Every political party says that Australia is in the midst of a housing crisis, but they still can’t agree on how best to fix it.

Partisan differences have prevented another Senate inquiry into intergenerational housing inequity from charting a clear way forward, as it handed down its report on Wednesday.

Greens senator and committee chair Barbara Pocock repeated calls in the report for more public housing, a national rent cap and low-interest mortgages for first-home buyers.

The coalition, represented by opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg, once again promised to repeal Labor’s changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax, slash the size of the construction code, and increase reporting requirements for Housing Australia.

Meanwhile, Labor’s senators Carol Brown and Corinne Mulholland insisted that the government’s budget changes and boost to social-housing funding through the Housing Australia Future Fund were already making a difference.

Curbs to investor tax breaks have contributed to property prices falling 3.6 per cent nationwide since their March peak, according to Cotality.

Credit growth figures released on Wednesday also showed growth in owner-occupier loans had overtaken investors, rising 0.5 per cent in August compared to 0.4 per cent for investors.

Still, investors and owner-occupiers were both softening in line with the cyclical downturn.

But Senator Bragg said budget tax changes made housing inequity worse because they destroyed the opportunity for young people to create enough wealth to afford a deposit.

“The government have made it illegal to build a cheap house through the construction code,” he told News24.

Senator Pocock called for at least 10 per cent of total housing stock to be made up of public and community housing, up from the current level of about 3.7 per cent.

She said the inquiry revealed “a housing system stacked against younger generations who have lost the intergenerational housing lottery”.

“With 640,000 people in need of social housing, the government’s pathetic attempts at building social and affordable housing won’t meet existing demand. Every target is being missed,” Senator Pocock said.

Labor touted its work on boosting supply as it seeks to build 1.2 million new homes in five years as part of the National Housing Accord, even though it is falling further behind schedule.

Dwelling approvals fell 6.1 per cent in August to 16,953, driven by a 21.2 per cent decline in detached homes, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported.

Monthly approvals were still near a five-year high at 18,202.

Master Builders Australia said higher construction costs, interest rates and taxes were making it harder for the sector to meet its supply target.

“Modelling confirms that the budget will deprive us of many new homes over the years ahead and force rents even higher,” Master Builders chief executive Denita Wawn said.

Sydney Airport is safe despite investigations into air traffic control rostering and fatigue concerns, which might have contributed to near misses between aircraft, a federal minister says. 

Between July and August, Sydney Airport narrowly avoided four collisions on runways, including one in which a jet was damaged and unable to turn around. 

Ground staff and pilots had to act on each occasion to avoid a major collision. 

“Based on information detailed in our preliminary reports, staff resourcing within Sydney Tower at the time of many of the occurrences has emerged as a recurring area of enquiry,” Australia Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Angus Mitchell told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.

“We recognise that air traffic control systems are under strain globally and I acknowledge the professionalism, training and commitment of air traffic controllers.”

Transport Minister Catherine King said Sydney Airport was co-operating well with all investigations and the airport remained safe for travellers. 

A new independent assurance panel has been launched to help Sydney implement changes to its air traffic control. 

Retired Air Vice Marshal Ken Robinson has been appointed as chair of the panel. Other members will join for an initial six-month period. 

In one incident, a flight attendant fractured a wrist after being knocked off their feet as the plane stopped suddenly on a runway where a larger aircraft was being towed. The risk was transitory, but two planes stopped with 30 metres between them.

In another near miss, an air traffic controller was sent for a break and had completed handover just seven seconds before a plane was wrongly cleared to cross the runway and came within 120 metres of a landing aircraft. 

The airport regularly uses overtime shifts to fill gaps in rosters and there were predictions of elevated fatigue risks for tower staff at the time of incidents. 

There were also concerns about air traffic controllers carrying out multiple responsibilities at the same time and conducting live training while being expected to keep on top of usual duties. 

Fatigue risk did not necessarily mean staff felt that way, Mr Mitchell said. Rather, a mathematical equation based on staffing levels and rosters meant there was reasonable belief that they could be.

Air traffic controllers at Sydney Airport took an average of 17 days of sick leave last financial year, documents revealed, which was higher than at other major Australian airports. 

The controllers cannot turn up to work unwell or tired – not as a matter of decorum but as a legal requirement – and are entitled to unlimited sick leave as a result.

The incidents at Sydney Airport are being examined to help understand how to fix issues across the country. 

Sydney had a 20 per cent higher incident rate than other major Australian airports. 

“The air traffic control challenges facing Sydney Airport are widely recognised, and I am encouraged by the work under way to address them,” Mr Mitchell said. 

The Department of Infrastructure and Civil Aviation Safety Authority are working to improve aviation safety, particularly as new air traffic controllers are trained.

The final reports on the incidents are set to be released in coming months.

The ABC’s finance guru Alan Kohler is stepping down after an illustrious career that included more than three decades with the broadcaster.

Mr Kohler has been a mainstay on TV screens, thanks to his role as the business and economics correspondent for the 7.30 Report and the lead 7pm news finance presenter. While Kohler provided audiences with in-depth analysis, his dry humour quickly became a trademark.

“I love the ABC, always have, even more so after I joined it,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

“I find it very hard to imagine this wonderful place not being part of my life, but I’m 74 and it’s time to spend more time with my family, including the six grandchildren.”

Kohler, whose “that’s finance” sign-off on the 7pm news became tradition, will present his final finance report on December 16.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers led the tributes, telling journalists in Sydney that Mr Kohler’s finance reports will be “really missed from ABC and from the TV screens in suburbs right around Australia”.

“He’s always done a wonderful job, boiling down some of the difficult and complex interactions in our economy. 

“I hope and expect that he’ll continue to make a contribution to economic commentary in this country … one way or another and I expect that he will.”

Hugh Marks, Managing Director of the ABC, also sang the presenter’s praises, saying Mr Kohler “has helped Australians make sense of complex issues with insight, clarity and a uniquely engaging style, always delivered with warmth, humour and that trademark cheeky grin”.

“I can’t thank Alan enough for everything he has given to the ABC and our audiences.”  

ABC News director Simon Robinson added that the network will be “tackling the difficult task of selecting his successor on the 7pm bulletin and will make that announcement in coming weeks”. 

Mr Kohler might be most well known for his contribution to the ABC, but his career has spanned more than half a century. 

He began his working life as a cadet journalist at The Australian before going on to become editor at the Australian Financial Review and The Age. 

He also founded online platforms Eureka Report and Business Spectator.

Electric car sales have more than doubled in Australia, recording one purchase every 100 seconds as motorists try to avoid soaring fuel costs.

But the nation’s battery-electric fleet would still need to grow to about 10 times its present size to help Australia meet its 2035 emissions target, a report has found, prompting calls for policy changes to accelerate uptake.

The Electric Vehicle Council released the findings on Wednesday in its annual State of EVs report, which also ranked states and territories according to their transport policies. 

NSW, the ACT and the federal government came out on top, while Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory ranked equal last with a score of two out of 10.

The findings follow months of record-breaking electric vehicle sales in Australia and come after petrol and diesel prices reached their highest average level since April due to the impact of ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The State of EVs 2026 found Australians bought 103,716 battery-electric vehicles and 54,241 plug-in hybrid electric cars during the first six months of the year, representing a rise of 117 per cent compared to the same period in 2025.

Electrified cars made up more than one in every four new vehicles sold during the period, it said, and pushed Australia’s EV fleet past 612,000 vehicles by the end of June.

The result represents a stark change from the council’s first annual report in 2017, chief executive Julie Delvecchio said, when motorists purchased just 2284 electrified vehicles.

“The 2026 figures point to a structural shift in the cars Australians are choosing, rather than a temporary spike,” she said.

“We’re seeing more models, more competition and more affordable EVs arriving at exactly the same time Australians are feeling the pressure of high petrol prices and looking for ways to cut their household running costs.”

The types of electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars have also multiplied since 2017, the report found, from 23 to 196 models, while charging locations grew from 476 to 4268.

Despite the significant growth, Electric Vehicle Council policy head Aman Gaur said sales would need to accelerate further over the next decade to meet Australia’s emission goals, citing Climate Change Authority estimates.

“In the last couple of weeks, we just tipped over 500,000 battery-electric cars on Australian roads,” he said.

“However, that figure, that 500,000, needs to increase by 10 times to hit the 2035 target.”

Sales of commercial electric vehicles would also need to speed up, Mr Gaur said, as battery-electric models accounted for one per cent of van sales and 0.6 per cent of truck sales. 

“Trucks are left eating dust and that’s simply because we do not have enough financial support to help Australians,” he said.

“By this, I mean small businesses who are running freight operations.”

Governments should remove restrictions on heavy electric vehicles and introduce tax concessions or financial assistance to boost adoption, Mr Gaur said.

Other policy changes needed to support electric vehicle take-up included extending the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard beyond 2029, the report said, implementing a national road-user charge that did not discourage EV purchases and introducing assistance for disadvantaged households. 

While many states had removed rebates for electric vehicles, the report scored efforts by the federal government, NSW and ACT as the nation’s best, and gave Victoria a “pass mark” for its electric heavy-vehicle trial.

Queensland, SA, Tasmania and the NT came in equal last with low scores for ambition and efforts to electrify buses, freight vehicles and government fleets.

US President Donald Trump says US bosses of artificial intelligence companies have signed a voluntary accord that will include internal and external reviews.

The deal to self regulate was struck during a meeting at the White House on Tuesday aimed at addressing Americans’ fears about the technology.

“I think I’m seeing tremendous self-policing. And they understand that they have to self-police,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu press conference outside the West Wing.

Trump met with leading executives from top tech firms that are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build out AI infrastructure, including data centres in communities across the country, which have sparked grassroots, bipartisan opposition.

The accord was signed by Trump, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk, founder of xAI, which is now part of SpaceX. 

The accord, which Trump posted on Truth Social, opens the door to future regulation but focused on four voluntary steps for the companies to take. 

The accord said the companies would implement “robust internal controls,” partner with an “independent external auditor” to assess whether the controls were working, and establish a committee within each company’s board of directors to evaluate reports from internal and external auditors. 

“Over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws and regulations,” the accord said.

Trump repeatedly praised the business executives for developing a technology that he said would produce “unbelievable growth”.

Investment in data centres and the accompanying computer equipment has accelerated the economy and boosted the stock market, which has swelled investment accounts for higher-income Americans and lifted their spending. 

Yet there were some notes of caution. Amodei, who has been one of the most outspoken voices calling for a slowdown in AI development, admitted “the technology has very real risks”.

“And, you know, the mechanism, how we address those risks is still under discussion,” Amodei said.

Trump suggested about 10 people would be named to a committee to “watch over the whole enterprise” and said the accord would be “morally binding”.

He also said he would name someone to oversee the agreement in coming days after consulting with industry. 

Some of the actions outlined in the accord are measures the companies are already taking in some form or have previously committed to doing.

Some experts are sceptical of putting “so much faith in self-policing”, like Robin Jia, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Southern California. 

He pointed to the recent disclosures of hacking incidents.

“As the models get better, the consequences of such things are only going to get greater”.

Some took issue with the accord’s vague, broad language, including Alex Pascal, executive director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

“The only way to reduce the risks and harms of AI to Americans is through robust legal liability, regulation and fundamentally changing the race dynamics that are driving unsafe decision-making by frontier AI developers whose costs are borne by the American people,” he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump promised that the US government wouldn’t limit the development of AI or support calls for “guardrails” or other restrictions. 

“I will never stifle the growth of a technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” Trump said at the unveiling of an AI chatbot intended to help navigate government services. 

“We can’t stifle it, and we’re leading by a lot.”

Trump also said the executives had agreed to assuage the bipartisan opposition to data centres cropping up in local communities across the country by providing more financial support to local schools or taking steps to reduce energy costs. 

“You’re going to see, data centres are going to be very popular,” Trump said.

with AP

A centuries-old cathedral chosen by Diana Spencer for her wedding to the then-Prince Charles has lost some of its sheen over the years.

Now the central London Anglican church is pumping up its sparkle with new gilding using gold supplied by an Australian yellow metal miner.

Bellevue Gold was picked for the job after The Goldsmiths’ Company and certification group Single Mine Origin backed the West Australian company’s ‘green gold’ credentials.

“To be selected as the exclusive supplier of gold to St Paul’s Cathedral is a huge honour,” boss Darren Stralow said on Wednesday.

The miner, which operates a major high-grade project in WA’s Northern Goldfields region, is expected to supply more than 50 ounces of gold, with the final amount still to be settled.

The gold will be used to restore the gilding of the ball and cross on top of the 329-year-old cathedral’s 111m-tall dome, which is a key feature of the UK capital’s skyline, and an outdoor viewing platform known as the Golden Gallery.

“The cathedral’s Golden Gallery was last regilded in 1863, and the use of our ‘green gold’ means this will be a multi-generational legacy for Bellevue,” Mr Stralow said.

Fifty ounces equates to about 1.5kg and would be worth around $US210,000 ($A301,060) based on Wednesday’s spot price of gold per troy ounce.

Bellevue’s gold project was 83.5 per cent powered by renewable energy in 2025/26, making it one of the lowest emission-intensive gold mines in Australia.

Residual emissions are offset with high-quality carbon credits, cementing it as the world’s first net-zero-emission miner, under the Scope 1 and Scope 2 global standard frameworks.

Its output is also supply chain traceable, meaning buyers can track its journey to market.

Bellevue is hopeful that the endorsement of its green gold by the 699-year-old Goldsmiths’ Company, which supports the industry through testing and hallmarking, will increase its profile.

The St Paul’s win builds on its partnership with French luxury brand Messika, which recently became the first fine jeweller to use Bellevue gold in its creations.

Charles and Diana wed at St Paul’s in 1981 and divorced in 1996, about a year before the then-Princess of Wales died in a car crash in Paris.

President Donald Trump says he doesn’t know if ‌Iran is going to “give up yet” but insists the Islamic regime is ‌doing “very poorly” in its war with the US.

“I don’t know if they are going to give up yet but they’ll give up,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

“They are doing very poorly,” he ‌added.

A ‌US blockade ⁠has cut Iran’s financial lifeline – oil exports, and ​economic costs of the war have made life tougher for Iranians but President Masoud Pezeshkian told the UN General Assembly last week Tehran would never surrender to US pressure.

The rise in oil prices ⁠due to the war ‌has ​also become a major issue for Trump’s Republican Party heading into the November ​US midterm ‌elections.

The war has led to the blockade of ​the Strait of Hormuz, which carried a fifth of global supplies of crude oil and LNG before the conflict.

Iran’s currency has fallen to a new low, with traders in Tehran exchanging more than 2.5 million rials to the US dollar in a stark reflection of how the war has steadily eroded the Iranian economy.

The latest decline came just 27 days after the rial hit its previous record low of 2.2 million to the US dollar on September 2.

The currency has repeatedly reached new lows since the war began in February.

The Iranian economy has been under duress for years in the face of international sanctions but the US naval blockade on Iranian oil and new sanctions imposed since the start of the war have sent it into free fall.

Meanwhile, Iran’s top diplomat said indirect negotiations with the US aimed at reopening the critical Strait of Hormuz have become “more serious”.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Iranian media late on Monday that the “current focus is solely on the Strait of Hormuz”, the choke point of the war.

Araqchi made the comments shortly before departing New York – where he attended last week’s gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly – and after meeting with Pakistani and Qatari mediators.

Araqchi said the Qatari intermediaries were expected to soon engage with the US side.

“They are set to raise the matter with the American side once more, after which the final US response will be conveyed to us,” Araqchi said.

“If there is a response, the Qataris will convey it to us and a decision will be made in Tehran on that basis.”

Officials, including from the US, have confirmed to the Associated Press that mediators are working with Iran and the US on trying to broker a deal to end the fighting and open the strait.

The US administration said on Tuesday that 10 individuals and entities based in Iran, Hong Kong and Pakistan face sanctions over accusations of procuring weapons and weapon components for Iran’s defence ministry as it fights its now seven-month war against the US.

with Reuters

Struggling restaurants and cafes are facing even tougher times ahead after interest rates rose for the fourth time in 2026, adding to cost-of-living pressures on households and businesses.

The increase, delivered by the central bank, is likely to prompt consumers to cut back on dining out, as they rethink budgets and adjust how often they go out to eat or drink.

“We expect traffic to slow down considerably by the end of the year. It’ll potentially most likely be negative,” Sanjev Kangatharan from market and consumer research group Circana told AAP.

“That means traffic will be in decline in the food service industry.

“Things are going to get quite tough.”

While consumers aren’t likely to stop eating out altogether, hospitality operators could soon start noticing fewer visits, customers trading down to cheaper options, demand for promotions and people generally being more selective about when and where they spend.

Of the three or four main categories, the restaurant or dine-in segment could be hit the hardest.

“What we expect is a dynamic that we’ve seen in previous years, is that people will pull out of that upscale restaurant (or full service) category,” said Mr Kangatharan, who heads Circana’s foodservice division in Australia.

This grouping has an average bill of around $29, according to Circana, which has a tool that’s been tracking foodservice consumption in Australia for more than 15 years.

“And $29 in 2026, you could actually buy four to five staple grocery items – so that’s definitely going to be a channel where traffic is going to pull out,” he said.

At the same time, those consumers could trade down to the quick service restaurant category, which includes cafes and fast food, which Circana notes is a normal behavioural shift in tougher times.

Conversely, the big winner could be larger supermarkets, which are now rolling out a wide range of ready meals and takeaway food for even lower prices.

“They’ll definitely pick up, purely because of the fact of consumers trading down,” Mr Kangatharan said.

The threat means hospitality operators, which are already doing it tough, will need to up their game to encourage customers to keep coming back.

This could mean more “deals”, rather than straight discounting, through food and drink bundles for eat-in or takeaway options or other promotions to encourage loyalty.

Consumer engagement with loyalty programs has increased 16.3 per cent over the past three years, Circana’s industry-specific CREST data shows.

Mobile app ordering for delivery and pickup is up 24 per cent and traffic through self-service kiosks has grown by 57 per cent.

Still, younger customers are definitely going to pull away, Mr Kangatharan suspects, while families will certainly be more selective.

“All I can say, as an advisor to industry, is that we have still seen operators succeed in this environment.”

New revelations about federal funding to the Marrickville Golf Club are likely to add heat on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a Senate probe looms.

The government is spending $6 million on upgrades to the club in Mr Albanese’s electorate through a contentious invite-only funding scheme.

The $560 million major and local community infrastructure program is the government’s vehicle to fund dozens of minor election promises across the country.

Earlier in September, Mr Albanese told the ABC the funding to the inner west Sydney golf course was to fix a sewage runoff problem.

“When it rains and there’s flooding, raw sewage goes into the Cooks River,” he said.

“That’s what it’s for, for fixing that. 

“I make no apologies for my electorate being serviced by me as a good local member.”

However, neither the club or Mr Albanese’s election commitment in 2025 mentions sewage.

Instead, the club told its members $4.5 million will be spent on a clubhouse redevelopment, $1 million on stormwater harvesting and the rest on a “native species botanical garden”.

To fix sewage flows, the club received $269,000 from the NSW government in 2025.

In addition to the recent largesse, the club has received five other small-scale federal grants since 2021.

Taxpayers have spent more than $21,000 on toilets, $12,000 on energy-efficient downlights, $11,000 on computer terminals, $9000 on benches and $3400 on trees for the Queens Jubilee.

On Tuesday, University of Sydney professor Anne Twomey said each grant was made in a similar invite-only fashion. 

“Every single one of these grants was a closed non-competitive grant, and the ones that were made while Labor was not in office were made because the local member was Mr Albanese,” she said.

“Based on criteria where whoever happens to be the local member who’s elected in the electorate, they get to nominate who gets the the money.”

Prof Twomey declared it “pork-barrelling” at odds with a meritorious process.

“It’s politicians making decisions on a political basis about who gets the money, and doing it for political interest rather than acting in the public interest,” she said.

The infrastructure funding program will be the subject of two days of Senate hearings in October, when the opposition and Greens probe the process behind grant selection.

AAP has been told the committee will seek to have the prime minister and infrastructure minister appear and answer questions about the scheme.

This appears extremely unlikely because, as lower house ministers, they cannot be compelled to attend.

The committee may also seek to probe staffers and senior public servants involved in decision-making.

Interest in the program was sparked by research by the Centre for Public Integrity in August, which hosted Prof Twomey on the webinar on Tuesday.

ANU professor Ian McAllister, who has run the Australian Electoral Study since 1987, said research into the previous coalition government’s “sports rorts” scheme showed no political pay-off.

“In terms of the electoral effects, we found zero effect,” he told the webinar.

“If you work in my area, doing a lot of statistical modelling, you think you’ve made some incredible error in the data, and you’ve got to go back and check it.

“It was absolutely true. There’s zero electoral effect.”

Dr McAllister said politicians – who increasingly come from the ranks of full-time party employees – believed that to be false.

“These are not necessarily the sorts of people you actually want looking after public money and looking after grants,” he said.

US consumer confidence dropped to ‌the lowest level in more ‌than 12 years in September, with ‌households expecting both business conditions and the labour market to weaken over the next ‌six months, ‌a ⁠survey indicates.

The ​Conference Board said its consumer confidence index plunged 6.7 points this month to 81.9, the ⁠lowest ‌level ​since 2014.

Economists polled by Reuters ​had forecast ‌the index at 89.2.

“Consumer appraisals ​of current business conditions became negative for the first ​time ​since ​September 2024,” said Dana Peterson, ‌chief economist at the Conference Board.

“Perceptions of the current labour market also worsened, though ​remained within positive territory.”

Write-in responses to the board’s survey, collected from September 1-23, were mostly pessimistic this month, with frequent references to the high cost of petrol, goods and services.

Earlier this month, the US government reported that consumer inflation accelerated last month and petrol prices spiked as fighting in the Middle East dragged on.

The consumer price index rose 3.4 per cent last month compared with a year ago, the Labor Department said on Friday, just like July.

But inflation quickened month to month as costs jumped 0.4 per cent from July, quadrupling the 0.1 per cent registered in the previous month.

The US central bank two weeks ago raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2023 in an effort to quell stubbornly high inflation, and the Federal Reserve signalled another rate hike could occur later this year.

with AP