Australia news LIVE: Australians flattened by biggest tax increase in world; States demand extra $12b for schools

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and NDIS Minister Bill Shorten have both said more needs to be done to resolve domestic violence and that there is no lack of bipartisan support.

Speaking on a panel on Nine’s Today program, Dutton said the issue of coercive relationships needs to be further addressed to better support women in controlled situations.

“There’s no lack of bipartisan support, every level of government wants to come together to do everything we can,” Dutton said.

“There’s record amounts of money being put in each year but the NSW government is talking about bail laws at the moment, which I think is part of it, to keep offenders away from committing very violent acts, but there’s so much more before that has to happen.”

Shorten agreed with Dutton saying more needs to be done.

“We’ve got to be able to help women take their kids to safety, I mean, the 10 days paid leave, that’s a modest proposition, but at least it lets people deal with some of their issues,” Shorten said.

“I think we’ve got to break the nexus. If a woman is in a hostage relationship with an idiot thug husband, [we need to make sure] she doesn’t feel trapped.”

Former prime minister Scott Morrison has told The Australian he suffered from acute anxiety during his time in The Lodge and required medication.

In an interview, the former Liberal leader said without medication he would have fallen into a serious depression, and told the newspaper that his anxiety during his time was “debilitating and agonising”.

He said it began to build up as pressures of the job grew.

“I couldn’t put my finger on a particular time. It was a very stressful period and the combination of the weight of issues, the length of hours that we were working, the physical demands that brought and to be honest, the stuff around China was as, if not more, distressing than the pandemic.

“You’re flesh and blood and so it would start to impact you.”

Morrison said he tried other methods to deal with his anxiety, including swimming and cooking, but these were not enough to ward off his condition without medical help.

The former prime minister, who left parliament this year, also detailed his experience in his new book.

States are demanding an extra $12 billion from the federal government in public schools funding over the next decade as education ministers vow not to back down from a united front against a Commonwealth they are accusing of shortchanging students.

Victorian Deputy Premier Ben Carroll said the federal government was proposing conditions that would burden teachers with more administrative duties and reduce their time with students, while his NSW counterpart Prue Car invoked the state’s massive GST shortfall in demanding more money.

NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT have rejected Federal Education Minister Jason Clare’s offer to increase federal funding of public schools by 2.5 per cent, instead calling for a 5 per cent rise, escalating rows that have also erupted over the National Disability Insurance Scheme and infrastructure funding.

In a stalemate before a crucial meeting in Perth on Friday, Carroll said he stood with his state colleagues across the country “to fight for a better deal that won’t leave our public school students and staff behind”.

Continue reading about funding here.

Working Australians suffered the biggest increase in average tax rates in the developed world with the end of the low- and middle-income tax offset and bracket creep, just as an unusual mix of petrol, cooking oil, bread and insurance combined to drive up the cost of living.

Data released today by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, as part of its annual snapshot of global personal income tax systems, revealed Australians endured a 7.6 per cent increase in their average tax rates in 2023.

The second-largest increase in the developed world, of 4.5 per cent, was experienced in New Zealand.

Single people on two-thirds of the average income, about $67,000, are now paying 20.2 per cent of their wage in tax, a 17 per cent jump on their tax burden in 2022. It is the highest tax hit on this group since the early 2000s.

Here’s the latest on the tax increases. 

The northern Gaza Strip is still heading toward a famine, according to the deputy UN food chief said.

World Food Program deputy executive director Carl Skau has appealed for greater volume and diversity of aid to be allowed into the enclave, and for Israel to allow direct access.

Israel pledged three weeks ago to improve aid access, including reopening Erez and allowing the use of Ashdod port. The move came after U.S. President Joe Biden demanded steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying the U.S. could place conditions on support if Israel did not act.

“We certainly welcome those commitments and some of them have been partly implemented. Some remain to be implemented,” Skau said, adding that for WFP there had been an “uptick” in getting aid in and some progress in accessing northern Gaza.

“But it’s far from enough. We need volume and we need diversity of goods and we really need consistency,” he said.

“We’re still heading towards a famine (in the north).”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week that Israel’s commitments to improve aid access in the Gaza Strip had so far had limited and sometimes no impact.

A UN-backed report published in March said famine was imminent and likely by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave of 2.3 million people by July.

Reuters

Good morning, and thanks for your company.

It’s Friday, April 26. I’m Caroline Schelle, and I’ll be steering our live coverage for the first half of the day.

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