Australia news LIVE: Wong demands Israel cease Rafah attacks; Albanese government to introduce EPA law to parliament

Question time begins at 2pm in the House of Representatives. Watch live below:

Australian Border Force officials have revealed three former immigration detainees who have been charged with serious, state-based crimes since their release were not being electronically monitored, and four were not subject to curfews.

Officials have also told a Senate hearing at least two people who have previously served prison sentences for murder are not subject to electronic monitoring, with Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson questioning “how on earth” that was decided.

ABF commissioner Michael Outram said former detainees were subject to a whole range of conditions, adding ankle bracelets were not a “panacea”.

“In terms of the law, the law does not say, if you have committed murder and being convicted for murder, you must have electronic monitoring,” Outram said.

This masthead revealed this week 28 of 153 former detainees had been charged with fresh offences.

The Senate committee heard that that number had increased to 29, with 26 of the 29 wearing ankle monitors, and 25 subject to curfews.

Charges linked to those without ankle monitors include assault, robbery, kidnapping and impersonating a police officer.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor has pledged if the Coalition forms government they will cut spending.

Speaking in Canberra after the Consumer Price Index rose from 3.5 per cent to 3.6 per cent, Taylor accused Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ budget of failing to show fiscal discipline.

“This was not a budget that is going to beat inflation and that’s because we’ve got a government that’s weak, that is ineffective, a treasurer that doesn’t understand the basic economics of how you beat inflation and is making the wrong calls and the wrong priority,” he said.

“We need fiscal policy to be playing a role in beating inflation, if you rely on the Reserve Bank it means interest rates stay higher for longer and that is exactly what’s happening.

“We’ve laid out many areas where the government hasn’t needed to spend money.”

As we reported this morning, the introduction of draft laws to establish Australia’s first national Environment Protection Agency is one of the hot-button issues of the week.

But Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is facing criticism from green groups who say the reforms are “not good enough”.

A joint statement from three environmental advocacy groups, The Wilderness Society, Environmental Justice Australia, and the Conservation Council of WA, says the EPA in the proposed reforms “lacks accountability and will be vulnerable to continued interference from vested interests, without an independent board”.

The proposed EPA will handle development decisions and enforce regulations. The reforms will also establish Environment Information Australia to provide data to the EPA on ecosystems, plants and animals to aid in decision-making.

The statement continued that WA’s state-based EPA had been “undermined by industry pressure on the government to fast-track development approvals at nature’s expense”.

The groups warned that the experiences of the WA EPA “underlines the need for a fully independent federal EPA that has the legal and regulatory tools it requires”.

The European Union has urged Australia to attend a peace summit in Switzerland to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ambassadors from the EU and member states issued the call to Australia’s foreign affairs department on Tuesday, a European official confirmed.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is yet to decide on attending the mid-June summit, his department’s deputy secretary Graham Fletcher told a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday.

“The invitation has been received and it’s under consideration,” Fletcher said.

“An announcement will be made in due course.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs has been contacted for comment.

The last time the prime minister spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania in July 2023, assistant secretary Craig Chittick said.

Ukrainian ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko urged Mr Albanese or a high-level minister to attend the summit.

AAP

Experts have been working for almost two weeks to free Florence, a tunnel-boring machine wedged deep underground at Snowy 2.0, the project’s boss says.

Bogged a year ago, and the survivor of a surprise sinkhole, the latest partial collapse of a tunnel at a so-called pinch point prompted concerns at a late-night senate estimates session about another delay.

The cost of the nation-building project may have doubled in the past six years to $12 billion, but its value has also increased in a changing electricity market, Snowy Hydro chief executive Dennis Barnes told the environment committee on Tuesday.

Barnes said the project’s completion was critical to supporting the national electricity market, decarbonisation and reliability targets.

Like other big batteries, Snowy 2.0 will keep the lights on when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining and could power half a million homes for an entire week.

“The role of Snowy 2.0 in the market is to facilitate the delivery of the lowest-cost form of energy … solar and wind,” he said.

“We provide the backup for that low-cost energy … It’s just there for insurance.”

Defending the machine nicknamed Flo, Barnes said the rock had proved to be too soft and too hard over the years, which was not unusual for a mega project with geological risk.

AAP

Another renewed and targeted search for the body of missing woman Samantha Murphy is under way in regional Victoria.

On Wednesday morning, Victoria Police announced missing person detectives would be back searching near Ballarat for the 51-year-old, who disappeared while going for a run in February in bushland near her home.

In March, Patrick Stephenson, a 22-year-old local man with no apparent connection to Murphy, was charged with her murder. Investigators allege Stephenson, the son of an ex-AFL player, attacked Murphy at Mount Clear on February 4. Her body has not been found.

Images from a media helicopter over the search zone show police sniffer dogs helping a small contingent of officers scouring farmland and roadside scrub south of Buninyong.

A digger was also seen clearing bushes beside a road.

Police have announced several similar targeted searches in recent months, but each was called off with no public announcements of a breakthrough. Authorities have said other small-scale searches have continued consistently since February.

Members of the public were asked to stay away from the search zone, although police did not publicly reveal its location.

“Samantha’s family has also been advised of the search,” a police statement said.

“We are not in a position to supply further specific details of today’s operational activity at this time.”

Yet another immigration stoush is at the centre of this sitting week in Canberra, with the Coalition firmly focusing their attacks on Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and a rule he signed in January last year named Direction 99.

The rule clarified decision-making criteria in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal around visa decisions for foreign-born criminals, and was implemented in the context of years of lobbying from the New Zealand government. It named community safety as a major factor but also mentioned a “higher level of tolerance” for offenders with long ties to Australia.

But as chief political correspondent David Crowe puts it in his analysis, “the Coalition now talks of Direction 99 as if it set an entirely new standard. It did not.”

Below is an extract of Crowe’s analysis of the debate. Click here to read his full take.

The opposition leader says the immigration minister, Andrew Giles, must be sacked. Some press gallery journalists back that call. The government responds with boilerplate loyalty for the minister. But Labor is being outflanked daily by newspaper headlines and Coalition attacks.

But the actual history of the past few years shows the tribunal has repeatedly allowed convicted criminals to stay in Australia under both major parties. The tribunal did it when Dutton was minister. Now it does when Giles is minister. A key reason is that both major parties – not just one – have allowed the tribunal to show a ‘higher level of tolerance’ for some of these offenders.”

For more details on Direction 99, the workings of AAT, and the status of the debate, head here.

Fewer than 40 per cent of Palestinians fleeing violence in the Middle East have been granted entry to Australia under the visa class the government has allocated for them.

Last year, the Albanese government began issuing visitor visas to people escaping widespread destruction in Gaza, which allows them to stay in Australia for up to 12 months, allowing them the opportunity to apply for protection once they arrive.

Home Affairs officials revealed during a parliamentary hearing this morning that 2686 visas had so far been granted for Palestinians and 4614 had been refused.

Only 1010 people have arrived in Australia from the Occupied Palestinian Territories since the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel, which triggered Israel’s full-scale retaliation on Gaza.

Officials have also conceded no humanitarian visas have been issued to people fleeing Gaza.

Agriculture and Emergency Services Minister Murray Watt, who is representing the ministers in the home affairs portfolio, said the government needed to follow health and security checks, while officials said applicants were failing the test of being considered genuine visitors.

Greens immigration spokesman David Shoebridge said people fleeing Gaza were being denied “because they are not ‘genuine tourists’”.

“Of course, people in Gaza are more concerned with escaping a genocide, saving their lives and those of their families, than seeing the [Sydney] Opera House,” he said.

“Only a genuinely cruel government would design a system that refuses protection for people facing genocide because they don’t want to return to the genocide.”

Annual inflation has risen slightly to 3.6 per cent, driven by increases in housing, food, alcohol and transport costs, according to the latest monthly from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt said inflation rose to 3.6 per cent in the 12 months to April, up from 3.5 per cent in the year to March.

“Inflation has been relatively stable over the past five months, although this is the second month in a row where annual inflation has had a small increase,” she said.

Housing inflation rose by 4.9 per cent in the year to April, below the 5.2 per cent recorded in the year to March.

Rents rose by 7.5 per cent over the year as the rental market remains tight.

Electricity prices rose by 4.2 per cent through the year to April, and the ABS said the federal government’s energy bill relief has helped keep those price rises down.

“Excluding the rebates, electricity prices would have risen 13.9 per cent in the 12 months to April 2024,” Marquardt said.

Fruit and vegetables recorded their largest annual price rises in a year, increasing by 3.5 per cent.

Overall, food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation rose by 3.8 per cent.