Reflect for a moment, as you read this piece, what is happening in Gaza.

The shortage of housing for women trying to escape domestic violence has reached chronic levels, with many forced to turn to ill-equipped and dangerous temporary accommodation.

Programs to address homelessness have the potential to practically pay for themselves through government savings on health and justice spending * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Picture a GP clinic in western Sydney. Nadia*, 34, is back for her third script of the year. She started getting panic attacks after her landlord hiked the rent several times. Each time she feared the next eviction notice would push her, her partner and two kids into homelessness. The doctor adjusts her dose, offers a mental-health plan, but there’s something else that could also help Nadia – access to secure and affordable housing. The data is now overwhelming: a recent rental affordability index labelled every capital city in Australia “critically unaffordable” for anyone on the minimum wage in 2024. One million low-income households already spend more than 30% of their earnings on shelter. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...

Surcharges on Eftpos, Mastercard and Visa card payments would be eliminated from July 2026 under proposal from Reserve Bank * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Card payment surcharges should be eliminated for debit and credit payments, the Reserve Bank has said, saving customers an estimated $1.2bn each year. Surcharges on Eftpos, Mastercard and Visa card payments would be eliminated from July 2026, while fees for businesses using card payments systems could also be lowered, under a new RBA proposal. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Class action led by two community leaders argued government had legal duty of care to prevent or deal with damage linked to global heating * Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates The federal court has dismissed a landmark case brought by two Torres Strait community leaders that argued the Australian federal government breached its duty of care to protect the Torres Strait Islands from climate change. In delivering its decision, however, the court noted: “There could be little if any doubt that the Torres Strait Islands face a bleak future if urgent action is not taken.” Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email Continue reading...

Rewrite of environmental protection act could help meet climate and housing targets, Ken Henry to tell national press club * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Fixing the nation’s broken environment protection laws is the most important reform the Albanese government can pursue to boost productivity, and holds the key to meeting climate and housing targets, according to former treasury secretary Ken Henry. Henry, now the chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, will use a speech to the National Press Club as a rallying cry to federal parliament to finally agree on a rewrite of the quarter-century old Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

66 per cent of Australians support a Parliamentary Inquiry into the AUKUS security agreement, according to new polling commissioned by The Australia Institute.

New Australia Institute research shows that if the GST had kept up with economic growth, as it was intended to do, states and territories would have received an additional $231 billion in revenue in t...

66 per cent of Australians support a Parliamentary Inquiry into the AUKUS security agreement, according to new polling commissioned by The Australia Institute.

This morning, the media is reporting that the federal government has been advised that the budget cannot be fixed without raising taxes and cutting spending, and that its housing target is unachievabl...

The ancient Indigenous rock art on Western Australia's Burrup Peninsula has been deservedly listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Register.

When it comes to the horrors of genocide we say these words with an ironic frequency. How do we short-circuit the re-run of this pitiful, shameful cycle? Today will be a hard day for Sydneysider Mirela Muratovic, a survivor of the only recognised genocide in Europe since the end of the second world war: Srebrenica. During the 1990s Bosnian war Srebrenica was designated a United Nations-protected “safe area” – a label that came to mean nothing. Continue reading...

Independent MP who helped establish commission says lack of transparency over Centrelink robodebt probe risks hurting public confidence * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A key architect of the National Anti-Corruption Commission has called for a public update on the investigation into the illegal robodebt scheme, warning community confidence in the watchdog and its commissioner, Paul Brereton, is on the line. The independent MP Helen Haines, who helped craft legislation to establish the Nacc and has sat as a member of a parliamentary oversight committee, said it had been “too secretive” in the first two years of operations, including over its investigation into the Coalition’s welfare payment recovery scheme. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Coalition’s decades-long brawl over climate change and energy policy laid bare as former deputy prime minister sends out clarion call on Facebook * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Barnaby Joyce has vowed to wind back the “lunatic crusade” of net zero by 2050 in a private member’s bill once parliament resumes later this month. The former deputy prime minister and Nationals backbencher’s clarion call on Friday afternoon laid bare the Coalition’s decades-long brawl over climate change and energy policy. Continue reading...

Sometimes it feels like art is imitating life * See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here Continue reading...

Sydney Opera House then Regent Theatre, Melbourne Maximalist design, gorgeous music and grim reality come together in a smart, seductive and spectacular production from Opera Australia * Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Opera’s most notorious femme fatale makes a helluva entrance: the moment we meet Carmen in Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera, we know she’s a bad girl headed for a worse end. The downward chromatic slide of her opening aria tells us she’s a woman at odds with the system; the swaying habanera rhythm says she’s a seductress – a crime punishable by death in the operatic canon. But in Opera Australia’s new production, Carmen is not the sultry vixen we know from the past 150 years: the soprano Danielle de Niese arrives dressed in a factory boiler suit, with a swagger usually reserved for opera’s men. It is present-day Seville and Carmen has finished her shift; De Niese moves through the crowd of female co-workers and male onlookers with the bravado of someone who has experienced the best and worst of being the centre of attention, and decided to square up rather than shy away. She stretches out the tension of a day on the factory line and hustles for a ciggie. The Habanera aria is usually played tits first, with swaying hips and lots of leg; De Niese’s take, both weary and wary, is a signal that things are different this time. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading...