Australia news LIVE: Chalmers to hand down federal budget tonight; Australians leave hantavirus ship; Trump says ceasefire ‘on life support’

Good morning and welcome to our national news live blog for Tuesday, May 12. My name is Emily Kaine, and I’ll be helming our coverage this morning.

• Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down the government’s federal budget tonight at 7.30. The government has flagged major changes to the tax system and property, as well as a focus on balancing intergenerational inequity. We will bring you budget updates throughout the day here on our blog.
• Five Australian residents and a New Zealander will be held in a COVID-era quarantine facility outside of Perth for three weeks, after potentially coming into contact with a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean. None of the people returning to Australia has shown symptoms. Three people on board the cruise ship have died after contracting the disease.
• Overseas, a man accused of storming the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner while armed with guns and knives pleaded not guilty to charges that he attempted to kill US President Donald Trump and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer who tried to stop the attack.
• And the UAE has been secretly carrying out attacks on Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The report comes as Trump says the ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran is “on life support”.

Opposition spokesman for industry and sovereign capability Andrew Hastie says his party has no interest in forming a coalition with One Nation, and that “the feeling is mutual”.

“No, I’m not open to that. I don’t think One Nation want us as a coalition partner. I don’t think we want One Nation as a coalition partner,” he told Sky News.

“We don’t want to be in a coalition with them, they don’t want to be in coalition with us.”

Hastie also criticised the government ahead of tonight’s budget, claiming the budget would be one of “broken promises and higher taxes”.

“It’s a more competitive and dangerous world,” Hastie said. “That’s why this budget should be about strengthening in Australia.”

Health Minister Mark Butler says the Australian passengers who were on board the hantavirus-hit MV Hondius have arrived in the Netherlands where they will be transported to a hotel quarantine facility while their flights home are finalised.

Speaking to ABC’s News Breakfast program this morning, Butler said, “We’re confident they’ll be back over the course of this week.”

He said DFAT was organising repatriation flights for the Aussie passengers, and that they would be in place “very, very soon”.

The returning travellers will be held in a COVID-era quarantine facility outside Perth for three weeks.

The treasurer said the rise of populism in Australia, demonstrated by developments like One Nation’s win in Farrer on Saturday, is a response to the pressures and anxieties faced by everyday Australians.

“I think the housing market and the tax system is not working for a lot of Australians, and tonight, we seek to address that … I don’t dismiss or deny the very real concerns that a lot of Australians have about their ability to get a toehold in the housing market,” he said.

“More broadly, this is one of the main issues playing out in our society … Tonight’s budget is not a political document or a political strategy. It’s an economic plan to deal with some of these economic issues, but at the same time, it will respond to a lot of the pressures and anxieties that people are feeling, which is driving them to consider some of the parties outside of the mainstream.”

Chalmers said the Australian Labor Party was “the last one standing in the sensible centre of Australian politics”.

Chalmers started his doorstop by acknowledging the environment of extraordinary global instability amid ongoing disruption to oil supply and increased pressure on inflation.

He said there would be five major packages in tonight’s budget: a fuel security package, a package focused on cost of living and housing, a productivity package, a tax reform package, and a savings package.

“There will be more than the usual amount of savings and more than the usual amount of reform in the face of more than the usual amount of global economic uncertainty,” Chalmers said.

He reiterated the budget would be ambitious, particularly given the context of developments such as war in the Middle East.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is holding a doorstop upon his arrival at Parliament House in Canberra to answer questions from reporters about tonight’s budget. Follow along with our livestream.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government would deliver a “big reform budget” that had a focus on housing.

“What you’ll see is some changes tonight in the way that the tax system works, but also in driving supply,” he told Nova Adelaide. “People will have to wait for the detail [tonight], no more sleeps to go.”

“This is a big reform budget, building resilience in our economy, but also really tackling some issues that have been kicked down the road essentially for too long. The dream of home ownership is becoming so difficult for young Australians in particular, and they raise it with me, but so do their parents and grandparents.”

Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume says tonight’s budget will be a “real test for Jim Chalmers” amid a national and global landscape of economic instability.

“People are really doing it tough. Their standard of living has gone backwards so far and so fast in the last four years. They are very angry indeed. This is going to be a real test for Jim Chalmers this week to see whether they can restore Australians their standard of living, supporting families and small businesses, restore our national security,” she told Nine’s Today show this morning.

“We’re seeing higher taxes as the answer to every problem. That’s not a solution that Australians want to hear.”

Hume batted away suggestions her party did not have the credibility to suggest alternatives to the budget following their loss in Farrer over the weekend.

“One byelection does not an election make,” she said. “People are going to be looking for an alternative.”

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said the government’s focus in today’s budget would remain on housing supply while it also explores other ways to alleviate the “entrenched” housing crisis.

“We need to build more houses in this country,” Gallagher told ABC News Breakfast during a media blitz this morning.

“But we also need to look at all of the different impacts and levers available to government to respond to this housing challenge,” she said.

“It’s an entrenched issue, and we need to make sure that we’re all pulling all the levers available to make sure younger people can realise that dream of home ownership, which so many want, but at the moment, are finding it so tough to get into the housing market.”

Nationals leader Matt Canavan says the tax changes flagged in the government’s federal budget are “not only a broken promise, but a missed opportunity”.

“They’re a missed opportunity for the government to do something to help lower the cost of living for Australians, to bring down the inflation rate, which is the highest in the developed world … and also to help get interest rates down to take the pressure off the Reserve Bank,” he told Sky News this morning.

Canavan’s remarks follow the news that Albanese would renege on his pledge not to touch investor tax concessions in today’s budget.

The prime minister said yesterday his government would present Australians with a set of numbers to justify walking back his promise.

As the government prepares to hand down what Treasurer Jim Chalmers has called its most ambitious budget yet, The Australian reported tonight’s budget would include a new tax deduction worth $250 per person to be claimed from 2027.

The Working Australian Tax Offset (WATO) will be one element of a budget Chalmers has repeatedly said would focus on intergenerational inequity and right imbalances in the tax system.

The treasurer will hand down the budget at 7.30pm.