Hamer ‘cautiously optimistic’ for Liberal victory in Kooyong against Monique Ryan
Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer is “cautiously optimistic” for an outcome in Kooyong in her favour, she told 3AW yesterday.
“It’s too close to call anything right now, but you know, if the postals do continue on the trajectory that we’ve seen so far … there is a pathway,” she said. Hamer is in a tight race against independent Monique Ryan.
On election night, Hamer said she considered calling in to concede.
You[’ve] got to put your ego aside in these things, [if] it looks like you’re not going to get there.
[The] first thing I actually did [was] speak to the team. I said, ‘Look, should I call and concede’. The team said to me, ‘no, actually, it does look like what’s coming out of pre-poll is much more positive’. And, you know, I trust my team and so we hung on.
Key events
Jonathan Barrett
More from NAB chief executive Andrew Irvine
Since coming to Australia last year, the British-Canadian dual citizen has been forthright in his criticism of housing affordability issues.
He said today that:
The only way we’re going to address this is to fix supply and so we’ve got to have more conversations on that. It’s still the case that too much of the discourse on housing is on the demand side.
While the housing policies of both of Australia’s major parties were heavily criticised in the election campaign, Labor’s platform had more supply built into it than the Coalition’s proposal.
NAB economists are forecasting a string of rate cuts this year, including a bumper 50 basis point reduction later this month.
Irvine said while those cuts will help mortgage holders, it could also drive home prices further out of reach for many Australians.
“We may not get the outcome we want, which is getting more people into houses,” he said.
Jonathan Barrett
NAB boss backs Canadian PM
The head of National Australia Bank, Andrew Irvine, has backed the new Canadian prime minister, describing him as “exactly what Canada needs in these turbulent times”.
Irvine, a British-Canadian dual citizen, told media after the bank’s half-year results today that he’d sent the new PM, Mark Carney, a congratulatory note after last month’s election.
Carney, a former central banker in Canada and the UK, is tasked with negotiating trade arrangements with Donald Trump, while fending off suggestions Canada should accede to joining the US as the 51st state.
“He’s exactly what Canada needs in these turbulent times,” said Irvine, who worked at the Bank of Montreal before joining NAB last year.
He certainly has a strong mandate from the Canadian people, and I wish him well in his efforts to negotiate with the Trump administration.
Analyst Ben Raue still predicts Ryan will narrowly win Kooyong
Independent Monique Ryan remains about 1,000 votes ahead of Hamer, according to analyst Ben Raue. Last night he predicted the gap wouldn’t narrow enough to tip the seat of Kooyong in Liberal Amelia Hamer’s favour.
Raue’s model has Ryan winning by 600 votes.
Hamer ‘cautiously optimistic’ for Liberal victory in Kooyong against Monique Ryan
Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer is “cautiously optimistic” for an outcome in Kooyong in her favour, she told 3AW yesterday.
“It’s too close to call anything right now, but you know, if the postals do continue on the trajectory that we’ve seen so far … there is a pathway,” she said. Hamer is in a tight race against independent Monique Ryan.
On election night, Hamer said she considered calling in to concede.
You[’ve] got to put your ego aside in these things, [if] it looks like you’re not going to get there.
[The] first thing I actually did [was] speak to the team. I said, ‘Look, should I call and concede’. The team said to me, ‘no, actually, it does look like what’s coming out of pre-poll is much more positive’. And, you know, I trust my team and so we hung on.
Victorian premier pays tribute to former Labor MP and chief of staff Race Mathews
Benita Kolovos
Race Mathews, a former chief of staff to Gough Whitlam who was also a federal and Victorian MP, has died. He was 90.
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, led tributes to the Labor activist and social reformer. She said Mathews “never forgot where he came from or who he was there to serve”, crediting him with helping to shape the early design of Medibank, which lay the groundwork for Medicare.
Allan said during his time as a minister in the Cain government he “led reforms that changed our state for the better”, including strengthening child protection, conducting a major review into Victoria police, tightening gun control and improving disaster management after the 1983 ash Wednesday bushfires.
She said he also championed the arts. Mathews has been credited with establishing the Arts Centre in Southbank and the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.
Allan’s statement went on:
Race’s legacy is found in the Victoria he helped build – a fairer, more caring, more creative place. On behalf of the Victorian government and the Victorian Labor family, we send our heartfelt condolences to his wife, Iola, his family, and everyone who knew and loved him. Victoria is better for his service – and our movement is stronger for his belief.
Iola released a biography of Mathews last year and at the time said he was living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Australian author Tracy Sorensen dies aged 61
Janine Israel
Some sad news for lovers of Australian literature. Tracy Sorensen, the Miles Franklin-longlisted author of The Lucky Galah and The Vitals, has died at the age of 61.
The novelist, journalist, film-maker and Charles Sturt University academic died in Bathurst hospital on Monday from cancer.
Readers who are devoted to our Moment I Knew column may have read Tracy’s beautiful piece on Sunday 4 May – just a day before she died – about her relationship with her partner of 23 years, Steve Woodhall.
She wrote:
In 2010, I discovered I had the BRCA1 gene mutation; I had risk-reducing surgery (breasts and ovaries removed), then got ovarian cancer anyway, in 2014. I had 8.5 years’ remission before the cancer came back in 2023. This has been hard, but Steve has been steadfast.
In 2023, Sorensen spoke to Guardian Australia on the eve of the release of her second novel, The Vitals, an unconventional cancer memoir written from the point of view of her internal organs. As well as being incredibly funny, The Vitals was an emphatic denunciation of pseudoscience, social media influencers, capitalism and climate change deniers.
Sorensen described the return of her cancer just a few weeks before the release of the book as “some sort of cosmic joke”, but she was determined to remain “incredibly philosophical” in the face of such an unwanted plot twist.
She said:
We all get a narrow band in history: that’s our spot, so we come into it and go out of it in ways that we absolutely can’t control. I’m just here for the ride in between.
You can read Tracy Sorensen’s Moment I Knew here.
Police investigating after Victorian shop blaze spreads to pet store, killing multiple animals
Victorian police are investigating a suspicious fire that engulfed an Acai shop and killed animals in the nearby pet store this morning.
Emergency services were called to Mahoneys Road, Campbellfield, around 3:40am with reports of a blaze at an Acai shop. The fire fully engulfed the shop, which no one was inside at the time, police said in a statement.
Some rabbits, fish and birds died in the fire that also impacted a nearby pet store.
An investigation is ongoing and police are appealing to anyone who witnessed the incident or may have dashcam or CCTV vision.
Dan Jervis-Bardy
MPs say next Liberal leader faces period of ‘instability’ as recriminations over election bloodbath intensify
As leadership contenders Angus Taylor, Sussan Ley and Dan Tehan canvass support ahead of a vote expected next week, colleagues are warning whoever steps into the role to brace for the sort of robust internal debates that they say were stymied under Peter Dutton.
Senior Liberal sources – including Dutton supporters – say the former opposition leader and his team ran a closed shop that sidelined shadow ministers from crucial decisions and left backbenchers completely in the dark on policies.
In just one example, senior shadow ministers were not consulted on Dutton’s last-minute decision to use the party’s campaign launch to announce a $1,200 income tax cut offset.
Multiple senior Liberal sources said the next leader would not be afforded the same leeway as the party undergoes a “complete rebuild” in the next term.
“Whoever is the leader should be prepared to be regularly critiqued,” one MP said, predicting a period of “instability” for whoever took the reins.
Another MP said: “We need to thrash things out much more rather than just trust the leaders’ gut.
We all just went along with the leader’s view, we accepted it and perhaps some of us are now regretting that.
Read the full story here:
Jonathan Barrett
Mortgage holders fall behind at NAB
National Australia Bank has reported an uptick in the number of mortgage holders falling behind on repayments, amid warnings global trade tensions pose a risk to an otherwise improving outlook for the Australian economy.
In half year results released today, the major lender reported cash earnings of $3.58bn, up from $3.55bn a year ago. Its profit margins were stable and the number of impairment loans are at modest levels.
While the bank expects “slowing inflation, tax cuts and reductions in the RBA cash rate” to support household incomes, there are signs of stress among its customers. Housing lending arrears have jumped to four-year highs, with a growing number of mortgage holders falling more than 30 days behind on repayments.
NAB said the pace of arrears was slowing and that there had been limited impairments, referring to loans that might not be fully repaid. The bank said in a statement:
While the underlying outlook for the Australian and New Zealand economies is improving, elevated global trade tensions are a key source of uncertainty and downside risk.
NAB will pay an 85c per share interim dividend. The results refer to the six months ended 31 March.
Valerie the dachshund reunited with owners after stint running free on Kangaroo Island
Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, owners of miniature sausage dog Valerie, have been reunited with their pup after 529 days.
“We were on the ferry across and we were just looking at each other like ‘I can’t believe it, we’re back here’ because we kind of came to the conclusion that we were never coming back,” Gardner told the Advertiser.
“I bawled my eyes out and just seeing her come up and wag her tail and bark, I’m speechless,” she said. “Just so much emotion.”
You can read about how a wildlife team managed to catch the tiny dachshund after its 17 months on the run here:
