Key events
Federal agency directed to consider home solar funding
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has written to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to accelerate solar electrification projects and save households more cash.
Bowen used ministerial powers to direct the board to consider funding solar panels and home batteries following a deal struck with crossbenchers in exchange for support on Labor’s Future Made in Australia legislation. The minister wrote to the agency in late 2024 but only revealed the direction on Tuesday.
The agency has to look at funding a project in every state and territory, including at least one in an Indigenous community and one in a low socio-economic area.
They would be modelled off the North Wollongong community electrification testbed funded by the renewable energy agency in 2024.
Projects will still be subject to a final independent assessment by the agency’s board.
It will allow chosen suburbs to act as test beds for the regulatory changes needed to scale up renewable energy use and scope out how government support can help achieve electrification, independent senator David Pocock said.
The Future Made in Australia legislation, which leverages billions of dollars to invest in renewable energy and critical resources needed for such technology, missed an opportunity to support household electrification, Pocock said.
“This agreement helps remedy that gap,” he said.
– Australian Associated Press
Dan Jervis-Bardy
The Albanese government will attempt to shift the political debate to childcare today, trumpeting its record in cutting fees for families and shoring up the educator workforce as it spruiks its long-term vision for a universal system.
As workers return to the office after the Australia Day long weekend, Labor will release new figures showing families on an income of $120,000 per year have saved about $2,770 in childcare fees since new subsidies were introduced in July 2023.
Separately, new data reveals the number of online job ads for early childhood educators has fallen 22% since December 2023, a decline the government argues is a sign providers are managing to retain staff.
It will point to figures from Goodstart – the nation’s largest childcare provider – showing job applications are up 35% year-on-year.
The minister for education, Jason Clare, said the figures were proof the government-funded 15% pay rise over two years for workers was keeping staff in the sector.
This shows our 15 per cent pay rise for early educators is working. Applications are up and job vacancies are down.
Labor has put childcare at the heart of its re-election bid, promising three days of subsidised childcare per week for families earning up to $530,000 and $1bn to build centres in areas of high need.
The commitments, which the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced in December, are framed as the next steps in Labor’s long-term plan to create universal childcare.
Albanese will reiterate that vision today:
Building Australia’s future is about more than bricks and mortar. It’s about investing in people, especially our children and their future opportunities.
We want to make sure we are putting in place the building blocks for a universal childcare system, while providing immediate cost of living relief for families and educators now.
Sydney temperatures tipped to hit 40C
Petra Stock
The Bureau of Meteorology is anticipating milder conditions across much of the south-east today – with the exception of New South Wales – after very high temperatures on Monday.
Senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said it would be a “much milder, more settled day” for the south-east, meaning Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria, but the heat was still peaking through New South Wales.
Sydney CBD is forecast to reach 40C today, with temperatures likely to be higher in the western suburbs.
The risk of wet weather in Queensland is also expected to ramp up, Bradbury said.
We do have that risk of pretty high rainfall totals, the possibility of flash flooding about the north-east tropical coast, just as moisture is directed against the coast and just really ramps up any showers and storms that develop.
Looking ahead into the weekend, Queensland could also see its first tropical cyclone this summer, she said. Low pressure systems forming over the Coral Sea and Gulf of Carpentaria posed a low to moderate chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.
We’ve only seen two cyclones in the Australian region so far, or that have originated in the Australian region so far this season, and they’ve both been in Western Australia.
The forecast this morning for capital cities today is:
Major bushfire warnings in Victoria
There are two major bushfire warnings in Victoria this morning.
Last night at 9pm the CFA issued a “leave immediately” warning for the Grampians, Mirranatwa and Victoria Valley, over a bushfire at Victoria Valley’s Bullawin Rd that was out of control and moving north-east.
And just before 6am the CFA issued a “take shelter” warning – meaning it is too late to leave safely – for Dimboola, Wail, over a bushfire at Little Desert national park that is not yet under control and moving east.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the best of the overnight stories and then it’ll be Rafqa Touma to guide you through the news day.
Anthony Albanese will be out and about today to spruik his government’s childcare subsidy changes after federal education department figures showed that families have saved an extra $2,768 on average since the extra payments kicked in last year. More coming up.
And on the subject of the cost of living more generally, we have a special investigation today into how the inequality of Australia’s dental care system is forcing people to skip regular checkups and leading to record numbers are turning up to hospitals for dental procedures. The share of costs that the patient pays for dental care is nine times higher than GP visits, and half of the federal money earmarked for dentistry goes to subsidising the uptake of private health insurance.
Most of New South Wales including Sydney and some of its western suburbs can expect temperatures in the high 30s or low 40s today as the state takes the brunt of the front that sent temperatures in parts of South Australia and across Victoria into the 40s yesterday. A cool change has brought relief to the south-east and that cooler air is expected to move north as the day goes on.
But in the wake of the heat there were two major bushfires in Victoria overnight, with some residents in the Grampians and Victoria Valley being told to leave their homes. More on that soon.