News live: ‘unclear’ if Trump’s tariffs will happen, Medicines Australia says; businesses ‘optimistic’ about PM’s China visit | Australia news

More from Domain and Pepper Money’s latest rental market update

For units, Sydney remains the most expensive places to rent, with median asking prices sitting at $740 and a 2.1% increase recorded in the June quarter.

Brisbane and Perth are tied as the second most pricey cities for apartment-dwellers, though the Queensland capital had experienced a slower quarter of growth compared with its counterpart in Western Australia.

Perth has also rocketed up the rankings of expensive places to rent a house, now equal with Canberra in second place – after Sydney – with a median asking rent of $700.

Even with tenants maxed out price wise and landlords no longer in a position to keep hiking, vacancies are still hovering below 2% across the board.

“It is still a landlords’ market,” Domain’s chief of research and economics, Nicola Powell said.

“Across all of our major capital cities, vacancy rates still remains high – they’re just moving away from the pressure-cooker dynamics.”

– Australian Associated Press

Affordability ‘tipping point’ nudges renters into units

Renters have been pressed against affordability limits for some time and with no more to give, market rents for capital city houses have held unchanged for a year.

The stabilisation in median asking rents follows years of fast growth that peaked in the early phases of the pandemic as borders reopened.

Since March 2020, house rents across combined capitals have climbed 47.7% and 44.4% for units.

The latest rental market update from online real estate platform Domain and lender Pepper Money reveals flatlining house rents across all capital cities except Darwin.

Market rents for units have been growing more quickly, in a development Domain’s chief of research and economics, Nicola Powell, said was indicative of tenants feeling the squeeze.

“They’re looking for more affordable locations and more affordable property types, or even going into house shares,” she told AAP.

Cost-of-living pressures have reached a tipping point.

Median asking rents for units, typically a more affordable property option, had increased 3.2% in the past year.

The stronger growth across units compared to houses was also probably a reflection of increasing demand for inner-city living, Powell explained, as more businesses now demand at least some in-office days.

“That shifts where that rental demand pressure is going, you know, it’s not now in regional and outer city suburbs”.

– Australian Associated Press

More in the next post.

‘We’ve got a bipartisan approach to our PBS’, says Nationals senator

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie responded to US president Donald Trump’s proposed 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals, on Nine’s Today show.

She says Australia’s pharmaceutical benefits scheme underpins universal health care:

We’ve got a bipartisan approach to our PBS. It underpins our universal health care system. Makes sure no matter who you are in Australia, can access great world-class leading drugs for your family’s health. But the US seems they’re asking questions about timelines for those clinical trials. So it’s about getting the right deal, not undermining our PBS, but also recognising we’re one of the world leaders in medical research. We’re really good at this stuff.

Surprise rate hold another blow for consumer confidence

Fresh data shows soft consumer spending is taking longer than expected to recover and won’t be helped by the Reserve Bank’s surprise decision not to cut interest rates.

Household spending grew 0.3% in June, according to the Commonwealth Bank’s latest household spending insights index released on Thursday.

Spending in the communications and digital category rose 1% (likely supported by the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, which sold 3.5m units globally in its first four days, becoming the Japanese gaming giant’s fastest-selling piece of hardware). But spending growth across all categories was down from the 0.4% rise in May, despite more consumers benefiting from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 20 May interest rate cut.

“This recovery is taking longer than expected to occur but there are green shoots emerging,” the CBA senior economist, Belinda Allen, said.

Spending around sales events and new items show consumers are still deliberate on their spending decisions.

At the same time, there remains a clear preference to save and pay down debt.

Data released by the bank showed just one in 10 mortgage holders reduced their repayments after the May rate cut.

Published consumer sentiment surveys this year have shown households are taking time to regain confidence, with global uncertainty adding to scarring caused by the reduction in disposable incomes during the recent inflation spike.

CBA still expects the central bank to cut interest rates by 25 basis points in August, with another reduction tipped for November, but Tuesday’s surprise hold will do little to boost spirits.

“While we still anticipate a pick-up in household spending in 2025, a slower rate-cutting cycle could soften this recovery over the remainder of the year,” Allen said.

– Australian Associated Press

Telstra’s proposed cut of more than 500 jobs ‘not a result of our adoption of AI’

Yesterday the telco told employees “we are proposing a net reduction of around 550 roles from across the organisation,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

These changes are largely driven by the ongoing reset of our Telstra Enterprise business, as well as improvements to the structure and processes of other teams across our organisation, to reduce complexity, create efficiencies, and respond to changing customer needs.

If the reduction goes ahead, Telstra says it will “work with the people in the roles that are no longer required to seek to help them find another role at Telstra”.

If that’s not possible and they end up leaving Telstra, they’ll have access to our redundancy package and a range of support services.

The spokesperson says “the changes proposed to our team are not a result of our adoption of AI”.

Read more from our technology reporter, Josh Taylor, who reported in May that the telco is expecting to shrink its workforce by 2030, with “AI efficiencies” potentially coming through customer service, software development and the use of autonomous AI agents:

Alex Ryvchin says the Executive Council of Australian Jewry “look forward to seeing” recommendations to the government from the special envoy to combat antisemitism, to be presented later this morning, in response to the arson attack at a Melbourne synagogue.

Jillian Segal is expected to appear alongside prime minister Anthony Albanese at an event today to present the recommendations.

Ryvchin, the co-CEO of the council, spoke to ABC TV:

Jillian Segal is someone who consulted widely, broadly with stakeholders and community groups, in formulating a strategy which she said she would do when she was first appointed as envoy. She’s previously spoken about the things that are important to her to get us back to where we need to be as a society and a country. Predominantly, better education, better enforcement and better engagement between Jewish and non-Jewish Australians.

More on landmark ruling finding Russia shot down MH17 with 38 Australians on board

Earlier in the blog we brought you news that judges at Europe’s top human rights court ruled that Russia was responsible for widespread violations of international law, from shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014 to the murder, torture, rape, destruction of civilian infrastructure and kidnapping of Ukrainian children after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of 2022.

Reading the decisions in a packed courtroom in Strasbourg, the court’s president, Mattias Guyomar, said Russian forces engaged in “manifestly unlawful” conduct in the July 2014 attack on the flight. The court said in a statement:

The court agreed that the evidence suggested that the missile had been intentionally fired at flight MH17 most likely in the mistaken belief that it had been a military aircraft.

It was not necessary for the court to decide exactly who had fired the missile, since Russia was responsible for the acts of the Russian armed forces and of the armed separatists.

The court accepted the evidence of the Dutch government that a Buk-Telar [missile system] acting alone could not distinguish between military and civilian aircraft.

The court found that no measures had been taken by Russia to accurately identify military targets, in breach of the principles of distinction and precautions.

Australia’s biggest peanut supplier set to shut down

The corporate owners of Australia’s biggest peanut processor will scale down the century-old business in the coming 18 months before shutting it down for good.

About 150 employees at the Peanut Company of Australia’s Kingaroy and Tolga facilities in Queensland will be offered redundancies, support services and other opportunities where possible, Bega Group said on Wednesday.

“We understand the impact this decision will have,” Bega Group chief executive, Pete Findlay, said. Some employees would be able to stay in their roles until the peanut supplier closes completely in 18 months as part of a phased shutdown, he said.

Established in 1924 as the Peanut Marketing Board, the company had been under sustained financial pressure for several years prior to its $11.9m acquisition by Bega Group in 2017, the company said.

Despite significant upgrades to site safety and initiatives aimed at helping local growers boost production, Bega Group wasn’t able to establish a sustainable business model. Its challenges included competition from imports, stronger returns for growers from other crops, high input costs and declining production, the company said.

The peanut company had been losing $5m to $10m a year.

The decision to close the company follows a 12-month strategic review, during which Bega pursued several options to sell the business.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to secure a buyer that could sustain a long-term future for employees and growers,” Findlay said.

– Australian Associated Press

It’s unclear whether US president, Donald Trump’s, proposed 200% tariffs on pharmaceuticals “will ever actually be applied,” CEO of Medicines Australia, Elizabeth de Somer, says.

She is speaking on ABC RN:

There isn’t detail, and it’s unclear whether those tariffs will ever actually be applied.

De Somer continues that “everybody’s waiting to see what will be made public” out of the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick’s, investigation into the need for pharmaceutical tariffs.

We do know that the contributions from the pharmaceutical industry in the US to that investigation has been to urge the US government to focus their levers on non-friendly countries and not apply tariffs or punitive levers to allies such as Australia.

Australia must ‘throw everything’ at climate summit

Leaders need to “throw everything” at winning Australia’s bid to host a key climate summit as the nation finds itself in a global race to net zero.

Australia has teamed up with the Pacific in a proposal to jointly host the 2026 UN climate change conference, known as COP31. But the bid to hold the talks faces a challenge from Turkey.

Addressing the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Smart Energy Council chief executive, John Grimes, said Australia must secure the summit.

“It’s time for the prime minister and foreign minister to throw everything at it, and our industry stands ready,” he said.

It actually takes all of us swinging behind this, but the government really, really needs to do whatever it can, because this is a big dividend for Australia.

This is actually Australia at its best when there’s a middle power … out advocating on the global stage for something that is of the community and global benefit and interest.

The climate change conference would deliver billions of dollars to the Australian economy through trade deals, tourism and business exposure, he said.

The government will hold talks with leaders in Tuvalu, Palau, Samoa and the Republic of the Marshall Islands to discuss ways to amplify their voices as nations highly exposed to the impacts of climate-fuelled disasters.

– Australian Associated Press

The European court of human rights has found that the shooting down of flight MH17 using a missile supplied and transported to eastern Ukraine by the Russian Federation, resulting in the deaths of all 298 civilians onboard, was in breach of the European human rights convention.

Flight MH17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down by a Russian surface-to-air missile while flying over eastern Ukraine in 2014 as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces. Among the victims were 196 Dutch citizens and 38 Australian citizens or residents.

The court’s grand chamber unanimously held that between 11 May 2014 and 16 September 2022, when Russia ceased to be a party to the European convention on human rights it had committed “manifestly unlawful conduct … on a massive scale”.

It found Russia has committed flagrant and unprecedented abuses of human rights since it invaded Ukraine in 2014, including extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and forced labour.

Rafqa Touma

Thank you to Martin Farrer for kicking off the blog this morning. I’ll be updating you from here – let’s go.

Australian business groups are “cautiously optimistic” a visit to China by Anthony Albanese will help normalise a fragile relationship with Beijing.

The prime minister will travel to China on Saturday for a six-day visit of Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, where he will be accompanied by a delegation of Australian business leaders.

The Australia China Business Council’s president, David Olsson, said the relationship between the two nations has had an “incomplete recovery” with a changing market in China.

“While everyone’s cautiously optimistic, I think we all recognise that the relationship remains somewhat fragile, and that’s why these regular government to government dialogues is just so important,” he said.

We have to stop seeing risk and opportunity as opposites and the challenge for Australia generally, is to engage with China in a way that’s both commercially smart and politically durable.

“We need to keep this relationship going. So we have to sit back and think very carefully about how we’re going to manage the risks that we see in the world at the moment in a way that serves our national interests.

Albanese will meet with China’s president, Xi Jinping, its premier, Li Qiang, and Chairman Zhao Leji to discuss global and regional issues in addition to trade and tourism opportunities.

Donald Trump has announced tariffs of up to 30% on six more countries – but Australia was not among them.

Overnight the US president announced more trade notices to several countries on his social media platform Truth Social, including:

• 30% on Algeria

• 25% on Brunei

• 30% on Iraq

• 30% on Libya

• 25% on Moldova

• 20% on the Philippines

Yesterday Jim Chalmers said the Albanese government was making “urgent” representations to the White House about Trump’s threat to impose 200% tariffs on drug imports to the US.

Australia exports about $2.5bn in pharmaceuticals, vaccines and healthcare products to the US each year, a share of about 40% of medicines exports across the globe annually.

Read more in our report from Tom McIlroy and Patrick Commins here:

Caitlin Cassidy

Chair of Australian Turf Clubs resigns after failed Rosehill Racecourse sale

The chair of Sydney’s Australian Turf Club has resigned after failing in his bid to sell off the Rosehill Racecourse for 25,000 new homes.

Peter McGauran was appointed chair of the board in August 2022, with his term due to expire in early next year. He also serves as a senior adviser at advisory and investment firm, Bondi Partners.

The New South Wales government had offered $5bn for the privately owned racecourse, which would have made a significant contribution towards its target of 337,000 new dwellings by 2029. But in May, it was soundly rejected by 7,860 ATC members who voted 56% to 44% against the sale.

The premier, Chris Minns, said history would look back on McGauran “as someone who wasn’t afraid to take bold ideas to the table”.

Peter had a big vision for Sydney and Rosehill and I’ll always respect him for that. We’d love him to stay on, but Peter has elected to pass on the baton. He’s been a gentleman throughout – even in the face of tough debates – and always acted with integrity.

We need more people bowling up ideas and trying to get things done for the city, not less. I thank him for his service and wish him all the best for what comes next.

Blues defend coach after Origin loss

Laurie Daley feels he is “most definitely” the right man to coach NSW in 2026 as the playing group insists the coach should not be blamed for the Blues’ State of Origin capitulation.

While I was disappointed with the result, I think the players have had a really good campaign, we just didn’t nail the moments.

We’ve got to make sure we’re better at that.

I don’t see any reason why that group can’t (win it next year) … no issues there, mate.

The playing group rushed to Daley’s defence after the loss.

“He wasn’t the reason that we lost tonight. It was us as players,” said halfback Nathan Cleary.

The 2025 Origin series slipped through the Blues’ fingers on Wednesday night as a polished Queensland dominated their hosts for a 24-12 win at Accor Stadium.

Catch up on the game with this report from the Guardian’s Jack Snape:

– AAP

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the main talking points so far before Rafqa Touma steps up.

Anthony Albanese is expected to front the media in Sydney later this morning along with his special envoy on antisemitism, Jillian Segal, to launch the government’s new crackdown in the wake of a series of attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish-owned businesses. We have more coming up.

The chairman of Sydney’s Australian Turf Club has resigned after his master plan to sell the Rosehill Racecourse to the NSW government for the building of 25,000 new homes was rejected by the club’s members.