Australia news LIVE: Frydenberg reportedly mulls comeback; Australia offers Timor-Leste deal for $50 billion gas field

Natasha Ryan, the teenager who famously hid in her boyfriend’s cupboard, leading her family and police to believe she was murdered, has died in Rockhampton, in central Queensland.

Ryan was at the centre of one of Australia’s most notorious missing person cases after she disappeared aged just 14 in August 1988. She went into hiding at her boyfriend Scott Black’s central Queensland home and was not heard from for more than five years.

Her disappearance came around the time of a number of well-publicised disappearances of women and girls in Rockhampton, who were later found to be victims of serial killer Leonard John Fraser.

The teenager’s family were so sure of her death that, three years after she disappeared, Ryan’s father Robert held a special memorial service in Bundaberg Crematorium Chapel to give the family “closure”. Fraser was charged with Ryan’s murder.

However, in the middle of his murder trial in 2003, a tip-off led to a police raid on Black’s home and Ryan was found, alive and well, hiding in a cupboard.

Read more here.

In state news, construction on a 12-kilometre light rail route connecting growing suburbs in Sydney’s west will begin later this year after the state government allocated $2 billion towards the long-promised public transport project.

Seven years after the previous Coalition government first announced the connection between Parramatta’s business district and Sydney Olympic Park, Premier Chris Minns announced construction would begin on the project’s second stage later this year with a new 320-metre bridge over the Parramatta River.

Minns said the investment in the forthcoming state budget delivered an election commitment to thousands of people in Sydney’s west who moved to the area with the promise of infrastructure “that never arrived”.

“The light rail [is] forecast to carry 28,000 passengers every day by 2026,” he said.

“That’s a game-changer for communities around Parramatta – connecting venues, schools, shops and people for decades to come.”

The government expects the first stage of the light rail will carry thousands of passengers a day when it opens to the public “in the coming months”.

Coalition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume has backed Kooyong candidate Amelia Hamer, saying it would be “crazy” to reopen preselection just because of a boundary change.

The Australian Electoral Commission’s draft boundary changes released on Friday proposed abolishing the seat of Higgins, which means Kooyong would get 30,000 more voters, prompting rumours about former treasurer Josh Frydenberg recontesting his former seat.

Asked on Sky News for her preference between former treasurer Josh Frydenberg or preselected candidate Hamer, Hume said the focus should be on attracting strong female candidates.

“I think there might be some Josh Frydenberg fans that got a little bit of a rush of blood to the head when they saw these boundary changes,” she said.

“Our focus as a party should be on keeping Higgins right now. We have some extraordinary female candidates – people like Katie Allen, people like Amelia Hamer.

“Why would they open the preselections based on draft boundaries alone? Boundaries change all the time, they have done in the past, it would be a crazy thing to do … I know that there’s lots of people out there that would love to see Josh’s return, but Josh is a great supporter of women in parliament – always has been – and I know he’s doing right by Amelia Hamer.”

Hume’s view contrasts sharply with fellow prominent Liberal woman Karen Andrews’ public calls for Frydenberg to run, which would cause the sensational ousting of Hamer as the party’s candidate.

Outgoing Liberal MP Karen Andrews says her party should do all that it can to attract former treasurer Josh Frydenberg back into parliament as he would be an “asset” to the Liberals.

Last week, the Australian Electoral Commission released a draft redrawing of electorate boundaries which would abolish the federal seat of Higgins and expand the seats nearby, which means 30,000 voters move into Kooyong – Frydenberg’s old seat that he lost to teal candidate Monique Ryan in a stunning 2022 election upset.

Over the weekend, reports emerged that Frydenberg was mulling running again, as supporters of the former treasurer suggest 31-year-old Amelia Hamer, who was preselected for the seat, may need to give it up for Frydenberg.

Andrews refused to say if this would contribute to the Liberals’ issue with attracting women, arguing the party needed the best candidates to win the election.

“My view of Josh Frydenberg is that he would be an absolute asset to the team that we take forward to the next election,” Andrews told ABC Radio National this morning.

“This is about making sure that we have the strongest possible candidates in each seat and we have the best team to take forward.”

Asked if Andrews sees Frydenberg as future leader and whether it would be destabilising for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, she gave her support for Dutton but also conceded she sees Frydenberg as a future leader.

“[Frydenberg] obviously has that potential but the Liberal Party has a leader at the moment too … yes, he certainly has leadership capabilities but leadership is not just the leader of party – leadership also goes to the shadow cabinet,” she said.

“[Dutton] said some time ago that he would be welcoming of Josh Frydenberg coming back and I doubt that his position has changed.”

Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth has used reports of former treasurer Josh Frydenberg mulling a comeback to contest his old Melbourne seat to attack Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party’s representation of women in federal parliament.

Speaking on Channel Nine’s Today show this morning, the South Australian Labor MP pointed out a Liberal preselection had already picked 31-year-old Amelia Hamer as the party’s candidate for Kooyong, and she would have to be ousted if Frydenberg was to return.

“I mean, they’re obviously desperately trying to find someone else other than Peter Dutton. But look, if I was the candidate that had been working there, I’d feel pretty annoyed,” Rishworth said.

“And it’s certainly not going to help with the Liberal Party getting more women into parliament. There’s an awful lot of speculation about Josh, and maybe he’s just too busy making money at the moment to come back.”

Last September, Frydenberg had ruled out a political comeback. In a statement to this masthead, he said he had been enjoying spending more time with his family and working in the private sector, becoming the new chairman of investment bank Goldman Sachs’ Australian and New Zealand operation.

But on Sunday, ABC Insiders host David Speers reported Frydenberg was considering running again. A senior Liberal woman, former cabinet minister Karen Andrews, also went public on Sunday afternoon to back the former treasurer’s return.

Almost one in three Australians want Donald Trump to win November’s US presidential elections, a significant increase from when the businessman and former reality television star first ran for office eight years ago, according to a major survey of Australians’ views on global affairs.

The latest annual Lowy Institute poll, released this morning, also found that “warm” feelings towards the United States fell to their lowest levels in the survey’s 20-year history, underscoring a growing lack of faith in Australia’s most important security partner.

The vast majority of Australians want US President Joe Biden to remain in the White House, but Trump is easily the most popular Republican candidate among Australians for at least the past 16 years.

The rise in support for Trump has come despite his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, a campaign that led to the storming of the US Capitol, a second impeachment and charges being laid against him for conspiracy to defraud the US.

Read more here.

The rush to restore Josh Frydenberg to federal parliament looks like a sure victory to Liberals who believe the former treasurer can defeat “teal” independents like Monique Ryan and help the party regain federal power.

But the campaign looks like a huge risk when anyone stops to think about the woman who gets shoved aside in the stampede.

Amelia Hamer, the 31-year-old Oxford-educated grand-niece of former Victorian premier Sir Rupert “Dick” Hamer, won the right to be the Liberal Party candidate for Kooyong, in the wealthiest parts of Melbourne, by 233 to 59 votes only nine weeks ago. Now the Frydenberg support squad believes she must give up that right for the man who lost the seat to Ryan and the teal steamroller at the last election.

That is why it is so significant that a senior Liberal woman, former cabinet minister Karen Andrews, went public on Sunday afternoon to back the former treasurer.

“Josh Frydenberg, in my view, is someone we need to bring back into the Liberal Party and into federal politics,” Andrews told this masthead.

On Sunday morning, ABC Insiders host David Speers reported Frydenberg was considering running again. Last year, the ex-treasurer had ruled out a political comeback in Kooyong.

Read more of David Crowe’s analysis here.

Australia is offering Timor-Leste a multi-billion-dollar lifeline to fast-track the Greater Sunrise offshore gas project, which promises generational wealth for the fledgling nation while keeping Beijing at bay.

Australia has offered Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao’s government a sizable package of incentives that would effectively give Timor-Leste 90 per cent of revenue from the project.

Senior diplomatic and government sources say ensuring the development of the long-stalled Greater Sunrise field, 450 kilometres northwest of Darwin and 150 kilometres south of Timor-Leste, is one of the Albanese government’s top strategic priorities.

“We don’t want Timor to become another Solomons,” one high-level political source told this masthead.

Read more of Andrew Probyn’s exclusive story here.

Good morning, and thanks for your company.

It’s Monday, June 3. I’m Lachlan Abbott, and I’ll be steering our live coverage for the first half of the day.

Here’s what’s making news this morning:

• Over the weekend, the federal government cancelled the visas of more criminals in urgent decisions to overturn tribunal rulings that let them stay in Australia, ahead of tougher rules to deport convicts who are born overseas.

• Senior cabinet minister Bill Shorten will represent Australia at Ukraine’s peace summit in Switzerland later this month, which President Volodymyr Zelensky billed as crucial to his country’s future in a surprise appeal to Asia-Pacific leaders at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Sunday.

• High interest rates and inflation have failed to dampen the nation’s property market, with Sydney’s median house price reaching a record high of more than $1.4 million while Brisbane has become the second most expensive capital in the country, according to new figures released today.

• In NSW, the body of a woman was found early this morning at the site of a unit block explosion in Sydney’s west after a two-night search operation.

• In Victoria, The Age has revealed Victoria’s Treasury quietly sought advice from investment banks this year for a review of all government agencies to find out how much money could be raised from privatisation of public assets.

• In Queensland, a major international tourism campaign has been launched, enlisting beloved cartoon character Bluey and Australia Zoo’s Robert Irwin to attract visitors to the state.

• In Western Australia, three teenagers were rescued from their bogged car south of Kalbarri on Saturday after a ‘HELP’ message they wrote in the sand was detected by a plane.

• In business news, the Australian sharemarket is set to rise this morning after an already verdant May for Wall Street finished with another push higher after a positive inflation report on Friday.

• In international news, South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority in a historic election result on Saturday that puts the country on a new political path for the first time since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule 30 years ago.