Key occasions
Natasha Could
Extra Australians can’t afford specialist charges. Specialists say it’s ‘not within the spirit of Medicare’
The price of an preliminary dermatology appointment is now as much as practically $300 on common, new knowledge reveals. It displays a broader drawback: Medicare rebates aren’t maintaining with the tempo specialist charges are rising.
On-line healthcare listing Cleanbill, which has tracked bulk-billing charges amongst GPs, is increasing to offer knowledge on out-of-pocket prices to see different well being professionals, beginning with dermatology.
The report, launched on Thursday, discovered the Medicare rebate in March 2017 for an preliminary appointment with a dermatologist was $72.75, whereas the out-of-pocket value was $148.73.
By March 2025, the rebate had risen by $11.40, to $84.15, whereas the common out-of-pocket prices, at $210.18, have been $61.45 costlier.
Learn extra from right here:
Chalmers: Australia ‘received’t be immune’ from Trump’s metal and aluminium tariffs
Earlier this morning, the treasurer Jim Chalmers spoke concerning the impression US president Donald Trump’s doubling of tariffs on international metal and aluminium would have on Australia. He had this to say on RN Breakfast:
We’ve made it actually clear we don’t need to see an escalation of tariffs. They’re an act of financial self-harm. They’re very damaging to the worldwide financial system. And we received’t be immune from that, although we’re better-placed and better-prepared than most nations to take care of it.
Chalmers stated the tariffs would have an effect on Australian metal producers, however referred to as these companies “among the many greatest on the earth”.
We’re assured that they will discover good markets, good, dependable markets for fantastic Australian metal and aluminium.
Adam Morton
Extra from Local weather Change Authority chief Matt Kean yesterday
In his speech on the Australian Museum, Matt Kean additionally briefly referred to the Local weather Change Authority’s work advising the Albanese authorities on a 2035 emissions discount goal.
The recommendation was delayed earlier than final month’s federal election. The recommendation and a authorities announcement is now anticipated by September, earlier than the Cop30 summit in Brazil in November.
Kean stated he needed a goal that was “bold, knowledgeable by the science, but additionally achievable”. He has beforehand stated the authority was consulting with stakeholders on a goal vary – a 65% to 75% reduce under 2005 ranges.
He stated a part of the authority’s work was to know what Donald Trump’s makes an attempt to dismantle the Biden administration’s decarbonisation funding would imply for Australia – whether or not it might hamper or assist a fast shift to cleaner observe.
Some political or enterprise leaders have urged if a goal seems past attain, we must always throw within the towel.
In truth, there are numerous methods we are able to do extra, largely by going with the electron movement. The tempo of electrification will decide whether or not we succeed.
He stated giving households extra assist to take up photo voltaic and batteries was “not solely good politics. It might decide up a few of the slack if the bigger grid overhaul takes longer than anticipated”.
Queensland nurses to launch their first industrial motion in 23 years immediately
Andrew Messenger
The secretary of the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union, Sarah Beaman, stated tens of hundreds of nurses would participate within the motion on Thursday morning. It’s the first motion since 2002.
Union members will put on pins, pink shirts and distribute union materials however the motion is anticipated to escalate over time if their phrases aren’t met.
The union is locked in negotiations with the state authorities over a brand new enterprise bargaining settlement. The principle sticking factors are wages and situations; the union says the state authorities has failed to satisfy an election promise for nation-leading pay for nurses. Beaman stated:
Make no mistake we have now a nursing and midwifery workforce disaster in Queensland. If the federal government permits Queenland to fall behind Victoria for the primary time in 15 years, we are going to see much less nurses and midwives state-wide.
The federal government promised us nation-leading wages and situations, and we’re taking motion to make them ship their promise.
Boele says she will probably be ‘very daring’ from the crossbench
Boele stated she’s going to deal with local weather change and inexpensive housing, amongst different points, in her new function on the crossbench. She instructed RN Breakfast that Labor’s sturdy majority in parliament demanded independents and others to carry the Albanese authorities to account.
She pointed to the latest determination to increase the North West Shelf fuel undertaking till 2070:
Even Labor, earlier than we’ve even began the following parliament, has accredited an extension to the North West Shelf, for instance. That’s a local weather bomb. And this can be a celebration that claims they perceive local weather science.
So there may be at all times going to be a necessity for individuals who courageously speak.
Nicolette Boele ‘very assured’ with end result of Bradfield recount
Unbiased Nicolette Boele referred to as the weeks-long effort to depend and recount ballots within the seat of Bradfield one of many “most spectacular and complete” processes, saying she was “very assured” with the end result that noticed her conquer the Liberal’s Gisele Kapterian. She instructed RN Breakfast:
I feel I’m very assured with the method that’s been run by the AEC and the end result that we have now right here. So I’m eager to get on with the job, however I can perceive you may have to ask that query to Giselle Kapterian.
Boele referred to as her competitor a “formidable candidate”.
Chalmers doesn’t rule out concessions to get tremendous tax throughout the road
Jim Chalmers addressed the necessity to work with the crossbench to get Labor’s superannuation tax plan handed. The ABC’s Sally Sara requested if the federal government was providing a “take-it-or-leave-it” deal and had dominated out making concessions with the Greens on the matter. Chalmers instructed RN Breakfast:
We don’t have the numbers within the Senate to cross our laws on our personal. We have to interact with the crossbench, specifically, on this occasion. And I intend to try this.
… However our intention, our choice, is to legislate the plan that we introduced virtually two-and-a-half years in the past now.
The treasurer stated he would interact “respectfully” with the crossbench, noting there was additionally a whole lot of “disunity” within the Coalition over the tax enhance.
Chalmers says Australian financial system performing ‘comparatively nicely’ regardless of GDP numbers
Treasurer Jim Chalmers stated this morning Australia’s financial system remained in a very good place, citing decrease inflation, a rise in actual wages and the reducing of rates of interest, regardless of yesterday’s information that the nation’s GDP grew just 0.2% in the first three months of 2025. He instructed RN Breakfast:
The Australian financial story is a really compelling one. The financial system continues to develop, we’ve obtained inflation decrease, actual wages and incomes are rising, rates of interest have began to come back down, we’ve obtained the debt down within the finances. And so, overwhelmingly, Australia’s financial system is performing comparatively nicely in contrast with the remainder of the world.
Even modest progress in these world circumstances is welcome. We do have a worldwide financial system which is characterised by uncertainty and volatility and unpredictability.
You may learn extra concerning the GDP and Greg Jericho’s take right here:
Nicolette Boele relishes victory in Bradfield after lengthy recount
Natasha Could
Newly elected impartial MP Nicolette Boele says the recount has given her “absolute confidence, much more confidence than earlier than, in our democracy and within the Australian electoral fee.”
After being declared winner of the Sydney seat of Bradfield on a wafer-thin margin of 26 votes yesterday over a month after polls closed, Boele appeared on ABC’s 7.30 program yesterday night.
Boele stated the win was the fruits of years of campaigning and 1,450 volunteers, together with 222 folks scrutineering over the past 4 and a half weeks, and 12 folks doing all of the catering for these scrutineers.
Boele stated she realised she had received when she held a press convention instantly after the announcement:
I used to be standing in entrance of the cameras, and the phrases ‘Nicolette MP for Bradfield’ got here up. And it was that second that I assumed, ‘wow, not only a candidate, however somebody who has been elected’, and it’s genuinely beginning to sink in as one of many largest honours that I’ve ever had in my life.
The Liberal candidate, Gisele Kapterian, hasn’t but conceded – she stated in an announcement she’s going to “rigorously evaluation” the unique depend and the recount. Whether or not she tries to seek out grounds to take the outcome to the court docket of disputed returns Boele stated was a “query for her”.
Shadow treasurer says Labor’s tremendous tax plan centred on ‘egregious concept’
The shadow treasurer, Ted O’Brien, stated Labor’s plan to extend taxes on giant superannuation balances over $3m will probably be “an absolute catastrophe”. O’Brien spoke to Radio Nationwide Breakfast this morning amid the political tussle over the proposal, saying any tax on unrealised features was an “egregious concept”:
We consider in decrease taxes. We consider in easier taxes. We consider in fairer taxes. …
This crosses a pink line in Australian tax regulation. It is going to be an absolute catastrophe. … The place does that then go? Will Labor begin taxing unrealised capital features in your major residence? We don’t desire a bar of that. This isn’t good in any respect.
O’Brien, the deputy Liberal chief, went on to say that he would like to see “this complete invoice scrapped”, however that’s “most likely not going to occur”.
Adam Morton
Matt Kean tells fossil fuel-friendly MPs to cease ‘holding our nation again’
Matt Kean made an assertive case for why local weather motion makes financial sense whereas giving the Talbot oration on the Australian Museum in Sydney on Wednesday evening.
In feedback that have been a less-than-subtle swipe at Coalition MPs, and presumably some others, the Local weather Change Authority chair and former NSW Liberal vitality minister stated “opponents of local weather motion don’t hand over even when their political events cop an electoral hammering”, however urged Australians to disregard “doubters whose important mission appears to be to delay the lifetime of fossil gas industries”:
To these politicians who’re nonetheless offering a canopy for vested pursuits, I say get out of the best way. Cease holding our nation again and cease holding your political events again. Strive appearing within the nationwide curiosity – or take the low highway to political oblivion.
Kean quoted André Corrêa do Lago, the Brazilian diplomat who will head this 12 months’s Cop30 UN local weather summit within the Amazon, and who last week told the Guardian that opposition to bold steps to handle the local weather disaster was now largely “not scientific denial”, however “financial denial”.
On this, Kean stated “it helps that the economics are additionally aligning with the science”.
As US energy innovator Hal Harvey put it, ‘it’s now cheaper to avoid wasting the Earth than to damage it’. Traders are lining up trillions of funding {dollars} to decarbonise economies. Even so, we should be reasonable concerning the scale of the duty forward.
Good morning
Good morning, and welcome to Thursday. Nick Visser right here to take you thru immediately’s breaking information. Right here’s what’s on deck:
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Matt Kean, chair of the Local weather Change Authority, instructed politicians who’re offering cowl for motion on fossil fuels to “get out of the best way.” Kean spoke in Sydney final evening, saying MPs standing towards local weather motion have been “holding our nation again” and “holding your political events again”.
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Unbiased Nicolette Boele is relishing her win in the seat of Bradfield after an extended, seesawing recount. Boele spoke to the ABC final evening, calling the second she was declared victorious “one of many largest honours that I’ve ever had in my life.” Liberal Gisele Kapterian has not but conceded the race.
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Keep on with us as we dig into the political disaster in Tasmania later immediately with the talk on a no-confidence movement towards the state’s premier set to proceed. Jim Chalmers may also discuss Australia’s less-than-robust GDP numbers later this morning.
Onwards.
