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Labor M-P Josh Burns says the bid to ban extremist groups after the Bondi massacre is already working, with Australia's most prominent neo-Nazi group announcing they'll disband.
Draft laws up for debate next week would introduce a framework to outlaw hate groups that fall below the threshold designating them a terrorist organisation.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has suggested extremist organisation Hizb-ut Tahrir and the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network could be listed under the reforms.
Nationals senator Matt Canavan says he won't support the laws, arguing they could silence criticism of the government's immigration policies.
"The government's facing a lot of criticism rightly, in my view, about its migration policies, and there's no doubt in my mind that under these laws, legitimate criticism of migration policies, of the integration of peoples into our country, the importance of maintaining the Australian way of life could easily be construed here somehow a racist attack and you can be prosecuted for it."
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Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah says she has issued a formal defamation concerns notice to South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas.
In an escalation of the fallout following her disinvitation from this year's Adelaide Writers' Week, Dr Abdel-Fattah says Mr Malinauskas had made repeated public comments about her character in the week following her removal.
Dr Abdel-Fattah's lawyer, Michael Bradley of Marque Lawyers, says the notice gives the Premier an opportunity to "right the wrong", stressing that Dr Abdel-Fattah was open to a resolution.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Mr Malinauskas told reporters he was not aware that a concerns notice had been received.
"Everything that I've been saying, I've you know, throughout the entirety of this, my only motivation, and all the words that I've spoken have come from a place of a desire for people to treat each other civilly with compassion, in the interests of humanity more broadly, and seeing that within one another and will be able to judge my remarks for themselves, when they see them."
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Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has announced almost $100 million in federal and state funding for communities and businesses impacted by devastating bushfires in Victoria.
The recovery funding will include; $15 million to employ community recovery officers and set up recovery hubs, $16 million in financial assistance for households impacted by extended power outages, and an initial $40 million for primary producer grants.
Local governments will also receive almost $12 to kick-start clean-up efforts and local repairs and $4 million will go towards financial counselling for impacted communities.
Ms Allan says the government is focused on helping communities recover as quickly as possible.
"This announcement is building on that previous support and particularly focused on the recovery and rebuild and the first of the announcement goes to that point. The establishment of recovery hubs and community recovery officer s that will be there every step of the way on the recovery journey with household families, businesses and communities."
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Climate monitoring group Copernicus has confirmed that 2025 was the third hottest year on record, underscoring a trend already fuelling fires and floods in Australia in early 2026.
In 2025, the global surface air temperature was 1.47C degrees above the pre-industrial level, with temperatures now averaging above 1.5C degrees for three years.
Australia experienced record-high ocean temperatures in 2025, which drove widespread coral bleaching off the Western Australian coast and in the Great Barrier Reef.
Director of Copernicus Climate Change Service Carlo Buontempo says this is a global problem and needs global solutions.
"We are all on the same planet, and we need the data coming from all sorts of regions: Asia, the US, America, South America, Africa, and so on and so forth. So ensuring that data will keep flowing and will keep being made, taking observations is really important to understand where we are going. So I think this needs to be safeguarded. On the other hand, if we look at the solutions, it's clear that climate change is a global problem, and as such requires global solutions. "
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Convicted rapist Tom Silvagni has lodged an appeal against his convictions, less than a month after he was jailed for sexually assaulting a woman.
Silvagni was found guilty of two counts of rape in December following a two week trial in the Victorian County Court.
Silvagni denied he digitally raped the woman at his Melbourne home, but a County Court jury rejected his story, finding him guilty of two counts of rape on December 5.
He was jailed for six years and two months, with Judge Gregory Lyon describing the offending as egregious and callous.
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Global central bank chiefs, including R-B-A Governor Michelle Bullock, have lined in support of U-S Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell after the Trump administration threatened him with criminal indictment.
Mr Powell revealed Sunday [[11/01]] that the US central bank received subpoenas from the Justice Department about what he told Congress regarding the renovation of the Fed's headquarters.
He says the probe serves as a pretext meant to pressure the central bank to cut interest rates, as Donald Trump has been pushing for.
President Donald Trump says he's not concerned about the pushback.
"Yeah, I think it's fine what I'm doing. We have a bad Fed person. He was extended by Biden. And, yeah, I think he's wrong. I think he's done a bad job. We should have lower rates. Jamie Dimon probably wants higher rates. Maybe he makes more money that way."
In a statement, the head of the R-B-A, the European Central Bank, and nine other institutions say Mr Powell acted with integrity and that central bank independence is crucial for the stability of markets and prices.
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Dozens of people have been killed in a ferry boat accident in Mali.
Authorities say the boat hit rocks and sank as it tried to land in the town of Diré , a Niger River town in the Timbuktu region of northern Mali.
Witnesses say the boat was carrying families and farmers who had just harvested rice, arriving after nightfall when docking is banned due to security measures aimed at thwarting attacks by al Qaeda-linked militants in the region.
Local authorities had not yet released an official death toll, but regional resident and former National Assembly deputy Alkaidi Touré says 38 have been killed.
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To sport now and in tennis...
Daria Kasatkina's hopes of a securing a first title since her Australian nationality switch have been dashed, making a second-round exit at the Adelaide International.
Russian-born Kasatkina fell to world Number 35 Jaqueline Cristian 6-4 6-0 on Wednesday, the disappointment coming after booking a rousing first win in front of her new home fans.
It was the Romanian's first win over Kasatkina in three attempts, continuing her strong form after eliminating fourth-seeded Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova in the first round.
Former world Number 8 Kasatkina, now ranked Number 48, is on the comeback trail after ending her 2025 season in October to take a mental-health break.
