New Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has declared he will lead his government in a “new direction”, while distancing himself from his predecessors Jacinta Allan and Daniel Andrews. In his first comments after being elected state Labor leader, Carroll also announced a royal commission into the construction sector, which has been marred by corruption allegations, and the strengthening of Victoria’s anti-corruption …

A Chinese national has been arrested after he allegedly attempted to bribe a public official with a bag of tea containing $20,000 in cash. The man was apprehended on July 24 as he attempted to board a flight at Sydney International Airport and was extradited back to Queensland on Saturday. The 39-year-old Chinese national allegedly attempted to bribe a Commonwealth …

The corruption watchdog has heard that fugitive developer Jean Nassif allegedly sought to use former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s brothers to influence government decisions. The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating alleged breaches of state electoral funding laws and possible corrupt conduct. The eight-week public inquiry, Operation Rosny, will examine allegations of unlawful political donations, including whether banned …

The first seven years of Free Sobolewski’s life were contained within the walls of a one-room besser-block home in rural New South Wales. A makeshift curtain, strung across part of the room, was all that separated the bunk bed she shared with her sister from the rest of the home. The bathroom, set in a completely different concrete building, did …

The ATO data, which was released today, is based on the tax returns from the 2023-24 financial year. The top 10 occupations have remained the same over the years, but incomes have gone up for most professions and some jobs have switched places in the list. Here is the full list of roles and how much their incomes have changed since …

World Cup FOMO is among the worst types of the affliction. It becomes unbearable as you continue waking in the middle of the night, seeing ridiculous scenes being beamed from North America, as your compatriots who have made the trip look giddy from the joy. And for many Norwegian and English fans, when the next stop on the journey is …

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged Australians in ways they had not been tested before: with curfews, mask mandates, border closures, restrictions on movement and the shutdown of normality. Those severe measures might have helped keep Australians alive, but they also exacted a substantial toll in many other ways. The shock is that data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggests …

Angus Taylor has ruled out forming a coalition with One Nation, shrugging off Pauline Hanson’s calls for conservatives to work together to defeat Labor. In a major speech on Thursday, the opposition leader warned a One Nation government would result in an “eternity of pain”, as the populist party rises in the polls and the Liberal-National coalition sinks to historic …

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady has apologised to the company’s customers, saying the telco let them down and that investigations into the cause of Wednesday’s outage are continuing. In her first public appearance since the outage that affected Triple-Zero networks, trains and eftpos payments across the country — and has left the company open to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars …

Property prices are under more scrutiny than ever before. Following a shake-up to negative gearing and the capital gains tax (CGT) discounts, the housing market has stalled and auction clearance rates are down. There’s some consternation among investors and home owners about a decrease in property values — and their concerns are backed by the big banks. NAB has predicted a 2 per cent …