Australia news LIVE: Tax bill to progress to Senate after passing lower house; Hezbollah rejects ceasefire, darkening prospects of ending Iran war

Hello and welcome to our national news live blog for Friday, June 5. 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.

• The first tranche of the government’s budget tax legislation passed the lower-house yesterday unamended. The package combines into one bill the $250 income tax offset and $1000 instant deduction for workers, as well as curbs on negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. The legislation will now progress to the Senate, where Labor is in minority and reliant on either the Coalition or the Greens to pass the reforms.
• A US plan to hit 60 countries, including Australia, with new tariffs has been widely condemned by the government and opposition. Trump’s plan would subject Australian goods to a 12.5 per cent levy – a 2.5 per cent increase on the 10 per cent tariff currently in force. Trump claims the tariffs are a response to anti-slavery violations.
• One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce was caught short on Sky News last night when Andrew Bolt pressed him for details of the party’s call to outlaw foreign ownership of housing in Australia. Bolt revealed that Joyce made calls after the interview to check the housing policy and then asked to re-record his answer.
• There are no signs a new ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will hold. Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah has rejected a peace agreement with Israel and demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Israel said it would not withdraw troops from the country. With Iran making a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with the US, the prospect of an end to the war still seems unlikely.

Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume has accused the government of being “sneaky” in its passage of tax legislation, as she left the door open for a deal with the Greens to extend inquiries into budget legislation.

“Two days [of inquiry] is nothing like enough, apparently. These are generational reforms. If they’re generational reforms. Well, surely they should have been taken to an election, so that the Australian people could decide that’s when you get the appropriate scrutiny. But they haven’t been,” Hume told ABC radio this morning.

“So it’s up to us in the Senate to get this done. Two days simply is not enough. There is no need to rush these changes through, because they don’t kick in until 2028 So, if that’s the case, why on earth the government is trying to hide from scrutiny is beyond me. And quite frankly, I think it demonstrates just how sneaky they’ve been about these tax changes.”

Asked whether the Coalition was willing to trade a longer tax inquiry for a deeper dive into changes to the NDIS, Hume indicated a deal could be on the table.

“The Coalition have made it very clear that we support change to the NDIS. It’s been a program that’s run well out of control, and it does need integrity measures put around it to make sure that it’s sustainable into the future,” Hume said.

“That said, we shouldn’t hide from scrutiny. I think it’s well worth having a look at, if that’s what the Greens would like in exchange for a longer inquiry into tax measures that they support. I think that’s perfectly fair.”

As One Nation MPs Barnaby Joyce and Sean Bell spruik the party’s plan to ban foreign ownership of Australian property, it’s probably a good idea to get some context on the current rules.

Temporary residents and foreign persons are banned from purchasing established dwellings in Australia, with a few exceptions, according to the Australian Taxation Office.

These restrictions on property ownership do not apply to citizens and permanent residents.

There is also a carve-out for those involved in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility program. The program facilitates Pacific Islanders and people from Timor-Leste working in unskilled, low-skilled or semi-skilled positions in Australia when there are not enough local workers available to fill the roles.

These rules are in place until at least the end of the 2028-29 financial year.

The fine detail of One Nation’s policy has not been released, but based on comments from Joyce and Bell it appears the party would abolish rules channelling foreign ownership into only new housing stock and replace them with a blanket ban.

In one of his first major media appearances, One Nation senator Sean Bell has attempted to explain his party’s position to foreign ownership of housing in Australia after MP Barnaby Joyce’s mix-up on the policy during a Sky News interview last night.

We reported earlier this morning that Joyce was caught short when Andrew Bolt pressed him for details of the party’s call to outlaw foreign ownership of housing in Australia.

Asked on Sky this morning whether the party’s policy meant foreigners with properties in Australia would be forced to sell their homes, Bell said: “So it’s going to depend on the type of visa they’re on”.

“We need to look at making sure those, you become Australian citizens, or they are required to make sure those homes become available for Australia. We believe that homes should benefit Australians first.”

The government has defended its passage of tax reforms through the House of Representatives, after the opposition and crossbench accused Labor of ramming the legislation through.

Speaking on ABC Radio National this morning, Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the government had allowed 17 hours of “exhaustive” debate in the chamber, and said a two-day inquiry into the package would be sufficient.

“They’re really important once-in-a-generation changes. They involve two tax cuts for millions of Australians, the working australian tax offset, and the instant tax deduction,” Mulino said.

“They also, of course, involve really important measures to make it easier for first home buyers and younger Australians to get into the housing market, dealing with issues such as negative gearing and capital gains tax changes supported by the Howard government that have long needed attention.”

Health Minister Mark Butler has defended the government’s plan to allow permanent residents to access its first home buyer scheme amid threats from the Coalition that it would strip access for residents who were not Australian citizens if it were elected.

“Permanent residents … Are building careers, they’re building businesses, they’re having children, and we want them to enjoy the full Australian dream, which includes getting into housing.

“Some in my electorate have been here literally for decades, British, Italian migrants, recently people from India and China, so they are here for life. Of course, we’d love them as soon as possible to go out and take the citizenship test and go to the ceremony as well. But they are here for life, and we want them to enjoy the full Australian dream,” Butler said on Seven’s Sunrise today.

He also took aim at a policy slated by the opposition that would seek to strip migrants, including permanent residents, of access to welfare programs.

Independent MP Dai Le lashed out at the president of the ALP, Wayne Swan, this morning, saying the government’s tax reforms should have been debated in parliament before the legislation was pushed through.

The MP for Fowler said the reforms did nothing to address housing supply, especially in densely populated suburbs in her electorate such as Liverpool and Fairfield.

“This reform does not actually build a single new house, and we know that you have, you will not, address the cost of the supply, the cost of building a house,” she said on a panel with Swan on the Today show.

Le said the government should have instead considered removing GST applied to the purchase of new homes to bring down the cost of buying a house.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah militia rejected a new ceasefire in Lebanon and demanded Israel withdraw troops from the country which Israel refused, undermining US President Donald Trump’s efforts to halt fighting there to forge peace with Tehran.

Iran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with Washington, and has suggested in recent days that it could intervene directly if Israel keeps up attacks there.

However, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected a US-brokered agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government to halt the fighting. Hezbollah had not been party to the negotiations. There was no immediate response from Israel, Lebanon or the US.

Israel kept up strikes in southern Lebanon, and Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would not be withdrawing from the area or halting operations in the country, which they invaded in March in parallel with the war in Iran. The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force – which established Hezbollah in 1982 – said Israel must at a minimum withdraw to positions it held before the war began.

Reuters

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce was caught short on Sky News last night when Andrew Bolt pressed him for details of the party’s call to outlaw foreign ownership of housing in Australia.

Party leader Pauline Hanson has said since at least November 2024 that foreign owners should be given two years to sell up their properties, and “If the property is not sold, it should be repossessed by the federal government”.

Bolt asked Joyce twice if this meant that permanent residents would also have to sell their homes.

The former Nationals leader said yes.

Hello and welcome to our national news live blog for Friday, June 5. 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.

• The first tranche of the government’s budget tax legislation passed the lower-house yesterday unamended. The package combines into one bill the $250 income tax offset and $1000 instant deduction for workers, as well as curbs on negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. The legislation will now progress to the Senate, where Labor is in minority and reliant on either the Coalition or the Greens to pass the reforms.
• A US plan to hit 60 countries, including Australia, with new tariffs has been widely condemned by the government and opposition. Trump’s plan would subject Australian goods to a 12.5 per cent levy – a 2.5 per cent increase on the 10 per cent tariff currently in force. Trump claims the tariffs are a response to anti-slavery violations.
• One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce was caught short on Sky News last night when Andrew Bolt pressed him for details of the party’s call to outlaw foreign ownership of housing in Australia. Bolt revealed that Joyce made calls after the interview to check the housing policy and then asked to re-record his answer.
• There are no signs a new ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will hold. Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah has rejected a peace agreement with Israel and demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Israel said it would not withdraw troops from the country. With Iran making a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with the US, the prospect of an end to the war still seems unlikely.