Labor backs Greens inquiry into gas export tax – as it happened

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What we learned today, Monday 30 March

That’s all for the blog today. Here is a recap of the top headlines:

Fugitive Dezi Freeman, the man accused of killing two officers at Porepunkah, has been shot dead after a seven-month manhunt in rural Victoria. Follow our separate live blog for updates.
Anthony Albanese has halved the fuel excise in a move that will save motorists 26 cents a litre for three months from 1 April.
Angus Taylor has shut down Andrew Hastie’s push for the Liberals to be “open-minded” to increasing taxes on gas companies and winding back concessions for property investors, exposing a clash of philosophies between the opposition leader and his most likely future rival.
The prime minister also shifted his language on the US-Israel war on Iran, saying he wanted to see a de-escalation and “more certainty” around Donald Trump’s objectives.
The Victorian Liberal leader, Jess Wilson, says the man who defeated Moira Deeming for the top spot on the party’s upper house ballot is “not welcome” on her team, after it was revealed he wrote a court character reference for a friend convicted of grooming a 15-year-old girl.
And Labor has supported a parliamentary inquiry into the tax regime for oil and gas companies in a further sign the prime minister is open to pursuing changes ahead of the May budget.

Thank you for tuning in.

Updated at 02.32 EDT

Joe Hinchliffe

Second man charged with manslaughter after frog toxin death

A second man has been charged with manslaughter over a man’s death at a ceremonial ritual allegedly involving ayahuasca and the frog toxin “kambo” in the northern rivers of New South Wales.

Cameron Kite, 41, appeared at Lismore court this morning alongside Soulore Solaris, 52, after they were both charged with the manslaughter of Jarrad Antonovich, who was 45 when he died in October 2021 at a retreat at Collins Creek near Kyogle, about 60km from Byron Bay. Police confirmed Kite’s charge today.

Police will allege Solaris supplied Antonovich with ayahuasca while hosting a retreat at the property and delayed seeking medical treatment when the man’s health deteriorated.

Solaris was arrested on 3 March and charged with manslaughter before being released on bail. Kite was charged on 17 March, also with manslaughter.

The first committal appearances were over within minutes, with the date of 25 May set for prosecutors to submit a brief of evidence and 10 June for a pre-service mention.

An earlier police statement said officers and emergency services attended a property on Gonpa Road, Collins Creek, after reports a man had collapsed at about 12.40am on Sunday 17 October 2021.

He could not be revived by paramedics.

Neither Solaris nor Kite was required to submit a plea and both will be excused from appearing at the next hearing.

Updated at 02.08 EDT

Amanda Meade

Union has ‘constructive’ talks with ABC boss at Fair Work Commission

The journalists’ union says a Fair Work Commission meeting with the ABC managing director, Hugh Marks, was constructive and positive but no outcome had been reached.

“The commissioner facilitated really constructive discussions and we’re continuing to work through it,” the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance director Cassie Derrick told AAP.

double quotation markIt’s been really positive today. The next step is to go back to our membership.

On Thursday more than 2,000 ABC staff around Australia walked off the job for a 24-hour strike after negotiations over a pay rise broke down, and Marks asked the Fair Work Commission to facilitate talks between the two parties.

Staff rejected the offer of a 10% total pay rise over three years – 3.5% in the first year and 3.25% in the second and third years. They said it was too low and failed to address concerns about the staff appraisal process, career progression, night shift penalty rates and reproductive health leave.

In January, Australia’s annual inflation rate was 3.8%.

Hugh Marks arrives at the Fair Work Commission in Sydney. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAPShare

Updated at 02.12 EDT

Andrew Messenger

Three weeks of Brisbane rail disruption to begin on Friday

Three weeks of disruption of the South East Queensland rail system will begin this week, with upgrade works planned on several lines.

Track closures will begin on Friday 3 April, affecting the Sunshine Coast, Caboolture, Redcliffe, Doomben, Shorncliffe, Airport, Gold Coast and Beenleigh lines until 11 April.

Closures will continue on the Beenleigh, Doomben and Gold Coast lines from 12 April until Anzac Day, 25 April, with minor service alterations on other lines.

The 23 days of rolling track closures had been scheduled for the school holidays, the acting Translink head, Dean Helm, said.

“If you are travelling during this period, I encourage you to plan ahead, consider your transport options, and allow plenty of travel time,” he said.

Helm said there would be “plenty of rail replacement bus services” during the closures.

The closures would allow work on a range of transport projects, including Cross River rail supporting works, Logan and Gold Coast faster rail and general track maintenance, according to the Department of Transport and Main Roads.

A train at Brisbane’s Domestic Airport station. Photograph: Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty ImagesShare

Updated at 01.58 EDT

Queensland man charged over alleged online death threat to federal parliamentarian

Queensland police say a 47-year-old Logan man has been charged with sending an alleged threatening message online to a federal parliamentarian.

Investigations began on 25 March after the AFP received a report of online threats, including a threat to kill a parliamentarian. AFP National Security Investigations (NSI) officers linked the man to the alleged threats.

Police subsequently executed a search warrant on the man in Logan on Friday 27 March and seized electronic devices.

The man has been charged with one count of using a carriage service to make a threat to kill. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.

He is expected to face Beenleigh magistrates court on 1 May.

Det Supt Bill Freeman of the AFP said:

double quotation markPublic officials, like anyone else in Australia, have the right to conduct their duties without receiving threats or abusive messages.

The AFP commissioner, Krissy Barrett, announced the establishment of NSI teams in October 2025 to target groups and individuals causing high levels of harm to Australia’s social cohesion, including targeting federal parliamentarians.

Updated at 01.41 EDT

Benita KolovosVictorian premier Jacinta Allan. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAP

Jacinta Allan said the government would also introduce legislation to parliament this week to strengthen fuel security arrangements in Victoria. Similar laws were introduced in Tasmania last week.

Allan said:

double quotation markWe will be bringing legislation to the parliament this week to strengthen the fuel security arrangements here in Victoria. This will be done by requiring fuel suppliers to provide data about supply and distribution of fuel, providing Victorians with more information and more transparency.

The energy minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said the legislation would amend the existing Fuel Emergency Act:

double quotation markThis is an act of parliament that exists now for a number of decades. And as part of our continuing improvement and continuing contingency planning around the fuel crisis that we are seeing globally, and of course here in Australia, it is important that we ensure all the laws and regulations that we have available to us as a state jurisdiction are up-to-date, they are modern and ready to go if we ever need to use them …

The legislation will be making it absolutely clear in legislation that outside of an emergency declaration, that where a government requires data be provided by the liquid fuel supplies in our state, that we can require them to actually provide that information. This is about not just understanding what this level of fuel available is to our state but where that fuel is also going … across the state.

Updated at 01.33 EDT

Benita Kolovos

Fuel excise cut complements Victoria’s free public transport, Allan says

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is holding a press conference after the national cabinet meeting this morning.

She says she welcomes the federal government’s decision to cut the fuel excise and reduce the heavy road vehicle user charge, which she says complements the state’s decision to make public transport free for the month of April:

double quotation markThis is going to provide meaningful support for households. It’s going to save them money when they go to fill up at their local service station – that’s money that can go back into the household budget to pay for those other bills that sit on the kitchen table, the mortgage, the rent, the grocery bills that are putting real pressure on households.

Updated at 01.24 EDT

Labor backs Greens inquiry into gas taxDan Jervis-Bardy

Labor has supported a parliamentary inquiry into the tax regime for oil and gas companies in a further sign Anthony Albanese is open to pursuing changes ahead of the May budget.

The government backed a Greens motion in the Senate on Monday afternoon to establish a select committee to examine the tax settings for Australia’s oil and gas resources, including “any proposals for changes to the tax treatment of gas production and export”.

Supporters of a new gas export tax have been energised by revelations the Treasury was modelling options for a new levy to capture windfall profits from gas and thermal coal companies, as well as potential changes to the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT).

The Greens are part of a growing campaign pushing for a 25% gas export levy, which Australia Institute research estimates could raise $17bn a year.

The select committee, which will be chaired by the Greens’ Steph Hodgins-May, is scheduled to hand down its findings five days before the 12 May budget.

In a statement, Hodgins-May said:

double quotation markThis inquiry into a gas tax comes at a crunch moment. The gas cartel is poised to cash in on global conflict while Australians are being smashed with rising bills at home.

Updated at 02.22 EDT

Ben Doherty

AFP charges six men over alleged multinational cocaine-importation scheme

Six members of a merchant vessel intercepted by the French navy in French Polynesia have been charged by Australian federal police over an alleged multinational cocaine-importation scheme.

The six men – from Honduras and Ecuador – were detained in French Polynesia sailing a modified 40-metre vessel that had three specially constructed smuggling hides.

The hides, police allege, were built in Central America to secret drugs being smuggled across oceans. The vessel, the MV Raider, was first intercepted in international waters in January this year. The French navy found, seized and destroyed 4.8 tonnes of cocaine before the Raider and its crew were released in accordance with the laws of French Polynesia.

But police suspected an Australia-based crew operating on behalf of a larger criminal syndicate was looking to rendezvous with the MV Raider to conduct an at-sea transfer within Australia’s economic exclusion zone.

The Raider was intercepted 180 nautical miles off the NSW coast in late February and Australian Border Force officials and NSW police marine area command interviewed the ship’s crew, telling them they would not be permitted to enter any Australian port.

The MV Raider at anchor in Sydney Harbour. Photograph: AFP

On 12 March 2026, the Raider placed a distress call to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, reporting mechanical issues and critically low supplies. The vessel was escorted into Sydney Harbour by NSW police the next day. The crew was taken to Villawood immigration detention centre.

A sweep of the crew’s electronic devices found evidence more drugs were stored onboard. AFP investigators, assisted by ABF Maritime Operations NSW, executed a search warrant on the ship in Snails Bay, in Sydney Harbour, last week.

The AFP seized documents and electronic devices, including a satellite phone, allegedly used by the crew to coordinate the distribution of cocaine within Australian waters.

The boat is believed to have held up to six tonnes of cocaine.

Commander Brett James said the AFP was alert to organised criminal syndicates attempting to import drugs into Australia in custom-built motherships.

James said:

double quotation markWe know that criminals go to extreme lengths, and often risk their own lives, to smuggle drugs into Australia with no regard to the harm they cause.

Multiple people have been rescued from the ocean in recent years after hitting trouble while allegedly trying to collect cocaine consignments.

Investigations into the origin of the drugs and who has collected them remain ongoing, and we will work with our international and domestic law enforcement partners to identify the criminal syndicates – and anyone else – involved in facilitating this alleged cocaine import.

Updated at 01.14 EDT

Andrew Messenger

Brisbane’s Star casino turns to private credit for refinancing deal

Brisbane’s long-struggling Star casino has executed a $550m refinancing deal with a private American credit provider.

The enormous inner-city casino – which is partway through construction – has been struggling to stave off administration for years. The company was found to be unsuitable to hold a casino licence in 2022 and was issued $100m in fines, after an inquiry by the former judge Robert Gotterson.

Its board repeatedly appealed for tax relief in 2024 and 2025 from the state government.

The company announced to the ASX on Monday that it had entered a binding commitment to refinance its debt with private credit investment manager WhiteHawk Capital Partners, based in California.

Private credit is a way to access secure financing outside the traditional banking system or from shareholders.

The three-year deal, worth about $550m Australian, will be used to “facilitate the turnaround plan being implemented by the new Star management team”, according to a February ASX announcement. It is subject to terms imposed by the lender, including documentation requirements.

The Star casino at the Queen’s Wharf precinct in 2024. Photograph: Darren England/AAPShare

Updated at 02.17 EDT

Ben Doherty

Australia is party to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty – the Treaty of Rarotonga – which prohibits the stationing and deployment of nuclear weapons in party states.

But the Australian government has said there is “no impediment” to US submarines or aircraft armed with nuclear weapons visiting Australia, insisting that any such visit would not breach Australian or international law.

The US maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” around its nuclear deployment and it refuses to confirm or deny whether aircraft or seagoing vessels capable of carrying nuclear weapons are, in fact, carrying a nuclear warhead.

That ambiguity would apply to US submarines docking at Australian ports, and to nuclear-capable B-52 bomber aircraft landing at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory.

“We respect the United States position of neither confirming nor denying,” the Australian defence department secretary, Greg Moriarty, told the Senate in December.

The declaration calls for Australia to:

Sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Reject nuclear ambiguity and prohibit the entry, transit or presence of nuclear weapons in Australian territory, waters and airspace.
End all forms of assistance to nuclear weapons activities, including targeting, command, control, planning or enabling operations that support the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.

The co-chairs of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Marianne Hanson and Tara Gutman, told the Guardian:

double quotation markThe only way to avoid nuclear catastrophe and to discourage more states from seeking their own nuclear weapons, is to uphold and vigorously defend international law and to implement the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – a treaty which seeks to ban nuclear weapons for all states.

In moments of crisis such as these, the temptation is to close ranks. The responsibility of middle powers like Australia, however, is in fact the opposite: to insist that the rules matter most when they are most inconvenient.”

Updated at 00.54 EDT

Ben Doherty

No Nuclear Weapons in Australia declaration signed

More than 150 civil society and advocacy groups from across Australia, Asia and the Pacific have signed a No Nuclear Weapons in Australia declaration, arguing that Australia’s expanding military integration with nuclear-armed allies – in particular the US – will see Australia hosting aircraft and ships carrying nuclear weapons, as well as playing a significant role in nuclear weapons planning, control, targeting and threats.

The declaration states:

double quotation markToday, escalating global tensions, renewed nuclear threats, expanding nuclear arsenals and the end of arms-control and disarmament agreements have pushed the risk of nuclear use, by accident or by intent, to its highest level in decades.

No health service in the world would be capable of responding to the devastation even a single nuclear weapon could inflict on a city’s people, and even a “limited” nuclear war in one region would cause abrupt climate disruption and starvation worldwide.

As civil society organisations committed to peace, justice, human dignity and a living planet, we raise deep concern about Australia’s current trajectory towards increasing involvement in the command, control, targeting, hosting and possible launch of nuclear weapons from Australia.

Updated at 00.48 EDT

Krishani Dhanji

That’s it from me today, thank you for joining me on the blog!

I’ll leave you with the wonderful Ima Caldwell for the rest of the afternoon, and see you back here bright and early tomorrow.

ShareWestpac predicts three more rate hikes and rising unemploymentPatrick Commins

Westpac believes the Reserve Bank of Australia will be forced to deliver three more rate hikes over coming months to combat an inflationary surge linked to the spike in fuel prices.

The RBA has already lifted its cash rate twice this year, and Luci Ellis, Westpac’s chief economist, predicted hikes in May, June and August would drag heavily on the economy.

Under the revised outlook, unemployment would lift from 4.3% to about 5%, as higher borrowing costs weigh on activity and hiring.

Ellis said:

double quotation markThe halving of fuel excise, announced by national cabinet today, reduces the near-term outlook for headline CPI inflation, but a peak of 5.4% in the [year to the] June quarter remains likely.

Westpac’s Luci Ellis. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Westpac analysts had thought the most likely scenario was that the strait of Hormuz would stay closed for eight weeks.

But Ellis said the more pessimistic set of forecasts “reflects the longer disruption to, and slower recovery in, fuel supply”.

double quotation markIt also reflects the surprisingly rapid pass-through of higher fuel and other oil-derived product prices into other prices in Australia.

Three more rate hikes would leave the RBA’s cash rate at 4.85%, the highest since late 2008.

A Commonwealth Bank analyst this morning said the Middle East conflict would extend into June and potentially beyond.

Updated at 00.58 EDT

Tl;dr here’s what happened in question time

After the government announced it would halve the fuel excise, the Coalition tried to hammer Labor over service station closures and impacted industries.

The government tried to stay on message, listing all its actions and measures taken so far, but unlike last week, Chris Bowen didn’t give us a state by state breakdown of service stations that have run out of fuel.
The independent MP Sophie Scamps asked the treasurer about housing tax reform, which he didn’t completely shut down, but deferred to cabinet procedure.
The independent MP Rebekha Sharkie asked the aged care minister about the home care assessment system (it’s been controversial to say the least, and you can read more about that here).
Honestly, it was pretty tame today, there were fewer interjections than normal and no one got kicked out (and there was a noted absence of zingers).

Treasurer Jim Chalmers during question time. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare

Updated at 00.59 EDT

Question time ends

After a final dixer to Michelle Rowland, the PM calls time on QT for the day – just two to go this week.

SharePM evades question about number of petrol stations out of fuel

Liberal MP Tom Venning is up next and says farmer Josh in his electorate says he’s waiting on fuel and if he can’t get some in the next 10 days – with growing season approaching – it will “cost our business in the long run”. Venning asks the PM how many service stations are out of fuel.

Anthony Albanese tells Venning to give him farmer Josh’s phone number: “I’m happy to personally have a discussion with him and do what I can to help him.”

Things get a little icy for a moment, as Angus Taylor shouts across the table “they’ve suffered enough”.

Albanese replies:

double quotation markYour current leader says they have suffered enough. Well, you either want to help this guy or not? If you want, give us the info, we will follow it up and do what we can.

Dan Tehan gets up to make a point of order, saying Albanese isn’t answering the question, which was how many service stations have run out of fuel. Milton Dick says he can’t compel a number out of the PM.

Updated at 00.22 EDT

Labor backs Greens inquiry into gas export tax – as it happened | Australia news

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