Paul J. Berating

Today's Top Stories

⚡ Top Story

Islamic State-linked families to return to Australia

A group of 13 people with links to the terrorist group Islamic State have confirmed plans to travel to Australia after years in a Syrian refugee camp.

Thirteen people coming home and the press releases will write themselves on both sides — Burke gets to look firm, the Coalition gets to look outraged, and the actual question of what we do with citizens we created and then forgot about gets shouted over by the chorus. We exported the problem to a camp in Syria for years and called it foreign policy. Now the bill's arriving in the mail like every bill we pretended wasn't ours.

SMH · Matthew Knott

Takaichi flies in, Canberra flies blind

Japan's first woman prime minister visited Australia and Canberra produced a handshake, a press release, and not much else.

Takaichi flies in, flies out, and the communiqué reads like a Christmas card from a cousin you've never met. Japan sent its first woman PM and we treated it like a stopover at Tullamarine. Hawke would have had Nakasone at Kirribilli with the prawns out. This mob managed a handshake and a hashtag.

SMH · Shane Wright, Millie Muroi

RBA hikes a third time, blames Iran, promises relief sometime after the next excuse

The Reserve Bank lifts rates again and tells Australians the Middle East has made them poorer — relief is officially six months and one war away.

Bullock's told us the war in Iran made us poorer and the cure is to make us poorer faster. Three rate rises and a shrug — the RBA's only lever is the family budget and they pull it like a bloke yanking the cord on a mower that won't start. Six months for relief, mate. Set your watch by the next excuse.

SMH · Brittany Busch, Paul Sakkal, Caitlin Fitzsimmons

EV tax breaks to be slashed from April next year

A major tax exemption for electric vehicles will eventually be replaced with a 25 per cent tax discount as Labor eyes savings in next week’s budget.

Labor handed out a tax break to get the EVs rolling, and now the cars are rolling so they're taking it back — like shouting the bar a round and then asking everyone to chip in for the tip. The discount drops to 25 per cent because Treasury found a savings line and a budget week. Industry policy by spreadsheet, climate policy by stopwatch.

news.com.au

Chalmers Returns Your Wallet, Expects a Tip

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is reportedly preparing tax cuts for the May 12 federal budget, framed as a cash boost for workers.

Chalmers will stand at the dispatch box on the twelfth and call a tax cut a 'cash boost' like a bloke handing back your own wallet and expecting a tip. Every budget since Howard's been the same conjuring trick — bracket creep does the lifting all year, the Treasurer takes the bow in May. Menzies would have called it accounting. Canberra calls it generosity.

SMH · Rob Harris, Paul Sakkal

One Nation Frets Their Candidate Might Be... One Nation

Senior One Nation figures fear Farrer byelection candidate David Farley won't survive within the party if elected — which raises the question of what, exactly, they thought they were preselecting.

One Nation's senior figures worried their candidate won't last the distance — mate, the party's whole business model is candidates who don't last the distance. Hanson's been running the same audition for thirty years: find a bloke angry enough to win a byelection, then act surprised when he turns out angry. The dog catches the car and the party can't work out why there's barking in the cabin.