Software giant Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 employees.

Executive vice president Amy Coleman said some employees in Canada, India, the United Kingdom and the US were eligible for the offer. 

“This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support,” she said in a blog post on Monday. 

“It also gives participating organisations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs.” 

The company had about 223,000 full-time employees globally as of June 30, according to its annual filing. 

In July Microsoft said it was cutting around 4,800 roles and overhauling its Xbox video games division. 

A number of tech companies, including Google and Meta, have announced job cuts this year as investment in artificial intelligence rises. 

The gusher of investment in data centres – likely topping $US700 billion ($A997 billion) in 2026 – to power AI has made memory chips, computer processors and other equipment, as well as electricity, more expensive. Economists expect it will continue to push up inflation at least through the end of 2026.

Microsoft has been ramping up its AI capabilities for several years.

In 2024 the company revealed a new class of AI-imbued personal computers that centred on fusing its AI assistant, called Copilot, into the Windows operating system for PCs, where Microsoft already has the eyes of millions of consumers.

with AP

The number of Australians complaining about the tax office has surged as it ramps up debt collections at the same time as taxpayers struggle with rising cost pressures.

The Tax Ombudsman fielded 2376 complaints against the Australian Taxation Office in the six months to September, up 74 per cent from the same period in 2025 and 180 per cent above the same period two years ago.

Debt collection and payment-related matters each accounted for 19 per cent of complaint investigations from April to September, the agency said.

“Our latest complaint data shows more people are struggling due to the ATO’s debt collection activity or interest charges or simply need to resolve delays to payments they are due,” Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen said.

“At a time when many Australians are facing financial distress, we are seeing increased complaints about how the ATO is collecting tax debt owed and how interest is applied to the debt, often making the amount due impossible to pay back.”

In response, an ATO spokesperson said the tax office had only received 1358 complaints over the same period, as the ombudsman’s figures included cases that were resolved without any ATO involvement or that related to the Tax Practitioners Board or state tax issues.

The ombudsman only investigated 501 complaints out of 2376 it received and found in most cases, the ATO had acted appropriately.

In 63 per cent of debt collection-related complaints, the agency found the ATO acted reasonably, down nine per cent from the same period last year.

Complaints about penalties and interest made up 18 per cent of grievances, up from 13 per cent a year ago.

Amid rising inflation and interest rates, tax liabilities were adding to mounting debts owed by taxpayers and small businesses, the ombudsman said.

Taxpayers also relied on tax refunds to maintain liquidity or pay other bills. 

“This is likely to partially explain why we have seen an increase in complaints, alongside the fact that the ATO has had to ramp up its debt collection activity to reduce the size of its collectable debt book,” the report said.

The ATO was owed $54.2 billion in outstanding tax debt in 2024/25, according to the Australian National Audit Office.

Debts owed by small businesses amounted to $35.9 billion, an increase of $19.4 billion from 2018/29.

Following a backlash to proposed tax hikes for discretionary trusts, the ATO’s announcement that it would ban credit card payments has further dented relations between the government and the business community.

“When we get feedback from businesses around the country, I think they are feeling under pressure,” Andrew McKellar, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Politico’s Canberra Playbook podcast.

“They’re feeling that they’re really struggling on a range of fronts, and they just see a range of decisions from government that feel disconnected from the objectives that they’re trying to achieve.”

US stocks have closed higher with ‌the S&P 500 and Nasdaq coming off consecutive weekly declines, as Anthropic’s IPO filing helped boost sentiment in AI-related stocks in a week filled with a host of market ‌catalysts.

Anthropic disclosed steep losses on Monday and red-hot revenue growth in its filing for a US initial public offering, laying out its ambition to build AI systems capable of reshaping the ‌global economy despite the high costs of developing the technology.

The AI lab is pushing ahead with its listing plans even as a once-lively autumn IPO calendar has slowed, with recent market volatility prompting companies to delay offerings.

Anthropic’s filing comes as investors increasingly dissect the potential payoff from massive AI spending and at the start of an eventful week. On tap are the Federal Reserve’s policy statement on Wednesday, readings on economic growth and inflation on Thursday and a slew of corporate earnings reports throughout the week.

More ‌than a third of ‌S&P 500 companies are ⁠scheduled to report earnings this week, including hyperscalers Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon.com, whose results will be parsed for signs ​of whether the hefty AI investments are translating into growth.

“Today’s all about the Anthropic release, so we’re back on a little bit of an optimistic tilt, I would say. But there’s a lot in that release. It will be interesting to see how well things are received when they actually come to list,” said JP Powers, chief investment officer at RWA Wealth Partners in Boston.

“The risk is maybe a little bit of a whipsaw if things aren’t all moving in the same direction. A little optimism today, ⁠but who knows what will happen from some of these other releases this week,” ‌he said.

According to ​preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 53.35 points, or 0.70 per cent, to end at 7,677.03 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 214.02 points, or 0.83 per cent, to 26,169.38. The Dow Jones ​Industrial Average rose 146.60 ‌points, or 0.28 per cent, to 52,361.76.

Semiconductor and chip-related companies, widely viewed as some of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom, helped fuel the gains. The broader ​Philadelphia chips index was up about 3per cent on the day but is still down nearly 12per cent on the month.

Meta said on Monday it plans to raise up to $US95 billion ($A135 billion) in equity to fund its AI-related expansion of data centers, cloud computing power and other infrastructure.

The AI trade has come ​under ​pressure this month amid concerns that debt-funded spending may become harder to ​justify in the face of climbing borrowing costs.

The Anthropic filing helped buoy sentiment, ‌however, as neocloud firms, including CoreWeave, erased earlier declines.

Other AI-linked companies, including photonic product makers Lumentum and Coherent, were among the best-performing S&P 500 stocks. The technology index led gains among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors.

Megacap and growth stocks were also mostly higher. Tesla jumped to its highest intraday level in more than three months after Barclays upgraded its rating on the stock to “overweight” from “equal-weight.”

Markets are pricing in only a 12.7 per cent chance of a rate hike from the Fed on Wednesday, according to CME FedWatch. But ​with inflation pressures showing no signs of abating, market participants do not believe the central bank will be on hold for long.

Investors are also bracing for the ​November 3 mid-term elections, which will decide control ⁠of the US Congress.

with AP

In Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist, the Artful Dodger is a streetwise pickpocket working as part of a London criminal gang.

Composer Antony Partos created the soundtrack to the Disney+ TV series of the same name, and he believes there’s a much bigger heist underway.

The co-founder of Sydney studio Sonar Music says advertising companies have asked his firm to recreate music generated by artificial intelligence for use in television commercials.

“We presented this track to the client, they liked it, they’ve signed off on it, you need to copy it for us,” Partos told AAP.

He won’t reveal the names of the companies involved, but says they are big brands including fast food outlets and streaming platforms.

Partos is one of Australia’s most awarded film composers whose credits also include Poker Face, Mystery Road and Total Control. 

He’s worried composers are being asked to legitimise AI soundtracks generated from the illegal harvesting of copyright material.

“I feel utterly appalled and dismayed that it’s come to this … it’s unconscionable behaviour as far as I’m concerned.”

Australian Guild of Screen Composers vice president Cornel Wilczek is the man behind the music for hit horror flicks Bring Her Back and Talk To Me, and Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar.

In 2025, he shut down his Melbourne studio Electric Dreams and let seven staff go, after advertising gigs all but dried up.

These days Wilczek runs a solo operation and employs freelancers, concentrating on film and television scores.

“I would say the majority of calls last year were, ‘Can you fix our AI generated tracks [so they sound] a bit more human?’ Wilczek told AAP.

AI music program Suno had taken off, and the post-pandemic economy meant shrinking advertising budgets.

“They’d literally call us and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a little problem … Suno didn’t do a great job,’ as if that was OK to chat to a composer. It was unbelievable.”

The concerns raised by screen composers deserve serious consideration, Australian AI Industry Group chairman Michael LeVene said.

Being asked to recreate AI music to give the appearance of human authorship raises serious questions about transparency, attribution, and professional integrity, he said in a statement.

“AI presents significant opportunities for the creative industries, but innovation should not come at the expense of existing intellectual property rights or the people whose work makes that innovation possible.”

A joint parliamentary committee examining AI, including the use of Australian creative output in the training of AI models, will report by the end of November.

The inquiry has been told the use of creative work without permission or compensation represents an existential threat to the nation’s creative sector.

Wilczek increasingly sees AI music being used not only in advertising but also television and low budget short films.

He’s worried it wouldn’t take much for AI to generate entire feature film scores based on his existing work, such as Talk To Me.

“I’m just very nervous about what they already would have access to, which is quite alarming.”

At the annual APRA AMCOS Screen Music Awards to be held on Wednesday, Partos is nominated for four gongs, including Best Music for a Television Drama for The Artful Dodger.

Outdated technology and a lack of basic digital safety skills pose the greatest threats to national cybersecurity as artificial intelligence ramps up attacks on businesses and individuals.

More Australian organisations have been targeted in the past financial year, according to the latest Cyber Threat Report from the Australian Signals Directorate.

The public sector recorded nearly half of the 1500 incidents reported to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, with one case classed as an extensive incident of the second-highest severity.

The number of incidents has risen 36 per cent in the past five years.

The centre had 82,000 reports made to it in the past financial year, or one every six minutes.

The directorate’s director-general, Abigail Bradshaw, warned service outages would likely become the new normal, urging companies to prioritise security over access.

“They are creating enormous opportunities, but they are also enabling malicious cyber actors to identify vulnerabilities and to conduct attacks faster, at greater scale, and with greater precision than before,” Ms Bradshaw said.

“This shift will only accelerate.”

Legacy technologies – software which is no longer supported by vendors – have been labelled Australia’s biggest cybersecurity weakness.

The directorate has warned all sectors of the Australian economy are at risk.

“Organisations must take action to improve basic cyber hygiene,” Ms Bradshaw said, noting the public will need to get used to frequent network outages in response to attacks and updating software.

“System security must be prioritised over system availability in order to deal with increased vulnerability discovery by new AI models … the prospect of compromise has increased.”

How cyber attackers target Australian businesses and individuals largely hasn’t changed, with scraping usernames and passwords and exploiting them remaining major tools of the trade.

But the speed at which online criminals are able to gather information and weaponise it has drastically increased with AI tools, particularly in exploiting vulnerabilities in software.

Medium-sized businesses have recorded a major increase in cybercrime losses as opposed to larger businesses, which the directorate understands is due to executive-level IT roles being outside the reach of smaller operators.

The centre said the cost of self-reported cyber crime on a medium-sized business was $141,300, up 45 per cent.

Australian authorities have been working with Five Eyes partner nations to constantly test emerging frontier models, including the Anthropic-owned Mythos 5 model renowned for finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities with exceptional speed.

The directorate is urging a closer relationship with frontier model operators to better respond and prepare for the impending wave of attacks using AI.

The annual update does not cover a series of recent high profile cybersecurity incidents, including the global PHP outage and the breach of an OpenAI agent into publicly available Australian government data.

The full impact of frontier AI model attacks is likely to come through the next update.

Anthropic has unveiled its US initial public offering filing, laying out ‌its ambitions to build artificial intelligence systems capable of transforming the global economy while confronting the costs and challenges of developing the technology.

The filing sets up the company for a Wall Street debut next month.

The prospectus highlights Anthropic’s rapid growth over the past year, fuelled by ‌major tech firms’ breakneck spending that has driven a rally in AI stocks while raising concerns about lofty valuations and rising debt.

In the first half of 2026, net loss widened sharply to $US80.7 billion ($A114.9 billion), largely due ‌to a rise in the fair value of bonds convertible into shares of the company.

Revenue in this period was about $US16.3 billion.

The IPO is expected to establish Anthropic, the AI lab behind the viral Claude models, as a benchmark for how Wall Street values leading AI companies including rival OpenAI.

Anthropic is pressing ahead with its IPO plans even as a once-busy listing calendar has thinned out, with market volatility prompting companies to delay offerings.

The IPO would give Anthropic access to a deep pool of capital to fund its costly AI ambitions which require heavy investment in computing infrastructure ‌to develop and operate ‌sophisticated models.

Some current and prospective investors are valuing Anthropic at about $US1.5 trillion, down from roughly $US2 trillion a week ago, after the AI startup disclosed some financial details at a recent investor event, Reuters reported.

The filing confirmed a series of Reuters exclusives that offered an early peek at its contents before Anthropic made it public including details of its financial performance, growth trajectory and IPO plans.

Anthropic will trade on the Nasdaq after the IPO closes under the ⁠ticker symbol “ANT”.

The IPO comes as Anthropic’s own research raises concerns about advanced AI systems, which in controlled ‌tests have demonstrated behaviours including ​code sabotage, fraud assistance and information manipulation.

Those findings have fuelled concerns about how companies can keep increasingly powerful AI systems under control as they race to deploy them commercially.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei ​has called on ‌the global AI community to slow the release of new capabilities to address those risks.

The company has since rolled out its Opus 5.5 model, seeking to keep pace with ChatGPT ​maker OpenAI after the launch of the GPT-6 Astra model.

The prospectus highlights risks associated with its AI models, which it said could exhibit “self-preserving behaviours” including attempts to “resist shutdown,” to “conceal or manipulate information” and behaviour “resembling blackmail”.

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a team of researchers, was valued at $US965 billion in May in a funding round that drew some of the biggest names ​in ​Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

Amazon and Google were among Anthropic’s early strategic partners, ​investing billions of dollars in the startup while providing the cloud infrastructure needed to train ‌and deploy Claude models.

“We believe this abundance of AI will rapidly transform every sector of the global economy in ways greater than the impact of industrialisation, electricity, semiconductors and the internet,” Anthropic said in its prospectus.

Anthropic remains locked in a fierce battle with OpenAI to lead the race to build the most advanced AI systems.

The ChatGPT maker confidentially filed for an IPO in June and is expected to list by early 2027.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said in September the company would not go public this year, citing AI safety concerns and describing even a 10 per cent risk of AI causing ​human extinction by the end of the decade as “unacceptable”.

Anthropic’s IPO follows that of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which rewrote the IPO record books in June, when it priced a $US75 billion offering that ​valued the company at $US1.75 trillion.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan ⁠Stanley are leading a syndicate of Wall Street banks tapped to underwrite the offering.

with AP

Global shares ‌have edged up as oil eased from six-month highs before a week of central bank meetings and corporate earnings that will further test confidence in the AI ‌boom.

The oil price was down about two per cent to $US114.60 after reports that Qatari mediators were in Tehran on Sunday as part of an effort to de-escalate tensions in co-ordination with the ‌US.

Brent futures jumped 6.2 per cent last week to their highest weekly close since mid-2022 as Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia stoked energy supply concerns.

The Houthi group in Yemen said on Monday it had attacked Saudi Arabia’s East-West crude oil pumping stations and Riyadh airport, but there was no immediate confirmation from Riyadh.

MSCI’s All-World index was last a touch higher on Monday, having fallen nearly one per cent last week, while in Europe, the STOXX 600 was up 0.4 per cent, led by energy-sensitive stocks such as industrials.

Volatility was contained, given the wall ‌of macroeconomic event risk ‌this week, in the form ⁠of multiple central bank meetings and earnings from the AI hyperscalers.

“The combination is formidable: mega-cap earnings, AI funding concerns, ​global semiconductor results, five major central bank meetings and potentially market-moving inflation and growth data,” Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston said.

“The danger isn’t simply that markets move sharply. It’s that one catalyst changes the interpretation of the next, creating feedback loops across equities, rates, FX and volatility,” he said.

New Zealand’s central bank is widely expected to raise rates on Wednesday.

Markets assume the US Federal Reserve will stand pat, but they imply an 80 per cent chance that it will pull the trigger in December.

Much the same is priced in for ⁠the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank.

A key reading on US core inflation ‌should show cost pressures remained ​elevated at 3.1 per cent in September, while the economy is forecast to have grown at a brisk 3.2 per cent annualised pace thanks in part to furious spending on data centres.

“The ​Fed is set ‌to skip raising rates at its October meeting but is likely to deliver a second hike in December,” analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note.

“The ​most important risk is that oil futures are above our forecasts, largely reflecting concerns about potential further conflict with Iran,” they added.

“The more extreme and long-lasting the energy shock becomes, the more Fed participants will worry that inflationary pressures could broaden.”

On Wall Street, S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures gained ​0.3 per cent. ​

Aside from the Fed, earnings are in store from Alphabet, Microsoft and ​Amazon, as one-third of S&P 500 companies report.

Yields on 10-year Treasuries were flat at ‌five per cent, below October’s peak of 5.36 per cent.

The Japanese yen slipped, as the dollar gained 0.3 per cent to trade about 157.28 yen, while the euro rose 0.1 per cent to $US1.121 after France dodged a credit downgrade last week.

French government bond yields were down 5 bps at 4.973 per cent, below last week’s peak above five per cent.

Sterling held at $US1.3346 with Britain’s new finance minister, John Healey, set to deliver his first budget on Wednesday against a backdrop of rising global borrowing costs and high energy prices due to the US-Israeli war on ​Iran.

Futures on the Brazilian real were down more than 10 per cent after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won an unprecedented fourth term on Sunday.

Bulgaria ‌will head to a runoff vote on November 1 after a tight race between the two ‌leading presidential candidates and record low voter turnout failed to produce an outright winner.

With 95 per cent of the votes counted, official results show incumbent Iliana Yotova attracted 34.6 per cent compared to 32 per cent for ex-caretaker prime minister Andrey Gyurov.

That’s well short of the 50 per cent threshold for the largely ceremonial role in a ‌race of 27 ‌candidates.

Sunday’s vote took ⁠on added significance after a series of drone attacks on merchant ​ships off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast that likely killed some two dozen international seafarers. 

However, only about 22 per cent of eligible voters showed up to cast their ballot, according to polling agencies.

Turnout must be above 50 per cent of 6.6 million registered voters.

The poor showing was attributed by observers to voter apathy stemming from a general mistrust in politicians.

“I want to share a certain worry and tell Bulgarians that it is an illusion if they think we can change something in this country without (them) voting,” Yotova said after polls closed.

The strikes, which sparked international condemnation and concerns about the growing reach of Russia’s war on Ukraine, prompted Bulgaria’s government to ⁠seek allied assistance to bolster maritime security.

Bulgaria has stopped short of directly accusing Russia of carrying out the attacks, but Prime Minister Rumen ​Radev said their ‌outcome “benefits the Russian Federation”.

Both leading presidential candidates condemned the strikes, but they differ over the ​broader war.

Yotova, is a 62-year-old journalist and former member of the European Parliament, and was vice president when she became acting president in January after Radev resigned to enter the parliamentary race. 

Addressing supporters at a recent rally, Yotova said she “advocated for peace through negotiations, rather than force”.

She’s running as an independent but also has the official backing of Progressive Bulgaria and the Socialist Party, where her career began.

A victory ‌for leftist Yotova would make her Bulgaria’s first elected female president.

Gyurov, 50, who served as caretaker prime minister ​this year and is a former deputy governor of the central bank, is supported by pro-Western, reformist parties and has long expressed firm support for Ukraine. 

He ​signed a security cooperation agreement ⁠with Kyiv during his time as premier.

“I want Bulgaria to have a voice of its own in Europe. A reliable NATO ally that defends its interests through preparedness, strong diplomacy and a clear position,” he recently told supporters.

Some observers believe Gyurov could have a better chance in a runoff, where results can be influenced by voters who supported candidates eliminated in the first round.

As well as the widening hostilities in the Black Sea, the campaign has focused on growing economic hardship.

Candidates have sought to address public anxiety over rising energy prices and inflation, as many families, particularly in rural areas, struggle to make ends meet.

Presidents in Bulgaria are elected directly for a five-year term and can serve no more than two terms.

While the post is primarily ceremonial, the direct election gives the president greater political authority.

The president leads the armed forces and can veto legislation, sign international treaties and appoint ambassadors.

With AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated his warning that Iran or its proxies could attack ahead of this week’s close elections to disrupt the vote.

“The (military) is ready both to defend and to strike,” he said in a video statement on Sunday, citing intelligence.

“You will suffer disproportionate blows far greater than you can imagine.”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has drawn a rare rebuke from the ​Bank of Israel for suggesting in a TV interview on Friday the nation could use cryptocurrency to help shield its economy from any sanctions.

“There could be sanctions, and sanctions on banks, so you need to set up a bypass economy,” he told Israel’s Channel 10.

“There are currencies that can bypass (sanctions). We are also working on that.”

Asked whether he ‌was referring to ‌cryptocurrency, he replied “very true,” adding that blockchain technology was another possibility.

The ​Bank of Israel said cryptocurrencies can’t serve as a route to bypass sanctions and political leaders should focus on policy that would render such measures unnecessary.

“The right course for Israel’s economy is to preserve our economic relations with our main trading partners, and to focus on preventing sanctions and their negative impact on the economy,” it said.

More than 100 economists, including former Bank of Israel officials, ex-central bank governor Jacob Frenkel and several Nobel ​laureates, signed a ‌letter expressing alarm over the proposal.

“Netanyahu ​is knowingly leading the State of Israel toward boycott and international ‌economic isolation, and all he has to offer the Israeli economy is a puzzling solution, one accepted in criminal organisations, that will not help in the slightest,” they wrote.

Netanyahu’s main rival in Tuesday’s close election, Gadi Eisenkot, called the crypto plan “madness” and said he feared that the “BibiCoin policy” would drive companies abroad and undermine national security.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid also dismissed the idea.

“Netanyahu has gone off the rails … He promises the citizens of Israel before these elections that ​they’ll be standing in line for an hour and a half for bread, like in Russia and Iran,” Lapid said.

Britain, ‌France and Canada – some of Israel’s traditional allies – last month said they would block imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank in reaction to the Netanyahu government’s settlement policy.

On Saturday, the Israeli military forced about 1200 Palestinians to leave their homes in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, after a ‌Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers at a military checkpoint near the city.

Opinion polls have pointed to ​a potential stalemate in the election, with ⁠neither Netanyahu’s ruling coalition nor an opposition alliance securing a governing majority in parliament.

The latest polls show Eisenkot, the leader of Yashar! (Straight!), defeating Netanyahu by a margin of only two to three seats.

On Sunday, Eisenkot told a campaign rally Netanyahu would “not hesitate to resort to lies or extreme measures to remain in power”.

Some in Israel raised concerns the nation’s longest-serving prime minister might be keen to attack Iran ahead of the vote in an effort to remain in office.

With AP and EFE

The “horrific attack” on Helen Haines would lead many Australians to wonder if public life was safe for women, a senior minister says.

Anthony Albanese led tributes to Dr Haines as parliament resumed on Monday for the first time since the incident outside the Indi MP’s electorate office.

Dr Haines was struck repeatedly by a four-wheel drive in what was an allegedly deliberate attack on October 19, losing both her legs.

Her first words after being woken by her doctors were of gratitude and concern for others, fellow MPs said.

Paying tribute in Question Time, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek – the longest-serving woman in the lower house – said she would tell young women seeking a public role that “one hundred per cent, it is worth it”.

But during her nearly three decades in parliament she had witnessed the tone of public debate becoming increasingly violent, which had been “supercharged” by social media. 

“Every single day in (parliament), we make important decisions that change this country, change it for the better, and we can’t vacate the field to the people who stop us from doing that,” Ms Plibersek said.

 “The industrial scale of the abuse that all of us receive, but I think particularly the women here receive, that has changed.”

Independent MP Allegra Spender said Dr Haines’ first words upon waking, as relayed to her husband Phil Haines, expressed concern for her staff, community, bystanders, first responders and medical personnel.

“That exactly speaks to the character of who you are,” Ms Spender said.

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins echoed this, saying it was “not a surprise to any of us who know her”.

“After everything that she has been through, she was thinking of others,” Ms Collins said.

Dr Haines has been described as the “matriarch of the cross bench” by her friends and colleagues, some of whom were emotional.

Mr Haines sat resolute in the gallery, looking at the ceiling teary-eyed when his wife’s good qualities were spoken of.

“The shock from what happened last Monday is like a stone in our hearts,” Mr Albanese said, expressing his love, and the love of the nation, was with Dr Haines, her husband and her family. 

“It is hard to think of anyone in this place with a more irrepressible twinkle in the eye, a twinkle that more than hints at a real inner strength.”

Orange heart pins, representing the colour Dr Haines uses for her campaigning, held the white flowers in place. Independent MPs embraced as they walked in. 

The silhouette of a cockatoo, cut from orange card, was placed on Dr Haines’ chair by good friend and colleague Zali Steggall.

Mr Albanese also paid tribute to the bystanders, witnesses, and medical staff who assisted Dr Haines immediately after the alleged attack.

“We are also uplifted in the knowledge that on that terrible afternoon, we saw examples of the best of the Australian character,” he said.

Ms Steggall and Monique Ryan became emotional when speaking about their friend.

”You’re the matriarch of the cross bench, always the voice for respectful political debate,” Ms Steggall said.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said it would be a ”resounding moment” for Australia’s democracy should Dr Haines resume her seat in parliament. 

”What we must do is call out and confront the actual sources of intolerance, of intimidation, of political violence in our country.”

Parliament opened on Monday with increased security in public areas, which the Australian Federal Police and government are continuing to work on. 

A fundraiser for charity Save the Children, set up on Wednesday by Dr Haines’ family in lieu of flowers, has surpassed $1.3 million in donations.