” Mr Murray said.

“It’s time to move on.”

The upgraded system will be built by Init, a German technology company, and address ongoing security issues, Transport Minister John Graham said.

“This system will be far better placed to deal with the sort of security challenges that any government, any society, has to think about,” he said.

The changes are set to begin from the middle of next year and be fully operational by 2028.

It may be on the other side of the globe, but the Australian government is being warned the Middle East crisis has ramped the need for direct aid funding for adolescent girls at risk of cascading crises across the Asia Pacific. 

Girls’ equality organisation Plan International Australia said the knock-on effects of fuel and fertiliser shortages due to the conflict in Iran, which is driving food insecurity and economic instability, are particularly severe for adolescent girls.

As fuel prices surge so too does the cost of transport, food and basic goods, pushing already vulnerable households deeper into poverty.

This in turn results in increased gender-based violence, more girls forced out of school and into work, and rising rates of child marriage, Plan International Australia said. 

At Women Deliver, a major gender equality conference being held in Melbourne, a coalition of leading aid, development and gender organisations alongside philanthropic partners is shining a light on the disproportionate impact of economic instability and conflict on teen girls. 

The group is particularly highlighting the economic case for Australia and other donor countries in the region to invest in adolescent girls in the Asia Pacific.

“The ripple effects of the Middle East crisis and fuel shortages across Asia are deeply concerning and risk undermining already fragile economies and communities,” Plan International Australia chief executive Susanne Legena said. 

“But adolescent girls represent a powerful solution, and could be a turning point in all of this … when their rights are upheld and their leadership is nurtured, they help build fairer, safer and more sustainable communities. 

“When we invest in girls, everything changes: girls become women with choices, and entire communities rise with them.”

Plan International Australia is calling on the federal government to commit $50 million in its International Gender Equality Strategy over four years.

The funding should be targeted towards initiatives that explicitly benefit adolescent girls across education, health, violence prevention, climate response and economic participation.

“If Australia wants its aid to work harder, investing in girls early is one of the smartest and most cost- effective choices it can make,” Ms Legena said.

“If we fail to act now, we risk failing an entire generation of girls.” 

OpenAI has fallen short of its goals for new users and revenue in ‌recent months, sparking concern among some company leaders over whether ‌it can support its extensive data centre spending, the Wall Street ‌Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

CFO Sarah Friar has expressed concerns to other company leaders that the ChatGPT creator ‌might not ‌be ⁠able to pay for future computing contracts ​if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough, according to the report.

OpenAI missed multiple monthly revenue targets earlier this year after losing ground to Anthropic in coding and enterprise markets, the ⁠report said.

“This is ‌ridiculous. ​We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as ​we can ‌and working hard on it together every day,” CEO and ​co-founder Sam Altman and Friar said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

ChatGPT’s growth slowed toward ​the ​end of last ​year, the WSJ report said, adding ‌that OpenAI fell short of an internal target to reach one billion weekly active users for the artificial intelligence chatbot by year-end.

The company has also grappled ​with subscriber defections, the report added.

Social media companies will be forced to pay more money for using news content on their platforms unless they strike deals with media outlets.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled on Tuesday draft laws for the news bargaining incentive, which encourages agreements to be struck between tech giants and media companies.

If bargains are struck between the companies for content, the social media platforms will only pay 1.5 per cent of revenue to the government, compared with a higher amount of 2.25 per cent if no deal is made.

Mr Albanese said Australian journalism needed to be properly paid for by tech companies.

“Our government is taking the next steps to ensure that Australian journalism is sustainable now and into the future, by ensuring that large digital platforms cannot avoid their obligations,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“What we are encouraging is for organisations to sit down with news organisations, get these deals done, and then we can move forward.”

The draft laws were released ahead of the legislation being introduced to parliament in coming weeks.

Consultations with Meta – the owners of Facebook and Instagram – as well as Google and TikTok have been carried out.

The deals would be offset by 150 per cent if agreements are struck with large media organisations, and 170 per cent for smaller newsrooms or non-traditional outlets.

“Investment in journalism is critical to a healthy democracy. It matters,” Mr Albanese said.

“If the work has been done by the people here at this press conference, in other places right around Australia, then your work needs to have a monetary value attached to it.

“It shouldn’t just be able to be taken by a large multinational corporation and used to generate profits for that organisation with no compensation appropriate for the people who produce that creative content.”

A previous version of the news bargaining code was rolled out in 2021 by the Morrison government.

However, social media companies such as Meta walked away from deals with Australia news outlets in 2024.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said a changed deal was needed as the media landscape evolves.

“People are increasingly getting their news directly from Facebook, from TikTok and from Google,” she said.

“We believe it’s only fair that large digital platforms contribute to the hard work of journalism that enriches their feeds and that drives their revenue.”

It comes as the Greens called for the federal government to implement a tax on big tech companies.

“Big tech platforms make massive profits from ripping off the content of journalists and creators, but they are also making billions from monetising the personal data of Australians and shifting profits offshore,” the party’s communication spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said.

“Billion-dollar tech corporations are exploiting loopholes and shifting profits offshore, and Australians are rightly asking why they’re getting away with it.”

Australia’s share market has extended Monday’s drop as some states return from a long weekend and the Middle East energy shock continues to drag on sentiment.

The S&P/ASX200 fell 50.9 points by midday on Tuesday, down 0.58 per cent, to 8,715.5, as the broader All Ordinaries lost 48 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 8,942.8.

Wall Street stalled at fresh record highs overnight as oil prices crept up on signals that the US was unlikely to accept an Iranian proposal to delay nuclear talks in order to prioritise the opening of the strait of Hormuz.

“Markets have been in limbo since President Trump formally cancelled the latest round of in-person negotiations over the weekend,” Westpac economist Ryan Wells said.

“Price action has been mixed against this fluid backdrop around US-Iran negotiation prospects.”

Energy and real estate were the only two sectors trading higher, scraping gains of less than 0.2 per cent.

Woodside and Santos traded either side of break-even, while refinery operators Viva Energy and Ampol both improved.

Dip-buyers supported uranium stocks after they started the week in the red, while Whitehaven outperformed other coal producers after targeting the upper end of 2026 earnings guidance in a quarterly update.

Utilities stocks underperformed, the segment tumbling almost three per cent as Origin extended its losses to almost a tenth in two sessions.

Origin’s sell-off came after UBS analysts cut their earnings per share forecasts a day after the utility slashed its own revenue forecasts related to its stake in Octopus Energy.

The raw materials sector handed back Monday’s gains with interest, shedding 1.2 per cent as BHP and Rio Tinto clocked even bigger losses.

Gold stocks also slipped as the precious metal eased to $US4,667 ($A6,501) an ounce.

Critical minerals producers PLS, Liontown and Lynas continued their recent strength with advances of up to three per cent.

The heavyweight financials sector traded roughly flat, as CBA, Westpac and NAB fell behind, while ANZ improved ahead of its interim results on Friday. CBA slipped 0.2 per cent to $173.49.

Consumer discretionary stocks were under pressure, dipping 1.1 per cent as Wesfarmers, Aristocrat Leisure and Light & Wonder weighed.

Health care stocks continued to sell off, wiping away Monday’s gains to again trade at ten-year lows.

In company news, Domino’s Pizza shares plummeted by nearly a tenth after a similar dive for its US-listed equivalent after a first-quarter earnings miss.

Beach Energy fell more than two per cent as March quarter production declined at its Otway Basin, Cooper Basin joint venture and Western Flank projects, despite its Perth Basin output soaring 174 per cent.

The Australian dollar was buying 71.78 US cents, up from 71.65 US cents on Monday at 5pm.

Airlines in Australia and around the world have trimmed flight numbers and increased airfares on the back of the Middle East crisis, but that hasn’t stopped Aussies from heading overseas.

The nation’s biggest airport has revealed the March quarter was its strongest for international travel in its history, despite the outbreak of the US-Israel war against Iran on February 28.

Sydney Airport funnelled 4.57 million passengers through its terminals at Mascot in the city’s south, up 5.8 per cent on the same quarter last year.

New Zealand and China were the airport’s largest international markets, with passenger volumes increasing by 13.5 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively.

Travel to and from Hong Kong was also strong, up 21.4 per cent, and there was also increased traffic for Shanghai, Seoul and Kuala Lumpur.

Airport chief Scott Charlton said the growth in international traffic was a great outcome given the US war on Iran, which also sent the price of jet fuel soaring and forced many airlines to change their operations.

“Growth across China and broader Asia is increasingly supporting travel into Europe, helping to offset softer conditions in parts of the Middle East,” he said on Tuesday.

“This performance reflects resilient demand for travel to and from Sydney and reinforces Sydney Airport’s role as the nation’s primary international gateway.”

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Mr Charlton said the focus for airlines will likely be changes to routes, as they adjust to higher fuel prices and the possibility that the conflict will run through to June, or beyond.

“From a fuel perspective, the outlook remains stable and consistent with government guidance,” he added.

“There are no current indications of fuel supply constraints impacting airline planning or near-term operations at Sydney Airport.”

On the domestic side, passenger growth was also strong – rising by 2.1 per cent to 6.2 million in the quarter.

Overall, Sydney Airport saw more than 10 million passengers through its domestic and international gates.

”Everything we have seen so far suggests the aviation market continues to demonstrate adaptability and Sydney Airport is well positioned to support growth as conditions evolve,” Mr Charlton said.

Since the crisis began, Qantas has reduced some domestic capacity and raised fares.

But the carrier, which does not fly to the Middle East, has said it was also seeing more demand for travel to Europe and was redeploying capacity from the US and its domestic network to increase flights to Paris and Rome.

Air New Zealand, Air India, Delta Air Lines, and Lufthansa have also reduced capacity in recent weeks, citing the refining costs of jet fuel which have surged to a peak of around $US120 per barrel from $US20 before the war.

The resignation of the man tasked with cleaning up the scandal-plagued construction union may have been triggered by health issues, according to the government.

Senior barrister Mark Irving KC was appointed in 2024 to tackle allegations of corruption and bikie infiltration in the CFMEU but has now stepped aside, allowing a senior union official from NSW to take the reins.

Mr Irving had done a good job in very difficult circumstances, federal minister Jason Clare told reporters on Tuesday.

“He’s had two heart attacks in recent times,” Mr Clare said.

Mr Irving was reportedly hospitalised in May and August of 2025 after suffering chest pains.

He also received death threats after he began sacking hundreds of union officials as part of his efforts to stamp out corruption.

CFMEU NSW executive officer Michael Crosby will take over as administrator.

Mr Irving will still be involved in the union in a senior counsel role.

But the resignation of the government’s handpicked corruption fighter shows the clean-up fight is failing, the opposition said.

The coalition will seek to establish a parliamentary inquiry into corruption in the construction industry, workplace relations spokeswoman Jane Hume said in a statement.

“Labor promised to clean up the CFMEU,” she said.

“Instead, Australians have seen secrecy, controversy and now the resignation of the very person appointed to fix the mess.”

The CFMEU’s construction and general division was placed into administration in late 2024 after it was accused of corruption and links to organised crime.

Former CFMEU official and bikie Joel Leavitt, one of four men charged over an alleged extortion plot, faced court in March.

Queensland has also launched an inquiry into the CFMEU, led by commissioner Stuart Wood KC.

Australian Constructors Association chief executive Jon Davies praised Mr Irving’s work and acknowledged it came with a high level of personal and professional risk.

“Given the CFMEU’s history of coercive conduct and criminal infiltration in parts of the construction industry, this was not a role many would have been willing to take on,” he said in a statement.

“While we have not always agreed on every issue, our engagement with Mark has consistently been respectful, direct and constructive,” Mr Davies said.

The peak body for construction companies called for broad reform of the sector, warning lawlessness could re-emerge once the administration ends.

“We need stronger oversight, clearer accountability and consistent enforcement across the sector,” Mr Davies said.

US President Donald Trump has announced his pick for the next American ambassador to Australia more than a year after the Republican leader’s return to the White House.

Former Virginia congressman David Brat was nominated for the ambassador role, which has been vacant since 2024.

Mr Brat represented Virginia’s seventh congressional district in the US House of Representatives for the Republicans.

He was first elected in 2014 and served two terms before losing his seat in 2018.

The ambassador position is yet to be finalised as the appointment needs to be ratified by the US Senate.

If successful in his selection, Mr Brat will succeed Caroline Kennedy in the role of ambassador to Australia.

Ms Kennedy, the only surviving child of former Democratic president John F. Kennedy, was appointed under the Biden administration.