The Reserve Bank has increased interest rates by 0.25 percentage points. The new cash rate target is 4.35 per cent, up from 4.1 per cent. Interest rates have now returned to the level they were in February 2025 before the RBA began its rate-cutting cycle last year, so last year’s policy easing has been fully unwound. Today’s decision follows last …

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is preparing to break an election commitment and overhaul property tax perks in this month’s budget, to give younger Australians a “fair crack” at owning their own homes. In an interview with the ABC to mark one year since Labor’s landslide victory, Mr Albanese said he would “absolutely” lead Labor to a third election in 2028. …

Envoys from the United States are set to arrive in the Pakistani capital to kickstart a new round of peace negotiations with Iran. However, Tehran’s representatives indicated they had no immediate plans to hold face-to-face talks. Already in Islamabad, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief and a key figure in the country’s mediation …

Lord Howe Island lies in the middle of the ocean, about 700 kilometres northeast of Sydney. It’s covered in lush forest and fringed by the world’s most southerly coral reef ecosystem. This reef system isn’t as famous as its northern neighbour, the Great Barrier Reef. Our new research, in the Journal of Applied Ecology, shows it plays an outsized role in …

New research from property analytics firm Cotality appears to show that a federal government scheme intended to help first home buyers is fuelling a price surge at the lower end of the housing market, raising concerns it may be worsening entry level affordability. Since the Home Guarantee Scheme was expanded in October last year, price growth has been significantly stronger …

A plan to recover as much as $4.6 billion a year going out the door of the National Disability Insurance Scheme to criminal fraud, inflated invoices and incorrect payments could wipe out many NDIS providers unable to afford stricter compliance, the sector warns. NDIS Minister Mark Butler has announced reforms that will flip the current disability scheme on its head, …

Anthony Albanese has declared Brunei may be able to help Australia weather the economic chaos caused by the Iran war by sending additional supplies of fertiliser, as the two countries pledge to maintain open trade and protect energy supply chains. The Australian prime minister, who is in South-East Asia trying to shore up national energy supplies, met with Sultan Haji …

More than a day after Angus Taylor unveiled the first plank of the Coalition’s long-awaited migration policy and many media interviews later, there’s still little clarity about what it would change in practice. The policy’s top line is a plan to take the pre-existing Australian Values Statement and enshrine it in the Migration Act as a basis for deportation. The …

The agency that runs the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has defended hiring nearly 2,000 new employees last year despite major changes being rolled out to rein in the program’s cost. The NDIA grew its workforce by 1,925 new positions in 2025, accounting for nearly 70 per cent of all new hires to the Commonwealth public service last year. Data …

Hanwright — the beginning of the saga Old school chums Lang Hancock and Peter Wright formed a business partnership in the 1930s centred on prospecting, which according to legend was sealed by a handshake. Peter Wright and Lang Hancock in the 1960s. (ABC News) Mr Wright was the reserved accountant, Mr Hancock the brash prospector and pastoralist, and together they would …