Australia news live: Asio chief defends not naming ‘sell-out’ politician; silent vigil to honour Jesse Baird and Luke Davies

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Sussan Ley stands by Dunkley byelection tweet that Jason Clare calls ‘grubby’

Both sides of politics are pulling out all the stops as the Dunkley byelection goes down to the wire.

Speaking on Sunrise this morning, the education minister, Jason Clare, and the deputy opposition leader, Sussan Ley, went head-to-head over a tweet she published last night.

The widely-condemned tweet followed assault charges being laid against a man who was released due to the high court’s ruling on indefinite detention last year. But just hours later, Victoria police moved to withdraw the charges and commander Mark Galliott apologised for the error.

You can read the full story from Paul Karp below:

Despite the charges being withdrawn, Ley’s tweet remains live, and links the arrest to the Dunkley byelection.

On Sunrise this morning, Clare said that Peta Murphy – whose death triggered the byelection – would be “disgusted” by Ley and her tweet. He said:

You should delete the tweet… This is a classic example of why women aren’t joining the Liberal party and why they’re not voting for the Liberal party, because of that classic, desperate, grubby political scare campaign we saw from the Liberal party yesterday.

I don’t know, really, you must wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and think, after 25 years of being a member of parliament, is this what I’ve become? I’m reduced to putting out tweets like this?

Ley defended herself and said she is “not taking instructions” from Clare.

Anyone who watched question time during this week and saw your hopeless immigration minister unable to demonstrate that he even knows where his criminals [are], what they’re doing, who’s monitoring them and whether the community is safe, would probably not agree with what you’ve just said.

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Updated at 18.11 EST

TGA moves to prevent pharmacies making off-brand Ozempic replicas

The Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) has moved to stop pharmacies from making off-brand replicas of popular weight loss and diabetes medications such Ozempic.

The move was announced in a highly technical press release last night, which says it will begin a targeted consultation process on the way forward:

While the expansion of the scale of manufacture of compounded goods in Australian pharmacies reflects international trends, public health and safety concerns have emerged around the complexity and commercial scale of some compounding of extemporaneously prepared GLP-1 RAs, which are sterile medicines containing high-risk active substances.

The consultation is an opportunity for identified stakeholders to provide their views on the proposed amendments and advise of any potential unintended consequences. The TGA will consider all responses in determining its next steps. A final decision will be progressed by June 2024.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1 RAs, are typically used to treat type 2 diabetes. Ozempic – which acts as a GLP-1 RA – is increasingly being used to reduce people’s appetite and, in-turn, lose weight.

But there have been increasing health concerns around its misuse. You can read more from our medical editor Melissa Davey last year:

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Updated at 16.18 EST

Cause of Dereel fire investigated

Here is more from AAP on the Victorian bushfires:

Investigators were also looking into the cause of another fire at Dereel, about 30km south of Ballarat, which ignited on Wednesday during extreme conditions and threatened more than 100 homes.

It was being treated as suspicious given there was no dry lightning in the area, or machinery operating at the time.

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Updated at 15.27 EST

Crews to keep watch over fire ahead of more danger

Firefighters will keep a close eye on a massive blaze in Victoria’s west, AAP reports. The more than 22,000ha Bayindeen fire, west of Ballarat, was contained yesterday – a week after it started.

Residents of nearby communities including Amphitheatre, Avoca, Bayindeen, Beaufort, Elmhurst, Raglan and Waterloo were told it was safe to return, although authorities warned of continued localised fire and smoke.

The Country Fire Authority deputy chief, Garry Cook, said while some firefighters were stood down yesterday, crews would continue to monitor the Bayindeen blaze for any flare-ups. He told AAP:

You can have a tree that might smoulder a kilometre in from the edge and it might flare up there. Sometimes, you’ll get root systems in old stumps and things like that [that will] smoulder under the ground and then they’ll re-emerge in a couple of weeks.

That’s why we’ll continue to have patrols and not leave that fire unattended in any way, shape or form. To say that 20,000ha will be completely extinguished is just not something we could actually achieve.

Impact assessments for the blaze were completed, with six homes destroyed.

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Updated at 15.20 EST

Good morning everyone, and happy Friday. Thanks to Martin for kicking things off – I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll bring your our live coverage on the blog today.

See something that needs attention? You can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.

Let’s get started.

ShareProperty prices rise again

The Australian housing market found a new gear last month and lifted in all but one capital city, with expectations of rate cuts later this year boosting confidence, Australian Associated Press reports.

Home prices recorded a subtle acceleration at the national level, lifting 0.6% in February after a 0.4% increase in January, according to figures from research firm CoreLogic.

The property market was gaining strongly for much of 2023 but, towards the end of the year, the pace of growth was starting to slow and performance diverged between regions and cities.

In February, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane still grew the fastest over the month – up 1.8%, 1.1% and 0.9% respectively – but Sydney and Melbourne also had stronger months.

Sydney home prices lifted 0.5% after a few weaker months and while the 0.1& improvement for Melbourne was modest, it followed a three-month stint of negative monthly movements.

The only capital city to record a decline was Hobart, which fell 0.3%.

Despite the broad-based growth, the 0.6% lift in national home prices in February remains well below the peak 1.3% monthly increase recorded in the national index in May 2023.

CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said housing values had been “more than resilient” in the face of high interest rates and cost of living pressures.

He said the persistent imbalance between supply and demand largely explained the endurance of the housing upswing, with returning confidence possibly also playing a role.

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Updated at 15.17 EST

Chalmers discusses discusses global tax on billionaires at G20 meeting

G20 ministers meeting in Brazil – including the treasurer, Jim Chalmers – are exploring plans for a global minimum tax on the world’s 3,000 billionaires, writes Richard Partington, our London economics correspondent.

Aiming to build on the cooperation that resulted in a 15% global minimum tax on multinational companies, which came into effect in January, the plan is being promoted under Brazil’s presidency of the G20 before a summit of world leaders in Rio de Janeiro in autumn.

The economist Gabriel Zucman has been invited by the Brazilian government to kickstart the G20 talks today.

The EU Tax Observatory, a Paris-based thinktank led by Zucman, set out a mechanism for a global wealth tax in a report last year. It called for a 2% annual levy on the wealth of the world’s richest individuals as the starting point for a global minimum tax.

Read Richard’s full story here:

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Updated at 15.16 EST

Silent vigil to be held for Jesse Baird and Luke Davies

Grieving friends, family and community members will honour the lives of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies at a silent vigil in Sydney today, Australian Associated Press reports.

The bodies of Davies, 29, and Baird, 26, were found inside surfboard bags at the fence line of a rural property in Bungonia near Goulburn, about 200km south-west of the city, on Tuesday.

NSW police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon, 28, is in custody after being charged with killing the couple at Baird’s home in Paddington on 19 February.

A Friday night vigil, organised with the permission of the couple’s families, will be held in Darlinghurst.

The vigil will take place on the eve of the Mardi Gras parade, where organisers are expected to recognise the couple.

Qantas will honour Davies on its parade float while the AFL is expected to announce a tribute for Baird who umpired 62 games, including two finals, in coming weeks.

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Updated at 15.18 EST

Asio chief defends decision not to name ‘sell-out’ politician

The head of Asio, Mike Burgess, has defended his decision not to name the former Australian politician alleged to have “sold out their country, party and former colleagues” after being recruited by spies for a foreign regime.

Burgess sparked an intense round of political intrigue after airing the allegations in his annual threat assessment speech on Wednesday night. Some current and former MPs called for the individual to be named or at least for some further details to be disclosed to avoid sullying the reputation of others.

In a statement issued on Thursday night, Burgess said he could “understand the interest in Asio providing more details about the individual mentioned in a case study” in his speech, but added:

It is an historic matter that was appropriately dealt with at the time. The individual is no longer of security concern.

In this case, while we want the foreign intelligence service to know its cover is blown, we do not want it to unpick how we discovered its activities.

Burgess said Australia’s democracy remained robust with free elections and “the overwhelming majority of our politicians remain thoroughly resistant to even the most sophisticated and subtle approaches”.

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Updated at 15.14 EST

Welcome

Good morning and welcome to our end-of-week rolling news blog. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you the overnight headlines before Emily Wind takes the helm.

The growing influence of a secretive firm on the political debate in Australia is revealed today by documents showing it claimed almost $135,000 in taxpayer funding from Coalition politicians to help shape their messaging on issues such as the Indigenous voice to parliament. Whitestone Strategic is a political consultancy group that helps conservative politicians pump out messages on social media, an investigation using freedom of information laws has revealed.

The Asio boss, Mike Burgess, has defended his decision not to name the former politician whom he said had “sold out” their country to a foreign spy network. Burgess said the matter was historic, had been dealt with at the time and that the person was no longer a security risk. It comes after some current and former MPs called for more details to be disclosed to avoid sullying the reputation of others. More coming up.

The ban on imported vapes begins today but a New Zealand online vape seller is taunting Anthony Albanese’s government, telling customers “we have no intention of stopping” vape shipments because of “one twat in Canberra”, presumably a rude reference to the federal health minister, Mark Butler, who has fronted the reforms. Some experts fear that doctors are not ready for a rush of patients seeking prescriptions for vapes as the government crackdown makes them harder to buy.

And a silent vigil today will honour the lives of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies. More on that in a few minutes.

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