The wealth of Australia’s billionaires increased by $25.67bn in the past year, equivalent to almost $50,000 a minute, according to new Oxfam Australia analysis of the 2026 Australian Financial Review Rich List. The anti-poverty organisation said the total wealth of Australian billionaires in 2026 has reached more than $686bn, while Acoss figures show 3,706,000 people live in poverty, including 757,000 children under …

Australia’s population has reached 28 million, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimates. Its population clock forecast the nation had reached the milestone at 6am on Tuesday, based on the growth rate set on 1 July 2025. The growth rate assumes that every minute and 15 seconds, another person is added to the Australian population. Australia’s population growth in …

When it comes to reading political polling, it is worth taking a leaf out of Pauline Hanson’s book. The One Nation leader, whose popularity has soared in the past 12 months, would be the first to say she doesn’t put too much stock in the numbers. That’s not to suggest the results aren’t to be taken seriously, only that a …

It was always Australia’s preference to get three second-hand submarines, a senior defence official has revealed in Senate estimates, as the government faces pressure to renegotiate the AUKUS pact. The revelation casts a new light on changes to the agreement over the weekend, under which Australia will buy three used Virginia-class submarines rather than two used and one new. Defence …

Australia’s housing market has continued to lose momentum, with national home values flatlining in May as higher interest rates, weak confidence and proposed property tax changes weigh on demand. According to new Cotality data, Sydney and Melbourne led the weakness, with dwelling values falling 0.9 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively in May. Values also slipped in Canberra, down …

Sometimes, when the online abuse for being a young, African-born, Muslim mayor gets brutal, Mohamed Semra turns to the lesson he learnt on the back of a donkey in Sudan. He was just 10, a city kid from Melbourne on his first trip back to the country his mother fled with her six children when Mohamed was three. His family …

In the first full budget since Labor’s landslide election victory last year, the government is putting some money back in workers’ pockets and increasing taxes on investors. Treasurer Jim Chalmers is selling it as a big reform budget that will tip the scales to make the tax system fairer for young Australians. But the war in Iran and the global …

A Philippine politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has escaped the country’s Senate building, where he had been hiding out to avoid arrest. Senator Ronald dela Rosa’s escape from the heavily guarded building came after multiple gunshots were heard on Wednesday night. The Senate was forced into lockdown and people inside ran for cover as the shots rang …

In the wake of three Australian women linked to the Islamic State (IS) group being arrested upon arriving home last week, the initial reaction from inside the Syrian refugee camp where they had lived for years has been one of anger and frustration. After IS’s so-called caliphate was defeated in 2019 by a US-led coalition, many foreign-born wives and their …

Following One Nation’s extraordinary victory at the Farrer by-election last night, the party’s leader Pauline Hanson has taunted critics who said she could never break into the mainstream. One Nation has won Farrer in a landslide victory, decimating the Liberal and National vote, and claiming the first lower house win for the conservative party since Senator Hanson first entered parliament in …