Exclusive: The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, which has access to NDIA data, used Palantir as part of a multi-agency fraud taskforce

Many of the more than 100 people awaiting processing on the tiny Pacific island are skipping meals to make ends meet, a new survey has found * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Most refugees and asylum seekers held in Nauru’s detention centres says they cannot afford to buy enough food or access clean drinking water, despite the Australian government spending the equivalent of more than $9m per person last financial year. The group of more than 100 people have been sent indefinitely to the tiny Pacific island while they wait for their asylum claims to be processed. Many of the cohort say they are skipping meals to make ends meet, according to a new survey by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) advocacy group. Continue reading...

An Australian parliamentary workplace watchdog was created to clean up bad behaviour in the seat of government – but some are questioning its efficacy

Plan to move 240,000 people off scheme leads states and territories to jointly warn they can’t ‘deliver like-for-like services to people who are exited from the NDIS’ * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast State and territory disability ministers have rung alarm bells over the Albanese government’s proposed overhaul of the NDIS, warning they can’t deliver “like-for-like services” for more than 200,000 participants expected to be shifted off the scheme by 2031. The Albanese government’s national disability insurance scheme bill is designed to dramatically curb the growth of the $50bn-a-year scheme by first reducing budgets and then the number of people who can access it from 2028. Continue reading...

Exclusive: ICE-linked private prison operator blamed for catastrophic security failures in Australia’s immigration detention network

Exclusive: Sweeping overhaul expected to be introduced to parliament Thursday as Greens warn proposal is ‘extraordinarily alarming’ Australians with a disability would first need to exhaust “all appropriate” treatment options for their impairment to be eligible for the national disability insurance scheme under strict entry criteria to help curb the program’s soaring costs. The proposed test is expected to start in 2028 and existing participants could be forced off the scheme if they don’t meet the requirement. Continue reading...

The major parties look like also-rans in the byelection on 9 May, with One Nation and an independent favoured to fight it out. Is this a minor curiosity, or a political earthquake?

Exclusive: Taskforce led by former Treasury official Anthea Long will advise on cost-cutting options for $52bn program * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Labor has quietly established a razor gang to drive budget savings in the national disability insurance scheme, as it works to further rein in costs ahead of next month’s federal budget. An NDIS Sustainability Taskforce was established within the health department earlier this year, with instructions from the federal government and national cabinet to advise on cost-cutting options for the $52bn program. Continue reading...

Details of flight come as One Nation leader faces scrutiny over her use of taxpayer-funded entitlements

In an interview with Sky News’ Andrew Clennell, Hastie ended any pretence that his grievances might have been purely numerical * Full report: Bondi terror attack * Victims of Bondi beach shooting * What we know so far about the Bondi terror attack As details of the Bondi beach massacre started to emerge on Sunday evening, Andrew Hastie posted a video with his immediate reaction to his large social media following. Standing at a beach, the sun yet to set over his electorate south of Perth, the Liberal MP said in a 60-second video posted to Facebook and Instagram: “I am angry, and I know you are too. Continue reading...

Legal team of man who was part of cohort of non-citizens freed after high court decision argues Nauru’s medical facilities are ‘insufficient’ to treat his severe asthma * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Lawyers for an Iranian refugee Australia wants to deport to Nauru say there is a “real risk he will die” there, setting the stage for a showdown against the federal government’s $2.5bn NZYQ deal. The case surrounding the Iranian refugee, known as TXCM, who was granted a 30-year visa for Nauru in February and subsequently placed back into immigration detention after being freed by the 2023 high court ruling, was heard in the high court on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Prohibited from working, people sent to the island by Australia say they are struggling to survive because food is so expensive * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Asylum seekers sent to Nauru by Australia say they are going hungry on the island, prohibited from working to support themselves and given insufficient money to buy enough food. Others say they fear the Nauru government will deport them to their home countries, from where they say they have fled persecution and violence. Continue reading...

Digital footprint offers clues about who may be involved in the political venture being promoted on pamphlets at the Put Australia First event in Sydney

Senate told Albanese government knew current president David Adeang was ‘seriously corrupt’ but still signed the $2.5bn deportation deal

In an interview kept secret since February, David Adeang wrongly stated the people Australia has begun deporting to his country are not refugees * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Nauru may seek to return refugees from the NZYQ cohort to their home countries, the Nauruan president has said, in an interview officially translated into English for the first time, and which the Australian government sought to keep hidden. David Adeang’s interview erroneously claimed those being sent to Nauru were not refugees and said Nauru may seek to return them to their countries of origin where possible. Continue reading...

Ever decreasing funding for the globally respected government agency mirrors an industry-wide trend that could hinder scientific breakthroughs * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Sweeping job cuts across the nation’s science agency this week have been foreshadowed for months, but the sheer scale of them has left many researchers within laboratories and offices across the country shocked. Up to 350 research roles are on the cutting room floor across key areas – including environment, human health and minerals – as leaders of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) attempt to steer the agency from a steep funding cliff. Continue reading...

Penny Wong says translation notes were ‘taken hastily’ by official who was not accredited translator and were ‘for internal purposes only’ * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A top secret translation of the Nauruan president’s public commentary on the NZYQ deal will remain suppressed for a decade after the Albanese government considered its release “inappropriate”. Nauru declined to endorse an informal translation by Australia’s High Commission of the 10-minute public interview uploaded to Facebook in February, nor did it provide its own translation, newly released documents reveal. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Sources say a Sudanese national and another man chartered to former regional processing centre last week, joining one other person

A kiss to the forehead marked the culmination of years of work to get Shamikh Badra’s 79-year-old Palestinian mother, Fatma, to Australia.

A kiss to the forehead marked the culmination of years of work to get Shamikh Badra’s 79-year-old Palestinian mother, Fatma, to Australia. * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Shamikh Badra couldn’t hold the tears back when he got to hold his 79-year-old mother, Fatma, for the first time in 11 years. Standing in the bustling arrivals hall at Sydney airport last Friday evening, as passengers streamed off a flight from Amman, Jordan via Singapore and were embraced by their families, he bent down to wrap his arms around her and planted a single kiss on her forehead. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Briefing by conservative think-tank Centre for Independent Studies was arranged by a Coalition backbench committee * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Coalition MPs weighing up whether to abandon net zero have been briefed on research that argued “heat deaths aren’t a thing”, played down the prospect of substantial sea level rises and claimed “no one has ever made low-cost energy” from wind and solar. Guardian Australia has viewed slides from a presentation the conservative thinktank Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) gave to MPs in Canberra this week, along with the findings of private polling on net zero. Continue reading...

Australian authorities have been accused of copying the ‘worst tactics of ICE’ in their treatment of the NZYQ cohort * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Adnan* says he had never heard of Nauru when Australian Border Force officers showed up at his door in the middle of the night to inform him Nauru had granted him a 30-year visa. Initially believing Nauru was part of Australia, Adnan felt a brief sense of relief before he realised he was being sent back to a place he had become uncomfortably familiar with – immigration detention. Continue reading...

Australian authorities have been accused of copying the ‘worst tactics of ICE’ in their treatment of the NZYQ cohort

National scientific agency has been ‘reshaping its research portfolio’ since 2024, to deal with an imminent funding cliff * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The mood in parts of Australia’s national scientific agency is low after a mystery number of AI, robotics and data researchers were quietly let go within the last year. Since the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation announced it was “reshaping its research portfolio” to deal with an imminent funding cliff in 2024, speculation about whose jobs are on the line has spread like wildfire. Continue reading...

The Australian government is spending millions of dollars a year to house asylum seekers, yet many say they can not afford food and are forced to skip meals

Australian human rights expert who was on UN commission of inquiry labels Israel’s strategy a failure that ‘has not brought peace and has not destroyed Hamas’

Exclusive: A sixteenfold increase in the original contract without public notification raises allegations of ‘gross mismanagement’ and a process ‘run out of control’

Several MPs say the activist group’s advertising push is becoming a problem for the party because ‘you cannot win from the margins’ * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Several Liberal MPs have raised concerns an anti-immigration campaign by the activist group Advance is hurting the party’s brand and alienating migrant communities. Analysis of Advance’s Meta advertising since May’s federal election shows it has promoted 44 anti-immigration ads, with more than 1.5m impressions. Continue reading...

Israel’s prime minister accuses Australian leader of ‘abandoning’ Jews as tension escalates over visa cancellation and Palestinian recognition

The move follows Australia’s refusal of a visa for the far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman

Charismatic senator Alex Antic has risen to the top of factional state politics, bringing his conservative religious supporters with him. Is it a roadmap for the national Liberal party’s existential c...

Poor management of contracts worth more than $3.5bn has led to critical failures, including during a Vanuatu cyclone humanitarian operation, the ANAO says * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Defence officials failed to properly document and investigate bribery allegations made against navy contractor officials, a scathing audit report on the multibillion-dollar commissioning and maintenance of two military ships has found. Defence also determined a senior official involved in finding a supplier to take on a $700m maintenance and upkeep contract – who took a job offer with the winning contractor in the middle of the process – did not give rise to a conflict of interest. Continue reading...

New offshoot named Advance Generations endorsed by former PM as group calls Welcome to Country ceremonies a ‘tool to indoctrinate’ children * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The rightwing lobby group Advance will court donations from deceased estates with the blessing of former prime minister Tony Abbott as part of its latest efforts to fundraise for its campaign war chest. Advance targeted the Greens at the latest federal election, claiming success after the minor party lost three lower house seats, including one held by former leader Adam Bandt. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Exclusive: Leaked documents claim Good Advice promised private deals, gathered signatures and hired land council members to smooth way for Northern Territory gas sales

Melika and Betissa visited the place they fled as children and fell ‘in love’ with its rich culture. But then bombs began to fall again * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Iran that Melika and Betissa rediscovered after 38 years was a “wondrous” land until, once more, the bombs began to fall. The Sydney sisters had fled their birthplace Iran as children in 1987, amid the violence and the tumult of the Iran-Iraq war. Continue reading...

Independent senator disputes Anthony Albanese’s claim allegations against Greens-turned-Labor senator have been ‘dealt with’

UK suspends trade negotiations over ‘monstrous’ rhetoric as Gaza starvation worsens

New York-based writer Anna Silman talks to Nour Haydar about the anti-feminist media telling women to be thin, fertile and Republican

New federal Greens leader says current political climate an opportunity for ‘real reform’ on environmental protections

Analysis of online ad data shows parties and affiliated groups spent more than $39m for political ads across Facebook, YouTube and Google search since 28 March

Benjamin Britton, standing in the seat of Whitlam, told a rightwing podcast Australia’s education system ‘brainwashed’ students with Marxist ideology, and praised Isle of Man flat tax

Letter from Knesset members addressed to Queensland LNP backbencher Andrew Wallace was distributed at event he hosted, attended by several Coalition MPs and senators

As you decipher how the budget may alter your life on Tuesday night, your politicians will be raking in the cash by wining and dining donors and lobbyists

There are 26,000 more APS employees than in 2022 but the bill for contractors has fallen from its Covid pandemic peak

Leah Blyth, the party’s state president, is most likely to take Simon Birmingham’s former seat in the upper house with Alex Antic’s backing * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Liberal party’s moderate wing is set to…

Figures reveal number of beneficiaries of temporary three-year visa since it was introduced by Labor in October * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Almost 1,000 Palestinian and Israeli nationals have been offered temporary…