Australia news LIVE: US service member killed in Iraq, One Nation soars in NSW poll

Good morning, and welcome to our national news coverage today. It’s Monday July 20, I’m Jessica McSweeney and I’ll be bringing you all the latest headlines as news breaks today.

First, let’s take a look at what made headlines overnight:

• The housing industry is demanding a review of the government’s changes to borrowing through self-managed super funds, warning thousands of planned new homes will be abandoned while state budgets will suffer a $450 million hit to their bottom line.

• Pauline Hanson’s Spotlight special aired last night, including her call for mass deportations and a claim that convicted criminal and far-right activist Tommy Robinson would be welcome in Australia if she was prime minister. You can read the full recap here.

• An investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes has found common medical devices are causing serious harm to Australians.

• The Coalition and Labor have each recorded their lowest support in NSW in recent memory: almost half of the state’s voters have told pollsters they will abandon the major parties at next year’s election.

Israel’s military said Iranian missiles launched toward the Jordanian port city of Aqaba, beside the Israel border, could spill over, warning Israelis to expect the first air-raid sirens in weeks.

Eilat, the Israeli city that neighbours Aqaba, cited security officials as saying two interceptors were launched from its outskirts to prevent the fall of debris.

During the latest fighting, Iran has focused attacks on US-allied Arab states rather than Israel, which launched the war alongside the US on February 28.

“We are prepared to immediately resume combat,” the Israeli military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said it was “astonishing” that Pauline Hanson would speak badly of Australia on the world stage, after the One Nation leader attacked migration levels at a conservative conference in London.

“When I travel overseas … we talk Australia up as representatives. I find it astonishing that Pauline Hanson has travelled overseas in order to denigrate and talk down Australia,” Albanese told reporters in the Northern Territory, where he was announcing a $10 million upgrade of the Royal Darwin Hospital.

“What we need to do as public representatives is take our responsibility seriously. We live in the best country on earth, and we are the envy of the world for the society that we have built together, with the services that we have – including Medicare – I’m very proud of. We have a health and hospital system that is the envy of the world, and ... when I’m overseas, I talk Australia up. Pauline Hanson has travelled overseas to engage in various activities with fringe people and to talk Australia down. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Washington: US Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, announced the birth of their fourth child – the first born to a sitting vice president in more than 150 years.

Born on Sunday, Alec Neel Vance joins older siblings Ewan, 9; Vivek, 6; and Mirabel, 4.

Vance announced the birth on social media with a statement signed by him and his wife.

“We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning. Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,” the statement said.

They thanked doctors and staff at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre and the White House medical team.

AP

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is visiting Royal Darwin Hospital this morning where he is due to speak to the media.

You can watch the press conference, due to begin shortly, here:

Iran’s atomic energy agency said the latest wave of US strikes targeted the construction site of a planned nuclear power plant in the country’s southwest, state television reported.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC of the Darkhovin nuclear plant site showed earth clearing but little construction, as of July 9. Iran did not previously announce it as being targeted.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the site, in the “very early stages of construction,” contained no nuclear material when the U.N. watchdog last visited.
AP

One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has defended Pauline Hanson’s comments that Australia’s problems began after the White Australia Policy was abolished, insisting the party does not support reintroducing the policy.

Joyce was speaking on the Sunrise program after Hanson told far-right activist and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson that Australian immigration issues “started in 1973 with Gough Whitlam”.

Joyce said One Nation does not support the White Australia Policy.

“Over time, we got a section of people who didn’t want to really assimilate with Australia, who didn’t work within the guardrails of Australia, and therefore we started moving away from Australian culture to having to encompass a whole range of views, some of which are just not conducive to an egalitarian, easygoing society,” Joyce said.

Just a quarter of new medicines launched globally in the last decade have been subsidised in Australia, putting life-changing treatments out of reach for patients, in a situation that pharmaceutical companies warn is becoming untenable.

Eighteen key innovative treatments for cancer, mental illness, cardiology, immunology, rare diseases and infectious disease that are transforming people’s lives overseas are not available under Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Medicines Australia, the peak pharmaceutical industry body, says local patients are missing out because of a complex and lengthy approvals process that is turning off drug companies, as the Trump administration stokes global pricing pressures.

Read the full story from Natassia Chrystanthos here.

A US service member was killed on Saturday “during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance” in northern Iraq, US Central Command said.

The unexploded ordnance was from a “downed Iranian one-way attack drone”, Central Command said in a statement posted on X early on Monday (AEST). A second service member was wounded in the incident and was being treated for a minor injury.

The announcement came a day after the US reported the deaths of two other US service members following an Iranian attack on a base in Jordan.

The new Central Command statement also said that “unidentified remains” had been found at the site in Jordan during a search for a service member who was reported missing following that attack.

Good morning, and welcome to our national news coverage today. It’s Monday July 20, I’m Jessica McSweeney and I’ll be bringing you all the latest headlines as news breaks today.

First, let’s take a look at what made headlines overnight:

• The housing industry is demanding a review of the government’s changes to borrowing through self-managed super funds, warning thousands of planned new homes will be abandoned while state budgets will suffer a $450 million hit to their bottom line.

• Pauline Hanson’s Spotlight special aired last night, including her call for mass deportations and a claim that convicted criminal and far-right activist Tommy Robinson would be welcome in Australia if she was prime minister. You can read the full recap here.

• An investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes has found common medical devices are causing serious harm to Australians.

• The Coalition and Labor have each recorded their lowest support in NSW in recent memory: almost half of the state’s voters have told pollsters they will abandon the major parties at next year’s election.