Australia news live: migrant advocates accuse Angus Taylor of using budget reply to ‘chase votes with dog whistles’ | Australia news

Migrant advocates accuse Angus Taylor of chasing votes with ‘dog whistles, fear and division’

Cait Kelly

Advocates for migrants last night accused Angus Taylor of using his budget reply speech to “chase votes with dog whistles, fear and division”.

Taylor claimed that migrants were coming to Australia and claiming benefits before they were becoming citizens, a situation which he said Australians did not accept.

But the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said that newly arrived migrants already face strict waiting periods of up to four years before they can access most Centrelink payments, including JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and the Parenting Payment.

By the time most permanent migrants become eligible for those payments, they are already eligible to apply for Australian citizenship, it said.

Jana Favero, deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said:

double quotation markThe Coalition’s dangerous decision to return to its harmful, failed refugee policies of the past shows what a mess they are in. They have no new policy ideas. Temporary protection visas have harmed countless people and kept many families apart for over a decade. So many are still trying to recover.

Taylor’s comments tonight are inflammatory and desperate. The fact that he feels the need to dog-whistle about mass deportations of so-called ‘overstayers’, many of whom are actually trapped in a massively blown-out court and tribunal system created through years of Coalition underfunding, shows they are far more interested in stoking fear than delivering serious policy solutions.

The language in tonight’s address misleads the nation by claiming that migrants are arriving and immediately accessing welfare payments, which is a blatant lie. In reality most of the restrictions he’s talking about already exist and there are lengthy wait periods for welfare payments.

The Coalition knows all this and is deliberately misleading Australians about how the welfare system already operates in order to whip up fear and division.

Angus Taylor receives applause after delivering a response to the budget at Parliament House on Thursday. Photograph: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty ImagesShare

Updated at 23.23 CEST

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Sam Kerr to leave Chelsea at the end of this season

Sam Kerr will leave Chelsea at the end of the season, bringing the curtain down on one of the most brilliant, trophy-laden careers in Women’s Super League football, AAP reports.

The English giants announced on Thursday, local time, that the Matildas captain will leave after six-and-a-half years when her contract expires in the summer, with her last game for the Blues set to be an emotional occasion against Manchester United on Saturday.

“Obviously, there’s a little bit of sadness,” Kerr said, announcing her departure. She went on:

double quotation markIt’s leaving Chelsea, leaving the club where I’ve been for so long, leaving my teammates, leaving the fans.

But when I reflect on my Chelsea career and doing it for the last time, I just feel happy. Happy that it happened, and I feel so grateful to have played for this club for six years and won as many trophies as we could.

Sam Kerr. Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images/Reuters

The decision had been widely expected, with the 32-year-old reportedly snapped up by ambitious NWSL franchise, Denver Summit, in the US last month.

But Kerr will end her trophy-laden spell as Chelsea’s all-time leading league scorer with 64 WSL goals, while her 115 strikes in all competitions has put her just one behind Fran Kirby as the Blues’ all-time leading goal scorer.

Victoria police arrest two 16-year-olds on allegations of attempted arson attack

Victoria police have arrested two people after an alleged arson attempt in Melbourne’s CBD this morning.

Police allege two teenage boys were spotted on Flinders Lane around 4.45am running from a vehicle with a jerry can in hand. The boys allegedly smashed a window to a premises in the area and attempted to pour fuel inside before they were arrested.

The driver of a car waiting nearby left the scene, and police have been unable to locate the car or the driver.

Investigators plan to interview the two teens, both 16, today and are appealing for information from the public. Police said they are continuing to look at “all possible motivations behind” the alleged offence, including “who is involved and why”.

No charges have been filed.

Updated at 01.42 CEST

Benita Kolovos

Victoria premier responds to Angus Taylor’s budget reply

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, issued a statement this morning in response to Angus Taylor’s budget reply speech, claiming his plan to cut off welfare payments to non-citizens would target older Australians from multicultural communities.

Last night, Taylor said that under a federal Coalition government, only Australian citizens would be eligible for welfare payments in Australia, cutting off access to jobseeker, the age pension, disability support, parenting payments and the national disability insurance scheme.

Jacinta Allan. Photograph: Jay Kogler/AAP

Allan said the policy would target long-term permanent residents on the age pension who “worked, paid taxes and raised families” in Australia, given tourists and people on temporary visas are currently ineligible for such welfare payments.

Her statement read:

double quotation markIt targets older Australians from multicultural communities who have given much of their lives to this country. We encourage people to become citizens – but there are reasons why some migrants don’t. Many risk losing access to their original passport, plus their rights and connections to where they were born. In my view, that doesn’t make migrants less committed to Australia. But in the Liberals’ view of the world, it’s us v them – straight out of the Trump playbook.

Updated at 01.19 CEST

Ima Caldwell

‘Weak system’: Calls for tougher alcohol advertising rules after complaint against Methanol Moonshine

Public health experts and advocates are calling for tougher alcohol advertising rules after an industry watchdog dismissed a complaint against Australian brand Methanol Moonshine, then reversed its decision.

An Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code (Abac) panel is now reviewing the complaint. But industry experts such as University of Technology Sydney Prof Ross Gordon say the brand-name dispute highlights flaws within Australia’s self-regulated alcohol advertising framework. Gordon said:

double quotation markAbac is funded by industry.

While it includes government representatives and an independent chair, it is regarded as a system largely designed and funded by industry.

The consensus across critical marketing and public health research is that voluntary and co-regulatory alcohol marketing is consistently ineffective at protecting groups who may experience vulnerability.

Kristie Cocotis, acting CEO of Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (Fare), said Australia’s “weak system” means “community complaints are often dismissed, and even when upheld, there are few consequences for the companies at fault”.

Fare is calling for an “overarching federal law” to set clear, enforceable rules for alcohol advertising through its “Give us an ad break” campaign.

Otherwise, Cocotis said, schemes like Abac are “set up and run by alcohol companies and their lobby groups” to dictate their own marketing rules. She said:

double quotation markThis system fails to prioritise the health and wellbeing of Australians.

Updated at 01.13 CEST

Chalmers says shift in policy about more Australians getting ‘toehold’ into housing market

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is speaking now, saying the government had shifted its position to help more people to get a “toehold” in the housing market, adding “too many Australians have been locked out for too long”.

He went on:

double quotation markWe know that people who want to defend the status quo, including in housing and in the tax system, they want to pretend that this is fundamentally about politics or they want to pretend that it’s fundamentally about the things that we’re not doing.

We came to a view on capital gains, on negative gearing and trust … we explained why we had shifted our position, and that’s because what we’re trying to do here is we’re trying to better align, the tax treatment of people who work for a living, with people who get their income in other legitimate ways.

Jim Chalmers. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare

Updated at 00.47 CEST

Albanese says Taylor’s plans can’t be taken seriously without costings

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking in Canberra after Angus Taylor’s budget reply last night.

The prime minister said:

double quotation markYou can come up with a whole range of things. Without any costings, they can’t be taken seriously.

The truth is they’re getting worse. The Coalition are down to 41 members of the House of Representatives.

I suspect that when we come back, that will decrease further when we come back during these budget sittings. And it is just a debacle.

Anthony Albanese during question time in the House of Representatives on Thursday. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare

Updated at 00.46 CEST

Woman dead, at least one critical after bus rollover in Whitsundays

A woman is dead and at least one person has been left with life-threatening injuries after a coach rolled on one of Australia’s most dangerous roads, AAP reports.

Emergency services were called to the intersection of the Bruce Highway and Rangemore Road at Gumlu in Queensland’s Whitsundays region about 4pm on Thursday after reports of a crash involving a bus with 29 people on board.

A woman died at the scene after suffering multiple significant traumatic injuries, a Queensland ambulance service spokesperson told AAP. A total of 19 people were taken to hospital, though police confirmed no one else had died as of Friday morning.

One person had been trapped under the bus, according to the Queensland Fire Department.

The road was closed in both directions and long delays were expected.

The Bruce Highway has long been considered one of the most dangerous roads in Australia.

Stretching from Brisbane to Cairns, the highway is used by more than 100,000 vehicles every day, according to NRMA.

Updated at 00.27 CEST

Luca Ittimani

Australian retailers on notice over ‘fake discounts’ as Coles braces for record fine after landmark court ruling

Coles’ landmark federal court loss could signal the end of “fake discounts” in Australia, according to two former competition watchdog chiefs, with the supermarket giant at risk of record fines exceeding $200m.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sued Coles and its rival Woolworths, accusing the supermarket giants of duping shoppers between 2021 and 2023 with “was/is” promotional pricing.

Justice Michael O’Bryan on Thursday found Coles’ “Down Down” promotions in some cases falsely led customers to believe they were enjoying a true price reduction.

All Australian retailers have been left on notice to keep their “discounts” genuine, according to Rod Sims, the former head of the consumer watchdog.