Australia providing consular assistance to seven people after Venezuela earthquakes

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says the government is providing consular assistance to seven individuals impacted by the earthquakes in Venezuela.

Speaking to ABC News Breakfast this morning, she won’t reveal more details, but says the quakes were “utterly devastating”.

It has been utterly devastating and more parties are working through the scale of those who were lost and those who are still trapped. This is very distressing situation for all and we extend our deepest sympathies to the people of Venezuelan.

We are providing some consular assistance to some 7 individuals. We obviously will continue to engage with authorities to determine if any Australians need further assistance.

Asked to confirm whether the seven are Australian citizens, Wong won’t say and repeats that the government is providing assistance to “seven individuals”.

Chalmers defends house price forecasts

The government has been facing some heat over the cooling house market around Australia with falling auction clearance rates, and forecasts that house prices in Sydney and Melbourne could fall more than $100,000.

But Labor is sticking to its line that the Treasury department forecast house prices would grow 2% slower in the medium term, and not leave a bunch of home owners going backwards.

Jim Chalmers tries to keep the narrative positive and says clearance rates went up a little this weekend in Brisbane and Adelaide, while the markets in Sydney and Melbourne began cooling before the release of the budget.

He tells Sky News:

Auction clearance rates in Brisbane came up on the weekend, if you compare the preliminary numbers from the week before. They also came up in Adelaide. They came up nationally in aggregate, as I understand it. But in Sydney and Melbourne, we saw some softness there, that actually predated the budget announcements.

Chalmers also defends against the criticisms the government should have just applied its tax changes to residential property and nothing else – like shares and businesses.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to replace one big distortion that Howard and Costello introduced when they made that big policy mistake in 1999 and ruined the housing market for too many people, especially young people, doesn’t make sense to replace that big distortion with another big distortion.

And so we’re applying this CGT discount – there’s still a discount, just calculated differently to reflect real gains – we’re applying it fairly and neutrally across the board so that we don’t introduce another big distortion and repeat the mistakes.

Chalmers ‘engaging’ on giving workers under-18 superannuation

Jim Chalmers won’t yet heed the call from advocates including the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Greens to guarantee superannuation payments for workers under the age of 18, but says he’s “engaging” on the issue.

Currently under the law, under-18s are only eligible for super payments if they work more than 30 hours a week.

Chalmers tells ABC News Breakfast the government is talking to young people about the issue, but the priority for the government right now, is payday super – which are new rules that take effect tomorrow, forcing employers to pay super at the same time as wages.

This is a really important issue. I actually met with a delegation of young workers about this last week. We are always looking for ways to strengthen the superannuation system to make it deliver for more workers.

Chalmers is asked twice whether all workers under 18 should get super. He says the government is open to more change but won’t make any promises or give us a timeline.

We’ve indicated a willingness to continue to engage with young people, with unions, with the super sectors, for what the next set of changes may be. For us the focus is payday super because it comes in from tomorrow.

Fuel prices increase (slightly) tomorrow

In response to the fuel crisis and war in the Middle East, the government cut the fuel excise in half – which was saving motorists about 26c per litre – which was due to end tomorrow.

But earlier this month, the government extended it for another month, but cutting 16c off the full price of petrol per litre, rather than the 26c – so prices will tick up a little.

In response, the government has told the consumer price watchdog to make sure that petrol retailers aren’t taking the mickey.

Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, the extension will provide more cost-of-living relief.

This is a really important warning from the ACCC because we want to make sure that every cent of the government’s fuel excise cut is passed on to motorists who need this extra bit of relief.

It’s been really terrific to see petrol prices and diesel prices come down very substantially in recent months. In fact, this week, we think for the first time, both petrol and diesel is cheaper than it was before the war in the Middle East began. But people are still under pressure. That’s why we’re extending this fuel price relief, this petrol and diesel tax cut for another month, at a tapered rate.

Good morning, Krishani Dhanji here with you, thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started!

It’s going to be another busy day in Parliament with just a few sitting days left before the winter break.

Jim Chalmers has drawn the short (or long depending on where you stand) straw and is doing the media rounds this morning. The government, despite experiencing a small uptick in the polls yesterday, is still working overtime to sell their budget and the tax changes that passed at the end of last week.

I’ve got my coffee, I hope you’ve got yours, let’s get stuck in.

Happy last day of the financial year, to those who celebrate.

For reasons best known to accountants, tomorrow is the day when a whole heap of legal changes kick in: minimum wage rises, payday super, parental leave tweaks and a lot more.

We’ve got a handy summary of all of them for you:

Australian engagement with Asia ‘facing existential crisis’

Anthony Albanese’s special envoy for the Indian Ocean, the Labor MP Tim Watts, says Australia is running a serious risk by not building more engagement with key Asian neighbours.

Launching a new parliamentary report, Watts has warned schools, universities and businesses are not building sufficient understanding of Asian culture, languages and history, despite skills for the region now becoming “a vital sovereign capability”.

He paints a worrying picture. Enrolments in south-east Asian languages have fallen by 75% since 2005 at Australian universities, with only about 500 students in the country studying Indonesian. Just 3.3% of year 12 students studied a priority Asian language in 2023.

Australia’s diplomatic and thinktank population size is insufficient for independent foreign policy, the report warns, with the capability of Asia experts today described as the product of investments made a generation ago. Similar investments are not being made by current governments.

“Building Asia capability in Australia requires sustained national policy focus over the long term,” Watts says.

The dividends of these efforts, and the costs of inaction, are not realised within a single electoral cycle. Asia capability has always been too difficult to tackle today, and too easy to leave to a future government.

The report calls for a new 10-year national Asia capability strategy, a network of “leader schools” and renewed investment in immersion experiences and higher education courses.