Labor MP Ernest Wong and restaurateur Jonathan Yee are facing court over allegedly circumventing election funding laws

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New South Wales prosecutors have launched proceedings against two state Labor officials after they allegedly disguised donations to Chris Minns during his election campaign almost a decade ago.

On Tuesday, the NSW Electoral Commission revealed the director of public prosecution had begun proceedings against former Labor MP Ernest Wong and restaurateur Jonathan Yee. The commission commenced an investigation in 2019 into a “potential scheme to circumvent” election funding laws during the campaign to elect Minns for the seat of Kogarah.

Liberals and Nationals grappling with surging support for Pauline Hanson’s party, which threatens to replace them as Australia’s main conservative party

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The new Liberal president, Tony Abbott, has backed preference deals with One Nation as he declared the party wouldn’t win the next election by being “slaves to focus groups” and just a “little less woke than Labor”.

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, all but confirmed he was open to such deals with Pauline Hanson, declaring the party was prepared to cooperate with “whoever we can to get rid of this rotten Labor government”.

Statistics show fewer than 1% of homes are bought by foreigners, as race discrimination commissioner warns against blaming migrants for housing woes

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One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has claimed that “people who look like they’ve recently arrived” are knocking Australian buyers out of home auctions, despite tax office data showing fewer than 1% of dwellings are bought by foreigners.

The federal race discrimination commissioner subsequently warned against “demonising migrants” in the debate about housing affordability.

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‘If Australian datacentres are going to power the AI revolution, we deserve a fair return’ – David Pocock

Independent senator David Pocock has published an opinion piece about the growth of AI datacentres in Australia and how the gold rush should benefit Australians. He writes:

Huge investment in this space is pouring into Australia. In the past year, Microsoft has announced $25bn will go into Australian datacentres and Amazon Web Services has committed another $20bn.

The prime minister has posed for photos with the CEOs of both companies, welcoming the investment with open arms despite a growing backlash by communities against AI and datacentre construction. At a time when economic growth is sluggish, the government sees billions of dollars in investment as making for a good headline.

I think if you look at the programme itself, it’s a great podcast that she’s done a great job on a topic that I’m sure will be of real interest and real importance to many Australians who suffer from those conditions, and particularly young Australians and young Australian women.

So there’s a balance in all these things … for the ABC to be ensuring that we bring great content to air and also acknowledging that, you know, with some of the people that we work with, sometimes there will be controversy.

Obviously we’ve looked at Charlie’s comments. I think he did express that they were his own view. They weren’t represented at the ABC. It was a little bit on the hop and a little bit not. So I think we felt comfortable that we were able to accept that his comments weren’t a breach of the ABC code of conduct.

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Is Australian music at risk of extinction? Here’s what the data tells us

The music that charts in Australia has changed considerably over the past couple of decades – rock is out, country is in and old tracks are new again.

Because of Richard’s brilliant research, advanced Melanoma went from a death sentence to a curable disease. As a result of that breakthrough, in a country with the highest melanoma rates on earth, thousands of Australians are alive today. …

After being diagnosed with brain cancer, Australians got to know Richard as a man of warmth and hope. He faced his disease with optimism, with a smile, and with a deep sense of purpose. Just a few months ago, living with stage four brain cancer, he was still riding his bike through Tasmania, raising money for a cure.

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Australian borrowing personal loans in record amounts

Australians are borrowing record amounts in personal loans as a long-term buildup in living costs wipes out savings buffers.

Nauran government says its citizens are ‘friendly’ after MP spoke of serious threats allegedly made against former detainees

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The Nauruan government has issued a rare statement insisting it is a “friendly” and “welcoming” country after a whistleblower alleged “serious threats of physical violence” were made against a group of non-citizens removed there by the Albanese government.

The unexpected defence, sent shortly after midday on Thursday, was mounted hours after the independent MP Andrew Wilkie used his three-minute constituency statement to read claims from an anonymous whistleblower familiar with the arrangements of the secretive $2.5bn deal between Australia and Nauru.