Australia live news: Rupert Murdoch praised by News Corp; fresh calls for Gary Johns to be axed from no camp

Key events

Government has not changed its view on tax cuts, Chalmers says

Jim Chalmers is now on RN Breakfast, where he was asked by host Hamish McDonald whether he was reconsidering the stage-three tax cuts given much of the $22.1bn budget surplus comes from the taxes of “hard working Australians”.

Chalmers said the government has not changed its view on the tax cuts, which recent data showed will flow disproportionately to high-income earners and men:

Well, first of all, it’s partly a function that people are working more and earning more. The labor market is incredibly resilient given what’s coming at us from around the world. And so unemployment is lower than what many people anticipated. And wages have began growing again, and that’s a good thing too. And that’s one of the reasons why the budgets in better nick but also getting good better prices for our commodities and what that means for company tax.

We haven’t changed our view about the stage three tax cuts, but we have found a way to provide substantial cost-of-living relief for people on low and middle and fixed incomes, because we recognise people are doing it tough and they’ve been our priority.

Updated at 18.01 EDT

More than 100 killed on roads in August

Australia’s road toll continues to climb, with more than 100 people killed in road accidents in just one month, Australian Associated Press reports.

New road toll figures, released by the federal transport department on Thursday, showed Australia recorded its highest August road toll since 2018, with fatalities rising by more than eight per cent.

New South Wales and South Australia recorded the highest increases, with both up by more than 20%.

Cyclists and pedestrians recorded even larger increases.

The rising toll came despite national targets to halve road deaths by 2030.

The Australian Automobile Association managing director, Michael Bradley, said the high death toll was not only disturbing, but would be hard to address without detailed information on why road accidents had occurred.

The national motoring body has been calling on state and territory governments to provide detailed information on fatalities, including factors that may have contributed to accidents, and the state of the roads on which they occurred.

Current data also fails to note serious injuries in road accidents, despite targets to reduce them.

Bradley said:

Until Australia gets serious about understanding the crashes occurring today, we have no credible plan to prevent the crashes of tomorrow.

Data reporting is the first step to preventing crashes and saving lives as it will generate the evidence on which future transport policy can be based.

He said providing detailed crash information should be made a requirement under the national partnership agreement between the federal and state governments currently being developed.

Welcome

Good morning and welcome to our rolling news coverage. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ll be bringing you our top overnight stories before Jordyn Beazley takes the reins.

We can’t start anywhere else other than with the news that Rupert Murdoch will be stepping down from his roles as head of his media companies Fox and News Corp to be emeritus chair of the organisations. The long-awaited departure of the hugely influential tycoon appears likely to see his son Lachlan take over, with Murdoch Sr praising him as a “passionate, principled leader” in a note to staff. We will have all the Australian reaction to the news and analysis about how the man from Adelaide rose to become the arguably the world’s most influential media tycoon.

The Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney, has called on the no campaign to sack Gary Johns after he described the voice to parliament as a “grab for power” and Aboriginal people as an organised lobby group “crawling all over Canberra” in newly unearthed comments. The former Labor minister, listed as a director of the major no campaign organisation, claimed Indigenous leaders “want to stick it up the white man”, and proposed a “very, very heavy cultural intervention” for Aboriginal children. Johns was contacted for comment. We’re also looking at how anti-voice pamphlets are spreading misinformation.

The Albanese government has been given a major boost after the first federal budget surplus in 15 years was revised up to $22.1bn thanks to higher tax receipts and higher commodity prices. The government says the final outcome will confirm it has returned 95% of the upward revision in tax to the budget bottom line, but the Treasury now expects two years of slow growth.

Murdoch a ‘leader of drive, audacity and deal-making skill’ – the Australian

The Australian, the only paper Murdoch ever founded himself, marks his departure from the top role with a commentary piece by its veteran columnist Paul Kelly.

In a glowing valedictory to his long-time employer, Kelly calls him “a leader of drive, audacity and deal-making skill for seven decades” who “left a lasting imprint on the media industries of the main countries in which his corporations have operated, notably Australia, Britain and the US”.

The stepping-down of Rupert Murdoch as Executive Chairman of Fox and News Corporation is a turning point in the career of the most successful businessman in Australian history and one of the most influential, enduring and path-breaking media leaders in the democratic world.

Murdoch was always highly political. That was integral to his nature, his outlook on the world and the influence he mobilised and brought to bear. It meant attitudes towards Murdoch were often shaped by the political preferences of his media outlets, exciting supporters and infuriating critics.

Murdoch’s publications projected political and cultural values and sought to shape the direction of their societies.

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Murdoch’s eldest son, who is set to be his successor after seven-decade run as controversial media mogul. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

Updated at 18.02 EDT