$1m reward for information surrounding unsolved opal miner’s death
A $1m reward has been announced for information relating to the suspicious death of an opal miner more than 30 years ago, AAP reports.
Paul Murray was last seen alive on the outskirts of Lightning Ridge, an outback town in north-western NSW, on 19 March 1995.
Murray, then aged 40, owned an opal mining field about 8km north-west of the town and lived in a camp at the site. A local resident had picked him up and dropped him off at the edge of town, becoming the last known person to see him alive.
Murray was reported missing one week later. After an extensive search, two graziers found his body in scrubland, about 2km from his campsite. A postmortem examination found no obvious cause of death and no signs of trauma.
Authorities will again lift the reward on Wednesday, more than three decades on from Murray’s death, to $1m.
Key events
Josh Taylor
Hanson says office staff cuts are ‘serious issue’ for staffer health
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has called on the Albanese government to allocate more staff to her party, stating she had begged and pleaded for more employees to deal with the “heavy workload”.
Hanson said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that her office has been “inundated with thousands of calls, emails and messages every week and it’s not possible to respond to all of them”.
She said the federal government cut staff allocation to One Nation after the last election, and despite begging and pleading, the government “hasn’t even responded and couldn’t care less” to requests to restore staffing levels.
She said:
My staff have continued out of loyalty, and they want to help the Australian people but their health has now become a serious issue.
As the leader of One Nation, I have 5 Electorate officers and just 2 Parliamentary Advisers.
The leader of the Greens, Larissa Waters, has 5 electorate officers and 15 advisers.
The prime minister has 59 personal advisers. Adding his other ministers, the Government employs a total of 504 personal advisers.
This is the prime minister using his powers to disadvantage his political opponents who don’t agree with his agenda.
Hanson said she didn’t want to air the issue publicly, but the government had given her no choice.
I am the leader of a political party that is polling more than major political parties. The government has failed to staff One Nation anywhere close to a functional level. This is pure, bloody-minded politics by the Labor party.
Tom McIlroy
No indication new group with links to Islamic State have plans to leave Syrian camp, sources say
Government sources say there is no indication a group of women and children linked to IS fighters have made plans to leave a camp in northern Syria.
Media reports today suggest six Australian women, their children and grandchildren, look likely to leave the al-Roj camp in Syria very soon.
But so far the federal government has not had any information to suggest any of the group have made plans to come to Australia.
If and when they come home, the group is certain to face scrutiny from law enforcement agencies.
Vanuatu says it is ready to sign economic and security deal with Australia
Vanuatu will sign a major cooperation agreement with Australia after renegotiating the deal, prime minister Jotham Napat told the Pacific island nation’s parliament on Tuesday, according to AFP.
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese travelled to Vanuatu in September in the expectation the leaders would sign the $500m Nakamal Agreement to strengthen security and economic ties, but a ceremony was cancelled at short notice after concerns from some Vanuatu lawmakers.
Vanuatu has maintained a non-aligned foreign policy since independence from France and Britain, and fiercely protects its position of “friends to all and enemies to none” amid jostling for influence by China, Australia and the United States in the strategically located Pacific.
Napat said the agreement with Australia was not a security pact, but contained a security clause where Vanuatu agreed not to allow any outside force in its territory.
Australia is wary of China’s police presence in the nearby Solomon Islands, and has struck a series of treaties with Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea and Nauru seeking to curb Beijing’s security inroads to the region.
More IS-linked families preparing to return from Syria
Tom McIlroy
Authorities are preparing for another six Australian women, along with their children and grandchildren, to return home from Syria, with the group expected to leave in the coming days.
The group – linked to IS fighters and stuck in the al-Roj camp in the country’s north – will be closely watched by government and law enforcement agencies if they do return home.
Their arrival is expected as soon as next week.
Earlier this month, four women and nine children took commercial flights to Sydney and Melbourne. The Australian federal police arrested and charged three of the women.
The assistant minister for multicultural affairs, Julian Hill, told Sky News this morning he had no information about the group, though added intelligence agencies and police were monitoring their movements.
“I’m not going to prejudge the operations of law enforcement agencies or security agencies but I’ll say this very clearly and very deliberately to anyone who’s listening,” Hill said.
Law enforcement agencies are well aware of this cohort … including those who’ve come back over many, many cycles, including under the Morrison government.
Hill would not be drawn on whether members of the group would face arrest on return to Australia.
Agencies are prepared … and we don’t want these people back in.
Josh Taylor
AI nudify service ordered by eSafety to prevent children’s access
The eSafety commissioner has issued a direction to comply to restrict Australian children’s access to an unnamed nudify service that uses AI to generate sexually-explicit deepfakes of people based on uploaded images.
The regulator – which declined to name the platform so as to not add to its growing popularity – issued the direction to comply with age verification requirements after seeing the traffic from Australian users growing in the past few months, with 40,000 Australian visitors per month as of March this year.
Using recently introduced codes requiring age verification for adult content, eSafety initially had sought to engage with the Argentina-based company about compliance, but it failed to respond, leading to the formal warning.
The company now has 14 days to meet the requirements, after which eSafety has flagged it could seek fines of up to $49.5m against the company, and issue delisting notices to search engines.
In September last year, the Albanese government pledged to pass legislation banning nudify services being used to generate non-consensual content, but without that in place, the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant indicated she was using her existing powers to take the action she could for now.
Inman Grant said:
I like many others struggle to see a positive use case for such services as it is, and services like these demonstrate where AI is causing irreparable harms today.
Thankfully, eSafety was able to ensure our world-leading codes required the purveyors and profiteers of such services to put measures in place to, at the very least, prevent children from accessing their platform.
$1m reward for information surrounding unsolved opal miner’s death
A $1m reward has been announced for information relating to the suspicious death of an opal miner more than 30 years ago, AAP reports.
Paul Murray was last seen alive on the outskirts of Lightning Ridge, an outback town in north-western NSW, on 19 March 1995.
Murray, then aged 40, owned an opal mining field about 8km north-west of the town and lived in a camp at the site. A local resident had picked him up and dropped him off at the edge of town, becoming the last known person to see him alive.
Murray was reported missing one week later. After an extensive search, two graziers found his body in scrubland, about 2km from his campsite. A postmortem examination found no obvious cause of death and no signs of trauma.
Authorities will again lift the reward on Wednesday, more than three decades on from Murray’s death, to $1m.
Josh Taylor
Consultation with tech sector on CGT changes about ‘unique arrangements’, finance minister says
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, says tech companies and startups have “unique arrangements” that required the government to consult with them on proposed changes to capital gains tax in last week’s federal budget, but the government had not taken a position on whether the sector will get a carve out from the changes.
Amid fury and memes from the sector over the change – which replaces the 50% tax discount on profits with cost-base indexation – Gallagher told ABC’s 7.30 there had been a “level of misinformation around how some of these changes will impact” businesses. When asked why the tech sector was being consulted after the budget, she said a final conclusion could not be reached until the budget was released.
Asked whether a carve-out for startups and tech companies was being considered, and if it would create a two-tier system for businesses in Australia, Gallagher said the government wants “to talk further with that sector about some unique features of their industry”, adding:
And I think that is a responsible thing to do.
She said the government “hasn’t taken a position on carve-outs” for particular sectors:
What we’ve said is we want to work with that sector to understand a little bit more about the concerns they are raising, and it is particularly about some of the costs … the way that their business is structured, particularly when they start, when they are early, young businesses – that we want to work through that with them further and the treasurer has undertaken to do that, and it is clear in the budget papers.
Gallagher said the government will be proceeding with its decisions in legislation to be introduced into parliament in the coming weeks, “and we would want to pass those bills as soon as [we’re] reasonably able to.”
NSW treasurer warns of slower growth ahead of next month’s state budget
Penry Buckley
The NSW economy will grow less than expected next financial year amid rising inflation and the global oil shock, the state’s treasurer will warn ahead of next month’s budget.
In a speech today ahead of the 23 June state budget, Daniel Mookhey will warn that NSW will only avoid a recession in 2026-27 because of the number of renewable energy projects now under construction in the state.
Prompted by the conflict in the Middle East, he has released treasury forecasts earlier than usual, which show the economy will grow by 1% next financial year, less than the 2.5% predicted at a mid-year review in December.
Mookhey has previously flagged this year’s budget will involve “difficult choices” about public spending. Following the federal budget, the Minns government has criticised the allocation of commonwealth infrastructure spending, adding to ongoing tension over the allocation of GST, after NSW received its lowest ever share in the allocation for 2026-27.
In his key pre-budget speech to the McKell Institute today, Mookhey will say that economic pain is more pronounced in NSW because typical working families in the state borrow more for their mortgages.
Attentive budget watchers will notice a slowdown more pronounced in NSW than elsewhere in the federation. The simple reason is that higher inflation has led to higher interest rates which is lowering consumption spending; the point of the [Reserve Bank of Australia’s] increased interest rates. But the more complicated explanation is this: higher interest rates hurt working Australians in every state, but they hurt working Australians more in this state.
Minister says reaction to the budget going ‘as we expected it to’
Catherine King, the federal infrastructure minister, said the reaction to the federal budget is going “as we expected it to”, adding the government was responsible for explaining the changes, and the rationale behind them, to the country.
King spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying there had been some misinformation about the budget, but added people would always be concerned about major economic changes.
She went on:
We think when you’re trying to do big, hard changes and big reforms, these are the sorts of things … and it’s our job to go out and explain it to people, and to sell it to people. I think it’s to be expected that there will be people and commentary from people who are concerned about those changes.
King was also asked if the government was concerned some business and innovation would move overseas after the changes. She said:
Australia is a good stable democracy, good stable economy, [with] lots of advantages over many other places in terms of investing and we want to make sure that continues.
Luca Ittimani
Afterpay to rename Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena as buy now, pay later booms
Buy now, pay later platform Afterpay has bought the naming rights to one of Sydney’s biggest arenas, expanding the reach of its payments plan in a multimillion dollar deal.
Afterpay says it has grown to 4.1 million active customers across Australia and New Zealand, with more than half of its Australian customers using its platform to buy live entertainment.
The company has established partnerships with Australian businesses’ peak bodies and is now moving into venue sponsorship. The 2000 Olympics-era Sydney Showgrounds venue, now known as Qudos Bank Arena, will be renamed Afterpay Arena later this year.
Under the new naming rights deal, the 21,000-capacity venue is also set to offer Afterpay’s flexible payments across ticket purchases.
Afterpay is understood to have paid several million dollars for the five-year deal, with similar partnerships typically valued between $10m and $20m.
Unusually for a naming deal, Square – the point-of-sale payment platform operated by Afterpay’s parent company, Block – will also be built into the arena’s food and merchandise sales.
Penry Buckley
Planning under way to implement safe nursing levels in NSW general wards
The New South Wales government says planning is under way for the next stage of its commitment to introduce safe staffing levels in all public hospitals.
In the coming months, the next phase of the Safe Staffing Levels rollout will begin to ensure a minimum of one nurse to four patients for morning and afternoon shifts in general medical, surgical and specialty wards.
It comes after the recruitment of more than 900 full-time equivalent staff to 78 emergency departments as part of a minimum commitment of at least one nurse for every three patients in emergency wards. The health minister, Ryan Park, says:
Increasing staffing levels is crucial to supporting our health workforce and relieving pressure on our hospitals. Safe Staffing Levels is an historic reform to strengthen care for patients right across NSW.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) has frequently raised concerns about understaffing under Coalition and Labor governments, including in regional communities and on maternity wards, as well as following two escapes by mental health patients from a western Sydney hospital earlier this year.
The government is working with the NSWNMA to finalise the first hospitals to benefit from the rollout. The NSWNMA general secretary, Michael Whaites, says the reform is crucial “for nurses and midwives who have been dealing with chronic staffing shortages in the health system for years”.
Good morning, and happy Wednesday. Nick Visser here to step up to the plate. Let’s see what’s in store.
Krishani Dhanji
Wilson launches ‘stand with small’ campaign for small businesses
Following Angus Taylor’s proposal to index income tax brackets and remove non-citizens from receiving social welfare, Tim Wilson will announce a campaign to support small businesses called … “stand with small”.
The shadow treasurer is promising a dedicated federal small business act with a single national definition for the sector and to set up legal maximum payment terms to small businesses from government and big business.
The Coalition will also consult on new minimum requirements for government procurement that must come from small business.
Wilson will tell the National Press Club that the Albanese government has “declared war on the self-starters and small businesses of the nation”, but the Coalition will fight for them.
Over the past year I have been speaking with small businesses across the country, and particularly about how the rules of the economy increasingly feel rigged against them.
And I have reached a conclusion: we have an economy designed for the 20th century, and I am no longer convinced tinkering at the margins will fix it. We need new economic structures for the 21st century.”
Treasurer an ‘inflation arsonist’, says Wilson
Krishani Dhanji
Tim Wilson will accuse Labor of a “bad faith budget” written by a “paper tiger treasurer” in his post-budget address to the National Press Club today. Typically after the opposition leader does the budget reply, the shadow treasurer gets to have their say at the club the following week.
The shadow treasurer will say the budget, handed down last Tuesday, continues to inflate costs for households and small businesses and punishes entrepreneurs.
Wilson will take aim at the impact of capital gains tax changes on businesses and startups – which have this week started a social media campaign with doctored AI generated images of the prime minister, calling him an extra partner with 47% equity.
The innovators, disruptors, risk takers and builders of this country have worked this prime minister out: he’s the guy in that group assignment that does none of the work, but still takes the grade.
This was a budget of narrative, over numbers. Revenue, without reform. A budget crafted by a paper tiger treasurer … The treasurer is the inflation arsonist cosplaying as the firefighter. He says he has the habit under control, but he keeps reaching for the fiscal jerry can.
See more of our coverage of the 2026 federal budget here.
Man dies, four others in serious condition after alleged Sydney shooting
Imogen Dewey
A man has died in hospital and four other men are in serious condition following an alleged shooting in Sydney’s south-west, NSW police said in a statement overnight.
Police were called to Liverpool hospital at around 8.30pm last night after reports two men believed to be in their 20s had shown up with multiple wounds.
One of the men died despite treatment, and is yet to be identified. The other man remains in hospital in a stable condition, police said.
Soon after, at 8.40pm, two men presented to Fairfield Hospital in a critical condition, and are still being treated.
Another man, believed to be aged 19, is in a stable condition and being treated at Liverpool hospital, where he appeared at 9.50pm last night, according to police.
Police established a crime scene at a home in Canley Heights, and investigations are ongoing.
Former governor general Peter Hollingworth dies at 91
Josh Taylor
The former governor general and Anglican archbishop of Brisbane, Peter Hollingworth, has died at the age of 91.
Hollingworth was appointed Australia’s 23rd governor general by the Howard government in June 2001. He stood down less than two years later following controversy around his handling of church sexual abuse reports.
Hollingworth had been Anglican archbishop of Brisbane for 11 years from 1990, and in 2003 a board of inquiry into the handling of complaints of sexual abuse found that Hollingworth failed to act on knowledge of sexual abuse and allowed two clergy to remain in the church despite knowing they had sexually assaulted children.
In a statement, the current Anglican archbishop of Brisbane, The Most Reverend Jeremy Greaves said:
Anglican Church of Southern Queensland acknowledges with deep regret the past failings of the church.
Anglican Church of Southern Queensland apologises unreservedly to those who have suffered abuse, distress, isolation, and harm caused by the Church’s failure to respond with integrity and care when it was needed most.
Hollingworth himself was not accused of abuse. He previously acknowledged he made mistakes, and apologised.
Hollingworth said previously he considered his failings almost every day but his actions were influenced by the advice of church lawyers and insurance companies at the time.
Good morning
Hi all, and welcome to another Guardian Australia live blog. Nick Visser will be with you shortly to steer you through the day’s news as it unfolds.
Former governor general Peter Hollingworth, who resigned over his handling of child sexual abuse in the Anglican church, has died at the age of 91.
Overnight in Sydney, one person has been killed and four more wounded in a shooting at Canley Heights in Sydney’s south-west.
And the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, is due to deliver his budget reply speech at the National Press Club later today.
We’ll have more on all this for you soon.
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