Ex-prime minister Scott Morrison is among dozens of people being sought by government lawyers as they builds a defence against a compensation claim by Brittany Higgins’ former boss.

The former Liberal leader was ensnared in Fiona Brown’s case after she alleged he made a false statement to parliament after the Higgins rape scandal erupted in 2021.

Ms Brown, a former staffer in Mr Morrison’s office, is suing the Commonwealth for damages, saying the government gagged her from responding to accusations about her handling of Ms Higgins’ claims.

She held a leadership role in the then-prime minister’s office in February 2021 and was chief of staff to then-senator Linda Reynolds in 2019 when Ms Higgins says a fellow Reynolds staffer raped her in Parliament House.

Her lawsuit returned to the Federal Court on Monday when Justice Nye Perram ordered mediation in late April or early May after the Commonwealth filed its defence.

The federal government’s barrister, Matthew Minucci, asked for additional time to prepare the document, saying his client needed to contact the 32 people named in Brown’s lawsuit, including Mr Morrison.

Ms Brown’s amended statement of claim was filed in late November.

Justice Perram agreed to hold two separate hearings for the matter, first on arguments about the government’s liability for the alleged failures and the amount of damages it will have to pay.

A second hearing on penalties will then be held if the government does not successfully defend the lawsuit.

In a 106-page court filing, Ms Brown alleges she was sidelined from leadership meetings and the then-prime minister refused to talk to her after the scandal broke in early 2021.

Labor later used question time to probe Mr Morrison about claims Ms Brown had not supported Ms Higgins, leading the prime minister to say: “I have had these conversations with the member of staff.”

“I have discussed with her those matters and the support provided to her at the time in the messages that were sent to her,” he told parliament.

Mr Morrison subsequently spoke briefly with Ms Brown for the first and only time, she claims.

“We’ve spoken, haven’t we?” he allegedly said.

The filing said a “bewildered” Ms Brown responded “yes” and Mr Morrison walked off.

“(Ms Brown) complained that she felt frightened, intimidated and distressed by prime minister Morrison,” the filing said.

The former prime minister has been contacted for comment.

The ex-aide also accuses Mr Morrison and his top-level advisers of stopping her from personally responding to allegedly false allegations made by Ms Higgins.

Ms Higgins’ appearance on Network Ten’s The Project included identifying Ms Brown by name and accusing her of misconduct for the mishandling of the rape, the documents said.

Contradicting Ms Higgins’ claim was a text she allegedly sent to Ms Brown, thanking her for her support immediately after the rape.

Suing under the Fair Work Act, Ms Brown alleges the federal government scapegoated and sidelined her, causing her psychological injury to the point she attempted suicide.

In an earlier Federal Court case, Justice Michael Lee found she had shown compassion and integrity in her handling of Ms Higgins’ complaint but she had been unfairly “vilified as an unfeeling apparatchik” seeking to cover up a crime.

Justice Lee’s finding that on the balance of probabilities Bruce Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins was confirmed by the full Federal Court in December.

Lehrmann’s criminal trial was derailed due to juror misconduct.

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An iconic Australian business, whose fortunes are linked to the health of the building and renovations market, is cautious about its outlook after the recent interest rate rise.

Plumbing, bathrooms and trade supplier Reece on Monday reported a 20 per cent fall in first-half bottom-line net profit to $144.2 million.

The result reflected subdued housing market conditions across the nation and in the US in the six months ended December.

The 126-year-old company, which started out as a single hardware store in Melbourne’s Caulfield, recently noticed green shoots on the horizon.

But “it’s not like we’ve got this huge recovery and we are off to the races”, CEO Peter Wilson told analysts in an earnings call.

“We were just starting to see green shoots and then the interest rate rise hit.”

The Reserve Bank of Australia earlier this month raised interest rates for the first time in two years and there are expectations that more increases are on the way.

Reece said its core Australia and New Zealand business had a mixed performance while its US operation, founded on its acquisition of the Morsco business eight years ago, was being impacted by affordability issues in the new residential construction sector.

“As we look ahead, we’re cautious about the pace of recovery and don’t expect a material shift in demand for the remainder” of the 2025/26 financial year, Mr Wilson said in a statement.

Shares in Reece rose 15 per cent to $16.04 in morning trade.

Reece’s underlying earnings before interest and tax also declined – by 14 per cent to $262 million – as network expansion costs in the US increased, although that growth did help lift sales by almost six per cent to $4.6 billion.

Its earnings from Australia and NZ totalled $179 million, while the US generated $US55 million ($A78 million).

Full-year earnings before interest and tax are now forecast to be a range of $520-$540 million, which would be down from $548 million in 2024/25.

Reece declared a first-half dividend of 5.44 cents per share, down from 6.5 cents in the previous corresponding period.

The opposition’s push to punish those who help Islamic State-linked families return home from Syria appears to be trying to criminalise the work of aid organisations, a senior government minister says.

The coalition put forward a proposal on Sunday that would criminalise facilitating the re-entry of people with IS links to Australia. 

The opposition criticised Labor of being complacent about the possible return of a group of 34 wives and children of former IS fighters, who have been held in a Syrian camp since the militant group’s defeat.

While one person from the group has been given a two-year temporary exclusion order barring their return, other members of the so-called “ISIS bride” cohort have been granted Australian passports as they are citizens.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the opposition’s policy wasn’t serious, labelling it a “grab for a headline” that could potentially capture aid workers.

“All we’ve seen is newspaper articles about (the policy),” he told ABC TV on Monday.

“No serious content about what appears to be some plans to try and criminalise the work of aid organisations like Save the Children.

“We’re focused instead on applying the strict letter of the law.”

The opposition’s proposal would apply in circumstances where the government has given “express permission” for repatriation to occur. 

The federal government has ruled out any efforts to repatriate the group.

Opposition foreign spokesman Ted O’Brien said non-government organisations could be captured under the proposed laws, adding there is no automatic exemption for those who help children.

“To the extent that they are assisting foreign fighters, families or sympathisers of terrorists, yes it would,” Mr O’Brien told ABC Radio.

“To the extent that they are providing humanitarian services, no it would not.”

Self-managed returns of the women and children was a loophole that needed to be closed, he added. 

“Under that arrangement, it permits non-government third parties to organise terrorists and their affiliates to enter Australia, and they can do that on their own without government oversight,” Mr O’Brien said.

“So this proposed law closes that loophole, brings back responsibility to lie with the government and doesn’t allow the government to effectively outsource the repatriation of terror sympathisers back to Australia.”

Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Matt Thistlethwaite said Labor has “toughened up” laws surrounding ISIS fighters and their partners being allowed into Australia.

“If anyone is advised by the security and intelligence agencies to have been involved in potential terrorist activities, they’ll be excluded,” he told Sky News.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonathon Duniam said conditions imposed on previous citizens with links to IS would not be adequate for the current cohort.

In 2022, four women and 11 children were returned to Australia, while eight orphaned children were repatriated from Syria in 2019 under the then-coalition government.

“With those who have been repatriated, who have faced prosecution in the past, the best we got was a good-behaviour bond for 25 months,” Senator Duniam said on Sunday.

“These are people that went to Syria to support a death cult.”

The coalition has called for laws to be strengthened to stop the cohort from accessing Australian passports.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said any laws would need to be created in consultation with intelligence and security agencies, and that there are protections in place if the 34 women and children re-enter Australia.

“This is a cohort that has been monitored for years by our agencies,” she told ABC TV.

“It is put forward that if they have committed crimes, they will be subjected to the full force on the law.” 

The European Commission has demanded the United States stick to the terms of an EU-US trade ‌deal reached last year, after the US Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s global tariffs ‌and he responded with new levies across the board.

The Commission, which negotiates trade policy ‌on behalf of the 27 EU member states, said Washington must provide “full clarity” on the steps it intends to take following the court ruling.

After the court struck down Trump’s global tariffs on Friday, the US president announced temporary, across-the-board tariffs of 10 per cent, which he then ‌hiked to 15 per cent ‌a ⁠day later.

“The current situation is not conducive to delivering ‘fair, balanced, ​and mutually beneficial’ transatlantic trade and investment, as agreed to by both sides” in the joint statement setting out the terms of last year’s trade agreement, the Commission said. 

“A deal is a deal.”

The comments were far more strongly worded than the Commission’s initial response on ⁠Friday, which had said only that it was ‌studying ​the outcome of the Supreme Court decision and keeping in contact with the US ​administration.

Last year’s ‌trade deal set a 15 per cent US tariff rate for most EU goods, apart from ​those covered by other sectoral tariffs such as on steel. It also allowed zero tariffs on some products such as aircraft and spare parts. The ​EU ​agreed to remove import duties on ​many US goods and withdrew a threat ‌to retaliate with higher levies.

“In particular, EU products must continue to benefit from the most competitive treatment, with no increases in tariffs beyond the clear and all-inclusive ceiling previously agreed,” the EU executive said, adding that unpredictable tariffs were disruptive and undermined confidence across ​global markets.

It said that EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic had discussed the issue ​with US Trade Representative ⁠Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Saturday. 

None of the countries that had reached trade deals with the US had indicated plans to withdraw following the Supreme Court decision, Greer said on Sunday.

“I haven’t heard anyone yet come to me and say the deal is off,” Greer told CBS News.

“They want ‌to see how ‌this plays out.”

Discounts on capital gains tax have done little to address the reason why the measure was introduced, Australia’s peak union body says, as the federal government weighs up whether to change the controversial measure.

An inquiry into capital gains tax will begin hearings on Monday, with union officials and leading economists set to give evidence.

The discount on capital gains tax, introduced in 1999 by the Howard government, allows for a 50 per cent reduction in the tax on investment properties sold after being owned for a year.

In its submission to the inquiry, the Australian Council of Trade Unions called for the discount to instead be lowered to just 25 per cent to make it more equitable.

While the discount was introduced to make capital gains tax more internationally competitive and enable more efficient management of assets, the union said 26 years later, little of this intent has been met.

“The CGT discount has been a key mechanism allowing the very rich to pay lower effective rates of tax,” the ACTU’s submission said.

“The latest Treasury data from December 2025 shows that most of the benefits of the discount are captured by the richest one per cent of Australians.”

The union’s president Michele O’Neil will be among those giving evidence on the first day of hearings, as well as trade union figure Bill Kelty and economist Alan Kohler.

The ACTU said the reduction to the discount would not be a complete answer to solve housing issues, but would go a long way to addressing issues.

While the federal government has been tipped to introduce changes to the discount in its May budget, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not confirm whether the move was on the cards when pressed.

“What we are doing is tax cuts this July, another tax cut the following July and when it comes to housing, we’re doing our best to deal with the supply question,” he told Sky News.

A grouping of major US airlines says the US Department of Homeland Security gave travellers scant warning ‌ahead of the temporary suspension of its PreCheck and Global Entry programs, as much of the agency shuts down.

The halt in the department-run programs will begin early on Sunday after the partial shutdown began last week following Republicans and Democrats’ failure to clinch a deal on immigration enforcement reforms.

“Airlines for America is deeply concerned that … the travelling public will be, once again, used as a political football amid another government shutdown,” the trade association and lobby group’s chief executive Chris ‌Sununu said.

News of ‌the suspensions ⁠came at “extremely short notice to travellers, giving them little time to ​plan accordingly”, he said in a statement, urging Congress to “get a deal done”.

A similar shutdown in 2025 caused losses of $US6.1 billion ($A8.6 billion) across the travel industry and related sectors, he said.

“TSA and Customs and Border Protection are prioritising the general travis (Transportation Routing and Vehicle Information System) population at our airports and ports of entry and suspending courtesy ⁠and special privilege escorts,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ‌said.

“We ​are making tough but necessary workforce and resource decisions to mitigate the damage,” she said in ​a statement to ‌Reuters.

The pause in programs is among the emergency measures the department is taking to redirect staffing ​more than a week after Congress failed to send it more money, the Washington Post said.

PreCheck had more than 20 million active members, the TSA said in 2024, while ​total ​vetted airline passengers in the department’s traveller ​programs, including Global Entry, exceeded 40 million.

The ‌PreCheck program allows approved passengers to go through a dedicated, faster security lane at US airports and is designed to reduce wait times and streamline screening.

Global Entry expedites US customs and immigration clearance for pre-approved, low-risk international travellers entering the US.

Sunday’s moves follow orders from the Trump administration to another ​constituent of the department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to suspend deployment of aid workers ​to disaster-affected areas due to ⁠the shutdown.

The competitive advantage enjoyed by some Australian exporters under the Trump administration’s trade regime could be narrowed if a flagged boost to the US tariff rate to 15 per cent is realised.

President Donald Trump was quick to respond with a plan B when the US Supreme Court deemed much of the White House’s existing tariff infrastructure unlawful.

The president pledged to use separate powers to introduce a global 10 per cent tariff from February 24, and has since taken to social media to signal a lift in this rate to 15 per cent. 

EY partner Luke Branson said the US government was yet to officially update its proclamation with the new rate, and that further legal challenge was on the cards.

Yet if such an increase to the global rate goes ahead, he said the competitive advantage experienced in some Australian sectors exporting to the US would be eroded.

Under the agenda now ruled illegal by the highest US court, many competing markets face much higher rates than the 10 per cent paid on Australian exports. 

“A global tariff rate of 15 per cent will level the playing field for Australian exporters,” the firm’s Oceania global trade lead told AAP.

“The increase in the rate will bring the so-called ‘baseline’ tariff into line with a number of the trade deals struck between the US administration and key trading partners.”

The United States is a modest buyer of Australian goods, making up roughly five per cent of total exports annually.

Beef and gold are among Australia’s biggest export markets to the US and early indications suggest these items will remain exempt.

Independent economist Saul Eslake expected a modest direct impact on Australia from the latest trade developments given the size of the market for domestic producers.

He noted worst-case economic scenarios failed to materialise in 2025.

“The effects of the tariffs to date, while Trump had imposed them on Australia, were quite limited,” Mr Eslake told AAP.

He did anticipate more uncertainty as countries scrambled to decode and respond to the latest announcements, and said that could weigh on economic activity. 

The indirect influence of tariffs on Australia’s bigger export markets, such as China, remained a concern, with weaker exports of those countries into the US potentially weighing on their imports from Australia.

The United States Studies Centre research director Jared Mondschein said the legal tool pursued by the Trump administration, Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, had never been used for tariffs before.

“It basically allows President Trump to buy some time as they use the more conventional manners of imposing tariffs,” he told AAP.

Mr Mondschein said it would slow the US trade agenda down as it pursued more conventional methods on firmer legal footing.

“So we won’t have the wild gyrations.”

Mr Mondschein said the latest developments were unlikely to make the situation much simpler for Australia, noting the middle power was still undergoing consequential negotiations on pharmaceuticals with the US.

The year’s first round of inflation figures will provide a clearer picture on whether the Reserve Bank’s recent hike to the cash rate was a one-off or a sign of further increases to come.

Wednesday will see the release of inflation data for January, the first set since the Reserve Bank chose to hike interest rates to 3.85 per cent at the start of February.

Headline inflation is expected to stay largely at the same levels of 3.8 per cent, although economists from the Commonwealth Bank have tipped a slight reduction to 3.7 per cent.

The trimmed mean inflation, where volatile items are removed, is expected to remain unchanged at 3.3 per cent.

The measure is still above the Reserve Bank’s target band of between two and three per cent.

January’s data will coincide with the last of the energy rebates coming to an end, which will cause a bump in inflation.

But NAB senior economist Taylor Nugent said the end of power bill relief would not mean a large overall increase.

“We expect that to be offset in January by softer fuel and travel inflation, and from policy changes weighing down a little on health and childcare inflation,” he said.

But even with inflation remaining steady, economists are still tipping further interest rate hikes with the Commonwealth Bank and NAB both tipping an increase to 4.1 per at the Reserve Bank’s board meeting in May.

This week will also see the release of capital expenditure figures, with a 0.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth in new investment likely to be confirmed on Thursday.

Wall Street investors are meanwhile expecting strong investment growth in information media and telecommunications industries after the US Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s global tariffs.

The court, which ‌has a conservative majority, ruled 6-3 against Trump’s global tariffs, under a federal law meant for national emergencies.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.69 per cent to end Friday at 6,909.51 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.90 per cent to 22,886.07 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ⁠rose 0.47 per cent to 49,625.97 points.

Australian share futures crept up 16 points, or 0.17 per cent, to 11,293.

The S&P/ASX200 shaved 4.8 points, down 0.05 per cent to 9,081.4, on Friday as the broader All Ordinaries gave up 13.4 points, or 0.14 per cent, to 9,303.2.

Australian officials don’t want women and children linked to Islamic State to return to the nation, but the threshold hasn’t been reached to bar them from receiving passports.

Some 34 women and children tied to Australians who travelled to the Middle East to fight for the terrorist group have been trying for days to travel home from a Syrian refugee camp.

The so-called “ISIS brides” have been issued with Australian passports, a right afforded to citizens, but one of the women has been given a temporary exclusion order, barring their re-entry for up to two years.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said security agencies had not passed on any advice that would block the group from receiving the required travel documents to return to Australia.

“There’s been no advice from ASIO that the passports act provisions have been activated,” he told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

“On the information that we have, the best way to protect Australians has not involved any further temporary exclusion orders.

“We don’t want them to come back … we’re actively making sure we do nothing to help them.”

The 34-strong cohort was not a coherent group, Mr Burke added, but enough information was available to issue the single exclusion order.

“We know the different individuals, we know the state of mind and effective ideology of different individuals,” he said.

“Our agencies have been following them for a long time.”

The minister noted a majority of the cohort were born in Australia and he confirmed state and federal agencies had been working together to mitigate any potential risks from their return.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government was not in contact with any member of the cohort, but he threatened charges would apply if they come back to Australia.

“Australian citizens have rights and they also have responsibilities, and those responsibilities mean that the Australian government, like with anyone else, will apply the full force of the law to anyone who has broken Australian law,” he told Sky News.

“What we have is a situation, whereby, is Australia providing repatriation, which did occur in 2019 and 2022? No is the answer to that.”

Labor has been under pressure from the opposition to block the entire group from entering Australia, however Mr Albanese said his government was operating under laws introduced by the coalition.

“When it comes to the issue of citizenship, that has rights as well under our constitution,” the prime minister said.

“There are issues there and the coalition know that is the case.”

Opposition defence spokesman James Paterson reiterated that the government should do more to stop the cohort’s arrival.

“It is very clear that the government can refuse a passport to an Australian citizen if they receive advice from a competent authority like ASIO or the AFP if a person is a threat to security,” he said.

“Denying their passport would deal with that threat to security.”

The granting of a temporary exclusion order to one of the cohort meant further orders could be granted, Senator Paterson added.

“Those powers need to be used and this government seems very reluctant to use them,” he said.

Imagine water pooling on the bathroom tiles and starting to mop while the tap is still running.

It’s an apt analogy for the world’s climate change response over the past three decades, according to Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative president Kumi Naidoo.

“Eighty six per cent of what drives climate change is fossil fuels,” says the former head of Greenpeace and Amnesty International.

The South African human rights and environmental activist has penned an essay on Australia’s opportunity to lead the transition away from non-renewables and secure a future for its Pacific neighbours.

In Mr Naidoo’s view, the failure to mention fossil fuels in the outcomes of November’s UN climate talks in Brazil is emblematic of a foundering global climate response due to the heavy presence of oil, gas and coal interests.

Yet he still walked away from the 30th Conference of the Parties summit in the Amazonian city of Belem feeling cautiously optimistic.

Dozens of countries were agitating on the issue of fossil fuel on the sidelines, he told AAP.

COP30 president Andre Correa do Lago has since promised to deliver a plan for a just transition away from the polluting fuels ahead of the next conference in Turkey.

The Belem Declaration, formulated to sit outside the main COP30 deal, has been endorsed by 80 countries – including major coal and gas producer Australia – and allows states to signal support for a fossil fuel roadmap.

Momentum is now building behind an inaugural international conference on fossil fuel phase-out to be held in Columbia in April.

Mr Naidoo is encouraging Australia to attend, particularly given its negotiating role at the next round of international climate talks.

After a protracted stand-off with Turkey on the 31st COP summit, Australia finally ceded hosting rights on the proviso the Pacific could run a pre-summit leaders’ event and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen could lead negotiations.

Under this arrangement, Mr Naidoo said it would be “completely unacceptable” were Australia not in attendance at the Columbia summit as a “positive and constructive player”.

“We can only pray and hope the Australian government will move beyond rhetorically embracing the urgency of climate change and start recognising it’s very neighbours on the doorstep are facing already massive climate impacts, as is Australia,” he said.

While Australian electricity generation from renewable sources in September surpassed coal for the first time, government revenues are still heavily reliant on exports of fossil fuels, including liquefied natural gas.

In the essay titled What We Owe the Water: It’s time for a Fossil Fuel Treaty, Mr Naidoo said the Paris agreement – the primary global climate pact – was an important foundational arrangement but would struggle to limit dangerous warming.

“We are not saying the climate Paris agreement should be thrown aside,” he said.

“What we are saying is it needs a complimentary component which is much more binding, and where countries commit to a phase out.”

Nodding to the challenged political environment, including the US government’s disregard for climate action, Mr Naidoo was not expecting full international support for a fossil fuel phase-out treaty immediately.

But he was hopeful hold-outs would come under pressure were such a proposed treaty put to a vote.

Mr Naidoo drew on negotiations for a landmine treaty developed in the late 1990s that, when brought to the UN General Assembly, was “very difficult” to vote against.

“It was very hard for people to say, ‘oh, I want landmines, I’m not prepared to ban it’, right?”

Reflecting on the climate movement, Mr Naidoo said campaigners had made a tactical error by framing the threat as an environmental issue.

“What we needed to do was to humanise climate.”

Mr Naidoo’s article was published by Australia Institute Press.