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TRANSCRIPT
- Inflation skyrockets due to the war in the Middle East- and there could be worse to come
- The search continues for a missing five-year-old in the Northern Territory
- Melbourne Demons appoint Stan executive as new boss
The conflict in the Middle East has caused inflation to skyrocket - and federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers admits it could get worse.
The headline inflation rate for March has been revealed as 4.6 per cent, the highest such figure in two and half years, and up from 3.7 per cent the month before.
Dr Chalmers says the closure of the strait of Hormuz caused petrol prices to increase by 33 per cent in March.
He says he is at least being honest with the Australian people about the less-than-ideal circumstances both now, and in the future.
"Now, some of these numbers came in a bit better than what was anticipated by the market, and so, Treasury and the Reserve Bank and others will factor that in to the forecasts as they get updated. But certainly, the expectation is that these oil shock pressures will continue to play out in inflation in our own economy... that the impacts of what we are seeing in the Middle East will not just intensify in the inflation figures, but also broaden out. And we have been upfront about that."
The federal opposition says excessive government spending has played a big role in lifting inflation, not just the conflict in the Middle East.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is accusing Treasurer Jim Chalmers of trying to deceive Australians.
"Higher government spending drives up inflation. And this government, this Treasurer, is in complete and utter denial. He comes out each day and tries to gaslight the Australian people, and tell them that black is white and white is black. I mean, he's hopeless"
The President of the Australian Human Rights Commission has expressed his support for the right of Australian children to return from a detention camp in Syria.
Fierce debate has raged over what should happen to them, amid reports four women and nine children have left the Al-Roj camp in Syria to travel to Damascus, with the aim of travelling from there to Australia.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has said security agencies are preparing for their return, while the Opposition has declared their mothers chose to be affiliated with a terrorist organisation, the IS group.
Human Rights Commission President Hugh De Kretser has told the National Press Club that not everything that has happened to these people is their fault.
"Some were children were children when they went there, went with their families who took them there, some likely were forced by partners to go there. And so, they are Australian citizens. They have a right to return to our country. If they have committed crimes, they should face the law. They can't happen in north-east Syria. It can happen here in Australia."
A local South Sudanese community group has joined Indigenous groups, other volunteers, and police in searching for a missing girl on the outskirts of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
Police believe Sharon Granites was abducted by 47-year-old Jefferson Lewis on Saturday night - and that there are people who know where Mr Lewis is.
Assistant Commissioner Peter Malley says the hunt is made harder by the suspect's lack of use of modern technology.
He says police have had to go back to using the most basic methods to try and find Mr Lewis, a man with a violent history, who had only been out of prison for six days.
"You know, it is going back to 1930s policing without that digital footprint. This man doesn't have a telephone, he doesn't have a bank account, he doesn't have a car. So, some of the usual practices we do in 2026 are not applicable. Hence, the amount of resources we have on the ground. We are knocking on doors, we are going through houses, it is old-style policing, and it is a hard slog."
India has become the largest source of foreign-born Australian residents.
The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show 8.8 million people living in Australia were born overseas, which is 32 per cent of the population, the highest rate of overseas-born people in Australia since 1892.
About 971,000 people living in Australia were born in India, with England marginally behind that.
It is the first time England has been displaced in this category since records started being kept in 1891.
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And in AFL, the Melbourne Demons have appointed Stan executive Dan Taylor to replace Paul Guerra, who was sacked just seven months after officially starting as boss.
Taylor already sits on the club's board as a non-executive director and will take over from interim chief executive Brian Cook in the coming months.
His appointment has been announced just a day after Guerra was sensationally dumped by the Demons, prompting him to flag legal action against the club.
During Guerra's short tenure, the Demons have flourished under first-year coach Steven King and boast a 5-2 record to sit fourth on the AFL ladder.
