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From 1h ago Greens to meet next week to choose new leader after Larissa Waters steps down In case you missed the news last night, the Greens leader, Larissa Waters, has announced she will step down due to ill health. A party room meeting next week will be held to choose her successor, with the deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, and high-profile senators Sarah Hanson-Young, David Shoebridge and Nick McKim all possibilities to contest the leadership ballot. Larissa Waters.
Photograph: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images Waters said she had been managing a pre-existing kidney disease, but her health had “declined significantly over the course of recent months”. Her prognosis for recovery is positive, but she said the pressure of leadership was detracting from her focus on her health. She said: double quotation mark I’m really sad that illness means my time as leader has been cut short, but our movement needs a leader in good health to lead us to success at the next election.
Passing the torch on to the next leader of the party will put them in the best position to take the Greens to the next election, fighting for people, not the corporate interests that run Labor, Liberals and One Nation. Key events 1h ago Greens to meet next week to choose new leader after Larissa Waters steps down 2h ago Bogong moths back at Parliament House 3h ago Police investigating suspicious deaths of two men in northern NSW 3h ago Chalmers: Australia should not ‘carry the can’ for overseas decisions 3h ago Wife of missing activist urges Albanese government help 4h ago Mia Lay among officers mourned at National Police Remembrance Day 4h ago Chalmers defends record ahead of RBA cash rate decision 4h ago Welcome 18-year-old arrested in NSW on charges of using drone in alleged plot to murder man NSW police have charged a drone operator over an alleged plot to murder a man in Sydney’s south west. Officials said the man, 18, was arrested in Silverwater on Monday.
Police will allege in court he was operating a drone to conduct surveillance as part of an alleged conspiracy to murder a man. He has since been charged with conspiracy and agreement to murder a person, participation in a criminal group contributing to criminal activity and other charges linked to the drone. He was remanded in custody and will appear before court today.
Massive great white shark spotted near whale carcass at popular Perth beach Multiple sharks, including a five-metre great white, have been spotted swimming near a large, smelly whale carcass that washed ashore at a popular Western Australia beach, drawing hundreds of onlookers . Surf lifesavers found the dead animal at Perth’s City beach at about 7.30am on Monday and raised the alarm. Local authorities closed the beach for several kilometres in each direction of the carcass, which appeared to be about six metres long.
Massive great white shark spotted near whale carcass at popular Perth beach – video UNSW researchers trained AI models to act ‘drunk’, then spill things they shouldn’t Researchers at the University of New South Wales say large language models (LLMs) can be manipulated to imitate drunken behaviour ... and possibly leak confidential information or answer questions they’re not supposed to. UNSW researchers said AI models trained or prompted to mimic drunken speech became more vulnerable to privacy breaches than their “sober” counterparts. The researchers asked a model to role-play as a drunk person, or used a dataset of drunk texts to “fine-tune” the LLM to complete sentences like a drunk person would say them.
A third strategy involved rewarding a model for using language that resembled a drunk text. The plan wasn’t tested on every LLM available, but UNSW selected a representative sample including OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-3.5. The researchers said the “drunk” models were consistently easier to manipulate.
“We do observe that particularly with deception and disinformation, most of the language models got jailbroken,” Aditya Joshi , a researcher at UNSW, said in a statement: double quotation mark It does give out secrets – across the board for all three methods, it is vulnerable. Greens to meet next week to choose new leader after Larissa Waters steps down In case you missed the news last night, the Greens leader, Larissa Waters, has announced she will step down due to ill health. A party room meeting next week will be held to choose her successor, with the deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, and high-profile senators Sarah Hanson-Young, David Shoebridge and Nick McKim all possibilities to contest the leadership ballot.
Larissa Waters. Photograph: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images Waters said she had been managing a pre-existing kidney disease, but her health had “declined significantly over the course of recent months”. Her prognosis for recovery is positive, but she said the pressure of leadership was detracting from her focus on her health.
She said: double quotation mark I’m really sad that illness means my time as leader has been cut short, but our movement needs a leader in good health to lead us to success at the next election. Passing the torch on to the next leader of the party will put them in the best position to take the Greens to the next election, fighting for people, not the corporate interests that run Labor, Liberals and One Nation. Nick Evershed A timeline of One Nation’s instability: more than half MPs departed party, data shows More than half of the One Nation MPs elected to state or federal parliaments have left the party before the end of their term, with 28 of the 51 people elected under Pauline Hanson’s banner either resigning midterm or being expelled.
One Nation , which won 6% of the national vote at the 2025 federal election, is now polling above 30% in some surveys, potentially enough to make the party the official federal opposition or even in a position of minority government. But Guardian Australia analysis of the party’s colourful candidate history shows the party has a history of chaos and instability. Take a look: Bogong moths back at Parliament House Tom McIlroy A small number of bogong moths have arrived at Parliament House in Canberra, the first sightings amid an apparent resurgence of the endangered native insect.
Swarms of bogongs have been reported across NSW, part of the annual migration when huge numbers of the insects travel to cool caves in the Australian Alps to escape the summer heat. The moths were a common sight in Canberra for decades, with particularly large numbers congregating at Parliament House. The lights around the building, including the huge Australian flag, attracted the moths.
But in recent years numbers have dramatically dropped. The moth has been listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature since 2021, but is not listed as a threatened species under federal conservation laws . Guardian Australia saw a few bogongs in the Senate wing on Monday.
A bogong moth is seen inside Parliament House in 2013. They used to be a common sight in Canberra. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP Dfat providing assistance to family of Melbourne hiker missing in Peru The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) is providing consular assistance to the family of Jordan Yap , a Melbourne man who remains missing after setting out for a difficult trek in Peru.
Dfat said it couldn’t provide further comment owing to privacy obligations. A GoFundMe page set up by Yap’s family and friends said the man, 30, was meant to return from the 10-day hike on 23 September, but he never checked back into his hostel in Lima. They have been paying private rescue teams to search for him and are arranging for more crews to head to the area “to cover as much territory as possible”.
“We expect to have these units actively searching in the next few days,” they wrote on the page. “Thank you again for standing with Jordan. Your support means more than we can say.” In an undated image, missing Australian hiker Jordan Yap (right), pictured with friend Kevin Nguyen during a previous hike of Mount Kosciuszko in NSW.
Photograph: AAP/Supplied by Kevin Nguyen Police investigating suspicious deaths of two men in northern NSW Catie McLeod New South Wales police say they are investigating the suspicious deaths of two men in the state’s north. Police said they found the first man – who has since been identified as a 79-year-old – dead at a property on Summerland Way at Gurranang, near Grafton, on 13 September. Police said they attended the same property about 3.40pm on Monday as part of their investigation.
After arriving at the house, police said they found the body of the second man, who they believe to be aged in his 50s, and set up another crime scene. Chalmers: Australia should not ‘carry the can’ for overseas decisions Chalmers said he doesn’t believe inflation is out of control, but he doesn’t want to see Australians “carry the can for decisions” on the other side of the world. The treasurer is appearing on what seems like every television and radio program this morning to tout the government’s record on the economy while acknowledging the difficulties reining in inflation amid a cost of living crisis.
He said a lot of Australians are bracing for an almost certain Reserve Bank interest rate increase today, adding the government sees taming inflation and keeping unemployment low as “two important objectives”. double quotation mark And that’s equally important in the Reserve Bank’s mandate, dual mandate, which talks about maintaining full employment at the same time as they go for price stability, which means inflation in the target band. He defended his government’s tax receipts as a percentage of GDP, saying they were lower than under the Howard government. double quotation mark Well, it’s still lower than what we saw under Howard and Costello, is the first point. When asked if he would accept higher unemployment in exchange for tamed inflation, Chalmers maintained the government was “not for higher unemployment”. double quotation mark I think that’s pretty clear.
And what we’ve seen in recent years is that it’s possible to have low and steady unemployment at the same time as we see inflation moderate to more normal levels. Jim Chalmers. Photograph: Hilary Wardaugh/AAP Wife of missing activist urges Albanese government help The wife of an Australian activist missing in Cambodia has implored the Albanese government to find him and bring him home, Australian Associated Press reports.
Tran Hiep , a 50-year-old Australian-Vietnamese democracy campaigner, was due to return to Bangkok, Thailand, to reunite with his wife, Chloe Dang, after a short trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to meet human rights defenders. Australian-Vietnamese democracy activist Tran Hiep, 50, has been reported missing in Cambodia. Photograph: PR IMAGE But he never boarded his flight and has not communicated with his wife since 18 September, leaving her worried for his safety. double quotation mark My husband deserves protection, and I really hope the Australian government will continue to put pressure on Cambodia to do an investigation to find out where he is right now.
Hiep, a freelance IT professional who founded the Australian Alliance to Combat Human Trafficking, was travelling with another human rights activist, Nguyen Duc Thuan , who is also Vietnamese and holds a Norwegian passport. The pair travelled to Cambodia to meet with dissident Vietnamese activists for training. Tran Hiep’s wife is urging the Albanese government to deploy resources to help find him.
Photograph: PR IMAGE Chalmers says Australians understand there are ‘inflationary challenges’ in our economy The treasurer, Jim Chalmers , said the inflationary challenge in the economy is being made “much worse” by the war in the Middle East. Chalmers, speaking on Channel 7’s Sunrise this morning ahead of the RBA announcement, said the government has focused on savings and delivering surpluses to get government debt down. double quotation mark But we know that there’s always more work today. I think people understand, people who might be bracing for an interest rate rise later today. ...
I think people understand that there are inflationary challenges in our economy. But when you see what’s happening with global oil prices ... obviously, factually, that is one the big drivers of inflation that people are having other deal with right now. Chalmers said he knows that people are under pressure and that interest rate rises add to that pressure. double quotation mark That’s why we accept our part, our responsibility for our part in this fight against inflation. ...
And it also means dealing with these longer term economic challenges. Mia Lay among officers mourned at National Police Remembrance Day Mia Lay , the Sydney police officer who was killed in a car crash last week, will be among those mourned at National Police Remembrance Day 2026 in Sydney. New South Wales’ premier, Chris Minns , governor, Margaret Beazley, and police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, will be among the guests at Sydney’s Domain.
Minns said he felt incredibly gratitude for the service of police officers across the state: double quotation mark [Police] start a shift not knowing what you are going to face, and we ask these young men and women to put themselves in harm’s way to keep the rest of us safe. Police and counter-terrorism minister, Yasmin Catley , said: double quotation mark My thoughts are with the families of Constable Lay, Sergeant [Mark] Bransgrove and everyone else who has lost a loved one in the line of duty. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.
Lay, 20, had worked as a police officer for just 16 months when she was killed “instantly” in the crash in Redfern on Friday. Sgt Mark Bransgrove, who died in July last year, served in the police service for 38 years, including 30 years in the Forensic Services Group. Remembrance events will also be held in Broken Hill, Bourke, Orange, Lithgow, Inverell, Dubbo and Tamworth, as well as other cities and towns across the country.
Const Mia Lay, who died on duty on Friday. Photograph: NSW Police Good morning, and happy Tuesday. It’s Nick Visser here to take over the blog.
Let’s get to it. There were 30 drowning deaths in 2025-2026, the highest number in almost a decade, according to a Royal Life Saving Australia report that Australian Associated Press reports on. Of them, 14 involved more than one death, often related to boating, driving through floodwater, or people exploring unfamiliar environments, chief executive Justin Scarr said. double quotation mark The message is to know the swimming skills of all the people in your group.
It is the largest spike in deaths since 2016-2017, when 34 lives were lost. Over the past decade there have been with 229 deaths, or an average of 23 per year. In the most recent year, 83% of drowning victims were men, 37% were born overseas and a quarter were aged between 65 and 74.
Nearly one-third of the fatal events were related to boating, while driving through floodwater and swimming were the other leading circumstances. Besides the RBA decision at 2.30pm, the other big political story of the day is that Larissa Waters is standing down as Greens leader. She said last night that a kidney disease she has been managing has recently worsened and that she needs to stand down.
Here’s our story from political editor Tom McIlroy : Chalmers defends record ahead of RBA cash rate decision Catie McLeod The treasurer, Jim Chalmers , has defended his economic record on the eve of what is widely expected to be the fourth interest rate rise of 2026, as the Reserve Bank remains concerned about persistent inflation. The RBA board is poised to hike the cash rate from 4.35% to 4.6% on Tuesday, which would be the fourth increase in 2026 and push typical home loan interest rates to 6.5%. Speaking on the ABC’s 7.30 program last night, Chalmers emphasised the factors contributing to inflation, saying that Australia was performing well considering what was going on in the world, particularly in the Middle East. double quotation mark We have a lot going for us and we’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure that in these difficult global circumstances Australia continues to out-perform the world.
We have a big inflation challenge in our economy. It’s made much worse by decisions taken on the other side of the world. From an economic point of view this war in Iran has been an absolute disaster for Australian families, because they have been asked to pay a hefty price.
Welcome Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Nick Visser with the main action. Jim Chalmers has defended his stewardship of the economy ahead of what is widely expected to be the fourth interest rate rise of 2026 as the Reserve Bank tries to bring down persistent inflation.
More coming up. Besides the RBA decision at 2.30pm, the other big political story of the day is that Larissa Waters is standing down as Greens leader. We’ll have reaction as it comes in this morning plus the latest on who might replace her.
Source: The Guardian
