Australia news LIVE: RBA holds interest rates for second consecutive month; Draft changes to ALP platform point to treaty move
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Key posts
- Draft changes to ALP platform point to treaty move this term
- Respite for mortgage holders as RBA holds rates steady
- Jakarta at odds with Australia over cattle disease
- This morning’s headlines at a glance
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Draft changes to ALP platform point to treaty move this term
A Labor government would pursue a treaty with Indigenous Australians under draft changes to the party’s election platform, which will escalate the debate about the consequences of a successful Voice referendum.
The Coalition portrayed the referendum as the start of an ambitious treaty agenda, as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton used federal parliament’s question time yesterday to grill Labor on whether the Voice was the trigger for a treaty that could include reparations, and suggested Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was giving contradictory signals over his support for the process.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during question time on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Both sides of the Voice debate sharpened their attack lines in parliament on Tuesday, as Albanese raised the stakes of the Yes campaign by saying Australia’s most vulnerable people needed it to succeed, while the opposition linked contentious Aboriginal cultural heritage laws in Western Australia to the effects of the Voice.
Read more on the proposals here, but stay tuned as the prime minister is set to be interviewed about this and other issues shortly.
Respite for mortgage holders as RBA holds rates steady
Home buyers, renters and businesses could be spared any further financial pain after the Reserve Bank held interest rates steady for a second month while signalling the economy is on track for a soft landing.
Major banks including Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank revised down their expectations for future rate increases after the RBA kept the official cash rate at 4.1 per cent on Tuesday – the first time since March and April last year it has made no change at consecutive meetings.
It is the first time since March and April last year that the RBA has left the cash rate unchanged at two consecutive meetings.Credit: Kate Geraghty
The bank has lifted interest rates 12 times since May last year, driving up monthly repayments on an average $600,000 mortgage by more than $1350. About 800,000 people with fixed-rate loans, who borrowed when the cash rate was at a record-low of 0.1 per cent, will this year endure sharp increases in their repayments.
Recent figures show the economy is slowing under the weight of the RBA’s monetary policy tightening – the most aggressive since the 1980s.
Retail turnover has declined as households pull back on spending while inflation eased to 6 per cent in the year to June – down from the December peak of 7.8 per cent but still above the RBA’s target band of 2 to 3 per cent.
Continue reading about the rate pause here.
Jakarta at odds with Australia over cattle disease
Indonesian officials have revealed Australian cattle with lumpy skin disease (LSD) showed symptoms before being unloaded from ships in Jakarta, heightening their suspicion over where they were infected.
Indonesia has suspended shipments from live cattle imports from four Australian facilities as a result of the presence of the highly contagious disease in 13 animals between May and July.
A photograph of one of the 13 Australian cattle which tested positive to lumpy skin disease.
The Australian government has been adamant that the cattle could not have been infected in Australia and that the country remains free of LSD, an outbreak of which has been forecast to come at a $7.39 billion cost to the economy.
Find out more about the issues with the cattle here.
This morning’s headlines at a glance
Good morning, and thanks for your company.
It’s Wednesday, August 2. I’m Caroline Schelle, I’ll be anchoring our live coverage for the first half of the day.
Here’s what you need to know before we get started:
- A Labor government would pursue a treaty with Indigenous Australians under draft changes to the party’s election platform.
- The Albanese government’s threat to hold an early election over its signature $10 billion housing policy will draw a step closer when the bill returns to parliament today.
- Home buyers, renters and businesses could be spared any further financial pain after the RBA again left the cash rate at 4.1 per cent.
- The federal government should consider banning the Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat, a bipartisan Senate inquiry has found.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra yesterday. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
- Labor has been accused of covering up the underperformance of Australia’s corporate regulator and risking the chance it will fail to identify wrongdoing by big corporations.
- An Australian Federal Police panel that authorises its most politically sensitive investigations approved a secret probe into a Nauru contractor, based in Queensland.
- Indonesian officials have revealed Australian cattle with lumpy skin disease showed symptoms before being unloaded from ships in Jakarta.
- In other overseas news, NASA detects a “heartbeat” signal from Voyager 2 spacecraft, after accidentally sending a wrong command.
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