News live: Australia’s tax system fuelling inequality; PM tells steel workers, ‘we have got your back’

Avian influenza has been detected at a second poultry farm in northern Victoria.

Agriculture Victoria traced the presence of H7N8 to a second property in Euroa, near where the first case of 2025 was detected at the weekend.

Victoria’s acting chief veterinary officer, Dr Cameron Bell, said this result was not unexpected and there are “known connections” between the properties.

Agriculture Victoria is on the ground and supporting the affected businesses, it said in a statement.

After we confirmed the first property last week, we implemented restricted and control areas immediately to mitigate risks of disease spread.

The control area spans east of the Goulburn Valley Highway for Strathbogie shire, and includes townships Euroa, Violet Town, Longwood, Ruffy, Avenel and Strathbogie.

Sarah Basford Canales

ACCC says independent slot manager ‘critical’ for Sydney airport

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says the creation of an independent slot manager at Sydney airport is “critical” for improving competition despite conceding last year its impact would be small.

The commission, which is fronting senators at a parliamentary inquiry this morning, was asked about whether the Albanese government’s changes last year would improve the level of competition at the busy airport, and lower flight prices.

The changes related to the airport’s controversial slot allocation system, which restricts the airport to 80 takeoffs and landings per hour – known as slots. An overnight curfew to minimise noise further limits flight numbers.

The laws introduce an independent slot manager, introduce civil penalties, an extreme weather “recovery period” and stronger enforcement powers in an effort to crack down on the Qantas-Virgin duopoly.

The independent MP Allegra Spender asked the commission whether it believed the longstanding arrangements, which benefit incumbent airlines, could be improved as a result of the changes. The commission’s chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, said:

The reforms that have been announced [and have passed], we think, are very important. We do consider, on what we have seen of the process that has been proposed, that it meets the standards across government you would expect to see in terms of integrity and independence. The critical point is to move from the situation where currently there’s a representative of each of the airlines making these decisions, which manifestly does not have the required independence, and in fact poses conflicts.

Slot hoarding is where airlines schedule more flights than they intend to run, before cancelling them in a strategic manner so as not to cancel any service more than 20% of the time, so they retain the slot at the expense of a competitor (known as the 80:20 rule). Weather cancellations don’t count towards an airline’s limit.

Qantas Group and Virgin have consistently denied they misuse slots.

Australia’s tax system fuelling wealth inequality, Anglicare report shows

Cait Kelly

Anglicare Australia has launched a report showing that Australia’s tax system is fuelling wealth inequality.

As we flagged earlier, “Paying it Forward” profiles ten OECD countries, France, Belgium, Finland, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the United States and Canada. It found that:

• Australia is one of the only countries that does not tax inheritances or estates

• This is fuelling wealth inequality

• Superannuation has become a tool for wealthy families to build inheritances, instead of being used to fund retirement.

The executive director, Kasy Chambers, said Australia is “becoming more unfair and more unequal”.

We should be using our tax system to make Australia fairer. Instead, government policies are driving inequality and making it worse. The good news is that we know what needs to be done to turn this around.

We are calling on the government to look at an estate or inheritance tax, to make sure we stop more and more wealth from being concentrated among fewer and fewer people.

Adam Morton

Environment organisations request mission to examine if salmon farming affecting Tasmanian world heritage area

Fourteen environment organisations have written to the World Heritage Centre asking it to send a mission to Macquarie Harbour, on Tasmania’s west coast, to examine whether salmon farming is affecting the state’s world heritage area.

The letter highlights the plight of the Maugean skate, an endangered ray-like fish species that has lived in the region since the time of the dinosaurs and which is at the centre of a heated political fight over the future of fish farms in the harbour.

The federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is reconsidering the future of salmon farm licences in the harbour after a legal request by environment groups.

Scientists have advised the Australian government that fish farms are the greatest threat to the species’ survival and recommended it be dramatically scaled back or removed. The salmon industry and the Tasmanian Liberal government and Labor opposition have responded forcefully, pledging to fight any decision that affects jobs.

The Australia Institute and 13 other organisations have now asked the World Heritage Centre to visit the harbour later this year. A third of the harbour is in the Tasmanian World Heritage Wilderness Area.

The institute’s Tasmanian director, Eloise Carr, also called on the government to release its written response to a UNESCO letter on the issue in April last year. She said a Freedom of Information Act request asking for the letter was refused.

What could the Australian government possibly have to say to the World Heritage Centre that they can’t say to Australians?

The government has been asked for its response.

Marles says peace talks between Ukraine and Russia must be on Ukraine’s terms

Sarah Basford Canales

Peace talks between Ukraine and Russia must be on Ukraine’s terms, Richard Marles says, after US president Donald Trump announced he began negotiations with Russian president Vladimir Putin earlier this week.

The defence minister told ABC radio this morning he welcomed efforts to resolve the conflict, which began in early 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, but said the conflict must be resolved on Ukraine’s terms.

It really matters this conflict is resolved on Ukraine’s terms and the reason for that is it was Russia who was the aggressor. It was Russia who broke international law, it was Russia who invaded a smaller neighbour, not by reference to international law, but really by reference to power and might. And that example cannot be allowed to stand.

Trump said he would be “OK” with Ukraine not gaining Nato membership and added it would be “unlikely” Ukraine would regain much of the territory Russia has taken control of.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had spoken to Trump and supported peace talks but would not be able to accept any agreements without Ukraine’s involvement in negotiations.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has been speaking to reporters at Lake Illawarra.

He was asked about modelling from treasurer Jim Chalmers about the impacts of the 25% tariffs on Australian steel from the US – will the government release this?

Albanese said his message is: “We support steel works here”.

Some voices can be heard shouting in the background as the PM speaks. He continued:

We continue to support jobs in the Illawarra and we support the steel works. My message to them today is we have got your back …

We have put a very strong case [forward] and we agreed, myself and President Trump when we talked, we agreed on the words that we used. And in President Trump’s own words he said Australia would be given great consideration for an exemption. We continue to put forward our case which is a very simple one.

Cait Kelly

Better funding needed for men’s behavioural change programs: report

Men’s behavioural change programs need to be better funded to provide tailored, holistic and timely services that can support meaningful behaviour change, an evidence brief from Australia’s National Research organisation for Women’s Safety (Anrows) and No To Violence has shown.

Men’s behaviour change programs are group-based interventions for men who have used domestic, family, and sexual violence against a current or former partner or other family members.

While these programs are a key intervention for people who use violence, the report highlights that they are not a stand-alone solution. The Anrows chief executive, Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine, said:

People who use violence must be held accountable. But men’s behaviour change programs can’t do this on their own. The evidence is clear that accountability must extend beyond individual programs to a coordinated system that spans the justice, social service, housing and community sectors.

A whole-of-system approach is needed for lasting change in men’s behaviour that brings safety for victims and survivors.