Jewish and Palestinian students and staff are bearing the brunt of ingrained racism at universities as institutions are chastised for failing to address hate on campus.

People from Indigenous, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, Pasifika, Maori and Muslim backgrounds also face high rates of racism, a landmark Australian Human Rights Commission report released on Tuesday found. 

“Racism at university is not confined to isolated incidents or individual behaviour, it is systemic,” Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said.

“Racism is pervasive across the sector, affecting many groups in serious ways.”

The discrimination damaged people’s identity and self-esteem as well as their wellbeing and safety, he said.

More than 90 per cent of Jews and Palestinians reported experiencing racism due to their religion or ethnicity at university, according to the Racism@Uni Study, which surveyed more than 76,000 students and staff from 42 universities in September. 

More than eight in 10 respondents from Indigenous, Chinese, Middle Eastern and northeast Asian backgrounds reported racism. 

However, only six per cent of people made a complaint about the racism they suffered, with trust in the university process low.

The study’s 47 recommendations included universities having a positive duty to stamp out racism, the creation of national and university-specific anti-racism plans and more reporting and transparency requirements.

Universities Australia labelled the findings deeply troubling, saying racism had no place at universities. 

“No one should feel unsafe, diminished or excluded because of their culture, faith or background,” the peak body said in a statement.

“Universities accept our responsibility to confront racism wherever it occurs.

“We will continue listening, learning and acting together to ensure our universities live up to the standards our communities rightly expect.”

Noting institutions were bound to ensure academic freedom and freedom of speech, this could never be used to justify spreading harm or impacting another person’s rights, Universities Australia said.

Education Minister Jason Clare flagged major changes as the federal government considers the report’s recommendations.

“We’ll comb through it and respond in due course,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

“But one of (the recommendations) … is to raise that standard that universities need to comply with. 

“We’ve already said that we will do that, and that work’s under way.”

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Baby Bunting’s attempt to re-imagine the way parents shop for their kiddos is paying off, with first-half sales growth exceeding forecasts. 

Australia’s biggest specialist baby goods retailer lifted sales for the six months to December 29 by 6.7 per cent to $271.4 million.

Net profit rose 4.1 per cent to $5 million, compared to the previous corresponding half-year.

Same-store sales rose 4.7 per cent, beating guidance of two to three per cent comparable sales growth, while sales at Baby Bunting’s nine “stores of the future” grew 25 per cent, and at the top end of guidance. 

That momentum has continued into the second half, with same-store sales up 6.7 per cent in the seven weeks to Sunday.  

Chief executive Mark Teperson said it was a strong result that exceeded expectations across multiple metrics and demonstrated strong momentum in its strategy.

“Our record revenue result was driven by growth in our customer base, the continued success of our store of the future program, along with strong gross margin performance,” he said.

Baby Bunting’s “stores of the future” feature experience hubs where parents can engage, learn and shop, along with showcases for Baby Bunting’s partner brands. 

They also feature spaces like a “whimsical glass bottle canopy” designed to spark a sense of wonder, and calming spaces meant to evoke a friend’s kitchen.

Six more Baby Bunting stores were refurbished and converted to the future format during the half, after three stores pioneered the concept in 2024/25.

Baby Bunting also opened three small-format stores in the last few months of 2025, at shopping malls on the Gold Coast and in suburbs of Melbourne and Adelaide, but they have not done quite so well.

Mr Teperson said one of those BabyBunting Junior stores was performing to target while two were slightly behind.

“We are large-format destination retailers,” he said in a conference call with analysts. 

“As we move into a shopping centre environment, we’ve recognised that there is some finesse in the execution that we need to bring in how we convert more passing traffic into in-store shoppers.”

The stores are showing signs of improvement, but tentative plans to open two or three more small-format stores are on hold for the rest of the second half.

Baby Bunting ended the half with 74 stores in Australia and five in New Zealand.

It plans to refurbish another six stores to “stores of the future” during the second half, which involves closing them for 10 to 12 weeks and opening two new large format stores, in the NSW Central Coast and suburban Melbourne.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Jackie Moody said that Baby Bunting’s stores of the future program had delivered a strong lift in sales, but its first-half profit had narrowly missed expectations.

The retailer’s forecasts for capital expenditure over 2025/26 had increased by 29 per cent to $41 million to $43 million, Ms Moody noted.

Baby Bunting said it wouldn’t pay a dividend while it focuses on growth.

In morning trading, Baby Bunting shares rose 11.8 per cent to a three-week high of $2.46.

Miner Vicuna Corporation, controlled by Australia’s BHP ‌and Canada’s Lundin Mining has announced a $US18 billion ($A25 ‌billion) multi-year investment plan to develop copper, gold ‌and silver mining projects in northern Argentina.

The initial investment in its Josemaria and Filo del Sol projects in the province of San ‌Juan will ‌be $US7 billion ($A9.9 ⁠billion) with capital deployment scheduled from ​2027 until production begins in 2030, Vicuna said in a statement on Monday.

The project is forecast to average 395,000 tonnes of copper, 711,000 ounces of ⁠gold, and ‌22.2 ​million ounces of silver annually over its first ​25 years.

Output ‌during the first decade is projected ​at approximately 2.5 million tonnes of copper, 5.5 million ounces of gold, and 214 million ​ounces ​of silver.

Development ​of the Josemaria and ‌Filo del Sol mining projects will be carried out in three stages.

The first stage will be focused on the Josemaria deposit, with ​the latter two focused on Filo del Sol. 

The world’s biggest mining company has posted a 28 per cent boost in interim profit after its copper division delivered most of its earnings, as prices for the metal soared during the half.

BHP, which is the largest miner by market value, made a net profit of $US5.6 billion ($A7.9 billion) ($A7.9 billion) for the first half of 2025/26, on an 11 per cent lift in revenue to $US27.9 billion ($A39.4 billion).

“This half marks a milestone for BHP with copper contributing the largest share of our overall earnings, at 51 per cent of underlying,” CEO Mike Henry said on Tuesday.

BHP is also the world’s largest copper producer, whose operations include the Escondida mine in Chile and Olympic Dam in South Australia.

The group has now lifted its 2025/26 copper output guidance to 1.9-2.0 million tonnes.

“This is allowing us to maximise increased earnings from the recent run-up in copper prices as well as gold,” Mr Henry said.

First half group underlying earnings – before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation – jumped 25 per cent to $US15.5 billion ($A21.9 billion), after the record $US8 billion ($A11 billion) contribution from copper.

BHP on Tuesday also revealed its jointly owned copper, gold and silver mining business in Argentina will spend $US18 billion ($A25 billion) to develop new projects.

Vicuna Corporation is controlled by BHP ‌and Canada’s Lundin Mining.

BHP will pay shareholders a first-half dividend of US73 cents per share, up from US 50 cents previously.

The company has a market value on the Australian stock exchange of $255.8 billion. 

The Reserve Bank’s rationale behind increasing interest rates for the first time in more than two years is set to be revealed in full.

The central bank on Tuesday will unveil the minutes from its most recent meeting in early February, when the board decided to raise the official cash rate by 25 basis points to 3.85 per cent.

It was the first time since November 2023 the Reserve Bank had opted for a rate hike and followed an uptick in inflation above its target band of between two and three per cent.

While Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock has since been questioned on the board’s decision at a press conference and two parliamentary hearings, the minutes are expected to shed more light on the factors that went into the call.

The minutes could support the message that further rate increases are in the pipeline, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said.

“The minutes from the last RBA meeting will likely reinforce the RBA’s hawkish stance with more warnings that it will raise rates again if inflation data does not improve enough,” he said.

The board previously said inflationary pressures picked up in the second half of 2025 and were likely to linger throughout 2026.

“While part of the pick-up in inflation is assessed to reflect temporary factors, it is evident that private demand is growing more quickly than expected, capacity pressures are greater than previously assessed and labour market conditions are a little tight,” the board said.

Ms Bullock previously said a resurgence in inflation had forced the bank’s hand, with the speed of consumer spending and business investment catching the board off guard.

A statement from the bank’s monetary board at the time of the interest rate decision warned of uncertainties for the domestic policy.

“On the domestic side, if growth in demand is stronger than expected, and growth in the economy’s supply capacity remains limited, it is likely to add further to capacity pressures,” the statement said.

Angus Taylor’s looming frontbench reshuffle is expected to reward key conservatives but the opposition leader is being warned a successful shadow ministry must strike the right balance. 

The announcement could be made as early as Tuesday, after Mr Taylor ousted the Liberal Party’s first female leader Sussan Ley in a spill.

It is widely expected the Hume MP will reward his factional allies, with senators Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Sarah Henderson and Western Australian MP Andrew Hastie tipped to return to the frontline.

Promotions could come at the expense of Ms Ley’s key backers after she was ousted on Friday, losing to Mr Taylor’s 34 votes in a party room ballot.

Alex Hawke, Andrew Wallace, Scott Buchholz and Anne Ruston are among those who face losing their shadow ministries.

However, an expert said Mr Taylor should take notes from former Liberal leader John Howard’s “broad church” approach to designing a front bench, ensuring moderate and conservative voices were represented.

“The most important job for Angus Taylor right now is to come up with a front bench … that can work together to make policy, because that was Peter Dutton’s greatest failing,” Australian National University political scientist Jill Sheppard said. 

“He’ll have to balance stacking the front bench full of his own.”

One way to strike that balance might be to promote moderate Tim Wilson to shadow treasurer, Dr Sheppard said. 

Senator Nampijinpa Price is lobbying for a frontbench role, declaring “I’m back baby” while remaining unapologetic about previous negative remarks about Indian voters. 

“I’m back baby … I was having a breather, but I’m back. The fire’s back,” she said on Karl Stefanovic’s podcast. 

The NT senator was axed from Ms Ley’s front bench after claiming the Albanese government prioritised migrants who were likely to vote Labor, naming Indian Australians as an example. 

She failed to apologise for the comments and refused to voice support for Ms Ley’s leadership.

“Don’t try to force me to apologise for something that doesn’t require an apology,” she said.

Senator Henderson, who was dumped from Ms Ley’s front bench when it was announced in May, made her desire to return clear.

“I do hope that I return to the front bench but as Angus has made very clear, we are in such a dire situation,” she said.

The first poll released since Ms Ley was ousted shows support for the coalition up three points to 23 per cent, a tie with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

“Angus Taylor has made fairly clear that he knows the initial challenge for the coalition right now is from the right and that they need to stem this bleed of voters,” Dr Sheppard said. 

Asked if the Nationals would renegotiate the deal that brought the coalition back together, Nationals MP Kevin Hogan said his party was relaxed about it.

Ms Ley agreed to reunite the coalition on condition the Nationals frontbenchers who broke shadow cabinet solidarity over hate crime laws in January were suspended for six weeks

“If we come back on March the first or we come back tomorrow, we are relaxed about that,” Mr Hogan told Sky News.

The veracity of one of Australia’s biggest gas companies’ promises to slash emissions will be put to the test as the Federal Court rules on a landmark greenwashing case.

In a judgment expected to have implications for climate commitments made by all businesses, the court will rule on allegations Santos breached corporate and consumer law with its representations of environmental goals.

The case brought by the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility challenged claims made by Santos that natural gas provided “clean energy” and that the company had a “credible and clear plan” to achieve net zero by 2040.

The shareholder advocacy group’s lawyers further alleged the energy company’s descriptions of blue hydrogen as “clean” and “zero emissions” were misleading.

Blue hydrogen is a fuel created using gas that relies on carbon-capture technologies to deal with the emissions.

The company’s defence lawyers rejected allegations its net-zero goals lacked credibility, arguing they were always targets, not promises, and claimed the “clean” hydrogen fuel label was used only when accompanied by carbon credits.

The case was all about the credibility of corporate climate promises, Monash Business School Green Lab researcher Ella Vines said.

“It sends an important signal about how companies must frame their net-zero commitments and transition pathways,” Dr Vines said.

Courts were increasingly being asked to determine whether long-term emissions reduction claims were backed by concrete, near-term action and credible assumptions, the expert in corporate sustainability regulation said.

“The decision will shape how boards approach climate risk disclosure, transition planning and public communications,” Dr Vines said.

Santos allegedly made the misleading statements at a December 2020 investor day and in its 2020 annual report and climate change report, both published in February 2021.

The advocacy group is seeking injunctions forcing the firm to issue a corrective notice about the environmental impacts of its operations.

It is not seeking damages or compensation, saying it filed the lawsuit to vindicate the public interest in ensuring corporate climate change commitments were reasonably based.

The corporate responsibility centre holds shares in firms such as Santos to try to force them to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, the primary international climate change pact.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has enthusiastically endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s bid to serve a fifth straight term after upcoming elections in April.

During a visit to Budapest on Monday, Rubio emphasised the strong personal relationship between the nationalist leader and US President Donald Trump. 

Orbán, who has led Hungary since 2010, is one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in the European Union and has actively curried the US president’s favour leading up to the April 12 vote in which he will face the toughest challenge of his last 16 years in power. 

Rubio was in the Hungarian capital for meetings with Orbán and his government, where he signed an agreement on US-Hungarian civilian nuclear cooperation.

This includes the possible purchase of compact nuclear reactors — known as small modular reactors or SMRs — as well as US-supplied nuclear fuel and spent fuel storage technology.

At a news conference in Budapest, Rubio said US-Hungary relations — which both he and Orbán described as experiencing a “golden age” under Trump — go beyond mere diplomatic cooperation. 

“The prime minister and the president have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship, and I think it has been beneficial to our two countries,” Rubio said. 

“President Trump is deeply committed to your success because your success is our success.”

Rubio’s stop in Hungary followed a visit to Slovakia on Sunday after he previously attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany. 

Led by eurosceptic populists who oppose support for Ukraine and vocally back Trump, Slovakia and Hungary are both friendly territory for Rubio in his push to shore up energy agreements with both central European countries. 

Widely considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most reliable advocate in the EU, Orbán has maintained warm relations with the Kremlin despite its war against Ukraine.

Orbán has also built ties with Trump and his MAGA movement — short for the 2016 Trump campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”.

He has remained firmly committed to purchasing Russian energy despite efforts by the EU to wean off such supplies and received an exemption from US sanctions on Russian energy after a November meeting in the White House with Trump. 

Rubio would not specify on Monday how long that exemption would last as the EU plans to phase out Russian fossil fuels entirely by the end of 2027. 

Apparently trusting that his political and personal affinity with Trump could pay even greater dividends, Orbán and his government have sought to woo the US leader to Hungary before the pivotal April elections — hoping such a high-profile visit and endorsement would push Orbán, who is trailing in most polls, over the finish line. 

On Monday, Orbán told Rubio that his government is ready to host any future trilateral peace summit between the United States, Russia and Ukraine, and that Trump has an “open invitation” to Budapest. 

He also claimed that Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, were seeking to interfere in Hungary’s upcoming elections by criticising Orbán’s opposition to providing weapons or financial aid to Kyiv and threats to block Ukraine’s eventual membership in the EU. 

Many in MAGA and the broader conservative world view Hungary as a shining example of successful conservative nationalism, despite the erosion of its democratic institutions and its status as one of the EU’s poorest countries. 

Orbán has riffed on Trump’s popular slogan and declared that he and his movement seek to “Make Europe Great Again”. 

Australia’s fifth-largest retail bank has set aside millions of dollars to plug risk-management deficiencies after it was pinged by regulators.

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is dealing with the fallout of a 2025 review that found it had deficient safeguards against money laundering before it self-reported to the banking regulator and AUSTRAC.

On Monday, it reported a 3.3 per cent fall in first-half net cash earnings to $256.4 million as lending fell.

Its performance for the six months ended December also produced a 6.4 per cent rise in statutory net profit to $230.6 million.

The bank’s earnings were driven by deposit growth of 2.3 per cent to almost $74 billion and a more than six per cent reduction in operating expenses.

The value of its residential lending book retreated by 0.1 per cent to $65.1 billion after it exited a legacy mortgage partner business.

“We remain confident that our residential lending book will return to growth over the second half of the financial year,” CEO Richard Fennel said, noting the bank would reach three million customers by the end of the financial year.

While Australian households continued to face cost-of-living headwinds, the bank said its home loan customers were resilient.

More than 45 per cent of those customers are more than a year ahead on their mortgage repayments and 88 per cent are maintaining their financial buffers.

The bank hired consultancy Deloitte in 2025 to conduct an independent review after suspicious activity at one of its branches apparently went undetected for six years until August 1.

The review, revealed in November, found the deficiencies extended beyond a single branch and identified weaknesses with many key aspects of money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing risk management.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority later told the bank it must hold $50 million in additional risk capital and investigate the extent of the issues in its operations.

AUSTRAC is continuing an enforcement investigation to examine whether Bendigo has complied with its obligations under anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism laws.

Bendigo recently appointed a chief compliance officer and head of financial risk, Steve Blackburn, to lead its response.

“We’ve now received detailed recommendations, actions and a road map from Deloitte, which we’re using to guide our remediation and uplift program with a focus on enhancing our enterprise-wide … risk management, including transaction monitoring,” Mr Fennell told analysts in an earnings call.

Bendigo expects the total cost for up to three years will be $70 million to $90 million, including an initial $15 million to be incurred in the second half of 2025/26.

“We continue to engage proactively with regulators,” Mr Fennell said.

Shares in Bendigo, which will pay an unchanged first-half dividend of 30 cents per share, were down about one per cent to $11.32 in Monday afternoon trading.

Supermarket giant Coles has been accused of artificially increasing prices before reducing them and claiming it as a discount.

Australia’s consumer watchdog is pursuing the chain through the Federal Court for allegedly misleading consumers with its “down down, prices are down” campaign.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s case against Coles began on Monday, with its lawyers accusing the company of using “utterly misleading” prices.

With a “jingle that sticks in one’s ear longer than is healthy”, the ACCC’s barrister alleged Coles’s well-known “down down” marketing campaign had deliberately misled its customers.

“Why on earth are you telling your customers that your prices are going down, when they’re not?” the commission’s barrister Garry Rich SC told the court.

“The particular promotion they chose was a promotion that hinges on convincing customers that the price of this product has gone down.

“An utterly inappropriate promotional mechanic to use in circumstances where everyone within Coles knows the price is going up.”

He opened the hearing using the example of a 1.2kg can of Nature’s Gift adult wet dog food, which he said was sold for $4 from April 2022 to February 2023.

Mr Rich claimed Coles had increased the price of the product to $6 for a week, before it was sold as reduced to $4.50.

“Coles’s statement was utterly misleading,” he said.

“Coles had increased its price to $6 just seven days before the promotion and for 296 days before that the price was $4.”

Justice Michael O’Bryan queried whether the reason the price rose was due to the supplier increasing its cost. 

Mr Rich said consumers would not know this information and it was misleading to claim the later price was discounted.

Using a giant red thumb, the “down down” campaign began in 2010 and claimed prices on everyday household products had been reduced and were staying low.

Coles said it was helping Australians keep their grocery costs down as part of its commitment to lower the cost of living, Mr Rich said.

However, in reality Coles allegedly misled customers on prices for 245 similar products, including toothpaste, soft drink, cheese, shampoo, band-aids and laundry powder.

“You’re not lowering the cost of living, you’re not driving prices down, in circumstances of the kind we have here,” he said.

Coles is fighting all allegations brought by the ACCC as the hearing continues.