Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and I will hand down the first budget update of the Albanese Labor government’s second term.

It will be all about delivery, responsibility and restraint.

We will deliver on our promises, make room for big pressures on the budget, and update our forecasts.

No government in Australia’s history has delivered a bigger nominal improvement to the bottom line than this one, we’ve delivered the first surpluses in almost 2 decades, a much smaller deficit last year, and that’s meant much less debt than we inherited.

We’ll make even more progress in the mid‑year update on Wednesday.

That progress won’t be accidental or coincidental, it will be deliberate, and the direct result of the fine balances we’ve struck and the tough decisions we’ve made to prioritise responsible economic management.

The mid‑year budget update will include $20 billion in additional savings and reprioritisations to improve the budget bottom line.

It’s a powerful demonstration of Labor’s responsible economic management.

We have identified savings in every single one of our 7 budget updates.

The substantial savings we’ve found in this one mean the Albanese government has now delivered $114 billion in savings and reprioritisations since coming to office.

This is around 5 times more than the Coalition delivered in their last 7 budget updates combined. In fact, the $20 billion in savings we detail this week are roughly equivalent to the savings and reprioritisations it took our predecessors 7 updates to find.

We’ve kept average real spending growth to around half the 30‑year average and much less than what our predecessors averaged.

We’ve also got payments as a share of the economy down from almost a third to around a quarter and it’s forecast to be a bit above that over the next couple of years.

Finding savings and restraining spending are essential elements of our economic strategy in this mid‑year update.

But this sensible and responsible approach to the nation’s finances isn’t an end in itself, it’s the foundation from which we can deliver on our commitments and reform our economy.

2025 is all about delivery and so is the mid‑year update.

From building more homes to new training opportunities and more mental health centres, the mid‑year budget update will deliver what matters most for Australians.

It will provide billions of dollars to help deliver the policies and programs Australians voted for at the election.

We’re able to deliver the essential services and infrastructure Australians need and deserve because we’re managing the budget responsibly.

Along with funding our commitments, we’ve made room for substantial and unavoidable pressures on the budget without a substantial deterioration in the bottom line.

The figures we release on Wednesday will show we’ve put aside an additional $6.3 billion for disaster relief as previous disasters are proving to be more costly, an extra $3 billion more in support for seniors on the age pension, an extra $2.1 billion more for military superannuation schemes, an extra $2 billion for veterans, and more.

We take our responsibilities to veterans and older Australians very seriously and we’ll always make room in the budget to do the right thing by people and that’s what we’ve done in the mid‑year update.

Wednesday is also an opportunity for Treasury to update its economic forecasts.

The mid‑year update will confirm our economy continues to gather momentum in the face of substantial global uncertainty.

An important feature of this is the private sector recovery that we’ve been planning for and preparing for, which is really starting to take shape.

The mid‑year update forecasts a further pick up in business investment off the back of big increases in private sector spending on new technology and renewable energy.

Updated estimates for business investment will show the forecast in 2025–26 has doubled to 3 per cent. That’s very good for our economy and our budget.

Since we came to office, new business investment has grown by an annualised average of 3.9 per cent, compared to negative 1.3 per cent growth under our predecessors.

Productivity has now grown for 4 consecutive quarters, in annual terms it’s growing at 0.8 per cent, and 1.1 per cent in the market sector.

While there’s more to do to make our economy more productive and deal with the challenges coming at us, the mid‑year update will highlight Australia’s enviable combination of low unemployment, high participation, real wages growth and an economy and private sector that are strengthening.

Whether it’s the big turnaround we’ve engineered in the budget, the $114 billion in savings we’ve found since coming to government or the big increase in business investment driving the private sector recovery that will be a prominent feature of Treasury’s updated forecasts on Wednesday, we’ve made a lot of progress together.

We’ll build on this progress in the mid‑year update with more savings and more spending restraint that enables us to make room for the things that matter most to Australians.

Responsible economic management is a defining feature of the Albanese government and it will be a defining feature of the mid‑year budget update this week as well.

Source: Australian Department of Communications

AUSTRAC has refused to renew the registration of Yellow Sands Trading Pty Ltd, an independent remitter trading as Raiyyan Exchange. 
Raiyyan Exchange is no longer permitted to provide money transfer services in Australia.
In exercising its regulatory functions, AUSTRAC identified serious deficiencies in Raiyyan Exchange’s ability to understand, manage, and mitigate its money laundering and terrorism financing risks. 
AUSTRAC worked closely with the New South Wales Police Force in forming this view.

Source: Tasmania Police

Police clamp learner driver’s car over hooning incident at Lutana

Monday, 15 December 2025 – 11:39 am.

A learner driver has had their vehicle clamped and will be summonsed to court over a hooning incident at Lutana late last month.
A concerned member of the public reported the incident on Lennox Avenue on 19 November to police, providing quality dash cam footage of the offence.
As a result, officers from Southern Road Policing Services located the 16-year-old L-plater and clamped the vehicle for a period of 28 days.
Acting Inspector Penny Reardon said police remained committed to the Enough is Enough campaign – which calls for community support in detecting dangerous driving.
“Road safety is everyone’s responsibility, and we urge anyone with information about hooning or reckless driving to contact police,” she said.
“Those who engage in such dangerous behaviour on our streets will be investigated and can face significant penalties including their vehicle being clamped, seized or confiscated.
“Tasmania Police will continue to have zero tolerance for dangerous hooning behaviour.”
Reports can be made to police by calling 131 444 or Crime Stoppers anonymously on 1800 333 000, or at crimestopperstas.com.au.
If you can’t report it at the time but you have footage, submit it to our evidence portal at https://www.police.tas.gov.au/report/

Source: Australian Capital Territory – State Government

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Source: Australian Capital Territory – State Government

Source: Australia Government Statements 2

Kieran Gilbert, Host: Let’s go to the Assistant Foreign Minister, Matt Thistlethwaite. I want to ask you, first of all, you’re the Member for the neighbouring seat of Kingsford Smith in the Eastern Suburbs. You know Bondi better than most. It is an iconic place in this country. Has it changed forever?

Matt Thistlethwaite, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade: Bondi Beach is a place of happiness. It perfectly represents the good about Australian values. Sand, sea, people go there for good times. And that’s what was occurring last night. A Chanukah event, first day of Chanukah, where our Jewish community were coming together to celebrate light over darkness, to celebrate family, to celebrate this important occasion. And that’s just been completely shattered. This is an act of pure terror. Pure, pure evil. At the time, I was at Coogee Beach at a Chanukah event with the local Jewish community from the Coogee Shule. And there were record numbers and it was a time of happiness. It was a time of brotherhood and friendship and coming together. And that was completely shattered last night. And obviously, our thoughts are with the local Jewish community. I’ve had several conversations with them last night and this morning. We’re providing as much support as we possibly can. But I urge all Australians today, if you have a friend or a work colleague that is in the Jewish community, please reach out to them, let them know that we stand with them, that we support them and that Australia wraps its arms around the Jewish community today.

Gilbert: And I know that you have been engaged regularly with the Jewish community in your area. We’ve spoken about it at length, and you’ve been very strong in your language about anti-Semitism. Has the government been strong enough? Has the Albanese Government been strong enough in cracking down the scourge of anti-Semitism? Because that is certainly not the view of Benjamin Netanyahu. He was scathing about the Australian government overnight.

Assistant Minister: Kieran, unfortunately we had some shocking anti-Semitic attacks in my electorate in January when there was a firebombing of a childcare centre next door to a shule. The Prime Minister and the Premier joined myself that morning on the scene. In the wake of that, I convened a group, a local Operation Shelter group, with the local police, local elected representatives and members of the Jewish community. And we’ve been meeting regularly to make sure that we do all we can to keep the community safe. Our government acted to support security upgrades to local synagogues, to local Jewish schools and educational institutions. And we’ll continue, obviously, to make sure that we monitor the situation and provide as much support as well to the Jewish community. I’ll be meeting again with that group this morning with the local police. I’ve just spoken to the local area commander and we’re going to convene that meeting this morning with leaders of the Jewish community and we’ll do whatever we need to, to keep that community safe.

Gilbert: Does there need to be a step up in that sense? Chris Minns has been praised for his response in the wake of October 7, your government has been accused of falling short by no less than the Israeli Prime Minister. Do you need to step this up a great deal?

Assistant Minister: We have stepped it up, Kieran. We strengthened the laws in the wake of some of the anti-Semitic attacks earlier on. We upgraded security at Jewish institutions. But we’ll obviously monitor this situation. Obviously, there’s a police investigation that needs to occur and we have every trust and confidence in our security and intelligence agencies and the police. And I want to congratulate the local police who were there on the scene very quickly. Unfortunately, we had police officers that have been injured, but we will certainly do whatever we need to make sure that we step up and protect Australia’s Jewish community, not only in my area, but across the nation.

Gilbert: Matt Thistlethwaite, Member for Kingsford Smith and Assistant Foreign Minister. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry

Jim Chalmers:

On Wednesday, Katy Gallagher and I will be handing down the seventh budget update of the Albanese Labor government. This budget update is all about delivery, responsibility and restraint. It won’t be a mini budget. There’s not a lot of new stuff in there, but there is a lot of hard yards to make room for our priorities, to deliver on our commitments and also to make sure that we can accommodate some of these big upward pressures on the budget.

There’s about $35 billion worth of pressures from estimates variations. If you take the GST out of that, still leaves about $25 billion worth of pressures in areas like natural disasters, the age pension, veterans, defence super and the like. So the big task for Katy Gallagher and I and the Expenditure Review Committee has been to make room for these pressures on the budget in a way that ensures that the budget doesn’t go substantially backwards.

The key thing to remember about this government and about this mid‑year budget update, this Albanese Labor government is defined by responsible economic management, and the mid‑year budget update will be defined by responsible economic management as well. This is all about ensuring that we deliver on the commitments we took to the Australian people in May. It’s all about making room for those pressures and it’s also an opportunity for us to update our forecasts.

There will be $20 billion of savings in the mid‑year budget update on Wednesday. To give you a sense of the magnitude of that, it took our predecessors 7 budget updates to find $20 billion in savings. We have $20 billion in this one budget update which we will release between now and Wednesday. What that shows is we’ve now found $114 billion in savings and reprioritisations to make sure that we are funding the things that our community desperately needs – strengthening Medicare, 3 rounds of tax cuts, building urgent care clinics, investing in mental health and building more homes.

What you’ll see in the mid‑year budget update is us delivering on our commitments in those important areas, making sure we’re funding our commitments to 100,000 new homes for first home buyers, making sure we’re meeting our commitments to mental health and also to fast track tradies and to build infrastructure in local communities.

2025 has been a year of delivery and the mid‑year budget update will be all about delivery as well. Now those $114 billion in savings combined with spending restraint is the sort of responsible economic management which would be unrecognisable to our predecessors. As I said, it took them 7 updates to find $20 billion. Our $114 billion in 7 updates is 5 times what they found in their final 7 updates. And so Katy Gallagher and I will detail those savings during the course of the week.

The mid‑year budget update has got a number of difficult decisions in there. A difficult decision not to extend a fourth round of electricity bill rebates. That wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right decision. We’ve said for some time that those electricity bill rebates are an important part of the budget, but not a permanent part of the budget. They are one way that we’re helping Australians with the cost of living, but not the only way. And by not extending those electricity bill rebates, that signifies a shift from temporary help with the cost of living to permanent and ongoing help with the cost of living delivered via the tax system.

So our commitment to helping with the cost of living has not changed even as the nature of that cost‑of‑living help has evolved over time. A big shift from temporary help to permanent help delivered via the tax system, via bulk billing, cheaper medicines, cuts to student debt and all of the different ways that we are helping with the cost of living.

Now the mid‑year budget update, as I said, will deliver our commitments on housing and mental health and infrastructure and skills. We’ve also made very substantial progress in the last couple of days when it comes to 2 other important commitments.

We are cracking down on price gouging by the big supermarkets. This is a commitment we took to the election. It is now law, and it will come into being next year. This is all about making sure that families and pensioners get a fairer go at the checkout. We know that people are under pressure. We want to make sure, and we will make sure that the supermarkets are not price gouging their customers and that’s what this important change is all about.

We’re also bringing in our cash mandate. Our cash mandate means that there is an obligation on supermarkets and fuel retailers to accept cash. This is all about ensuring that when Australians want to or need to use cash at the supermarket or the servo that they can use cash. Because even as fewer and fewer people are using cash in our economy and in our communities, we know that there are a number of people who still like to use cash. This is about making it easier for people to use cash to buy essentials at the supermarket and the servo. We’ve done a lot of consultation, we’ve done a lot of work on this, and we believe that we’ve struck the right balance when it comes to this cash mandate.

So a lot of activity, a lot of action in this portfolio when it comes to supermarkets, when it comes to cash, and obviously when it comes to the mid‑year budget update. We know that even after Wednesday there will be a lot more work to do to make our economy stronger, to lift living standards and boost wages and make our budget more sustainable. But we’ve done a lot of work in this mid‑year budget update to make room for our priorities and pressures. You’ll see that on Wednesday. It won’t be a mini budget. The main game will be in May with the 2026 Budget but we will make substantial progress when it comes to the numbers that we release on Wednesday. Happy to take a couple of questions.

Journalist:

Are MPs’ travel entitlements too generous or do you agree with the charges that your colleagues have racked up?

Chalmers:

Look, I understand that there is very substantial community concern about these arrangements. I think it’s appropriate that the colleagues have sought assurances from the independent body that these claims are within the rules. I’m confident that they are, but it’s appropriate that they’ve asked to put that beyond doubt. It’s also appropriate that the Prime Minister has asked the organisation at arm’s length from the government for advice on any changes which may be necessary. So, we will await that advice. We’ll get it in due course. In the interim, of course, as Treasurer, my focus is on delivering with Katy Gallagher the mid‑year budget update on Wednesday.

Journalist:

But haven’t your own colleagues cruelled your credibility to ask Australians to bear spending cuts by spending big on their travel allowances?

Chalmers:

Well, it’s always important that colleagues from all sides of the parliament act within the rules. I’m confident that’s what’s happened here. But there are good reasons why colleagues from time to time will ask for that to be put beyond doubt by the independent authority. There are good reasons why this regime is maintained at arm’s length from politicians and good reasons why the PM has asked for advice on any changes which may be necessary.

Thanks very much.

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

The Northern Territory Police Force is investigating an alleged sexual assault that occurred in Alice Springs this morning.

Around 4:30am, the Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre received a report that a woman aged in her 20s had been sexually assaulted by a man not known to her along Larapinta Drive in Araluen. The offender allegedly stole the victim’s handbag and fled the scene on foot.

Police attended and a crime scene was established. The victim was conveyed to hospital by St John Ambulance.

The offender remains outstanding at this time and investigations are ongoing.

Police urge anyone with information, including CCTV or dash cam footage of Larapinta Drive between Zeil Steet and Lyndavale Drive between 2am – 3am this morning, to contact police on 131 444. Please quote reference P25338047. Anonymous reports can be made through Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or via https://crimestoppersnt.com.au/.

Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry

We’re delivering on our commitment to mandate cash acceptance for essential purchases by finalising regulations that require fuel and grocery retailers to accept cash from 1 January 2026.

We’re making it mandatory for businesses to accept cash when they sell these essential items.

This will help to ensure Australians can continue to pay with cash for essentials if they want to.

It will ensure Australians who depend on cash for fuel and groceries aren’t left behind.

Community feedback confirmed grocery and fuel purchases are essential and today’s changes mean that from 1 January 2026, most retailers must accept cash for in‑person transactions of $500 or less between 7am and 9pm.

Small businesses with aggregate annual turnover under $10 million will be exempted from the mandate, however, the mandate will apply to small businesses that choose to share a trademark with a larger retailer.

In addition to the cash mandate for fuel and groceries, consumers also already have the option to pay their bills, including utilities, phone bills and council rates, in cash at their local Australia Post outlet through Post Billpay on the current terms of this service.

Billpay is available at post offices across Australia and is relied on by businesses and government agencies, including utility providers and government entities across local, state and Commonwealth levels.

The Government will review the mandate after three years, to ensure it is functioning as intended.

You should be able to pay with cash if you need to, and that’s what these regulations are all about.

Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry

The Albanese Labor Government has made new regulations to ban supermarket price gouging.

We’re cracking down on supermarket price gouging to help Australians get a better deal at the checkout.

This is all about getting a fairer go for families in their weekly shop.

The ban will prohibit very large retailers from charging prices that are excessive when compared to the cost of the supply plus a reasonable margin.

The new ban on excessive pricing of groceries for consumers in the Food and Grocery Code is now law and will come into effect on 1 July 2026.

This will fix a key gap in Australia’s competition and consumer protection framework and provide a safeguard for consumers.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found in its Supermarkets inquiry that Coles and Woolworths have limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price and that their dominance of the sector seems set to continue.

If Coles and Woolworths breach these new price gouging laws, the maximum penalty per contravention is the greater of: $10 million; three times the value of the benefit derived, or, if that value cannot be determined; 10 per cent of the company’s turnover during the preceding 12 months.

The ACCC will be responsible for policing the excessive pricing regime.

This is just one of a number of steps we’re taking to boost competition and fairness in the supermarket sector.

Other steps include:

• Making the Food and Grocery Code mandatory from 1 April 2025
• Increasing the ACCC’s funding by over $30 million to address harmful or misleading conduct in the supermarket and retail sectors
• Consulting on options to strengthen the Unit Pricing Code, including to tackle shrinkflation
• Implementing the ACCC’s recommendations to improve transparency about prices, price trends, promotions and loyalty programs in the sector
• Funding CHOICE to give shoppers more information on supermarket prices
• Investing $50 million to provide access to low‑cost essential products and governance support for remote stores to improve food security in remote First Nations Communities
• Ensuring the ACCC is notified of supermarket sector acquisitions by Coles and Woolworths and can scrutinise land acquisitions under reforms to merger laws
• Making it easier for supermarkets to enter the market and expand with incentives for the states to cut commercial planning and zoning red tape under the revitalised National Competition Policy, backed by our $900 million National Productivity Fund

These changes give the regulator the powers and the penalties it needs to hold supermarkets to account.

Whether it’s boosting funding for the regulator, banning price gouging or making the food and grocery code mandatory, we’re doing everything we can to ease pressure on Australians.

One of the best ways to ease the cost of living for Australians is to help people get fairer prices at the checkout and that’s what this is all about.