Australia news LIVE: Strait of Hormuz to open; Australia hit by post-budget economic pessimism; Expanded shark drones after attack

Good morning and welcome to our national news live coverage for Tuesday, June 16. Here’s what’s making news today.

US-Iran peace agreement: The Strait of Hormuz will be opened toll-free for 60 days under the unreleased peace agreement between the US and Iran, but its longer-term operation will be subject to negotiations, American officials said.

Politics: Less than a third of people think the May budget will be good for them or the nation, while public assessment of Jim Chalmers’ performance as treasurer has fallen to its lowest level ever.

Business: Embattled consulting group KPMG has effectively been banned from new federal government work while the Department of Finance reviews its suitability as a contractor.

Energy: The NSW government’s $1 billion renewables fund has chosen its first project, investing $100 million in battery projects.

Workplace: Casual and part-time workers will be included in new laws protecting the rights of Victorians to work from home, with the state government set to introduce legislation into parliament this week.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson has confronted Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth over the government’s tax changes in a fiery broadcast exchange in which he accused her of needing a breathalyser.

Moments into answering her first question on Nine’s Today this morning about the two-day Senate inquiry that is under way, Wilson interrupted to say: “Oh, get real Amanda.”

“Two days is not a timeframe to be able to make submissions,” he said, speaking over Rishworth. Wilson said her response that stakeholders were given the chance to have their say was “BS”.

“Not all of the submissions have been published yet by the parliamentary inquiry. This is a railroad effort.”

Pauline Hanson says her rise in popularity has come as a result of people “really hurting” under the current government.

“There was a decline before that, but under this government it’s got worse,” Hanson told 2GB this morning.

Hanson said she was “gobsmacked” by a multimillion-dollar surge in donations to her party, some of which will go towards a “Fire the Liar” ad targeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during State of Origin tomorrow night.

Polling yesterday showed Hanson as the preferred prime minister, and her party pipping Labor as Coalition support further eroded to a record low. The government has until May 2028 to call an election.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said the effective ban on KPMG from bidding on Commonwealth contracts, after executives were accused of using sensitive information for financial gain, showed the government was taking the whistleblower scandal seriously.

A review into the consulting group’s government work – worth hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts – was under way and would report in September, the senator said.

“We’re very concerned about the allegations that have been made by the whistleblower and KPMG’s response to that,” Gallagher told the ABC.

“We’ve determined that it is a significant event under our procurement rules. There’ll be a review into their engagement with Commonwealth contracts, and in the meantime, they’re stopping bidding for work.”

Gallagher defended not extending the ban to existing contracts.

“We are being very proactive about this. We expect suppliers who earn the privilege of working for the public should have the highest ethical standards, and we’re concerned about the issues and allegations that have been raised, and are responding in a very strong way.”

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said time would tell what a peace deal between the US and Iran would mean for Australia as the government weighs up a final decision on whether to extend the fuel excise cut.

The prime minister yesterday said a call on extending the cost-of-living relief beyond its June 30 expiry would be made in coming days.

“The impacts of the war on the Middle East have hit home here and have really put households under pressure, which led to our decision around halving the fuel excise for a period of time,” Gallagher told Radio National.

“This is something we keep under consideration. It was meant to be a temporary relief during this conflict. We know that there’ll be a tail to this conflict. In terms of how [it] impacts on prices and households, [that] remains to be seen.”

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson told the ABC’s 7.30 last night that if the government chooses to extend the excise cut, it should find an offset for the inflation risk.

Gallagher said that home owners would also be closely watching the Reserve Bank decision today – economists have tipped the bank will keep the cash rate on hold – while the government was focused on reducing cost-of-living pressures outside the fuel excise.

One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce said Pauline Hanson would have no problem operating as a leader on the world stage after the prime minister suggested she could not effectively negotiate with diverse world leaders due to her rhetoric on immigration.

“It’s complete tripe,” Joyce said on Today. “I mean, do you think Donald Trump has a problem negotiating with world leaders?”

Joyce went on to accuse the Coalition of copying One Nation on its immigration stance. Angus Taylor’s proposed policy would tie migration to housing completions.

“We say that, you know, you can only bring people into Australia to the capacity you have to absorb them,” Joyce said.

Israel may represent an obstacle to the progression of the US-Iran peace agreement as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would not withdraw from land seized in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.

On Monday, Netanyahu said the agreement between the US and Iran was Trump’s decision. Israel was not party to the memorandum of understanding signed electronically at the weekend.

Netanyahu said Israel has its own interests, primarily protecting against a potential nuclear threat from Iran. He said Iran wanted Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, but he stood firm, saying Israel would remain in the buffer zone “as long as necessary”.

“I tell you, citizens of Israel, the struggle is not over. We will need to continue to be vigilant, to remain strong and determined, to defend ourselves as necessary,” he said.

with AP

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has defended the government’s budget and vowed to keep trying to explain it to voters, more than a month on from the announcement of Labor’s proposed tax changes that incurred swift and viral backlash from business owners.

“The [housing] system wasn’t working, it needed to change, and our reforms do that,” Gallagher told Sunrise.

“We’re going to have to keep fronting up and keep explaining those changes, but we’re already seeing at auctions on the weekends first home buyers getting a better crack at the auction market, and that’s welcome.”

Gallagher said some reactions, such as entrepreneurs threatening to move overseas where taxes were lower, were “unfounded”.

“Part of that is us explaining these changes – they are big changes. This is a big tax reform. Tax reform is hard. We have to keep explaining it, but for the vast majority of people, [with] the tax cuts in this budget, the Working Australian Tax Offset, 13.3 million Australians will be better off. And we have to continue to explain the budget and the reasons why we’ve done it.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would ban social media sites for under 16s and impose restrictions on gaming and live-streaming platforms.

The sweeping changes will “give kids their childhood back”, Starmer said as he outlined measures against Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and other platforms, as well as gaming sites that allow strangers to contact children.

“It will make a huge difference, it will make our children safer, it will make our children happier, it will give them more time, more security, more freedom to grow up, more opportunity.”

Social media companies, however, said a blanket ban could push young people onto riskier platforms that did not offer the protections they had introduced.

Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steven Pearce says a temporary exemption to fly drones for shark surveillance above Coogee Beach, on the flight path to Sydney Airport, will be made permanent for the organisation after discussions with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

“They’re going to change part of the regulation instruments to give us specific sole approval to fly at Coogee,” Pearce told 2GB this morning.

“We still have to talk to the flight tower when we’ve got drones there, we still need spotters with our pilots, so there’s still some regulations there, but it enables us now to fly drones consistently at Coogee Beach along with all the other parts of the eastern suburbs.”

Australians are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the state of the national finances, with just 9 per cent of people expecting the economy to improve in the next month, compared with 41 per cent who expect things to get worse and 42 per cent who expect things to stay the same.

Only a quarter of Australians expect economic conditions to improve in the next year, while 44 per cent of people expect things to get worse, findings from the latest Resolve Political Monitor survey show.

Similarly, just 23 per cent of people say the budget is good for them and their household, compared with 36 per cent of people who believe it is bad. Almost 30 per cent of people said the budget was good for the country, while 35 per cent said it was bad. Just over two-thirds of voters were undecided on both questions.

These are some of the worst numbers of any budget since Labor returned to power four years ago.

Read the full story.