Paul J. Berating

Today's Top Stories

⚡ Top Story

Pauline Hanson refuses to condemn Dezi Freeman defender

One Nation's leader has refused to admonish a volunteer who shared a post defending cop-killer Dezi Freeman and joined her on stage at a recent victory party.

Hanson won't condemn the volunteer because the volunteer is the constituency. One Nation's never been a party with a fringe — it's a fringe with a party, and the leader knows which end of the dog wags which. Asking Pauline to disown the bloke on stage is like asking the publican to disown the regulars.

Guardian Australia · Jonathan Barrett and Tom McIlroy

Chalmers swings at negative gearing, CGT and trusts in one budget

Treasurer Jim Chalmers unveils sweeping changes to negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount and trust taxation, pitched as intergenerational rebalancing from incomes to assets.

Hawke and I ran at negative gearing in '85 and the property lobby ran us off the road inside two years. Chalmers has gone the full Monty — gearing, CGT, trusts, the lot — and called it intergenerational fairness, which is the polite way of saying the kids finally outnumber the landlords at the ballot box. Whether it survives contact with the Senate is another matter. Reform's easy on budget night. It's the morning after that kills you.

SMH · Shane Wright

Chalmers finds the edges of negative gearing, leaves the middle alone

Budget night tax tweaks promise 75,000 young Australians a home, while leaving the architecture that locked them out largely intact.

Seventy-five thousand young people into a home and two and a half million investors keeping the settings that priced them out in the first place. Hawke looked at negative gearing in '85 and lost his nerve inside eighteen months. Forty years later Chalmers has found the courage to tinker at the edges and call it reform. The market's already priced in the timidity.

Michael West Media · AAP

Soldier killed in parachute accident at Jervis Bay

One Australian soldier has died and another was injured in a parachuting incident during training at a Jervis Bay airfield.

A soldier's dead in a training jump at Jervis Bay and the appropriate response is silence, not commentary. The investigation will run, the family will grieve, and the rest of us can manage to keep our mouths shut for once.

SMH · Natassia Chrysanthos, Mike Foley, Shane Wright

One Nation says it's coming for more seats. These are the ones that could fall next

One Nation eyes Victorian border seats and beyond, betting the same grievances that gutted the Coalition in NSW are alive and well across the Murray.

One Nation's growth strategy is the Liberals' decay strategy with a different hat on. Hanson doesn't need to win seats — she just needs the Nationals to keep treating their own voters like furniture. Menzies built a broad church. The Coalition's left the side door open and the cats have moved in.