Australia news live: McCarthy welcomes ‘milestone’ as one Closing the Gap target reached; three dead in Sydney house fire | Australia news
Closing the Gap target for early preschool enrolments officially reached
Douglas Smith
One of the 19 Closing the Gap targets has officially been reached after early childhood education enrolment for First Nations children hit 95% across the country.
Released by the Productivity Commission today, the annual data compilation report showed an increase from 61.3% enrolments in 2016 (the baseline year), to hitting the 95% mark across every state and territory today.
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, said although it was a “significant milestone”, state and territory governments should “back in” their commitments as other targets continued to worsen.
This result is encouraging, as are improvements in eight other targets including employment and education.
However, it is very concerning that we are still seeing outcomes worsening for early childhood development, children in out-of-home care, incarceration rates and suicide.
Our government remains committed to Closing the Gap; working in partnership with First Nations communities, building on what is working and investing in the areas where we can make the greatest difference to generational change.
State and territory governments must also back in their commitments under the national agreement with investments and policies that improve outcomes for First Nations people.
You can read more about the targets here, in Sarah Collard’s story from earlier this year:
Key events
Josh Taylor
Atlassian tightens tracking of staff AI use
Software firm Atlassian has sought to tighten tracking of its staff’s AI spending by introducing “wallets” with monthly caps of up $2,000 for each employee, amid an explosion in costs at other tech companies.
The move by Atlassian, which recently cited AI as part of the reason behind cutting 1,600 staff, bucks the trend of others in the tech sector who encouraged employees to use as much of the technology as possible, dubbed “tokenmaxxing”. Some companies have reportedly introduced leaderboards for employees who used the most AI in their work.
Tokens refer to the measurement of a response AI gives to a prompt. OpenAI has said one token is about four characters, and something like the US Declaration of Independence amounts to 1,695 tokens. OpenAI’s flagship model, GPT-5.6 Sol, has a charge of US$5 for every 1m tokens, while Anthropic’s Claude Fable and Mythos models are US$10 for every 1m tokens.
Under tokenmaxxing, the costs quickly add up.
Read more here:
Minister says meeting Closing the Gap target a major step, but more work needed on others
Malarndirri McCarthy, the minister for Indigenous Australians, said early childhood education enrolment for First Nations children was a milestone in the effort to reach the Closing the Gap targets.
McCarthy spoke to RN this morning, saying:
It is important to see this milestone achieved, and that is because of the work of the Aboriginal and community controlled sector and those involved in the preschool sector. … Clearly, the challenges with all the other targets remain, but I do take heart at the fact that this has been achieved.
The minister was asked about other targets, including those surrounding incarceration, which continue to worsen. She said:
It’s very, very difficult to deal with these situations where you have particular pieces of legislation that see the high incarceration rates of First Nations people. What that means is that we have to go harder, we have to keep pushing the states and territories around the justice factors. Clearly, that is a real concern.
Finance minister says inflation figures ‘encouraging’, but ‘uncertain times’ will likely have ongoing impact on economy
Katy Gallagher, the federal minister for finance, said yesterday’s inflation numbers were “encouraging”, but the country still had a “job ahead of us”.
Gallagher spoke to RN Breakfast, saying the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and surging oil prices had led to continued uncertainty, “and that will certainly have an impact” on inflation and the economy.
I think we are living in very uncertain times. There’s a lot of global instability. … We saw it the last time the Middle East war increased. We saw that impact on inflation … We will see some of what’s happened in the last month flow through [into the economy].
Gallagher also maintained the government’s line that the end of the fuel excise discount is imminent, saying the measure was always meant to be temporary. She said a discount for the heavy vehicle road user charge was also meant to be temporary and would come off.
Trust among Australians drops to decade’s lowest point, poll finds
Australians’ trust of each other has hit the lowest point recorded this decade, with a new university poll also showing average life satisfaction has hit rock bottom, AAP reports.
The Australian National University (ANU) June 2026 poll shows average life satisfaction has dropped to the lowest level recorded since they first started asking those questions consistently in 2023.
The report states its findings reveal a “population under considerable strain”.
ANU Prof Nicholas Biddle told AAP he was shocked to see interpersonal trust had fallen to 5.32 out of a scale of 10. This drop is below levels recorded during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
The way Australian’s feel about how the country’s democracy operates also fell significantly, dropping nearly 3% to 62.8%.
However, those surveyed indicated they still support democracy as a governance system.
Victoria to push for crackdown on hidden ticketing fees
Kelly Burke
Victoria will push for a national crackdown on hidden ticketing fees and deceptive dynamic pricing practices when Australian consumer affairs state ministers meet with the commonwealth’s assistant minister for productivity, competition, charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh, in Darwin today.
Victoria’s consumer affairs minister, Paul Edbrooke, has written to the federal government seeking national reforms to address unfair practices in the ticketing industry, amid growing concerns over the dominance of a small number of major players in the Australian ticketing market.
Edbrooke said the sale of tickets to major events increasingly involved “limited transparency about terms and conditions, hidden fees and charges, and tactics that exploit consumers into making rushed purchasing decisions or that make consumer purchases unduly difficult, to maximise prices”.
The minister pointed specifically to ticketing companies not publishing prices before consumers were partway through the purchasing process, and to the use of “potential undisclosed dynamic pricing” where prices shift, usually upward, in response to demand.
In his letter to Leigh sent last week, Edbrooke said:
This situation is exacerbated by the increasing dominance of a small number of very large players in the Australian ticketing market. There is an urgent need for targeted nation-wide action to address these consumer harms.
A spokesperson from Edbroke’s office said the minister intended to raise the issue at today’s consumer ministers network, and lobby for further reforms under the Australian Consumer Law that would mandate fairer ticketing pricing practices.
Good morning, and happy Thursday. Here’s hoping you saw the full moon last night. Nick Visser on the blog once more, let’s get into it.
Childcare safety training launched to detect grooming
Krishani Dhanji
The government has announced the second stage of its mandatory safety training for childcare workers will begin Friday, focused on preventing child safety concerns and detecting grooming.
It follows serious safety breaches and a number of high-profile arrests of childcare workers in multiple states for the alleged abuse of children in childcare centres.
The education minister, Jason Clare, says the first stage of training has been completed by 99% of early educators, which focused on staff conduct and reporting obligations.
In a statement he said:
Our early educators are the best asset we’ve got to keep our children safe. They had six months to do the first stage of the mandatory training and 99 per cent of them completed it within 4 months. It tells you a lot about how seriously they’re taking this.
This year the government has also established the childcare worker register, and is working on nationalising the working with children check.
Three dead in Sydney house fire
Three people have died following a house fire in Sydney’s south-west last night, NSW police said.
Emergency services were called to a home on Cornelia Street, Wiley Park, at about 9.45pm following reports of a fire.
Fire and Rescue NSW crews attended and extinguished the blaze which caused extensive damage to the property.
Following a search of the home, the bodies of three people were located inside.
Officers from Campsie police area command have established a crime scene, and an investigation is underway into the circumstances surrounding the fire.
Closing the Gap target for early preschool enrolments officially reached
Douglas Smith
One of the 19 Closing the Gap targets has officially been reached after early childhood education enrolment for First Nations children hit 95% across the country.
Released by the Productivity Commission today, the annual data compilation report showed an increase from 61.3% enrolments in 2016 (the baseline year), to hitting the 95% mark across every state and territory today.
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, said although it was a “significant milestone”, state and territory governments should “back in” their commitments as other targets continued to worsen.
This result is encouraging, as are improvements in eight other targets including employment and education.
However, it is very concerning that we are still seeing outcomes worsening for early childhood development, children in out-of-home care, incarceration rates and suicide.
Our government remains committed to Closing the Gap; working in partnership with First Nations communities, building on what is working and investing in the areas where we can make the greatest difference to generational change.
State and territory governments must also back in their commitments under the national agreement with investments and policies that improve outcomes for First Nations people.
You can read more about the targets here, in Sarah Collard’s story from earlier this year:
Jillian Segal to front royal commission hearings
The special envoy to combat antisemitism will make another appearance in the royal commission’s hot seat today, Australian Associated Press reports.
Jillian Segal, who was appointed to the role by the federal government in 2024, will testify to the royal commission today when it examines education and training in handling antisemitism, as well as its effectiveness.
In a report released in 2025, the special envoy called for Holocaust and antisemitism education to be put in place in national and state school curriculums.
The education plans would be coordinated with government, independent and Catholic school systems.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. Jillian Segal, the government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism, will testify to the royal commission today when it examines education and training for fighting antisemitism, as well as its effectiveness. More coming up.
One of the 19 Closing the Gap targets has officially been reached after early childhood education enrolment for First Nations children hit 95% across the country. More coming up.
I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser with the main action.
