The Greens will use their balance of power to block the government’s signature $10 billion housing package unless it agrees to enforce a national rent freeze. Leader Adam Bandt will use a National Press Club address on Wednesday to push for support for renters in the May budget. Mr Bandt says a two-year rent freeze is not only legal but …

Tanya Plibersek’s daughter has revealed the harrowing reason her mother abandoned plans to challenge for the Labor leadership after the 2019 federal election. In the days after Scott Morrison’s victory, Ms Plibersek was widely tipped to run as party leader after Bill Shorten’s electoral defeat, and the media was anticipating her announcement. But she surprised the political world by instead …

Aiding a family member victimised by domestic violence helped change Tanya Plibersek’s mind about entering the race for the Labor leadership’s against Anthony Albanese. She would have become Labor leader in 2019 had she nominated for the role and would today be prime minister, she says in a newly released biography. The federal environment minister reveals daughter Anna’s trauma as …

Renting and buying in the Harbour City has never been less affordable, but the solutions to the deepening crisis could be staring us right in the face. The world’s largest cities all tackle high housing costs and land shortages, but urban planners say Sydney is stuck in the past and unwilling to try proven solutions. Rents are at record highs, …

Brisbane and Hobart house prices have fallen sharper and faster than ever before after a “specular upswing” through COVID-19, according to property analysts CoreLogic. The cities are the only two capital markets to set record declines — but the drop has barely made a dent on pandemic gains, according to the company’s home value index. Values rose 43 per cent in Greater Brisbane after a pandemic …

Northern Greenland is a polar desert today, but it was once a lush landscape filled with mastodons, reindeer, caribou and hares. That’s the picture of an ancient ecosystem that has emerged from 2 million-year-old DNA extracted from desiccated dunes on the Peary Land peninsula on Greenland’s northernmost tip. The discovery smashes the record for the oldest DNA ever sequenced and pushes the boundaries of what scientists, …

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping will today hold the first formal meeting between the two countries’ leaders in six years. During that time, a range of issues have caused relations between Beijing and Canberra to sour, despite optimism after a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” was signed in 2014. The scheduled meeting, on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali, marks a significant …

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged to the world to come together in solidarity — not a “Collective Suicide Pact” — in an alarming address to the COP27 summit. Setting an urgent tone for the climate talks in Egypt, Mr Guterres warned that humanity was on “a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator”. He told …

Australia’s economic outlook faces downgrades in the Albanese Government’s first budget next week, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers cautioning the global economy is treading an “increasingly perilous path”. Fresh from meetings in Washington DC with the International Monetary Fund and G20 finance ministers, Mr Chalmers echoed warnings from leading economists that the risk many of our key trading partners could face recessions was …

The Queen’s death has ignited a feud between Australian senators that could see a racist, five-word slur from Pauline Hanson referred to the human rights commission. What started with a tweet from Greens Senator and deputy leader of the party Mehreen Faruqi offering condolences “to those who knew the Queen” has snowballed, dragging in Hanson and Senator Jacqui Lambie — …