A member of a powerful and secretive Christian sect who encouraged fellow church members to campaign for the Liberal Party has described a journalist investigating the denomination as “poisonous” and “full of lies”. 

Gareth Hales is the son of the global head of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, which is alleged to have mobilised congregants in their thousands to man polling booths and harass MPs at the 2025 federal election.

The church has repeatedly denied it directed or co-ordinated its members – most of whom don’t vote for religious reasons – to campaign, instead saying they volunteered.

Mr Hales had admitted to campaigning for the Liberal Party and encouraging other congregants who were already doing so, but told a parliamentary committee investigating the church’s conduct he was acting as a businessman.

“In 2025, I was deeply concerned about the direction the country was heading, particularly the pressures on business,” he said during hearings in Canberra on Friday.

“I remain concerned about those very same things … what I did as an individual was support a change of government and volunteer in the 2025 campaign.”

Mr Hales said while driving past a polling booth in Sydney on election day, he noticed “there weren’t many boys in blue” and decided to lend a hand.

“I put on a Liberal T-shirt and went there for half an hour and gave out pre-poll cards,” he said.

“I might have offered a little bit of encouragement, but in no way do I direct them or control or manage (other church members).”

He visited three more Sydney polling booths that day, but maintained he did not see any harassment or intimidation as has been reported, including by MPs.

The previous month, Mr Hales met then-opposition leader Peter Dutton and a senior adviser at a petrol station, but denied they colluded on ways to disrupt the Liberals’ opposing candidates.

“It wasn’t magical, mysterious, it was just known that he was going to turn up there because he was giving a speech,” he told the MPs and senators.

The Liberal Party’s review of the 2025 election labelled the Plymouth Brethren a “support group”, which church representatives have said is up to the party to explain. 

Mr Hales also unloaded on Sydney Morning Herald journalist Michael Bachelard, who has investigated the Plymouth Brethren’s political involvement for years.

“He’s been poisonous … attacking the church, attacking our businesses – it almost seems to be his full-time occupation,” he said.

Bachelard has rejected claims of bias, insisting his reporting is fair and accurate.

Earlier the committee heard evidence from Mr Hales’s father Bruce, the church’s global head, about whether he had directed his sons to campaign for the Liberal party.

“We very, very rarely discuss politics, it’s not a big theme,” the elder Hales had said.

“I know you think it is, but I think most of your precious committee has got it wrong.”

Much of that centred on a sermon Bruce Hales delivered in which he said “Australia needs to be happy again, smiling again”, which he is alleged to have relayed on a WhatsApp call to rouse fellow church members.

“We don’t then fire up in your election campaigns because of one line he says in his sermon – honestly that is ridiculous,” Gareth Hales said, denying he had repeated the phrase.

Questioning of Bruce Hales was likened to the Spanish inquisition by coalition committee members, who accused Labor, Greens and independent inquirers of religious persecution in fiery exchanges.

Those continued during Gareth Hales’ grilling, where independent MP Monique Ryan accused Liberal colleague Ben Small of running a “protection racket”.

Independent MP Andrew Gee, who earlier described being intimidated at polling places by Brethren members, told Gareth Hales: “I, for one, am not buying what you are selling”. 

Australian shares have defied a heavy sell-off to clock a third straight week of gains, thanks in part to rebounding technology and mining stocks.

The S&P/ASX200 gained 87 points on Friday, up one per cent, to 8806.7, as the broader All Ordinaries rose 100 points, or 1.13 per cent, to 8940.4.

Dip-buying in beaten-down technology and mining stocks drove the bourse higher on Friday after concerns about artificial intelligence valuations and global growth sparked selling earlier in the week.

The Australian dollar is buying 69.47 US cents, down from 69.51 US cents on Thursday at 5pm AEDT.

The Greens are exploring legal avenues for an investigation into prominent senator Jordon Steele-John following allegations about his behaviour towards women. 

The 32-year-old is taking leave from the party room after seven Greens members wrote a letter demanding an investigation into his alleged conduct.

The alleged incidents spanned almost a decade, from when he was elected in 2017 to 2025.

The investigation will be handled by the Western Australian Greens branch, as a federal parliamentary body confirmed it would be unable to handle the concerns. 

Legal advice on how that investigation should be conducted – including whether it will be made public and whether witnesses who were not signatories to the letter will be called – is now being sought. 

“Everyone involved is entitled to natural justice and procedural fairness,” the state branch’s co-conveners Simone Collins and Giz Watson said.

“A process that is impartial from the outset is the best way to reach an outcome that all parties can have confidence in.

“We know that raising concerns can be difficult and we respect the courage it takes for anyone to come forward.”

WA Greens did not answer other questions from AAP, saying it would be inappropriate to comment further. 

Greens leader David Shoebridge confirmed Senator Steele-John would not be appearing in parliament while internal investigations took place. 

“I’m glad that Senator Steele-John has agreed to refer the matter for a full, a fair and an independent and timely investigation,” he told ABC TV on Friday.

“I can say that none of the signatories of the letter asserted to any direct knowledge of the matters involved and, of course, that creates some additional complexity in dealing with it.”

He said it would not be up to him to decide if the investigation was made public, because the process would be commissioned by the WA Greens. 

He had a discussion with the senator before the letter was made public, in which leave was agreed to. 

Senator Steele-John has “utterly rejected” the claims in a statement to media and alleges he was the victim of assault in a previous relationship. 

Senator Shoebridge has denied previous knowledge of the allegations.

A source inside the youth wing of the party’s NSW branch told AAP Senator Steele-John had been raised in connection with allegations of sexual harassment as early as October 2018. 

At the time, a general meeting of the state’s Young Greens directed their national delegates to block and indefinitely delay motions to formally investigate the WA senator for alleged sexual harassment.

In the same meeting, they also asked the delegates to keep voting to block Senator Steele-John from appearing on the party’s social media pages.

Both motions were agreed to by consensus, the source said, and are the only times the WA senator’s name appears in NSW Young Greens meeting minutes since before he entered the federal upper house.

Senator Shoebridge, who was a member of the NSW Legislative Council at the time, has said he does not remember any NSW Young Greens motion relating to Senator Steele-John.

An Australian defence company using AI surveillance to track the oceans for military and criminal threats has listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Founded in August 2025, Overwatch Technologies develops intelligence and surveillance using autonomous systems, advanced sensors and data analytics to help government and security agencies monitor the seas.

Its hardware allows authorities to comb more territory without relying solely on traditional surveillance infrastructure.

Chief executive and co-founder Oscar Leslie has over 20 years experience in the Australian defence force, including in special services and signals.

“We’re exceptionally lucky to have still the majority of our team having operational experience inside of either the military or the national security community,” Mr Leslie told AAP.

“We have a really good understanding about what the government problem is, what are the challenges, and it’s why we’re not trying to replace them, but it enables us to work really closely with key government partners.”

The vastness of the ocean, and the resources required to monitor coastlines manually is something that Overwatch wants to simplify.

“The ocean is an incredibly difficult area to monitor with crude assets, airplanes, naval vessels, coast guards,” Mr Leslie said.

“Militaries are now realising that lower cost assets, autonomous assets, and those that can operate with fewer human steps in that loop … is becoming more and more important.”

The technology can also be used to monitor the safety of shipping vessels, or to catch other dangerous and criminal activities.

“We look at 2.64 tonnes of cocaine being found in the beaches of Fiji, and you wonder what was the vessel that transported it,” Mr Leslie said.

“For countries like Australia with a smaller population and an enormous surface area, both our land and our sea, we need to adopt technologies like this to achieve better coverage.”

The company’s initial public offering raised of $8 million at an offer price of 20 cents per share.

Overwatch’s shares listed at 19 cents and quickly dipped to 16 cents after hitting the ASX at 11am AEDT.

There are more than 150 million fully diluted shares, meaning Overwatch Technologies retains close to three quarters of their market capitalisation.

However, with the company built around using AI for defence and military capabilities, it is vital that safeguards are in place and the technology is used responsibly.

“Being an Australian company and being beholden to Australia’s policies on both the management of that data and the development of those models is really important to us,” Mr Leslie said.

Rising unemployment suggest Australia’s jobs market is softening, but varying exposures to the Middle East conflict and the AI boom means some areas are holding up better than others.

Labour force figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed the nation’s unemployment rate continued to rise in September, coming in at a five-year high 4.7 per cent.

But while joblessness jumped 0.4 percentage points in NSW and held above five per cent in Victoria, in Western Australia unemployment fell to a relatively low 4.2 per cent.

The same phenomenon was evident in job ads on Seek, the job marketplace’s chief economist Blair Chapman said.

“WA seems to be an exception when it comes to employment,” he told AAP.

“Job ads seem to be going up a little bit more in WA than anywhere else, and I think that might reflect commodity prices.”

Gas prices have spiked with the conflict in the Middle East.

Prices for gold and other commodities central to WA’s economy have been rising too.

“That’s supporting the mining and energy industry, especially in WA,” Dr Chapman said.

Employment growth has been relatively strong, despite the slump in consumer confidence and rising interest rates.

Amid rising cost-of-living pressures and business costs, consumer-facing hiring weakened between April and June.

But since then, consumer spending had held up relatively well and hiring had been stronger than expected, Dr Chapman said.

Part of the gradual softening in the labour market in 2026 has been more people looking for a job or trying to pick up extra work to cope with rising living costs.

Madeline Hill, general manager of recruitment agency Randstad, said internal data showed 36 per cent of Australian workers were looking for or had already taken on a second job to help with rising living costs.

Demand for jobs was also lumpy, she said.

The data centre boom was driving huge growth in skilled trades, with demand for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning technicians up 249 per cent.

“We might be looking at a two-speed market in Australia right now where a broader softening indicator conceals demand in specific sectors,” Ms Hill said.

The Greens’ frontman in a fight against NDIS cuts has taken leave from his party room, with allegations he made inappropriate comments towards women spanning nearly a decade.

Western Australian Senator Jordon Steele-John made the shock move on Thursday after seven Greens members wrote a letter demanding an investigation into the alleged conduct.

The 32-year-old upper house member is accused of concerning behaviour in the presence of women from 2017 to 2025. 

Senator Steele-John said the allegations were made without specifics.

“I utterly reject this characterisation of me, which tries to assert I am someone I am not,” he said in a statement.

“Any allegation of this nature is extremely serious and must be treated accordingly.

Greens leader David Shoebridge said he first received word of complaints against Senator Steele-John in a letter from the seven party members on Tuesday night.

The party took the claims “incredibly seriously”, he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.

He did not stipulate whether he had heard allegations or rumours about the WA senator’s behaviour before taking the party’s top job on September 30.

“I received the correspondence in my capacity as leader of the Australian Greens and I’ve dealt with it with the urgency which I think is appropriate,” Senator Shoebridge said.

But a source inside the youth wing of the party’s NSW branch told AAP Senator Steele-John had been raised in connection with allegations of sexual harassment as early as October 2018. 

At the time, a general meeting of the state’s Young Greens directed their national delegates to block and indefinitely delay motions to formally investigate the WA senator for alleged sexual harassment.

In the same meeting, they also asked the delegates to keep voting to block Senator Steele-John appearing on the party’s social media pages.

Both motions were agreed to by consensus, the source said, and are the only times the WA senator’s name appears in NSW Young Greens meeting minutes since before he entered the federal upper house.

Senator Shoebridge, who was a member of the NSW Legislative Council at the time, on Thursday said he did not remember any NSW Young Greens motion relating to Senator Steele-John.

“I was in a different parliament. I do not recall having any involvement at all in that, and and I don’t think people would expect an upper house MP in the state parliament to have any role in that,” he said.

Senator Shoebridge maintained he was only told about the allegations on Tuesday and accepted Senator Steele-John’s leave of absence Thursday afternoon.

Tuesday’s letter, extracts of which have been published by the Nine newspapers, said multiple female party members were warned not to be alone with Senator Steele-John because of the allegations against him.

“These warnings have come from inside and outside the party, demonstrating that knowledge of his alleged reputation extends beyond party membership and out into the community,” it read.

“There are multiple others who were too fearful of backlash by Senator Steele-John and others in the party to sign on.”

The WA senator will self-refer matters outlined in the letter to an independent complaints process overseen by that state’s party wing.

Senator Steele-John entered parliament in 2017 when he was 23, which at the time made him the youngest senator on record. 

He is the party’s spokesman for disability and mental health, leading a campaign against NDIS cuts. 

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

Australia’s jobs market is continuing to soften, taking pressure off the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates again.

But questions around the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ labour force figures and stubborn inflation mean another hike remains firmly on the table.

Unemployment came in at 4.7 per cent for a second straight month in September, the ABS revealed on Thursday, after August’s jobless rate was upwardly revised from 4.6 per cent.

Economists had been expecting unemployment to stay at 4.6 per cent.

A fall in employment by 39,300 was also softer than expectations. Consensus was for a rise of 20,000.

The softer-than-expected result continues the gradual easing trend that the labour market has been in since the start of the year.

Unemployment is at the highest level since October 2021, having risen by 0.6 percentage points since the start of the year.

And it’s already above the RBA’s forecast of 4.5 per cent for the December quarter.

On face value, the gradual weakening in the jobs market is a welcome sign for RBA governor Michele Bullock, who has previously said that a higher unemployment rate was needed to bring inflation back to target.

But Marc Jocum, senior strategist at ETF provider Global X, said the numbers were noisy and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The ABS has been updating the way the survey is carried out in recent months, which has impacted the seasonality of the data.

“The jobs market is beginning to lose momentum, but it is not falling off a cliff and is being heavily influenced by the volatile participation rate and ABS methodology changes,” he said.

“The RBA is walking a tightrope. It needs to slow the economy enough to tame inflation without tightening the screws so far that the jobs market buckles. 

“The coming months will reveal whether this is a controlled cool-down or the beginning of a more painful slowdown.”

Taking into account the overall trend, the labour market has been loosening faster than the RBA expected, HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham said in a research note.

But inflation was also surprising to the upside.

The softer labour force reading showed the RBA’s four interest rates so far in 2026 were having the desired effect of disinflating the economy, Mr Bloxham said.

While it added to the case for a hold at the margins, upcoming inflation data will be the main factor determining whether the RBA hikes again in November, he said.

In a read-out of its September meeting released on Tuesday, the RBA noted that labour market conditions had eased since August.

But RBA staff were increasingly worried that the rate of unemployment needed to keep inflation stable had risen as a result of weak productivity.

That meant that to get inflation back to target, Australians might have to get used to a higher unemployment rate than previously thought.

Unemployment was still low by historical standards, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

The participation rate was also near a record high, despite falling by 0.2 percentage points to 66.8 per cent.

Dr Chalmers flew to Bangkok on Thursday where finance ministers from around the world convened for the International Monetary Fund-World Bank annual meetings.

Top of the agenda was how to deal with the fallout from the ongoing war in the Middle East, which has pushed inflation up across the globe.

While the global economy was proving resilient to the Middle East oil shock, vulnerabilities were growing, the IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook on Tuesday.

The IMF projected Australia’s unemployment rate to hit 4.7 per cent in 2027.

“The conflict in the Middle East is having devastating impacts on the global economy, our businesses and our people. Australia calls for de-escalation and an end to the conflict,” Dr Chalmers told the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors.

The door is open to allowing Australians to take on social media platforms under wide-ranging digital safety changes.

Labor’s digital duty of care bill was introduced to parliament by Communications Minister Anika Wells on Thursday, just hours before an appearance at the National Press Club.

Under the proposal, social media platforms would be forced to protect users under 18 from content that promotes crime or eating disorders, pornography or misogynistic content, as well as posts that cause distress.

Labor has characterised the bill as a way to introduce baseline standards on tech giants and digital platforms, not a way to police individual users or pieces of content.

The government is keen to get the legislation over the line before the end of 2026 and it likely will, after Ms Wells confirmed she would consider changes proposed by the Greens, such as the ability for individuals to take legal action against social media platforms for harm.

“It is something that we would contemplate because it has been something that has come in through the consultation process … and that has been something that groups, particularly women’s groups, have asked us to do,” Ms Wells said.

“Our eSafety Commissioner does a marvellous job at enforcement and compliance, but it’s a huge burden, and private right of action allows people to share that burden.” 

Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said without the measures, the bill would fall short of issuing any real incentive to the social media platforms to comply.

“Australians should have the right to take big tech to court and to seek remedy, that is, compensation for the harm that their online experience has done to them,” Senator Hanson-Young told reporters on Thursday.

“Otherwise, what is the point of this?”

Labor had already ditched proposed discretionary powers for the minister to define what could constitute a new harm to win over the Greens and following concerns it could lead to political censorship.

Parliament would still be able to legislate further protections against new social media harms that might emerge, just not as quickly according to the communication minister.

Coalition MPs have largely written themselves out of negotiations to date.

Liberal communications spokeswoman Sarah Henderson has called Labor’s plan a “dog’s breakfast”, “dangerously vague” and “fatally flawed”, pushing for the bill to be scrapped.

It’s an approach Ms Wells said she has been puzzled by.

“(The coalition) know that the Greens are supportive of the principles, want to see it amended, why they would deal themselves out of anything that might improve the bill … it is on them to explain that,” she said.

The workload of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant is anticipated to increase significantly if the digital duty of care bill passes to take effect in late 2027.

When asked if Ms Inman-Grant had the worst job in the world following years of sustained criticism online, Ms Wells sighed and quipped “you poor bugger” before confirming she was considering what the commission could look like in the near future.

Civil society groups including the Human Rights Law Centre have welcomed the bill but called for digital platforms to consider risks to human rights and for improved enforcement mechanisms when breaches occur.

The federal government unveiled a draft proposal for the digital duty of care in September, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said was the next phase of online protections after the world-first ban on under-16s using social media was introduced in December.

The bill will face the scrutiny of an inquiry due to hand down its final report in late November.

A leading regional lender plans to compete aggressively in the mortgage market with its digital-only brands after several years of letting its home-loan business shrink.

Bank of Queensland announced Thursday that it had made a $250 million statutory net profit after tax for the financial year ended August 31, up 88 per cent from a year ago, when its bottom line had been hit with a $170 million writeoff of goodwill.

The bank’s cash earnings fell seven per cent to $358 million, while its net interest margin climbed six basis points to 1.7 per cent.

Its home loan lending for the year dropped to $4.6 billion, down eight per cent from 2024/25, but it is planning to grow that business through its two digital-only brands, ME and Virgin Money.

“As we’ve talked over previous periods, we step back while the economics weren’t working for us in that mortgage portfolio,” managing director and chief executive Rod Finch told analysts.

“With those big structural and transformation pieces now in place, we’re more confident stepping back into the market.”

In August, 88 per cent of all of Bank of Queensland’s home loans were originated through its digital channel, which the bank expects will cut its mortgage originating and servicing costs in half, compared with heritage home loans.

MST Marquee analyst Brian Johnson said that Bank of Queensland’s ME brand had been basically matching Macquarie with the most aggressive interest rates for owner-occupiers in the market.

In recent years Bank of Queensland has been closing branches and converting all of its owner-managed branches to corporate branches to simplify its business.

It now has 102 branches across Australia, down from 147 three years ago.

Over 2025/26 it finished migrating all of its 350,000 ME customers to a new cloud-based platform built by French tech giant Capgemini, which Bank of Queensland says will provide customers with a better banking experience and improved protection from scams.

While most customers were migrated smoothly, the bank’s annual report acknowledges that some experienced “disruption, inconvenience and frustration” during the process.

It also sold its $3.7 billion equipment finance loan portfolio to Challenger in April, in a bid to further simplify its business and free up capital.

A state leader says he was disappointed to learn public servants had covered-up more than $250 million in ineligible COVID-19 business support payments. 

The Victorian government spent billions of dollars supporting small businesses affected by the lockdowns during the pandemic. 

A report by the state’s integrity watchdog on Thursday found an estimated $257 million went to 9000 ineligible businesses.

Rather than report the losses, the probe found two senior bureaucrats withheld the suspected costs from their superiors. 

Mr Carroll, who is now the premier, said on Thursday he was disappointed by the conduct exposed by the watchdog, which he had been briefed on the day prior. 

“I’ve always acted … very professionally and always tried to bring the best out in our public service,” he told reporters. 

“We need to make sure that every public servant knows their job is to provide frank and fearless advice.”

The watchdog made no adverse findings or comments against Mr Carroll, who served a period as minister for industry support and recovery.

The IBAC investigation commenced in August 2022 following whistleblower allegations of corrupt conduct among senior public officials within the since-revamped Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions.

It concerned their response to revelations the department had used a flawed metric when assessing eligibility for COVID-19 era Business Cost Assistance Program grants. 

The assessment relied on GST registrations to determine whether businesses were operational prior to lockdowns. 

But it failed to recognise businesses can lawfully backdate their registrations, meaning some may give a false impression of having been disrupted. 

IBAC Commissioner Victoria Elliott said the ensuing cover-up by select senior bureaucrats fell short of the public’s expectations.

“This was not a one-off event, nor was it due to an oversight,” the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission report reads.

“Decisions were made to withhold information about the magnitude of the loss and misleading information was subsequently created and disseminated over an extended period of time.”

Commissioner Elliot praised the “bravery” of the whistleblowers whose allegations triggered the investigation. 

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson on Thursday told reporters the findings were concerning. 

“We have a report from IBAC identifying more corruption and more misuse of taxpayer money,” she said.

“It’s just more evidence of a government that has mismanaged taxpayer money and more evidence that corruption is rife.”