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NationalNational News Live

Australia news as it happened: US strikes Iranian radar, drone sites; Sydney, Melbourne property prices fall sharply

Emily Kaine and Marta Pascual Juanola
Updated ,first published

Key Posts

$10 million fine for embattled Star casino after 36-hour gaming binges
Ground control station, drones eliminated in US attack on Iran
Aid groups warn Ebola outbreak could be world’s deadliest
‘Don’t underestimate me’: Hanson says she has energy to lead in her 70s
Labor, Liberal MPs react to fresh polling
Hanson dismisses question about Farley’s display of Aboriginal flag
Hanson moots move to House of Reps amid surging polls
Abbott confident he can revive confidence in Liberals

What we covered today

By Marta Pascual Juanola

Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

Here’s a look back at the day’s major stories to wrap things up:

  • The US military confirmed it launched airstrikes on Iranian radar and drone sites after Tehran shot down one of its drones. Kuwait also said its defences opened fire to intercept drones and missiles.
  • Health Minister Mark Butler says Australia is not considering any travel restrictions for visitors from the African nations at the centre of the Ebola outbreak, and will not be quarantining people on arrival.
  • New polling places One Nation as the most popular party in Australia. In the poll, published by The Australian Financial Review, One Nation received primary support of 31 per cent, above Labor at 28 and the Coalition at 20.
  • Liberal Party president Tony Abbott has dismissed the suggestion his new role is purely administrative and vowed to be a vocal member of the party from outside the walls of parliament.
  • Opposition frontbencher Andrew Hastie says Australia is getting the short end of the stick in a downgraded version of the AUKUS deal, telling the ABC the US does not take Australia seriously because “our defence policy lacks seriousness”.
  • In NSW, failures to prevent excluded patrons entering the casino, letting others gamble too long without breaks and systemic risk failures have led to a $10 million fine for the embattled Star Sydney casino.
  • In Victoria, the state’s peak corruption-busting agency, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, will be given the power it has long asked for to investigate the misuse of public funds on the state’s Big Build construction sites.
  • Significant amounts of Russian timber are entering Australia after being laundered through China and other countries, evading tariffs imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sparking demands for government action.
  • Price growth across the national property market has ground to a halt, new research shows, with steep falls in Melbourne and Sydney as higher interest rates, stretched affordability and the federal government’s overhaul of tax incentives combine to suppress values.

Thanks for your company, and have a good night. We will back tomorrow morning to continue our rolling news coverage.

Patients left thousands of dollars out of pocket amid rise in specialist fees

By Melissa Cunningham

Out-of-pocket costs and specialist fees for some of the most common types of surgery have been soaring, according to new data collated by Private Healthcare Australia, the peak body for health funds.

The analysis, which examined fee costs between 2018-19 and 2024-25, revealed that while some privately insured patients were paying nothing in gap fees, others were being left to fork out thousands of dollars, and a growing number have been charged far above the median cost of their procedure.

Tamara Macpherson was shocked at the costs she was hit with.Eddie Jim

In one instance reported by this masthead, Melbourne mother of two Tamara Macpherson was left with a $35,000 bill for diagnostic work and medical costs for four operations, despite having paid for top-tier private health insurance for years before she was diagnosed with cancer in 2024.

The data showed that for knee replacements, 90 per cent of patients were paying out-of-pocket fees to their surgeon, gap fees having doubled in the past six years from $560 to $1080. One in 10 Australians who had a knee replacement were being hit with fees of more than $5300.

Fashion brand White Fox reveals details of its financial boom

By Elias Visontay

Australian fashion brand White Fox has enjoyed a strong sales boom in recent years, with fresh financial documents indicating the speed of growth that has fuelled the global expansion of the Sydney-founded cult fashion label.

White Fox, which began as an eBay store in the early 2010s, lodged its first annual financial statement with ASIC on Sunday, after it was fined for failing to file its information to the corporate regulator.

White Fox founders Georgia and Daniel Contos.Getty Images

The report covers the financial year of 2022, and shows it posted a pre-tax profit of more than $35 million, up from $13 million the year before. Its revenue jumped from about $65 million to just under $122 million over the same period.

The directors of the company, led by Georgia and Daniel Contos, paid themselves about $10 million in 2022, the documents show. At the time, White Fox had 180 employees, and had recently expanded into the United Kingdom and the United States.

The financial documents paint a picture of the company’s trajectory, and reports suggest it has grown significantly since 2022. Previously reported tax figures showed it paid $47 million in tax in 2024, and had an income of $429 million in the same year.

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Australia is getting short end of the stick in AUKUS deal: Hastie

By Marta Pascual Juanola

Staying with the Canning MP, Andrew Hastie says Australia is getting the short end of the stick in the AUKUS submarine deal, after Defence Minister Richard Marles revealed over the weekend that the government would ditch a plan to acquire a new and upgraded nuclear-powered submarine from the US and get a second-hand boat instead.

“I think the US are getting a good deal out of AUKUS. I’m not sure about Australia under this Labor government,” Hastie told the ABC.

Australia will now buy only second-hand submarines from the US, rather than a mix of new and old submarines.Getty Images

He said the deal gave the US access to prime real estate in Perth and the ability to operate a squadron of Virginia-class submarines out of the HMS Stirling Royal Australian Navy base next year.

“Now our submarines, which we’ve pumped billions of dollars into the US ship building industry, are being downgraded from new to second-hand. I think the Americans just don’t take us seriously because our defence policy lacks seriousness.”

‘Turn up for the battlers’: Hastie questions Hanson’s fitness to be PM

By Marta Pascual Juanola

Opposition frontbencher Andrew Hastie has taken aim at Pauline Hanson’s Senate estimates hearings attendance, saying the One Nation leader has some explaining to do.

The Australian reported today that the senator had been absent from 88 per cent of Senate estimate hearing days over the past decade, according to a parliamentary library analysis.

Opposition frontbencher Andrew Hastie.Alex Ellinghausen

“If I had a 12 per cent attendance record, constituents would be rightly outraged. A 12 per cent attendance record for a student at school or university is not going to get you a pass mark,” Hastie told the ABC.

“I think past performance is a good indicator of future performance, and I think Pauline Hanson has some explaining to do.”

No travel restrictions for visitors from Ebola-affected nations: Butler

By

Health Minister Mark Butler says Australia is not considering any travel restrictions for visitors from the African nations at the centre of the Ebola outbreak, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and will not be quarantining people on arrival.

“I’ve got no advice to do that at this stage,” Butler said at a press conference in Adelaide on Monday.

Health Minister Mark Butler.Alex Ellinghausen

He said the new Australian Centre for Disease Control was giving advice on the response.

“There are pretty long-standing protocols here, particularly around the border where people are coming back from affected regions. They are watched very closely on the flight, particularly for any symptoms.

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More than half of Australia’s universities drop in global rankings

By Sally Rawsthorne

More than half of Australia’s universities have fallen in global rankings thanks to years of inadequate funding and “the devaluation of science and education as public goods”, harming the country as a whole, says the Centre for World University Rankings.

The University of NSW and the University of Melbourne maintained their positions at the top of the heap, ranking No. 52 and No. 64 two years in a row. The Australian National University dropped from 90 to 93, the University of Sydney fell from 94 to 100 and the University of Queensland rounded out the top five at 103 for the second year running.

The University of Sydney has dropped to 100 in the global rankings.Sam Mooy

World rankings are a major factor for many international students’ choice about where to study, and those students are a major funding source for Australia’s tertiary institutions.

The rankings come as Australian universities face a reckoning, with major changes coming to domestic students’ funding, huge reliance on international students as the government seeks to curb their numbers, the role of AI in teaching and learning, and revelations this week about a class-size crisis.

$10 million fine for embattled Star casino after 36-hour gaming binges

By Jack Gramenz

Failures to prevent excluded patrons entering the casino, letting others gamble too long without breaks and systemic risk failures have led to a $10 million fine for the embattled Star Sydney casino.

The NSW Independent Casino Commission also ordered the casino to keep a further $5 million aside to strengthen its financial crime risk-management operations.

Star’s Sydney casino has been under considerable regulatory scrutiny.Glenn Campbell

The most serious breaches of the time-play thresholds – when gamblers are allowed to play for more than 12 hours in a 24-hour period – involved patrons being allowed to gamble for more than 36 hours straight.

But Chief Commissioner Philip Crawford said the casino had made considerable progress under new leadership.

Many of the breaches were identified as part of the casino’s ongoing remediation work following two damaging inquiries, while other breaches were self-reported by Star, the commission said in a statement today.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s press conference

By Marta Pascual Juanola

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan held a press conference on the state’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission this afternoon. Watch it here.

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Ground control station, drones eliminated in US attack on Iran

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The US says an attack on Iranian radar and drone control sites has eliminated air defences, a ground control station, and two one-way attack drones posing threats to ships transiting in regional waters.

The US military’s Central Command said it carried out the strikes in Iran on Saturday and Sunday around the city of Geruk and on Qeshm Island.

A container ship in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Qeshm Island, Iran, on April 18.AP

“The measured, and deliberate strikes occurred ... in response to aggressive Iranian actions that included the shoot-down of a US MQ-1 drone that was operating over international waters,” Central Command said. No American troops were hurt in the attacks.

Kuwait, meanwhile, said its air defences had opened fire today to intercept incoming drone and missile fire.

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