Rowland announces states have agreed to toughen working with children checks
The attorney general Michelle Rowland is addressing the media after discussing national reforms to Working With Children Checks with state attorney generals:
The foremost priority of any government is to keep Australians safe and that particularly extends to the most vulnerable in our community – our young people.
And that’s why today, all jurisdictions have agreed to deliver ambitious reforms to address systemic gaps in the Working With Children Checks regime to improve the safety of children across Australia.
Attorney generals-today agreed to toughening the system, by ensuring that if you’re banned from holding a working with children check in one jurisdiction, you’re banned in all of them. Banned in one – banned in all.
Key events
Attorney general promises no standards in child protection scheme will drop as a result of harmonisation
Rowland also said the scheme won’t be exactly the same in all states and territories but the government will be aiming to achieve a consistency in standards:
When we talk about harmonisation, we are not looking at a scheme to make every single state exactly the same. We are not looking to redo individual state systems. We are looking for consistency.
And one of the key points that came about from today’s agreement in SCAG is that no state and territory would be required to lower the … standards that they have. Now, they are different in between each state and territory and I’m happy for my colleagues, individually, to speak towards that.
But the key issue here is that we have agreed that no jurisdiction will be required to lower their standards. To the contrary – we want all standards to lift – to lift across the commonwealth so that we have the most robust scheme.
Rowland says working with children reforms have been accelerated
Rowland said all states and territories have agreed to “pull out all stops” to ensure the reforms are implemented as soon as possible, bringing forward the the timeline:
We took this urgent reform to SCAG [the Standing Council of Attorneys General] as a priority, initially expecting that this could take up to 12 months as a feasible time frame that the commonwealth, states and territories could agree to for implementation. So I’m extremely pleased to accelerate delivery of the reform with states and territories agreeing to working towards implementation by the end of this year.
There is a firm commitment from all states and territories to pull out all stops, and we are working together as a team.
… This is not a set and forget exercise. We will continue to work together, including in future meet[ings] of SCAG to help keep our young people safe.
Rowland announces states have agreed to toughen working with children checks
The attorney general Michelle Rowland is addressing the media after discussing national reforms to Working With Children Checks with state attorney generals:
The foremost priority of any government is to keep Australians safe and that particularly extends to the most vulnerable in our community – our young people.
And that’s why today, all jurisdictions have agreed to deliver ambitious reforms to address systemic gaps in the Working With Children Checks regime to improve the safety of children across Australia.
Attorney generals-today agreed to toughening the system, by ensuring that if you’re banned from holding a working with children check in one jurisdiction, you’re banned in all of them. Banned in one – banned in all.
Aussie shares make history with record-breaking streak
Australia’s key benchmark index has spiked above 8,900 points for the first time, making five record resets in five sessions for the local bourse, AAP reports.
The S&P/ASX200 spiked to a fresh high of 9,177.3, before easing to 8,882.6 points by midday, up 8.8 points, or 0.12%, as the broader All Ordinaries gained 11.9 points, or 0.13%, to 9161.
Tony Sycamore, an analyst for IG Markets, said it was a feat “unprecedented over the past decade”.
This week’s gains have followed a rally on Wall Street, the Reserve Bank’s recent 25-basis-point rate cut to 3.6% and July’s in-line labour force report, reinforcing the RBA’s cautious 2025 rate cut strategy and teasing further cuts ahead, most likely in November and February.
Friday’s relatively steady start came after a flat US session overnight, after producer price growth in the world’s largest economy weighed on expectations of the timing and magnitude of future interest rate cuts.
Katy Gallagher identifies ‘worrying trend’ of young men believing there’s ‘too much focus on women’
The minister for women, Katy Gallagher, said it is a “worrying trend” that some young men believe women are receiving all the opportunities in a way that is impacting male rights, AAP reports.
Gallagher told the Women in Media national conference today:
In Australia, our ethos of everyone having a fair go and treating people equally is really strong – certainly across business, community and government.
…There is a worrying trend emerging … particularly with young men thinking that women are getting too much and that their rights are going backwards, and there’s too much focus on women.
Ben Doherty
Sydney Ukrainian community plans to rally ahead of US-Russia meeting
Members of Ukraine’s diaspora community are rallying outside the US Consulate in North Sydney Friday afternoon, concerned at the US president’s meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, without the Ukrainian president present.
Organiser Anton Bogdanovych told the Guardian the message of the rally is “appeasement doesn’t bring peace”.
“Ukrainians and supporters are deeply concerned with the upcoming meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that is about to happen in Alaska today. The fact that Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is not invited to this meeting is very disturbing, as it violates the principle: ‘nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine’.
“The meeting in Alaska reminds us of the meeting in Munich between the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler that took place in September 1938. The Munich meeting determined the fate of Czechoslovakia – without the leaders of this country being invited – which resulted in the agreement that ceded the Sudetenland to Germany.
“We all remember that soon after the Munich agreement Germany, emboldened by it, started World War II.”
Ukrainians in Sydney are rallying outside the US Consulate in Miller Street, North Sydney from 4:30pm, Bogdanovych said, “to warn US officials and the world about the dangers of repeating the mistakes of the past”.
Can Labor jumpstart the economy?
Next week the Albanese government will bring together business leaders, unions and interest groups at an economic roundtable to discuss how to best jumpstart the economy.
Big ideas such as a four-day work week and limiting negative gearing have been put forward, but the prime minister has been quick to dampen expectations.
In today’s Full Story podcast, Bridie Jabour talks with the head of newsroom, Mike Ticher, and Guardian Australia’s economics editor, Patrick Commins, about whether the Albanese government has the ambition for big reform.
Listen here:
Wait goes on for family of alleged DV murder victim
Prosecutors have been told to speak to the bereaved family of Molly Ticehurst to explain the situation as the case against the man accused of her domestic violence murder drags on, 16 months after her death.
Daniel Billings, 30, is charged with murdering Ticehurst at her home in Forbes, central western NSW, in the early hours of April 22, 2024, reports AAP.
During a brief mention in Parkes local court this morning, Billings’ Legal Aid solicitor, Diane Elston, asked for the case to be adjourned, saying negotiations between the lawyers were continuing. There would still be “some work to do” after the prosecution and defence teams meet later in August, she said.
Magistrate Brett Thomas agreed to a seven-week adjournment, but acknowledged the delay for Ticehurst’s family, who have attended each of Billings’ court dates.
Prosecutors should “be in contact with them today and just explain the situation to them,” Thomas said.
PM speaks on 80th anniversary of WWII victory in the Pacific
Anthony Albanese has honoured veterans of the second world war, 80 years on from victory in the Pacific.
“Part of the debt that we owe to all who served our nation is to remind ourselves how close history came to taking a very different path,” the prime minister said at a commemorative ceremony in Sydney just now.
We think of all the stories of courage, of resilience and exhaustion, of fear and elation and an endless longing for the home that so many never saw again. These are not stories rendered in bronze or marble, but written in flesh and blood, stories of ordinary people facing the extraordinary.
He continued:
They showed us what it is to remain true to ourselves no matter what, they showed us what it means to stand shoulder to shoulder with friends and allies and together, they turned the tide.
Read more here:
Australian property investors squeezing out first-time buyers
Property investors borrowed a record sum, nearly $130bn, to buy homes over the year to June, supported by interest rate cuts but squeezing out first-time buyers.
Banks made almost 200,000 new loans to landlords over the year, the most since 2022, while the number of new first-home mortgages slipped to 116,000, writes Guardian Australia’s Luca Ittimani.
Cameron Kusher, an independent property expert, said falling interest rates have made borrowing easier for mortgage-holding homeowners and investors than for first home buyers.
“They’re going to get relief on those mortgages in terms of their repayments, and they’re going to be the ones that are probably going to capitalise on this most,” Kusher said. Read more here:
Josh Butler
Compliance actions for childcare centres as new federal powers enforced
Thirty childcare centres have been hit with compliance actions over quality and safety issues, as the federal government uses its new enforcement powers for the first time, threatening to pull commonwealth funding if the providers don’t shape up.
The education minister, Jason Clare, announced today that his department had initiated compliance actions against 30 early childhood education and care services after the federal government’s new laws, which passed parliament last month.
The centres had been identified by the department as having failed to meet national quality standards “over seven or more years”, Clare’s office said.
The enforcement actions don’t relate to child abuse or criminal allegations – but go to issues including play area safety, hygiene, staff training and supervision. The 30 centres have 48 hours to tell parents about the actions, and the names of the centres will be published by the department on Tuesday. The centres have six months to improve their standards, or risk having their access to the childcare subsidy suspended or cancelled.
This comes before education ministers meeting next Friday to discuss further safety measures, such as a national register of childcare workers and the role of CCTV. State and federal attorneys general are also meeting today, with the working with children checks system on the agenda.
“We have taken action swiftly under the new legislation to begin rebuilding confidence in a system that parents need to have confidence in. This is not about closing centres down, it’s about lifting standards up,” Clare said.
“Over the next six months, these centres will need to lift their game or they will face further consequences including the cutting off of funding.”
The early childhood education minister, Jess Walsh, added: “We make no apologies for putting [child] safety and wellbeing first and foremost.”
Sydney restaurant faces human rights complaint after keffiyeh incident
The Racial Justice Centre is preparing to file a group complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission after a Sydney restaurant denied dine-in service to people wearing Palestinian keffiyehs during a 20-minute period last weekend.
The legal centre will file the complaint to Australia’s national anti-discrimination body on behalf of six Palestinian complainants, regarding an incident that took place on 3 August at the Merivale-owned Jimmy’s Falafel in the Sydney CBD after the Sydney Harbour Bridge march, first reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Guardian Australia has spoken to four people, not part of the complaint, who report being told they would be barred from eating inside at Jimmy’s Falafel unless they removed their keffiyehs.
Read more here:
Investment in new wind and solar falls short of 2030 target pace
Petra Stock
For the second consecutive quarter in 2025, investment in new wind and solar has fallen well short of the pace required to hit Australia’s 2030 renewable energy target.
Only four projects – totalling 615MW capacity – reached financial close between April and June, according to data released today by the Clean Energy Council.
That brought total new investment in 2025 to 1.17GW – about a third of the rate required (6-7 GW per year) for Australia to replace its ageing coal power and stay on track for 82% renewables by 2030.
Political and policy uncertainty during the federal election contributed to the weaker result, the report said.
The CEC chief policy and impact officer, Anna Freeman, said:
While we now have renewed confidence in the direction of travel, many chronic and structural issues remain unresolved – significant delays in the transmission rollout, lengthy and unpredictable environmental and planning processes, workforce bottlenecks and a lack of certainty about long-term revenue for new projects.
This morning, the environment minister, Murray Watt, announced he had approved a 135MW solar farm with battery storage in New South Wales, at a site adjacent to the Muswellbrook coalmine. Watt said it was the 97th renewable project approved under the Albanese government.
In late July, the federal government announced plans to expand its underwriting scheme to help accelerate the transition to renewable energy.