Australian news and politics live: Tony Burke says neo-nazi laws under review as South African man detained
Scroll down for the latest news and updates.
Wages grow at 3.4 per cent, in line with expectations
Wages have grown by 3.4 per cent in the year to September, in line with economist and Reserve Bank expectations.
While there was no change in the annual wage price index from the previous quarter, an intervening surge in inflation has eroded the improvement to workers’ incomes in real terms.
Real wages continued to grow for an eighth straight quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics report on Wednesday.
But after an inflation-adjusted increase of 1.3 per cent in the June quarter, real wages growth shrank to 0.2 per cent in September as a result of inflation rising to 3.2 per cent.
As expected by the forecasting consensus, wages grew 0.8 per cent in the three months to September 30.
“Annual wage growth remained steady compared to the June quarter 2025 but was slightly lower than this time last year,” said the bureau’s head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt.
Price hits back at Hughes’ ‘used by the boys’ comment
A war of words has erupted between current and former Liberal members after an ex-senator quit the party in disgust at the behaviour of some MPs.
Hollie Hughes, who lost her Senate seat at the last federal election, resigned from the Liberals on Tuesday, accusing some of her former colleagues of undermining Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
“There are some people who are completely inept, who are lazy, who are not across the details,” she told 2GB radio.
“It is an absolute rabble.”
Ms Hughes also accused the conservative faction of using women to do the undermining, singling out Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Sarah Henderson.
“(They) are being used, quite frankly, by the boys who want to challenge but don’t have the gumption to go out and say anything themselves,” Ms Hughes said.
On Wednesday Senator Nampijinpa Price issued a fiery response on the same radio station.
Albanese predicting 5-nil Ashes victory but says he won’t attend Perth test
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he won’t be attending the opening day of the Ashes in Perth this Friday, because he has to attend the G20 meeting in South Africa but is predicting Australia will win the series 5-nil.
Appearing on Perth radio station 96FM Mr Albanese has revealed he’s planning to attend other test matches over the summer.
“I am hoping to get to the SCG test this year. I’ll get there, and maybe the Boxing Day. We’ll see how we go.”
ANZ boss says 4500 redundancies were due to duplication of roles
ANZ new chief executive Nuno Mato said the 4500 redundancies, equivalent to more than 10 per cent of the bank’s workforce, were necessary to reduce duplication of roles and simplify the bank.
“It’s not something I am proud of, it’s not something a human being likes to do,” Mr Matos said of the redundancies. “The company was and still is too complex, there were a lot of initiatives that were not aligned to the objective of the company.”
ANZ CEO opens up on scrapped bonuses
ANZ new chief executive Nuno Matos has declared he wanted to be “part of the pain” in giving up a near $1 million cash bonus at the same time as he made 4,500 staff and contractors redundant.
At a parliamentary Economics Committee on Wednesday, Mr Matos told Ed Husic MP that none of the bank’s senior management got any short-term bonuses in response to a string of regulatory scandals in prior years.
“When we published the remuneration report of ANZ, you saw that all management got zero compensation, was a zero to everyone, including myself, because I asked the board to be part of the pain,” said Mr Matos. “Because I wanted to show clearly that I was part of the team I wanted to lead by example.”
‘We can get a deal’: Hopes for a trade deal high
The European Union’s top trade negotiator has arrived in Australia to reopen trade talks, with both sides sounding optimistic about securing a long elusive deal.
Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s Trade Commissioner, will meet Trade Minister Don Farrell in Melbourne on Wednesday to thrash out a possible breakthrough in the deadlock that saw talks collapse in 2023.
Senator Farrell is hosting a meeting assembling his counterparts from the 12 countries that are part of the giant trading bloc known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or CPTPP.
Burke: Laws under review as neo-nazi detained
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has confirmed his department is reviewing laws related to combating Nazism, following the cancellation of a neo-nazi’s visa.
Civil engineer Matthew Gruter, one of about 60 black-clad neo-nazis who gathered outside NSW Parliament earlier this month, was detained and faces deportation after his visa was revoked.
“There’s significant powers we have under current law, but as you’d expect, there are conversations that I’m having with my department to make sure that all the laws that we have are fit for purpose, not only with my department, but obviously the different intelligence and law enforcement and security agencies that are within my portfolio as well,” Mr Burke told ABC Radio National.
“I’m always pressure-testing with ASIO, with the Australian Federal Police, with the Criminal Intelligence Commission, and with AUSTRAC… just to make sure that our laws are fit for purpose.”
Matthew Gruter, who participated in a protest outside NSW Parliament, is now in immigration detention. “Either he gets his own ticket, at which point he leaves and goes to South Africa straight away, or if he decides to not organise his own ticket, then ultimately he gets deported, but he’s not heading back into the Australian community,” he said.
The statements come as new laws will be introduced to NSW Parliamenttoday which will see people who chant Nazi slogans or display Nazi characteristics facing up to two years in prison and $22,000 in fines.
Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.
Sign up for our emails