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ACT will move to abolish stamp duty for first home buyers

First home buyers in the ACT will no longer have to pay stamp duty, the territory government will reveal, as it hands down a budget mired in debt, AAP reports.

Housing is central to ACT treasurer Chris Steel’s second budget, to be unveiled on Wednesday.

The latest milestone in ACT Labor’s long-term project to abolish stamp duty in favour of higher property rates will extend the exemption to all first home buyers from 1 July.

Currently, only homes under $1m are exempt and purchasers must be below income eligibility thresholds.

The ACT will become the first jurisdiction in Australia to fully abolish stamp duty for people entering the property market.

First test of national emergency warning alert system coming today in Canberra suburb

Australia’s emergency warning system will get its first test today, in the Canberra suburb of Duffy, with the federal government advising it is only a trial run and recipients of alerts don’t need to do anything.

The AusAlert system will see text messages sent to all mobile phones in each area, accompanied by a siren warning. The system is to warn Australians about natural hazards like bushfires and floods, security threats like public safety events or terrorism, and biosecurity or health emergencies.

The system will be operational later this year, with a nationwide test on 27 July, but small local tests will be carried out in the coming weeks.

Duffy is the first test site, with more scheduled in Launceston on 15 June, Cooya Beach in Queensland on 16 June, Liverpool in New South Wales on 17 June, and Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory and Victoria’s Geelong on 18 June, with more tests in following days.

The government is saying that people who receive a test alert don’t need to do anything, because it is just a test.

“A test alert will be sent to all mobile devices in the selected testing area at the time of the test. If you are in the test area with a compatible mobile device you may receive the alert,” the government website states.

Devices may vibrate and play a siren-like warning sound for about 10 seconds. An AusAlert message may appear on device screens. It will clearly say it is a test. Exactly how it appears will depend on your device type and operating system.

Disability discrimination commissioner warns NDIS changes will leave participants in ‘unsafe situations’

The disability discrimination commissioner, Rosemary Kayess, has called for a halt to the Albanese government’s planned overhaul of the Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) as she warns proposed participant budget cuts will leave “people in unsafe situations”.

Kayess is appearing on the second day of a Senate inquiry into Labor’s sweeping changes to the NDIS, which are designed to save $37.8bn over four years.

Among the changes are new powers that would allow the federal minister to make cuts to entire categories of support.

The health minister, Mark Butler, intends to use that power to order cuts of 50% to funding for social and community participation activities. Participants use the funding to hire support workers to accompany them into public, helping to build independence and reduce social isolation.

Under questioning from the independent senator, David Pocock, Kayess warned the cuts could cause significant harm to participants.

She said:

We know it will leave people in unsafe situations. We had four-and-a-half years of evidence given to the disability royal commission. People with disability in 2009, 2010 after the first round for a disability strategy identified the way that the vulnerability that is created when people are isolated and that’s how they become vulnerable, they end up in either closed environments or isolated environments and they are at risk of violence, abuse, and exploitation.

Asked if the bill should pass in its current form, Kayess said:

No, I think it needs to stop and slow down so there can be far more analysis. I feel the analysis we’ve been able to do over the last couple of weeks is still inadequate.

Western Sydney airport opening date set for 25 October

Western Sydney international airport’s inaugural flight will take off on 25 October, with its executives pledging to help ease demand on some of Australia’s busiest domestic routes, AAP reports.

Jetstar and Qantas tickets go on sale from Wednesday morning, with the budget carrier to run a combined 21 services a week to Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Qantas will begin flying to and from the airport in March 2027.

The first flight out of Sydney’s second airport will be a Jetstar service to the Gold Coast at 11am on 25 October.

Two international routes – Auckland and Changi – had previously been announced.

KPMG loses contracts and leaders amid scandal over alleged confidential leaks

The Australian chief executive of global accounting firm KPMG has resigned and its lucrative government contracts are under threat amid a growing scandal over alleged leaks of clients’ confidential information.

The London-headquartered company allegedly leaked secret documents and breached independence rules, around the same time its competitor PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was banned from working for the Australian government for leaking confidential tax information for commercial gain.

KPMG has already lost at least one $10m-a-year contract and will face two inquiries.

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Albanese urges ‘civil’ discourse on immigration debate amid One Nation rise

Anthony Albanese says he wants to dial down the temperature on the immigration debate, refusing to launch attacks against the opposition and One Nation’s policies.

The prime minister joined ABC Melbourne this morning but was hesitant to label the opposition’s policy to remove welfare access for permanent residents as “racist”.

He said:

Quite clearly, [Angus Taylor] has decided to compete with One Nation in that sphere … I’m not about using slogans. I’m saying that it’s not factually correct to say that someone who is an Australian permanent resident from a place, like India or China, where you can’t have dual citizenship, who, for practical reasons, or indeed there are so many people from the United Kingdom and from a range of countries who’ve been here almost their whole life who aren’t citizens …

We need to be able to have discourse, which is civil, where people are able to discuss things in a factual way, put different views, sure, but do it in a way that has some respect rather than the way that discourse is occurring.

Albanese was also asked by a listener whether the immigration debate occurring is due to higher levels of non-white migrants entering the country.

There are a range of factors which will drive people’s views, and I don’t think Australians aren’t homogenous. They don’t have one view, people will have a range of different views, but what I say is that we are stronger because of the diversity that is here in this country.

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Disability workers will push for 35% pay rise

Community and disability workers are pursuing the largest pay rise in decades in an historic claim, as the government continues to defend significant cuts to the Disability Insurance Scheme, AAP reports.

The Australian Services Union will push for a 35% wage increase for 300,000 workers in the claim, citing the growing demands and complexity of their roles.

Emeline Gaske, the ASU’s national secretary, said the workforce, which is overwhelmingly made up of women, has been undervalued and underpaid for decades.

“We surveyed our members and what they told us was stark. More than half say they cannot get ahead financially. One in three won’t have enough to retire on,” she said ahead of the claim being filed on Wednesday.

As the sector continues to grow and demand for workers is surging, we cannot afford to lose workers because pay is failing to keep up with the cost of living. Something has to give, and that something is pay.

How the war in Iran could leave one Australian farmer $600,000 out of pocket

John Bennett’s farm is more than 11,000km from the strait of Hormuz, yet the war in the Middle East is having a daily impact on the grain grower’s life. He estimates increased fertiliser costs could strip about $600,000 from his farm’s bottom line this season.

“Numbers are big in farming,” Bennett says. “And in the end not a lot comes out at the end of the pipe.”

Albanese says ‘we need to do more’ on house prices

Albanese was asked if he’s been surprised by any backlash to the changes to the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing.

“Tax reform’s hard … We’re working through these issues,” the prime minister said, pointing to efforts to support first home buyers. “The changes that we’ve made are modest.”

He went on to note the changes include grandfathering provisions that won’t hurt those already with negatively geared assets.

Albanese maintained that Treasury forecasts on house prices don’t show falls, but rather a much smaller increase over time rather than large gains.

It is certainly the case that since the changes were made in 1999, house prices have increased by 400%. That’s more than double the increase in incomes, and that’s what leads and explains the gap that’s there in affordability.

What we’ve done is thrown everything at supply … But we need to do more. Which is why these changes are aimed at boosting supply as well as giving first home buyers a fair crack.