Key events
News Corp considers offers for Foxtel
Jonathan Barrett
The Rupert Murdoch-backed media conglomerate News Corp will consider offers for its pay television platform Foxtel, which includes the Kayo and Binge streaming services.
Chief executive Robert Thomson said in a company earnings release that potential buyers had emerged while News Corp was reviewing its portfolio of assets.
That review has coincided recently with third-party interest in a potential transaction involving the Foxtel Group, which has been positively transformed in recent years.
We are evaluating options for the business with our advisers in light of that external interest.
The number of paid subscribers has been increasing for the Binge streaming service and sports-focussed Kayo, while audience numbers have been falling for its Foxtel Now platform.
News Corp owns a majority share of the Foxtel Group, alongside minority holder Telstra.
Fog on Adelaide roads prompts driving weather alert
A road weather alert has been issued for Adelaide amid foggy conditions.
The Bureau of Meteorology says reduced visibility in fog would make road conditions dangerous this morning in the Adelaide area, advising motorists to:
Insurance prices blowing away cyclone-prone communities
Insurers aren’t doing enough to support cyclone-stricken regions of north Queensland as climate change intensifies the impact of natural disasters, a Senate inquiry will hear today.
As AAP reports, property owners in Queensland’s cyclone region are paying up to 12 times more on insurance premiums than those near the southern border, according to a submission by the North Queensland Strata Action Group.
The Senate inquiry will meet for a second day in Brisbane to hear evidence from Strata Action and Suncorp, as well as local governments and climate advocacy organisations.
Insurance prices have more than tripled since 2022 and, as the cost-of-living crisis gets worse, residents are struggling to keep up.
The federal government has made major investments into disaster mitigation in the region but residents are still being denied coverage based on risk, the Queensland Local Government Association said in its submission.
The prices are set for the entire region, which means residents are paying more for risks that might not even affect their community.
The committee is due to report to the Senate on 19 November.
Marles on Solomon Islands request to fund thousands of police
Wrapping up the interview, Richard Marles was asked about a request from the Solomon Islands prime minister, Jeremiah Manele, for Australia to fund the salaries of more than 3,000 police over the next decade.
Marles said he wouldn’t go into the specifics, but “doing more cooperation on policing is certainly something that we are interested in doing”.
We are looking at ways in which we can contribute more to Solomon Islands national security, and that very much includes its policing activities.
It is definitely a key challenge that Solomon Islands faces, and one of the key asks that they’ve had in a dialogue that we’ve had with them…
I think that Australians absolutely understand that we need to be placing a focus on the Pacific, and greater engagement with the Pacific is, in fact, the most cost-effective thing we can do in terms of the promotion of our own national security.
Marles says Paul Keating entitled to his views and defends Australia’s role in Aukus
Richard Marles was asked about comments last night from former PM Paul Keating, who said Aukus risked handing military control of the country to Washington and Australia risked becoming the “51st state of the United States”.
Marles said Keating was entitled to his views but that Australia was facing “the most complex strategic circumstances that we’ve had to deal with since the end of the second world war”.
In assessing that, what is clear to us is that our strategic objective lies in the maintenance of that rules based order, given that freedom of navigation on the high seas – as an example – is utterly fundamental to Australia’s national prosperity and national security, when we see a much greater proportion of our national income derived from trade … What we are doing is seeking to protect that.
What we are doing is seeking to make our contribution to the collective security of the region in which we live, and that is the Indo-Pacific, and what that requires is an ability for us to engage in much greater protection. And that is why we are pursuing the capability of a long-range capable submarine. That’s why we are pursuing the capabilities of longer range strike missiles, why we’re looking at having a much more mobile army.
Marles says no chance Australia would take foreign nuclear waste under Aukus
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, is on ABC RN this morning to discuss the new Aukus agreement signed with the US and UK.
Daniel Hurst had all the details on this earlier in the blog, here, in case you missed it.
Marles labelled the agreement a “foundational document”, providing the “legal underpinning of what we agreed with the US and the UK under the banner of Aukus in March of last year.”
Asked whether there is any legislative assurance that nuclear waste won’t end up in Australia, Marles responded:
Nuclear waste won’t end up in Australia, other than the waste that is generated by Australia … So be completely clear, there’s no circumstance in which we would be taking waste from any other country…
We’re not going to be in a position of needing to dispose of any of those reactors until the early 2050s. What this agreement does, though, is provide for the legal underpinning of what we agreed in March of last year, and we will see a nuclear reactor embedded in the Virginia-class submarines that we procure.
We will be seeing new co-reactors coming from Rolls-Royce, which will form part of the submarines that we build in Australia. In order to actually enable that, it requires a treaty and treaty-level agreement between our countries, and that’s what we’ve now signed.
Budgets running on fumes as car costs outpace inflation
High transport costs are fuelling household budget concerns, AAP reports, with research revealing a surge of more than 10% over the course of a year.
Figures from the Australian Automobile Association showed households in three capital cities were spending more than $500 a week on transport, and the average cost of driving a car and catching public transport soared to $458 a week across the nation.
The AAA’s latest Transport Affordability Index showed household transport costs rose by 10.5% in the year to June, almost triple the consumer price index of 3.8%.
Car loan payments, fuel and insurance costs consumed the greatest proportion of household transport budgets, the AAA found, while tolls and public transport also impacted costs in capital cities.
Meanwhile, NRMA analysis has ranked Australian capital cities by fuel price and shows the cost of petrol had risen in all states during 2024.
Unleaded petrol in both capitals averaged more than $2 a litre during 2024, followed by Sydney and Melbourne at $1.97 per litre. Perth and Adelaide were the cheapest capitals for unleaded petrol, with average prices of $1.86 and $1.88 respectively.
What you missed overnight on day 13 of the Paris Olympics
Australia’s river of gold dried up at the Paris Olympics overnight, but two silver and two bronze medals were pocketed – and the Stingers earned a shot at gold with a dramatic water polo win.
Here’s everything you missed on day 13 of the Games, thanks to our sports editor Mike Hytner!
Costello says government ‘terrified of the broadcasters’ over gambling ad reform
As Melissa Davey and Paul Karp report, Labor’s proposal – according to leaks – is to ban gambling ads online, during televised sports matches and an hour either side of live sport. Labor would also cap two ads an hour during general TV programming.
The proposal, yet to be signed off by cabinet, falls short of the blanket ban advocated by the bipartisan parliamentary inquiry chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy and a chorus of public health experts.
Tim Costello did not agree that this is a sensible compromise, telling ABC News Breakfast:
It’s a bit like – before they went to plain packaging with cigarettes, they said, ‘No, we’ll just have some warnings and graphic pictures of people with cancerous teeth.’ It didn’t work. They had to go to plain packaging…
What Peta Murphy and the multipartisan committee said was when you have the greatest gambling losses in the world, the nation coming second is 40% behind us – that’s how bad it is here – one, it has captured our sport. Two, it is grooming our kids. Three, if there’s gambling in a family, there’s three times the domestic violence.
Costello said the government “want[s] to do the right thing” but was “terrified of the broadcasters going into an election year.”
Which is why I say – why haven’t you even approached Peter Dutton and said, make it bipartisan? Because then the broadcasters can’t pick either of you off.
Gambling reform alliance urges Labor to implement full ban on ads
Tim Costello, a chief advocate with the Alliance for Gambling Reform, was on ABC News Breakfast earlier this morning to discuss the federal governments plans around gambling reform.
He said advocates were hearing that the government as “watering [legislation] down” from an outright ban, as recommended in the Murphy Report.
They say that it is dangerous enough with sportsbetting ads to have on social media, so we’ll make some restrictions there, but it is not dangerous enough to have on free-to-air TV, so it’s a decision that is a partial ban. That never works…
On Monday, when cabinet receives this, we’ll have full page ads from extraordinary groups right across the country – health professionals, domestic violence professionals, from unions, from political enemies that once fought each other on both sides of politics – saying, put in the full ban. This is the time for them to do it.
Good morning
Emily Wind
And welcome back to the Australia news live blog – thanks to Martin for kicking things off for us! I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll take you through our rolling coverage this Friday.
As always, you can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or you can send me an email, [email protected], with any tips or questions.
Let’s get started.
Aukus pact will turn Australia into ’51st state’ of the US, Keating says
The Aukus deal news dropped as Paul Keating launched another attack on the alliance when he appeared on 7.30.
The former prime minister, an avowed opponent of the pact, said Australia had no quarrel with China, no vital interest in the fate of Taiwan (“Chinese real estate”), and had only made itself a target for attacks by aligning itself with US “aggression”.
“Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest,” he said, adding that the American attitude to Taiwan was like China deciding that Tasmania needed help to secede from Australia.
What Aukus is about in the American mind is turning [Australia into suckers], locking us up for 40 years with American bases all around…not Australian bases.
So Aukus is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia. I mean, what’s happened… is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States.
Read our full story here:
Daniel Hurst
Back to the Aukus deal:
As part of attempts to reassure the world about nuclear non-proliferation commitments, the new Aukus agreement would not allow Australia to receive information, material or equipment relating to uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel reprocessing, or heavy water production. Australia has reiterated it is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
The US president, Joe Biden, disclosed in a letter to congress this week that Australia, the US and the UK had also concluded “a non-legally binding understanding” which included “additional related political commitments”.
But the Australian government continues to insist that Australia will make “sovereign, independent decisions” on how to use its military capabilities, indicating that no pre-commitment has been given to the US to join any future military action.
The full text of the agreement has not yet been published, but the federal government is expected to table the document when parliament resumes next week.
The defence minister and deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said the new agreement was “a very significant step down the Aukus path” and reflected “our commitment to our international obligations”. He said:
It is another demonstration of the fact that we are making this happen.
Higgins reveals her grandmother has died
Brittany Higgins, who is in the midst of a trial after being sued for defamation by WA senator Linda Reynolds, has shared some sad family news.
In a post on Instagram, she revealed her grandmother had passed away.
Processing the loss of the strongest woman I have ever known. I love and already miss you grandma x.
Today is day six of the trial, with the cross-examination of Reynolds by Higgins’ lawyer due to wrap up later today. It’s due to get going at the WA supreme court around 10.30am local time (that’s 12.30pm on the east coast) and we’ll bring you the key moments as they happen.
Australia signs new Aukus agreement on nuclear material
Daniel Hurst
The Australian government has hailed the signing of a new Aukus agreement with the US and the UK as proof “that we are making this happen”.
As reported here on the live blog yesterday, the new agreement will allow for the transfer of nuclear material to Australia as part of the process of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, and it replaces a pre-existing agreement that allowed “for the exchange of naval nuclear propulsion information”.
Australian government sources have since outlined some of the details of the new agreement, including that it will enable the transfer of Virginia-class submarines from the US from the 2030s. They also said the agreement would pave the way to making Australia’s future SSN-Aukus submarines in South Australia, by enabling the transfer of material and equipment such as “sealed, welded-shut reactors that will not require re-fuelling over the life cycle of the submarine”.
Australian sources insisted that the agreement would not see Australia take spent fuel or high-level radioactive waste from the UK or the US, nor did it require Australia to enrich uranium or process spent nuclear fuel.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our rolling news coverage from across Australia. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ll be bringing you some of the top overnight stories before Emily Wind takes over.
Australia’s participation in the Aukus defence pact risks handing military control of the country to Washington and becoming the “51st state of the United States”, according to former prime minister Paul Keating. Speaking on ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday night, Keating argued that Australia had made itself a target for aggression by joining the military alliance with the US and the UK in implicit opposition to China’s growing power in the Asia Pacific region. His broadside came as ministers hailed the signing of a new Aukus agreement with the US and the UK as proof “that we are making this happen”. More coming up.
Getting from A to B is becoming progressively more expensive for Australians as new data in our story today shows that transport costs now represent almost a sixth of household expensesand are growing at almost three times the rate of inflation.
Victoria’s environment watchdog has launched a compliance blitz of waste facilities that produce cheap landscaping soil after a Guardian Australia investigation revealed systemic problems with similar recycled products in New South Wales. It’s the latest in our exclusive series “The dirt files”, which has investigated how the NSW EPA had known for more than a decade that widespread breaches of regulations by producers of recovered fines meant potentially contaminated products had been distributed across the state.
And Brittany Higgins has revealed some sad personal news as the first full week of Linda Reynolds defamation trial against her wraps up – her grandmother has died.
