Australia news live: Allan government accused of ‘capitulating to tabloid media’ with ‘dangerous’ Victorian bail laws | Australia news

Call to phase out $3 wages for people with Down syndrome

Down Syndrome Australia says the nation needs to phase out $3-an-hour wages for people with disability and break down the barriers preventing people from working in open employment.

Today marks World Down Syndrome Day, and a new poll finds most people – 82% – agree that it’s unacceptable for people with the condition to be paid below the minimum wage.

The same poll showed 79% agreed that creating meaningful employment opportunities for people with Down syndrome is the responsibility of governments and employers.

CEO Darryl Steff said in a statement that the federal government and opposition should commit to phasing out pay below the minimum wage by 2034, in line with the recommendation from the disability royal commission.

Allowing workers to be paid as little as $3 an hour, even if they also receive the disability support pension, means we’ve got people with disability living in poverty their whole lives. It also puts strain on family members who often then have to support them financially. You can’t even buy a cup of coffee for $3 these days.

Early whale sightings a sign of stress from climate change

Communities in the NSW south coast have been excited to see the first whales of the season but scientists are warning the increasingly early start of the annual whale migration might be a sign of stress due to climate change.

Dr Olaf Meynecke, research fellow at Griffith University and manager of the international whales and climate program, said the faster sea ice melts in Antarctica – where the feeding grounds for humpback whales are – had a direct impact on the species migration timing.

Climatic changes in the Antarctic make food supplies less predictable, he said, meaning some mother whales deserted their calves before travelling back to Antarctica. Some juveniles migrating early and alone might have been abandoned last year, he said.

During the early northern migration, when humpback whales return from their Antarctic feeding grounds, we can often see juveniles or even yearlings moving up the coast. These whales may not all come from Antarctica but have spent their feeding summer closer to Australia. Some of the yearlings, whales born last year, may simply not have been strong enough to make the full migration …

There are a number of adaptation strategies that humpback whales have developed to cope with higher climate and ocean variability. This includes the access of supplementary food sources, development of new feeding strategies, shifting migration timing and sharing information about abundant food sources. However, the stress for whales increases.

McKenzie pushes for fines for supermarkets and divestiture powers amid ACCC report

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie was up on Sky News earlier and said the government was doing enough to tackle the duopoly of the big supermarkets.

She pointed to comments made by Jim Chalmers earlier on the program, and said:

I didn’t hear the word penalties. I didn’t hear any tough measures that are actually going to put a very strong incentive for our supermarkets to behave better.

The host asked that if the ACCC “hasn’t found a smoking gun” and they basically aren’t doing anything wrong, what can the government do?

McKenzie said the “reality is the lived experience of customers, where we’ve seen prices go through the roof over the last three years”.

And we’ve also seen unfair contractual arrangements with our primary producers, [which] means that the supermarkets are working in concert together …

We have the means available to us to do something serious. The proposal from the Coalition was for up to $2m in fines to be imposed … or again, our divestiture proposal – a serious disincentive to the supermarkets to treat customers and suppliers poorly.

As we reported earlier, Chalmers has argued the “risks outweigh the benefits” when it comes to divestiture powers.

Libby Mettam says she will not continue as Western Australian Liberal party leader but will seek to stay on as deputy, after it became clear she lacked the support of party colleagues after another significant election defeat.

As AAP reports, the move opens the door for high-profile Perth lord mayor Basil Zempilas, who narrowly secured the seat of Churchlands at the recent election, to assume the leadership now he has been elected to parliament and a change is no longer hypothetical.

Mettam said she would step forward as a candidate for the role of deputy.

While I would have liked and hoped to continue as leader, it has become clear I do not have that support of my colleagues to continue as leader through to the election in 2029.

I will be the only experienced Liberal in the legislative assembly and as a result many colleagues have encouraged me to support our new members and our new leader in the most effective way I can.

The WA Liberals party room will meet on Tuesday but Mettam said it was appropriate to announce her intentions ahead of time. She took responsibility for the party’s defeat at the state election earlier this month but said leadership speculation was a significant contributor to the outcome.

Labor and the Coalition have drawn level with voters, AAP reports, as the prime minister prepares to call the federal election.

The latest YouGov poll shows the opposition clawing back ground on the government, with the major parties tied 50-50 on a two-party preferred basis.

The result comes after two weeks of Labor holding a narrow 51% to 49% lead in the polls, off the back of the response to ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred and public reaction to the government’s backing of Ukraine.

While the Coalition gained ground in the lead-up to the election, Anthony Albanese is still ahead of Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister. The poll showed 45% of those surveyed backed Albanese as preferred leader compared with 40% for Dutton.

Labor’s primary vote remains unchanged since the last poll at 31%. However, the Coalition has increased its voter share, gaining one point to 37%.

The YouGov poll surveyed 1,500 people between 14 March and Wednesday, with a margin of error of 3.4%.

Chalmers says ‘risks outweigh the benefits’ of breaking up the big supermarkets

Jim Chalmers was also up on ABC News Breakfast this morning, where he was asked if there’s a reason the government can’t commit to more of the 20 recommendations?

He said they were committing to all of the recommendations “in principle” and, like earlier, he said the government was working on some of them already.

The treasurer rejected calls from the Nationals and Greens for a break-up of the big supermarkets to increase competition – which is not a recommendation of the report – and said “the risk of that outweigh the benefits.”

The ACCC has handed down a 441-page report and not on any of those pages does it support the divestiture powers which have been proposed by our political opponents.

Asked why the risks outweigh the benefits, Chalmers responded:

If you make one of the big chains sell in the community, there’s a risk that it’s just snapped up by the other big player in the supermarket sector and that would be counter-productive. Or if it chases supermarket options out of town in regional communities. It’s got hairs all over it frankly.

Jim Chalmers says that even with inflation coming down, Australians are “still feeling that pressure at the checkout”.

The treasurer was up on the Today show earlier to discuss the ACCC’s report into the supermarkets and said a lot of its recommendations were on “areas that we’re already acting on”,

We’re making the food and grocery code mandatory. We’re empowering the ACCC. We’re cracking down on mergers and acquisitions. We’re working to make it easier for new entrants to compete with the two big supermarkets in particular. These are all of the things that we’re cracking down on when it comes to the supermarkets.

We don’t want the supermarkets to be treating Australians like mugs.

Reactions have been flowing after the Victorian government passed its controversial new tough bail laws overnight.

Nerita Waight, CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, said tightening bail laws “only causes more harm to Aboriginal communities, there is clear and ample evidence on this”.

There is still time for premier [Jacinta] Allan to show strong leadership by listening to the experts, taking an evidence-based approach and investing in what actually works – early intervention, preventative, community-based supports that address the underlying causes of offending behaviour.

The First Nations director at the Human Rights Law Centre, Maggie Munn, said it was “deeply shameful” the Allan government had not learnt from “past policy failures”, and instead “capitulated to the tabloid media to entrench dangerous bail laws that undermine people’s right to liberty”.

And Louisa Gibbs, CEO of the Federation of Community Legal Services Victoria, said the state’s legal sector was “united in our position that rewinding bail laws is a costly and dangerous mistake that will cause far more harm than good, without addressing community safety”.

Data shows that when people are incarcerated, including on remand, they are more likely to offend again. So, locking up more people runs the risk of more offending in our community in the long term.

Swan says more supermarket competition and price scrutiny needed amid ACCC report

ALP president Wayne Swan has also weighed in on the ACCC’s report into the big supermarkets, telling the Today show that it “shows what every consumer knew back at the end of 2022, 2023, that they were price gouging”.

And now the government has to put in place a whole set of rules and regulations and scrutiny, which can ensure that this never happens again in this way.

Swan said there needed to be “more new entrants into the market, [and] much more price scrutiny”.

I think they took advantage of the inflationary surge that was on back then, which makes their behaviour all the more disgusting. So that’s why they’re going to have a lot more scrutiny as we go forward.

He said that “sunlight is the best disinfectant when it comes to the behaviour of corporates”.

And we need a lot more scrutiny, not just of the big supermarkets, but big tech and all of those companies that are prone to price gouging.

As Martin flagged earlier, the long-awaited competition watchdog’s report into the big supermarkets says the retailers raised prices in the cost-of-living crisis to help them become among the most profitable in the world.

AAP reports that the supermarkets maintain they have not engaged in price-gouging, claiming their profit margins haven’t increased dramatically in recent years.

Coles said in a statement in response to the report:

Customers are increasingly cross-shopping and splitting their grocery spend across a range of retailers – both in store and online. Coles must compete vigorously for a share of consumers’ grocery baskets.

Coles added that it understood the cost-of-living challenges faced by families and warned against measures that would “increase red tape and drive up costs”.

You can read the full details of the ACCC below:

Overnight, Victoria passed its tough new bail laws following a mammoth sitting that stretched into the night.

The premier, Jacinta Allan, shared a video to X around 12.30am and said:

We’ve just passed the tough new bail laws, the toughest in the country. And these laws have consequences for people who break the rules, putting community safety first.

Labor’s controversial “tough” bail laws come amid ongoing debate over what some have labelled a “youth crime crisis” in the state.

The bail law changes scrap the principle of remand only as a “last resort” for accused youth offenders. In its place, community safety would become the “overarching principle” when deciding bail for children and adults.

Good morning

Emily Wind

Emily Wind here, signing on for blogging duties – thanks to Martin for getting us started this morning. I’ll be taking you through our live coverage for most of today.

As always, you can reach out with any tips, questions or feedback via email: emily.wind@theguardian.com. Let’s go.

Sarah Basford Canales

Greens urge Labor to increase income supports above poverty line

The Greens are urging the Albanese government to lift income support payments in next week’s federal budget, adding it is the last opportunity before Australians go to the polls to “to turn [Labor’s] platitudes into meaningful action”.

The minor party’s social services spokesperson, Penny Allman-Payne, wrote to the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, yesterday in a last-minute bid to raise rates above the poverty line.

The government’s own economic inclusion advisory committee released its 2025 report earlier this month recommending the jobseeker rate be increased to 90% of the aged pension.

As Guardian columnist Greg Jericho outlined on Thursday, the current base rate of the age pension is $1,047.10 or $1,144.40 with supplements. If jobseeker was raised to 90% of the base rate, it would cost the government $3.5bn, and to raise it to 90% of the total including supplements would cost $5.2bn.

Welfare support payments received a minor boost on Thursday after indexation came into effect. Those receiving jobseeker payments over 22 and without children received a $3.10 fortnightly increase to $789.90 while couples on jobseeker will now get $1,149 after a $4.60 increase.

The jobseeker base rate was raised by $40 a fortnight in Labor’s 2023 federal budget, coming into effect in September that year. Allman-Payne wrote:

This budget is your government’s last opportunity before the federal election to turn platitudes into meaningful action by raising the rate of all Centrelink payments to above the poverty line. On behalf of the millions of people in this country who continue to struggle on poverty payments, we implore you to do so.

Greens call for workplace racial equality agency

Krishani Dhanji

The Greens have urged a workplace racial equality agency be established to document experiences of racism in workplaces and improve racial equity.

The agency would collect data and public information on indicators such as representation in the workforce and in governing bodies, record instances of racism and try to improve equality in hiring practices, pay and workplace training.

The minor party says it would put forward almost $100m to support the agency in the medium term and it comes on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The deputy Greens leader, Mehreen Faruqi, says the agency will help “provide the proactive focus needed to eliminate racism in workplaces”.

Systemic and entrenched racism in workplaces is not going to go away by itself, it needs concerted effort.

As Dutton and the Liberals mirror Trump to ramp up their attacks on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, we must double down on strong action for racial equity to address deep-seated racism.

Welcome

Martin Farrer

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then my colleague Emily Wind will take you through the day.

Australia’s rapidly changing relationship with the United States is the subject of two of our top stories this morning. First, former chief of the defence force Chris Barrie has warned that “the vandals in the White House” are no longer reliable allies and urged the Albanese government to reassess its strategic partnership with the US.

At the same time, some of America’s biggest tech companies such as Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon and Elon Musk’s X have lodged a formal complaint urging the Trump administration to target “coercive and discriminatory” Australian media laws.

Closer to home, meanwhile, the long-awaited competition watchdog’s report into the big supermarkets says the retailers raised prices in the cost-of-living crisis to help them become among the most profitable in the world. In a 441-page report released last night, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission made 20 reform recommendations to the federal government, including forcing Coles, Woolworths and Aldi to publish all prices on their websites, and notify shoppers when package size changes in a bid for transparency around “shrinkflation”. Reaction coming up.