Australia news live: states sweat over GST carve-up; fire forces evacuation of Surfers Paradise hotel
Key events
Opposition energy spokesperson spruiks Coalition’s gas policy
The opposition’s energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, has talked up the importance of gas to ensure electricity supply “in the short-term”.
O’Brien has been interviewed on ABC News Breakfast, following the energy regulator’s announcement yesterday it is expecting power bills for residential customers increasing by 2.5% to 8.9% – depending on the region – compared with last year.
Asked what the Coalition would do in the short-term to bring down power bills, O’Brien said:
In the short-term the priority has to be gas.
Gas can be expensive but when it comes to electricity, you don’t need a lot of gas, you just need it in the right volumes at the right time, at the right place and at the right price.
The Coalition’s approach is we need to pour more gas into the market.
O’Brien pointed to the Coalition’s policy of increasing domestic gas production for domestic supply.
He said:
The Coalition believes we need to use Australian gas for Australians first, that has to be the priority.
The only way you get prices down to have cheap, clean and consistent energy in this country is a balanced energy mix: renewables, gas and, as coal retires, nuclear.
Guests evacuated after Surfers Paradise hotel catches on fire
Guests at a hotel in Surfers Paradise were evacuated overnight after the building caught fire.
A spokesperson for the Queensland Fire Department said six crews responded to reports of a fire at the Hilton Hotel Surfers Paradise at about 1.50am.
A fire had started on the roof, with falling embers starting another fire on the pool deck, the spokesperson said.
Fire crews had extinguished the pool deck fire by about 2.20am and put out the roof fire by about 2.40am, with guests allowed to return to their rooms at about 3am.
The spokesperson said the fire was “relatively small” and they could not say what caused it.
There were no reports of any injuries, the spokesperson said.
Catie McLeod
Hello, I’ll be taking you through today’s news until this afternoon. I hope you have a good morning.
Coalition policies gets the Full Story treatment
Staying with the Coalition and politics, today’s Newsroom edition of the Full Story podcast looks at this very issue.
Reged Ahmad talks to Guardian Australia’s editor-in-chief Lenore Taylor, head of newsroom Mike Ticher and national news editor Jo Tovey about whether Peter Dutton’s missteps and the Coalition’s policy problems will start to add up in the minds of voters.
Check it out here:
Some Coalition MPs worrying about opposition’s election policy offering
Some Coalition MPs are concerned that they will start the federal election campaign without a proper policy to sell to households feeling the pinch from the cost-of-living crisis.
Yesterday, Peter Dutton again played down the prospect of income tax cuts and today we are reporting on a new issue where he might come under pressure himself, namely his plan to crack down on working from home.
He has been quite outspoken about making federal staff work from the office and the Coalition launched the policy last week.
But some think it may not be properly “thought through” because working from home is popular with a lot of voters, and appeals especially to working professional women of the type the Coalition has to win back in teal seats.
Read our full story here:
We’re up against a deep, ideological, strategic US view, says Rudd
On the ABC last night, Australia’s ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd said he would continue fighting for tariff exemptions for Australian goods despite what appears to be an uphill battle in Washington.
Optimism about winning a carve out seems to be fading, with Rudd admitting negotiations have been difficult and pointing out that America’s historical trade surplus with Australia had not cut any ice.
Rudd said:
We’re up against a deep, ideological, strategic view of this Trump administration. These are deep-seated, fundamental changes in this different America, which every one of the 36 countries who negotiated tariff exemptions on steel and aluminium last time round, back in 2017, have had to contend with this time round.
Rudd also revealed that he had asked Anthony Albanese to make a second call to Trump this week but “by the time the decision was taken, late Tuesday, we had not been able to secure that time”.
I think it stands to reason we should question whether, in fact, even this request for a late telephone call would have necessarily made a material difference.
Read more:
High temperatures expected in south-eastern Australia
Much of south-east Australia is in for a hot weekend as temperatures head into the 30s in Sydney. Coastal suburbs will see about 31C on the guage while it could be up to 35C in the west.
It will be especially hot in the southern region of New South Wales where it is expected to be about 37C in Wagga Wagga.
Melbourne will be milder, at about 27C but rural Victoria could see high 30s north of the ranges, according to Angus Hines of the Bureau of Meteorology.
South Australia will also be very hot for this time of year with 35C in Adelaide.
The BoM released its long-range forecast for April through to June overnight and predicts that we can expect warmer than average days and some unusually high daytime temperatures across the country.
The same goes for night-time temperatures with warmer than average readings “very likely” and an “increased chance” of unusually high overnight temperatures.
Rainfall-wise, levels are expected to be within the typical range for the period across most of eastern, central and southern Australia, and above average across parts of the north.
States brace for hearing new GST carve-up plan
State and territory leaders sweating on their take of the GST will finally learn their fate as the new carve-up is revealed in the lead-up to the federal election, reports Australian Associated Press.
The commonwealth grants commission will hand down recommendations to the treasurer Jim Chalmers on Friday about how to distribute the tax revenue for the 2025-26 financial year.
The independent authority has adopted a new way of assessing how much each jurisdiction gets as the method is reviewed every five years, but the verdict in 2025 comes with the added attention of a federal election on the horizon.
The carve-up frequently comes under fiery criticism from state and territory leaders.
Labor leaders in the two most populous states got stuck into a war of words with each other in 2024 when the NSW premier, Chris Minns, described Victoria as a “welfare state”.
Former Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas returned fire, claiming Minns did not understand the GST system.
It’s also a major talking point in resource-heavy Western Australia, which benefited from a boost in 2018 under the Coalition.
Anthony Albanese vowed not to change the arrangement in the west and in February 2024 even signed the promise on the arm of a journalist while visiting Perth.
NSW and Victoria have been pushing for a per-capita distribution while Queensland’s former deputy premier Cameron Dick hit out at the commission’s decision to examine how coal royalty revenue is calculated.
States and territories rely on GST for funding for financial support to fund major expenditure including health, education, infrastructure and housing.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Catie McLeod will be at the controls.
Kevin Rudd has vowed to keep fighting for exemptions from US tariffs, but told 7.30 last night that he and his “team Australia” has already “thrown everything” at talks with the Trump administration. Australia’s ambassador to the US told the ABC that the talks with the White House commerce team had been “tough”. Farmers fear they could be next in line for trade levies on Australia’s $6.2bn in meat exports, while Trump is slapping a 200% levy on European wine.
We have heard grumbling this week from Coalition insiders unhappy about what they see as an inadequate economic policy offering going into the federal election. Today we’re reporting that some in the Liberal and National camp fear that Peter Dutton’s vow to crack down on working from home policy is not “fully thought through” and could hamper the drive to win back teal seats.
Much of south-east Australia will experience very warm weather over the weekend with some inland parts of Victoria and NSW approaching 40C. The Bureau of Meteorology’s long-term forecast suggests the country is in for spells of “unusually” warm weather in the months to June.
The annual carve-up of GST revenue between the states is a pretty dry subject, but arouses much passion among premiers keen to balance their budgets (or assign blame for red ink). More on this soon.
