Australia news LIVE: Sydney, Melbourne property prices fall sharply; Trump sends tougher peace deal terms to Iran

Hello and welcome to our national news live blog for Monday, June 1. My name is Emily Kaine, and I’ll be helming our coverage for the first part of the day. Here’s what is making news today.

• Price growth across the national property market has ground to a halt, new research shows, with steep falls in Melbourne and Sydney as higher interest rates, stretched affordability and the federal government’s overhaul of tax incentives combine to suppress values.
• Significant amounts of Russian timber are entering Australia after being laundered through China and other countries, evading tariffs imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sparking demands for government action. The phenomenon – similar to the flow of Russian “blood oil” into Australia after being processed overseas – means that thousands of Australian home builders could be inadvertently aiding Putin’s war effort.
• The Australian sharemarket is set to slip today, with futures on Saturday pointing to a loss of 13 points, or 0.2 per cent, at the open. The Australian dollar was trading at US71.71¢ at 5.18am AEST.
• The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has climbed to 260 as officials updated their estimates of the outbreak’s size and international health organisations warned of the risk of further spread. Aid groups have said that without urgent intervention, this could be the world’s deadliest Ebola outbreak ever.
• And US President Donald Trump has toughened the conditions of a proposed peace deal to end the war with Iran, and sent his updated conditions to the country for consideration, three officials told The New York Times.

Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson has brushed off the Coalition’s low polling, saying the opposition can form government at the next election.

“We’re a political party that’s focused on building out a story and vision for the future of Australia. What Australians are right now is despairing of the state of this government,” Wilson told ABC radio.

In the latest Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll published by The Australian Financial Review, One Nation received primary support of 31 per cent, above Labor at 28 and the Coalition at 20. In the most recent Resolve Political Monitor, published by this masthead, Labor was ahead at 29 per cent, followed by One Nation at 24 per cent, and the Coalition at 23 per cent.

“We have a prime minister who has betrayed the community, who has broken a series of promises, and people are in despair and desperate for change. We need to be better and make sure that we clearly communicate to the Australian community what we’re going to do, but I’m absolutely convinced that not just we will be here in the next parliament, but we will go on to win,” he said.

Labor and Liberal MPs have responded to new polling published by The Australian Financial Review overnight that shows One Nation surging to first place, ahead of Labor and the Coalition.

In the latest RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll published by the masthead, One Nation received primary support of 31 per cent, above Labor on 28 and the Coalition on 20. In the most recent Resolve Political Monitor, published by this masthead, Labor was ahead at 29 per cent, followed by One Nation on 24 per cent and the Coalition on 23.

“I think that poll reflects the fact that many Australians, particularly workers, are feeling the pressure at the moment of interest rate rises. They’re feeling the pressure paying their mortgages and cost-of-living increases associated with the war in the Middle East,” Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite told Sky News.

“A lot of them think that the current system is broken. That no matter how hard they work, they can’t get ahead, and they’re particularly frustrated with the taxation system and the housing market, but that’s exactly what Labor is acting to fix.”

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has brushed off a question over her newest federal MP David Farley, who said he would display the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in his office.

The party and leader have been opposed to flying flags other than the Australian flag, saying that should they come to power, they would not have them displayed in the chambers of parliament.

Asked about Farley’s comments, made to The Border Mail, Hanson said: “That’s the first I’ve heard about it. To tell you the honest truth, I don’t run David Farley’s office with his staff or his decision-making. We work together as a team, so that’s clearly his choice.”

“He’s the elected member of parliament. It’s not something that I would, I do myself. And actually, my view is there won’t be, if I was to be prime minister or leader in this country, there won’t be three flags on the floor of parliament. I can assure you that,” Hanson said.

“There won’t be a Welcome to Country either. So, anyway, we have a point of difference there, don’t we? But that’s his office, he can do whatever he wants to, but our policy is only one flag, and that’s the Australian flag.”

Farley was elected at the Farrer byelection last month, picking up the first House of Representatives seat at an election for the party.

Sticking with Pauline Hanson’s comments yesterday, the One Nation leader has confirmed she is considering a move to the House of Representatives at the next election, as new polling shows her party overtaking Labor.

“It’s a consideration by all means. It is in the mix, but I’m not making a decision now, and I’m not going to tell anyone what I’m doing at this moment because I haven’t clearly made up my mind,” Hanson told Sky News last night.

“It will be a discussion that I will have with the team around me, with my other members of parliament, and it will be based on political strategy,” she said.

Hanson sits in the Senate at present, but with surging polling she has begun openly considering a move to the lower house where she could hold the position of prime minister should her party’s polling convert to votes. There has been speculation that Hanson would run in a number of Queensland electorates, including Capricornia, Oxley, Blair and Wright.

In polling published in The Australian Financial Review yesterday, One Nation received primary support of 31 per cent, above Labor at 28 and the Coalition at 20. This is the first and only major Australian poll to show One Nation leading the primary vote, after months of surging support.

“The Albanese Labor government is the worst government I have ever seen, even their backbenchers are rising up against this, these tax cuts,” Hanson said. “They don’t know how to sell it to the people. That tells you there is clearly a dictatorship that goes on within the Labor Party in the caucus.”

Staying with Abbott’s appearance on the Today show, the former prime minister has refused to criticise One Nation’s Pauline Hanson as he reiterated his support for Angus Taylor.

Asked whether he thought Hanson could be prime minister, he said: “Look, I’m not into disparaging someone who has been around and has shown a lot of resilience and consistency over the years, but I do believe that the strong Liberal-National Coalition has proven again and again that we are capable of giving Australia the good government our country so desperately needs.”

Abbott also dismissed the suggestion that he should have made a political comeback by running in the next election.

“Look, Angus Taylor is a very good friend of mine. I’ve never met a better man than Angus Taylor. He’s a man of intelligence, conviction, decency. I want him to be our 32nd prime minister,” he said.

Abbott has invoked the Bondi massacre as an indicator of Australia’s “national decline” as he argued society had fragmented under Labor.

“Our society is fragmenting, Our strategic situation is deteriorating. This government is making everything worse … In the end, this is a government that doesn’t really believe in Australia,” he told Today.

“Particularly after the Bondi massacre, which I thought was a dreadful milestone in our national decline, I felt it was really important to get all hands on deck to try to bring our country back to what it should be.”

During his address at the Liberals’ two-day federal council meeting last week, he accused the government of showing ambivalence to the country, which he said was exemplified by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “refusal to stand in front of just one national flag”.

Newly appointed Liberal Party president Tony Abbott is “confident” that he can turn things around for the party as he spruiks his new role and defends the Coalition’s record against new polling that shows popular support for the party is floundering.

The former prime minister told the Today show on Nine this morning that he could help restore public confidence in the Liberals and the Coalition, and claimed that the last government to deliver on outcomes for everyday Australians was his.

Abbott served as PM from September 2013 to September 2015.

“If you look back to the record of Liberal governments, we did scrap taxes, we did cut migration, particularly illegal migration, and we didn’t have an emissions obsession, and it’s so important that we persuade people that the best way to make things better is to have a government which is actually capable of that,” he said.

Senior ministers have responded this morning to new polling showing One Nation overtaking Labor in popularity.

The latest The Australian Financial Review/RedBridge Group/Accent Research poll reveals primary support for Pauline Hanson’s party has jumped four percentage points to 31 per cent since the pre-budget poll a month ago, while Labor’s primary vote has fallen three points to 28 per cent.

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek told Seven’s Sunrise program that the government was not “driven” by polls.

“Of course, we’re interested in polls, but they don’t drive us. What we’re concerned to do is understand that people are feeling the pressure, and we are all about reducing that pressure,” she said.

“I think if Pauline Hanson wants to be prime minister, as she said in that interview yesterday, it’s time for One Nation to start talking about how they could deliver … because every opportunity they’ve had, they’ve actually voted against things that would make it easier, make life easier for Australians.”

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Amanda Rishworth refused to say whether the government was worried about the poll, dodging repeated questions on Nine’s Today show.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said last night she believed she could lead the country.

Speaking to Sky News Sunday Agenda, she said she had the “ability” to be prime minister.

“I won’t knock the job … I’m not going to underestimate myself or say ‘No, I can’t do it’, because you know, have a look at what we’ve got now … And that’s why we’re in a mess,” Hanson said.

“But I’m not making a decision now, and I’m not going to tell anyone what I’m doing at this moment, because I haven’t clearly made up my mind.”

Price growth across the national property market has ground to a halt, with steep falls in Melbourne and Sydney as higher interest rates, stretched affordability and the federal government’s overhaul of tax incentives combine to suppress values.

Figures from property data firm Cotality published today show that through May, during which the Reserve Bank pushed official interest rates to 4.35 per cent and Treasurer Jim Chalmers outlined changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, capital city property values were static.

But in Sydney, overall values fell by 0.9 per cent to be down by 2.1 per cent over the past three months. The drop was driven by houses, with values falling 1.1 per cent to be down 2.5 per cent since the start of the year. The median value of a Sydney house went through the $1.6 million mark in February. It has now subsided to $1.58 million.

In Melbourne, total dwelling values slipped another 0.8 per cent to be down by 2.3 per cent for the quarter. Again, the value of houses dipped further, down 1 per cent to a median of $958,000 compared with a 0.4 per cent drop in the value of units.

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