Australia news live: Labor plans no confidence motion in Rockliff when Tasmanian parliament returns; body found in search for woman missing in NSW floods | Australia news

Home prices are on track to rise by 6% by the end of the year, the Commonwealth Bank says, as it revises its forecasts higher.

Housing prices have already grown faster than CommBank had expected, up 3.1% in 2025 so far, forcing the country’s biggest bank to hike its prediction from 4% over the year to 6% – though the year’s early hype has pulled down its 2026 growth expectation, from 5% to 4%.

CommBank’s economists Luke Yeaman and Lucinda Jerogin said the forecasts assumed the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates twice more this year. They wrote in a note:

The Sydney and Melbourne markets have been buoyed by rate cuts to date in 2025 and we anticipate two further rate reductions in August and November will lift price growth to 5% in both capitals by years’ end.

That’s a big boost from current annual paces of 1.6% in Sydney and 0.5% in Melbourne over the year to August, as the capitals shake off last year’s brief price cooldown.

Brisbane is on track to see home prices rise 8% by the end of 2025, while Perth and Adelaide are set to see growth of 7% and 6% respectively. That momentum will stay strong into 2026, at 5% or more for each city, CommBank predicts.

Any hope for homebuyers? Well, the CBA economists said construction activity is broadly tracking as expected for 2025, helping constrain price growth. Otherwise, the government’s productivity roundtable could discourage investors if property tax reform is put forward:

Whatever the outcome, active public discussion around changes to the tax treatment of housing will likely dampen investor appetite and could see home prices underperform. … Government policy is the wildcard that could see prices disappoint.

Henry Belot

Victorians lost more than $40m to AFL club poker machines in 2024-25

Victorians lost more than $40m to poker machines operated by four AFL clubs during the 2024-25 financial year, according to analysis of government data by the group No Pokies At Essendon.

The money was lost at 660 poker machines linked to the Essendon, St Kilda, Carlton and Richmond football clubs.

Roughly half of the money was lost to the 290 machines run by the Carlton football club across its four venues. Another $14.4m was lost to 190 machines owned by Essendon at Windy Hill and the Melton country club. Richmond’s 97 machines collected losses of $4.6m and the St Kilda social club collected almost $1.7m.

In a statement, No Pokies At Essendon said the figures “highlight the social damage caused by the failure of the state government to implement its proposed gambling reforms, including mandatory carded play”:

It appears the state government, like the AFL, remains closely tied to gambling interests, which explains why they have failed to provide a pathway for venue operators to exit the industry before the expiration of their [gaming machine] entitlements, without penalty.

A Victorian government-commissioned report by academics has found the social cost of gambling in the state had doubled from $7bn in 2014-15 to $14bn in 2022-23 – despite fewer people gambling.

Luca Ittimani

Thanks Nick and good afternoon. I’ll be taking you through the rest of today’s news.

Nick Visser

That’s all for me, thanks for sticking with us this morning. Luca Ittimani will be your news guide this afternoon. Take care!

Jack Snape

How a controversial hand gesture divided opinion in the NRL

The NRL showed leniency on Wednesday by letting off Wests Tigers players with a warning after they used a gesture offensive to some Lebanese-Australian communities in Sunday’s victory over Canterbury-Bankstown. But the sanction is unlikely to satisfy everyone given the range of responses elicited, from those outraged to others who believe the act was “just a bit of banter”.

Celebrating a second-half try to seal an upset Tigers’ win against the high-flying Bulldogs in pouring rain at Parramatta, backrower Samuela Fainu made a hand gesture known as “the khawd”, and his teammates quickly joined in.

Prominent Bulldogs podcast the Kennel sought to provide context amid the storm of attention this week. “Khawd literally means ‘take this’ in Arabic. If done to a mate it’s the funniest thing, but when done in spite people will literally kill each other over giving each other the khawd,” its host, Elmo, said.

Almost one in five residents of Bankstown have Lebanese ancestry, and the Bulldogs’ fanbase has a strong association with Arab communities in Sydney’s west. The club holds an annual Ifthar dinner each year during Ramadan and one of its favourite sons is Lebanon-born former winger Hazem El-Masri.

Many Bulldogs fans in the stands on Sunday took offence at the sign made by the raucous Tigers players, some returning with a khawd of their own, while others put their thumbs down or raised their middle finger.

Read more here:

Emergency officials have found a body believed to be that of a woman missing since Saturday after the vehicle she was travelling in became trapped in flood waters in the Hunter Valley.

Police have been searching for the woman, 26, for days after rescuers were called to the town of Rothbury amid reports a car had become stuck. Upon arrival they found a Mini Countryman another woman, 27, had attempted to drive through the flood before it became stuck.

The 27-year-old was rescued but the younger woman, a Chinese national who was working as an engineer in Australia, was swept away.

The body was located earlier today, and while police have not formally identified it, NSW police believe it is that of the missing woman. A report will be prepared by the coroner.

Josh Taylor

Google responds to eSafety’s claims against YouTube’s tracking of child abuse

Earlier we brought you details of eSafety slamming tech companies Apple and Google over their responses to transparency requests on how they’re tracking and stopping child abuse material on their services. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said YouTube was not tracking the number of users reporting child sexual abuse.

In response, a spokesperson for Google said the commissioner’s comments “are rooted in reporting metrics, not online safety performance”.

The spokesperson said:

More than 99% of all [child abuse] content on YouTube is proactively detected and removed by our robust automated systems before it is flagged or viewed. Our focus remains on outcomes and detecting and removing [child abuse content] on YouTube.

Child safety is critical to us. We’ve led the industry fight against child sexual abuse material since day one, investing heavily in advanced technology to proactively find and remove this harmful content. We also provide these tools, like CSAI Match, free to partners in industry and NGOs.

Tasmanian trainer fined $2,000 for animal cruelty after repeatedly whipping racehorse

A Tasmanian racehorse trainer has been fined $2,000 after pleading guilty to animal cruelty for whipping a horse more than 40 times in four minutes, Martin Agatyn reports.

Liandra Gray was found guilty of one count of causing unreasonable and unjustifiable pain to 7-year-old thoroughbred gelding The Bolt by striking him repeatedly with a padded racing whip.

Magistrate Evan Hughes found the charge proven after a hearing in the Devonport magistrates court in May, and on Wednesday handed down a fine of $2,000, saying the court needed to demonstrate a general deterrent to breaches of the Tasmanian Animal Welfare Act.

The maximum penalty under the act is an $18,000 fine and 12 months’ prison.

Read more here:

Australian share market hits record high

Australia’s share market has surged to record highs as miners helped the bourse shrug off a weak Wall Street session to top 8,800 points for the first time, AAP reports.

Buyers pushed the S&P/ASX200 up 0.6% as the broader All Ordinaries surged 0.64%. By midday the two indexes had eased to 8,818.6 and 9,084.3 points respectively.

The morning rally came after the top-200’s best-ever close on Tuesday, and flew past its previous intraday best of 8,776.4 on 18 July, taking its combined market capitalisation to $2.9tn.

The All Ordinaries, which includes the Australian Securities Exchange’s top 500 companies, is now valued at $3.1tn.

Helping the local bourse buck an overnight down-tick on Wall Street was Australia’s relative lack of volatility-prone tech companies and an ongoing influx of funds into global miners, said Michael McCarthy, a strategist at the Moomoo market trading platform.

Tasmania’s Labor leader, Dean Winter, said Tasmania needs a government that will last the next four years, just hours after premier Jeremy Rockliff was reappointed until at least 19 August by the state’s governor.

Winter is speaking at a press conference, saying “we need to change the way that the parliament works and we need to change the government”. He said a motion of no confidence will be tabled on the first day of the new parliament, either by Labor or a crossbencher.

It is clear we need a parliament that will work together and Tasmania Labor stands ready to work with the crossbench to deliver Tasmanians a stable parliament and a stable government that can last four years. …

Tasmanians can be assured that any motion we move will not result in another election, it will result in either a Liberal government or a Labor government. …

There will be a motion moved. Whether it is by us or an independent, a motion will be moved in parliament of no-confidence in the Liberals and confidence in a Labor government.