https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/02/property-house-prices-drop-sydney-melbourne-brisbane-perth-adelaide-interest-rates

Property prices are falling in more than 90% of Australian suburbs, with economists forecasting a national decline of approximately 10% from the market peak.

Commonwealth Bank expects prices to fall 12–13% in Sydney and Melbourne and around 8% in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Persistent inflation may nevertheless force the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates again.

Woah ?!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-02/australia-to-fund-scheme-to-tackle-pacific-drug-smuggling/107104900

Australia will spend $600 million over several years on expanded Pacific surveillance, regional police cooperation and efforts to intercept drug-smuggling vessels and so-called narco-submarines.

More than 17 tonnes of cocaine and methamphetamine have been seized in Australia this year, compared with 5.5 tonnes during 2025. Authorities say Australian demand is helping drive a trade that is damaging Pacific communities.

Morning all. Today’s edition covers a rapidly widening housing downturn, Labor and One Nation losing ground in national polling, a $600 million Pacific anti-drug initiative, warnings against excessive reliance on carbon credits, and an opportunity to rebuild Australia’s critical-minerals relationship with South Korea.

🏠 1. Fourth interest-rate rise looms as analysts predict house prices could fall 10%

Guardian Australia

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Property prices are now falling in more than 90% of Australian suburbs, according to Cotality, as higher interest rates, weak economic growth and changes to property-investment taxation weigh on demand.

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver expects national prices to fall about 10% from their peak. Commonwealth Bank forecasts declines of 12–13% in Sydney and Melbourne and approximately 8% in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Economists nevertheless believe persistent inflation may force the Reserve Bank to raise rates again. The uncomfortable combination is falling asset values, weak economic growth and mortgage repayments that may still increase.

🗳️ 2. One Nation slips as Albanese records his lowest approval as prime minister

Guardian Australia

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Labor and the Coalition are tied on primary votes of 26% in the latest Guardian Essential poll.

Labor has fallen five points since July, while the Coalition has risen four. One Nation remains extraordinarily competitive on 23%, although that is five points below its May peak despite its victory in the Secret Harbour by-election.

Anthony Albanese’s approval has fallen to 35%, with 56% disapproving, while 59% of respondents believe Australia is heading in the wrong direction. The poll has a margin of error of approximately three percentage points.

🚤 3. Australia commits $600 million to tackling Pacific drug trafficking

ABC News

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The federal government will invest $600 million over several years in a new Pacific program targeting increasingly sophisticated cocaine and methamphetamine smuggling.

The Waqa Moana initiative will expand aerial and maritime surveillance, improve regional police coordination and strengthen cooperation between the Australian Federal Police and authorities in South and Central America.

More than 17 tonnes of cocaine and methamphetamine have been seized in Australia this year, compared with 5.5 tonnes during all of 2025. Authorities warn the trade is contributing to corruption, violence and serious public-health problems in Pacific communities while being driven partly by Australia’s lucrative illicit-drug market.

🌱 4. Climate authority warns Australia cannot rely too heavily on carbon credits

The Australian

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The Climate Change Authority has found Australia’s carbon-credit scheme remains robust but should increasingly be used to fill gaps rather than substitute for reducing emissions at their source.

It recommends stronger Safeguard Mechanism settings, clean-technology standards and other policies that directly reduce industrial emissions.

Reaching net zero at the lowest cost may require carbon-sequestration projects across as much as 18 million hectares—around 4% of Australia’s agricultural land. Such projects could generate approximately $9 billion annually for landholders by 2050, but would also intensify debate over food production, foreign ownership and competing uses of rural land.

⛏️ 5. Critical minerals could rebuild Australia’s trade relationship with South Korea

Australian Financial Review

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Former resources minister Martin Ferguson argues Australia has a generational opportunity to become South Korea’s leading strategic partner for critical minerals.

South Korean manufacturers need secure supplies for batteries, advanced manufacturing and the energy transition. Australia has substantial mineral resources and established trading links, but previous regulatory interventions have reportedly left some major Korean investors wary.

The opportunity is therefore not simply to export raw minerals. Australia would need predictable investment rules and commercially competitive processing projects if it wants to attract Korean capital and retain more value onshore.

💬 Today’s discussion

The housing story may be the most consequential for Australian households.

A 10% national decline would be historically significant, but prices would still remain substantially above pre-pandemic levels. Another rate rise, meanwhile, would immediately increase repayments for indebted households and place further pressure on construction and consumer spending.

Is a substantial housing correction the unavoidable price of controlling inflation—or has policy created the worst combination of falling property values, expensive mortgages and too little new housing?

The weather this summer in southern England, where I live, has been brutal: exceptional heatwaves and record-breaking spells without rain. Tracks have buckled, disrupting transportation, and crop yields are down substantially, with farmers warning of food shortages next year.
Some experts tell us that this is merely what we can expect based on long-standing climate-change predictions of “hotter drier summers”. But such predictions do not explain what we experienced this summer, and it is important – and urgent – to understand why not, at least if we are to be prepared for next summer and those immediately after.

It is possible that we will shortly pass a kind of tipping point. Brook Mitchell
The perhaps familiar predictions of “warmer wetter winters, hotter drier summers” describe what is called the “thermodynamic” aspect of climate change: the generic consequence of the fact that global surface temperatures are warming from greenhouse-gas emissions, and that a warmer atmosphere necessarily contains more water vapour.
With more humid air, the standard low-pressure systems that bring rain to the British Isles in winter will bring even more rain under climate change. In summer, by contrast, where such low-pressure systems are suppressed by the reduced equator-to-pole temperature gradient (a consequence of the Sun moving northwards), the warmer air will dry the land, reducing rainfall further. We understand this thermodynamic signal extremely well – not least because the underlying physics is simple.
None of this is directly relevant to what has happened this summer. The proximate cause of the drought was a persistent high-pressure system – an anticyclone – sitting over much of Western Europe from late spring onwards. This anticyclone steered rain-bearing weather away from Europe. To understand why it was so dry and hot this summer, we must first understand the causes for this exceptionally persistent anticyclone.

There are, broadly, two possibilities. The first is that it is part of the internal chaotic variability of climate, and nothing directly to do with climate change. If this is so, then the likelihood of a similarly persistent anticyclone in 2027 is rather small. That is, we can expect more “normal” types of circulation patterns to occur next summer. The thermodynamic element of climate change will still leave its mark even if more normal types of circulation return. The summer of 2027 can be expected to be warmer and drier compared with 20th-century summers. But we should not expect the extreme drought and persistent heat that we experienced this year.
The second, much more disturbing possibility is that the persistent anticyclone has itself been made more likely by climate change. If this is the case, then climate change is not only affecting the thermodynamics of the atmosphere but is also changing its “dynamics”. This is a crucial distinction. To understand climate change at the regional level, it is not enough to think of climate merely as some giant steam engine, warming and humidifying as we shovel in more fossil carbon; we also need to track and predict the forces and movements of the individual parts – the cogs and gears – which make up the climate system, notably the atmosphere and oceans.
In this second scenario, climate change is affecting the circulation patterns themselves, including the jet streams which determine how and where anticyclones form. There is observational evidence that persistent anticyclones are indeed becoming more frequent in summer and are thus correlated with the rise in global temperatures. Producing model data that support these observations is challenging: unlike the thermodynamic aspect, the dynamics of climate change are exceptionally complex and highly non-linear, and can only be addressed quantitatively using the most advanced climate models.
Taking these ideas to the extreme, it is possible that we may shortly pass a kind of tipping point where the dynamical effects of climate change have become so strong that persistent anticyclones will soon become overwhelmingly likely every summer. If this is the scenario we now face, we do not have the luxury of adapting to the new climate normal in the coming decade or two. We must somehow adapt immediately.
Some climate modellers will think I am being alarmist. After all, the most comprehensive global climate models do not support a prediction where persistent anticyclones become a feature of every summer. However, we also know that these same models struggle to simulate the type of persistent anticyclone observed this year, probably because they lack sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to represent the turbulent interactions between different scales in the atmosphere. These so-called scale interactions are known to be important in maintaining anticyclones over long periods of time, like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. The failure to simulate this potential tipping point in current models is not a reason to be complacent but a reason to urgently improve our models.
There is an additional wrinkle to this story: El Nino is on the way. In Britain, we can expect this transient warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean to have its biggest effect in winter, with the coming one wetter than normal at first, but perhaps drier than normal later. However, there is much variation in European weather from one El Nino event to another. If this one brings below-average rainfall this winter, reservoirs won’t get topped up before next summer, with potentially very serious consequences.

What to do? I have argued for many years that national climate centres around the world should pool human and computing resources to enable ultra-high-resolution global models to be built. I can hardly think of a more important and urgent issue than knowing whether we are passing major climate tipping points. If humanity works together, this issue can be resolved quickly.
But what about practical policy measures? What emergency measures could Britain introduce now to help mitigate a drought like 2026, were it to occur in 2027 (and if the intervening winter is not as wet as we would like)? Does the country need desalination plants, for example? At the least, government agencies need to think about this, urgently and collectively. There is no time to lose.
Tim Palmer is Royal Society Research Professor Emeritus at the Department of Physics, University of Oxford

Cotality's national home value index fell 0.9% in August, its fifth consecutive monthly decline. Values are now 3.6% below March's record, with 93% of capital-city suburbs recording falls over winter. Sydney led August's decline at 1.4%, while Adelaide and Perth each fell 0.8%. Weaker demand is spreading the downturn beyond the most expensive homes.

The Transport Workers Union says 97% of 350 voting Qantas Ground Services workers backed possible industrial action over pay and conditions. No strike date has been set. The staff work in freight and regional QantasLink operations, rather than mainline or international ground services. Qantas says negotiations continue and it has contingency plans to limit disruption.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has released draft privacy reforms for consultation, including a proposed right to erasure from major social platforms and search engines. The government is not currently planning a smart-glasses import ban, despite concerns about covert recording. It is also proposing IDLock to give people more control over online use of their identity documents. These are proposed measures, not new rights already in force.

Australia is seriously considering banning depictions of choking, strangulation and suffocation in pornography following the tragic death of a Sydney teenage girl.

The girl is believed to have had a seizure as a result of asphyxiation after allegedly being choked during consensual sexual intercourse.

She was rushed to hospital but later died. Her death is being investigated by NSW police.

The death of the 16-year-old girl has sparked a nationwide discussion on pornography, social media algorithms and violence against women.

However, the big question remains: how to actually do it when pornography can be downloaded from international websites around the world.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office has now confirmed that the government is considering the idea at the highest level.

The PM is weighing up a ban on strangulation and choking pornography in Australia. Picture: John Appleyard

“The Albanese Government is deeply concerned about young people being exposed to sexual strangulation and other harmful behaviours through online content such as pornography,’’ a spokeswoman told news.com.au.

“That’s why our world-leading online safety laws include strong protections to prevent children from being exposed to age-inappropriate content.

“Under the Age-Restricted Material Codes, online platforms must prevent children being accidentally exposed to harmful or age-restricted material. In addition to introducing age verification, the codes require safeguards like image blurring and also effective reporting mechanisms.”

Teach us consent founder Chanel Contos said the impact of pornography was clear.

“As soon as I read this alleged incident, my initial thought was porn companies have blood on their hands,’’ Ms Contos said.

“This is not the first time, it won’t be the last time that anyone or a young person has been impacted in this way.”

She has urged the Albanese Government to introduce an opt-in feature to give social media users the option to turn off the algorithm and pick what they want to see in their feed.

The NSW Liberal leader, Kellie Sloane, is also calling on the Prime Minister to act, saying the death of the teenage girl has “rocked everyone to their core”.

“Let’s act now, let’s not wait any longer,’’ she said.

“It has the ability to program the young, vulnerable minds of a generation of people whose first sexual experiences are being distorted because of this. Kids at 16, this is shocking. And it’s becoming normalised.”

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said she was working on a strategy with Labor frontbenchers Tanya Plibersek and Annika Wells.

Sexual consent campaigner and author Chanel Contos says porn companies “have blood on their hands”. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“Minister Plibersek and I have been working very closely together over the past months on the second action plan that we both have joint responsibility for both in the child and family violence space,’’ she said.

“So, we are closely considering what is going on in terms of legal developments in other countries.”

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said that a 2024 study suggested that found that 57 per cent of 18 to 35 year olds had experienced strangulation during sex.

“There is something wrong with a situation where 60 per cent of young people say they’ve experienced strangulation,” she told Insiders.

Ms Plibersek said there was “no safe way to strangle someone”.

“This is not sex education. It’s not real life,’’she said.

China's Pacific envoy has objected to Taiwan's foreign minister attending the forum's opening ceremony in Palau, warning of consequences while denying he was making a threat. Palau maintains diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which has also brought a business delegation. The dispute risks diverting attention from Pacific priorities, with Beijing set to raise its objections at Tuesday's partners dialogue.

Victorian prisoners will be put to work on road maintenance as part of Labor’s plan to fix the state’s potholes if re-elected.

The state’s premier, Ben Carroll, outlined the plan on Monday off the back of an announcement on Sunday that the government would be increasing the road maintenance budget by $352m to fix 500,000 potholes by the end of January.

The funding is on top of the more than $1bn budgeted for road maintenance in May, and is partially offset by delaying planned level-crossing removals in Melbourne’s south-east – two in Highett and one in Mentone.Carroll said that if Labor wins the November election, it would work with Corrections Victoria to develop a pilot program to put supervised, minimum-security prisoners to work performing roadside maintenance.

The plan would include having prisoners take over “basic” duties such as mowing lawns, controlling weeds, removing graffiti and picking up rubbish, allowing more skilled crews to focus on fixing potholes.

The government said the work of prisoners “will not replace paid jobs” but instead “supplement the workforce where there are skill and capacity shortages”.

“Low-level prisoners want to be doing something that will benefit the whole of the state,” Carroll told reporters on Monday.

“We’ve seen the work that they do on graffiti removal. We’ve seen the work that they do on weeding and supporting our road network more broadly. But working with our crews and really increasing the labour capacity does mean we can fix up more potholes sooner, faster and better.”

However, Australian Lawyers Alliance criminal justice spokesperson and barrister Greg Barns SC described the plan as a “cynical short-term solution to a political problem for the government”.

“Whilst it’s always pleasing to see prisoners given the opportunity to work, unless they are paid the appropriate wage for this work, then it simply amounts to cheap labour and, in this case, for a political purpose,” he said.

According to Corrections Victoria, people in prison are paid between $7.15 to $9.80 per day depending on the complexity of their work. This is significantly below the minimum wage.

The government also compulsorily sets aside 20% of the money earned by individuals in prison as savings, which is only available to them upon their release. When this is factored in, people in prison make less than $40 per week to spend while incarcerated.

Barns said prisoners involved in this work should be paid the award rate, with some funds set aside for their release.

“It is important for prisoners’ stability and to lower recidivism rates that when they return to the community, they have some financial buffer,” he said.

“There also should be a link between this work and future employment placement.”

Carroll on Monday also committed to bringing responsibility for road maintenance “back in-house”, meaning less reliance on private contractors, and setting up a website that will allow Victorians to take a photo of a pothole, request it be repaired and monitor progress.

“What we are doing today, [is] making sure the buck stops with the government,” he said.

The condition of the state’s roads has emerged as a significant issue in the lead-up to the election, particularly for regional Victorians.

Last month, the state opposition pledged to invest $5bn to repair and rebuild the state’s roads and patch 1m potholes if it wins in November.

The Coalition’s roads spokesperson, Danny O’Brien, said Labor’s plan was “ridiculous”. He said Labor had presided over the deterioration of roads over its 12 years and last week sold off the spray sealing and line marking divisions of government-owned SprayLine Road Services.

“This is a government that says one thing and does another,” O’Brien said.

The Victorian Greens’ justice and transport spokesperson, Katherine Copsey, said: “This is the modern day Labor party, hollowing out public services and exploiting Victoria’s exploding prison population for cheap labour to do the most basic things that a state government should be responsible for.”

Morning all. September opens with a broader housing downturn and Treasury asking whether Australian businesses are ready to turn AI into real productivity gains. Also in today's edition: proposed privacy protections, a potential Qantas ground-crew dispute and fresh diplomatic friction at the Pacific Islands Forum.

🏠 1. Property downturn spreads to 93pc of suburbs in Australia's capital cities

ABC News — 1 September 2026

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Cotality's national home value index fell 0.9% in August, its fifth consecutive monthly decline. Values are now 3.6% below March's record, with 93% of capital-city suburbs recording falls over winter. Sydney led August's decline at 1.4%, while Adelaide and Perth each fell 0.8%. Weaker demand is spreading the downturn beyond the most expensive homes.

🤖 2. Australia risks missing out on AI economic boom due to 'slow' business uptake, Treasury says

ABC News — 31 August 2026

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Treasury says roughly two-thirds of Australian businesses use some AI, but fewer than 10% report significant adoption. Its advice to Jim Chalmers argues that productivity gains depend on changing workflows, management and workforce skills, rather than simply buying access. Officials say the feared large-scale jobs shock has not materialised here so far, while monitoring overseas entry-level employment.

🔒 3. Government has no plans to ban smart glasses imports as draft privacy laws unveiled

ABC News — 31 August 2026

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Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has released draft privacy reforms for consultation, including a proposed right to erasure from major social platforms and search engines. The government is not currently planning a smart-glasses import ban, despite concerns about covert recording. It is also proposing IDLock to give people more control over online use of their identity documents. These are proposed measures, not new rights already in force.

✈️ 4. Qantas ground crews vote in favour of industrial action over pay and safety conditions

ABC News / Reuters — 31 August 2026

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The Transport Workers Union says 97% of 350 voting Qantas Ground Services workers backed possible industrial action over pay and conditions. No strike date has been set. The staff work in freight and regional QantasLink operations, rather than mainline or international ground services. Qantas says negotiations continue and it has contingency plans to limit disruption.

🌏 5. China warns there will be 'consequences' over Taiwan's presence at Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting

ABC News — 1 September 2026

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China's Pacific envoy has objected to Taiwan's foreign minister attending the forum's opening ceremony in Palau, warning of consequences while denying he was making a threat. Palau maintains diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which has also brought a business delegation. The dispute risks diverting attention from Pacific priorities, with Beijing set to raise its objections at Tuesday's partners dialogue.

💬 Today's discussion

Falling house prices can improve affordability, but only if people can still borrow and feel secure enough to buy. What would make the biggest difference for first-home buyers now: lower prices, lower repayments, or a larger supply of homes in places people want to live?

Anthony Albanese has declared war on right-wing populists ­“peddling dangerous, divisive and dishonest” politics after Pauline Hanson claimed a historic state by-election victory over Labor and Newspoll revealed One Nation had reclaimed its mantle as Australia’s most popular party.

An exclusive Newspoll, conducted by Pyxis Polling & Insights for The Australian, showed core support for the right-wing party has risen to 30 per cent ahead of Labor on 29 per cent and the ­Coalition on 19 per cent.

Senator Hanson’s personal ratings also improved.

The survey of 1243 voters, which was in the field between Monday and Friday last week and coincided with internal confusion in One Nation ranks over its net overseas migration target, came ahead of the Secret Harbour by-election in Western Australia won by One Nation candidate Luke Herdegen on Saturday night.

As the Prime Minister and Jim Chalmers used speeches at the Queensland ALP conference on Sunday to rally supporters against One Nation and defend Labor’s housing taxes, a special Newspoll question revealed 62 per cent of voters support house prices staying the same or increasing ­compared with 32 per cent who support property values decreasing.

While 48 per cent of voters aged between 18-34 backed lower house prices, 70 per cent of voters aged 35-49 wanted prices to stay the same or increase. Among those renting, 56 per cent supported lower prices compared with 74 per cent of mortgage-holders who wanted prices to stay flat or increase.

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HOUSE PRICES

Question

Thinking about your local area [suburb], what would be the best thing for house prices to do over the next two years? IF DONT KNOW: If you had to choose, thinking about your local area [suburb], what would be the best thing for house prices to do over the next two years?

Total/Political SupportSexAgeEducationHousingOwn investment propertyRegion

Total/Political Support

This survey was conducted by Pyxis Polling & Insights between August 24 and August 28 with 1243 voters throughout Australia interviewed online. The theoretical margin of error is ± 3.3. It is compliant with the Australian Polling Council Code and a methodology statement will be available within two days at https://www.pyxispolling.com/apc/. Copyright at all times remains with The Australian.

Splits in voter sentiment over house prices, which have fallen in recent months following successive rate hikes and Labor’s budget hits on negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts, emerged as the Albanese government prepares to release its long-awaited measures to lower migration next month.

Speaking in Brisbane following One Nation’s victory over WA Labor in the state seat of Secret Harbour, Mr Albanese launched his most direct attack on Senator Hanson’s party and pointed to ­“divisions and disagreements” that senior ALP strategists ultimately believe will damage the right-wing movement.

“Across the world, hard-right populists are on the march, ­peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest. We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history. And we will defeat them,” Mr Albanese said.

“They’ll say anything and do anything to win votes. Bend any facts. Peddle misinformation and disinformation. Turn Australian against Australian. Parties like One Nation have no serious answers to our problems. Their own divisions and disagreements are now showing through.”

With One Nation expected to perform strongly at the Victorian and NSW state elections to be held in November and March next year respectively, senior Labor and ­Coalition strategists told The Australian that if “history repeats itself”, One Nation would “implode” ahead of the next federal election, which is due by May 2028.

Asked about the prospect of One Nation winning more state and federal seats across the country, a senior Labor source said “the more representation they get, the more they become part of the system”.

Labor’s sizeable caucus, which expanded after Mr Albanese won 94 seats at last year’s federal election, is being told to “calm the farm and concentrate on governing”.

Labor MPs considered most at-risk of losing seats to One Nation or the Coalition are those in outer-suburban and regional seats in Queensland, electorates in the NSW Hunter region and traditional battleground seats in WA, Tasmania, NSW, Victoria and the Northern Territory.

Based on current polling, ALP figures acknowledge they will likely lose seats but remain con­fident of winning a majority at the next federal election.

Dr Chalmers, the most senior Queensland Labor MP, said Australia’s cohesion, people and economy were under threat from “a dangerous and divisive coalition of chaos”.

“A three-ring circus of Liberals, Nationals and One Nation. Today the biggest fault lines in our politics aren’t just between the centre left and the extreme right but between those of us who want to address and alleviate the legitimate frustrations people feel about the cost of living and other pressures, and those who just want to pick at them and prey on them, to politicise them and capitalise on them while leaving our major challenges largely undisturbed,” Dr Chalmers said.

Senior Coalition sources told The Australian that the Liberals and Nationals could not adopt a “hope they (One Nation) implode strategy”.

Both federal and NSW Nationals seats are understood to be most at risk of being lost to One Nation at the next federal and state elections, with some predicting “near-wipe-outs” for the country party based on current polling trends.

“We think about half of One Nation’s supporter base are absolutely persuadable. And they tend to be the former Coalition voters. We think it’s a pretty soft vote but it’s not an engaged vote either,” a Liberal source said.

“One Nation supporters hate this government and they want us to succeed. They’re ready to back us in but the only thing they want from us is consistency. They just want to know we’re going to stick with the lines we’re talking about now consistently over a 12-month period. They are very gettable but they are suspicious we’re not going to be consistent and that’s understandable.”

The Newspoll, which revealed core support for the Greens and Others fell to 13 per cent and 9 per cent respectively, showed Mr Albanese’s net approval rating remaining steady at minus-21, with 38 per cent of voters satisfied with his performance and 59 per cent dissatisfied.

Angus Taylor’s net approval rating was minus-17, with 33 per cent satisfied with his performance, 50 per cent dissatisfied and 17 per cent uncommitted. Senator Hanson’s net approval rating improved to minus-1, with 47 per cent satisfied with the job she is doing, 48 per cent dissatisfied and 5 per cent uncommitted.

In a head-to-head duel, Mr Albanese leads the Opposition Leader on who voters think would make the better prime minister by a margin of 44 per cent to 35 per cent, with 21 per cent uncommitted. After adding Senator Hanson, Mr Albanese leads with 46 per cent of support, ahead of Senator Hanson on 31 per cent and Mr Taylor on 23 per cent. Once preferences were distributed between the Labor and One Nation leaders, Mr Albanese maintained his lead over Senator Hanson by a margin of 56 per cent to 44 per cent.

Opposition industry and sovereign capability spokesman Andrew Hastie, whose federal electorate of Canning overlaps with the seat of Secret Harbour, told supporters “In my own seat … there’s a real risk Labor could win because the support we always counted on is now divided. But I’m not interested in making excuses. I’m only interested in winning and delivering the changes you and I believe Australia needs.”

“Saving this country was never going to be easy. And there are no shortcuts. Just look at what’s stacked against us. A weak Labor government that deserves to lose, but which is ahead in all the polls. The most cunning Labor Prime Minister in a generation,” he said.

On News24, One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce accused senior Albanese government ministers, including Chris Bowen and Dr Chalmers, of being a “drag” on Labor’s vote. “People have made a decision. They want a more dynamic political market, they want more competition. We’re not going to get hubristic, but we’re playing a good game,” he said.

As Dr Chalmers struggles to sell his May 12 budget, Mr Albanese on Sunday said “many young people are in despair, robbed of hope, feeling they may never attain the standard of living their parents enjoyed. It’s made many cynical – even about the great miracle of democracy. And turned generation against generation.”

“We can’t let this trend take hold here. We must give young Australians a stake in the nation’s future. And the best stake in Australia’s future is to own a home.”

Migration is a big issue.

Property investors can expect to spend a lot more time in their accountants’ offices in the next couple of years.

Following the federal budget changes to rules around negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts, tax considerations will become much more important to investors when buying or selling properties.

Along with location, property type and condition, rental yields and opportunities to add value, investors will also be weighing up the property’s tax status and their own.

Property investors are rethinking strategies following the budget’s tax changes.  Bethany Rae

Identical properties can have different values

The one exception to the abolishing of negative gearing for residential properties is newly-built properties, which retain the concession.

This will create some surprising outcomes as newly-built properties will be sought out by investors who still want to negatively gear their properties and so will attract a price premium. If exactly the same property were up for sale next door to a newly built one, it would likely sell for less because without negative gearing it’s less attractive to investors.

Investors who buy a new negatively-geared property will have to remember this and take it into account in their purchase price, because when they come to sell, they’ll be selling a property that can’t be negatively geared so it will lose that premium.

Buyers are holding back

Property investors have stepped back from the market and are holding off from transacting while they try to assess the full impact of the changes and see which way the market goes.

In the residential sector there are already a large number of properties on the market and many are taking a long time to sell, if they sell at all.

As more supply comes onto the market, it will add to pressure on the residential property sector, compounding the so-far modest price falls we’ve seen.

But markets are cyclical and this one will be no exception. At some point, investors will decide prices are low enough for them to get back into the market – possibly helped by an interest rate cut – and the cycle will turn.

The smart money is getting ready

Astute investors are sitting back watching the market dynamics play out. They’ve sought tax advice and have already restructured their holding vehicles to take account of the tax changes or are planning to do so.

They’ve also done the calculations. So they’ve got a good idea of the sort of rental yield they’d need to make a residential property investment stack up if they can’t negatively gear it.

And when it comes to commercial property, they’ve got a good idea of how much risk they’re willing to take on now that they’ll be paying higher CGT.

When they think the market is close to bottoming out, they’ll be ready.

Ownership vehicle matters more in commercial property

Most of the focus has been on residential property, but shops, factories and offices aren’t immune to the tax changes either.

For one thing, alongside every other investment asset they’ll lose the 50 per cent CGT discount. Additionally, the government’s minimum 30 per cent tax on discretionary trust distributions has reduced the attractiveness of these structures for individual and business owners.

However, institutional capital, management investment trusts, superannuation funds and offshore investors are largely untouched by the rule changes.

As a result, the changes will have the biggest effect on commercial properties worth less than $10 million. Investors will look for higher cap rates – and hence lower prices – when considering a commercial property and this will ultimately weigh on the market.

Fewer owner-occupiers for commercial property

Owner-occupiers have always been prominent at the smaller end of the commercial property market.

Until the budget, these buyers were prepared to pay a premium for a shop, factory or office to run their business from because they had security of tenure, could buy close to home and instead of paying rent to a landlord, they were effectively paying rent to themselves and getting a tax deduction while they build up equity in an asset.

But the changes to the trust rules make this a less attractive option.

Owner-occupiers will be less likely to pay a premium for a commercial property while some might decide it’s no longer worth buying at all and stick to renting.

That said, some business owners will decide to buy through a self-managed super fund instead because this remains a tax-effective option.

Stamp duty impost

One more tax that will play a role in the property sector is stamp duty, specifically the charge that will be incurred when investors want to move properties out of discretionary trusts into other vehicles.

At this stage, state governments aren’t budging on providing any stamp duty concessions for these transactions.

The unnecessary impost will be another factor weighing on property market sentiment.

One Nation has slipped behind Labor in the fifth lead change between the two parties in as many months, suggesting both have hit a ceiling in nationwide support and will battle for ascendancy all the way to the next election.

The latest results from The Australian Financial Review/Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll came as Anthony Albanese and Pauline Hanson escalated their attacks on each other after One Nation’s emphatic victory in the byelection for the West Australian seat of Secret Harbour.

Anthony Albanese, Pauline Hanson and Angus Taylor. Tim Beor

Accusing One Nation of sanctioning domestic violence, cutting wages and ending superannuation, the prime minister used a speech in Queensland to rally the party faithful against what he called the challenge of hard right populism, saying Labor “owed it to history” to defeat Hanson.

Hanson goaded Albanese, saying there was no such thing as a safe seat any more after her party took the state Labor stronghold on the outskirts of Perth with 57 per cent of the two-party vote on Saturday.

“One Nation has taken a seat where the Liberals have never been able to challenge Labor,” she said. “We are the only party that can take the fight to Anthony Albanese where the Liberal Party never could. We’re not splitting the conservative vote. We’re taking on the political establishment.”

The latest poll shows that since the previous poll a month ago, One Nation’s primary vote has fallen three points to 28 per cent, while Labor’s remains unchanged at 29 per cent. The Coalition’s vote is also unchanged at 22 per cent.

After asking respondents how they would allocate preferences, the poll shows Labor leading One Nation on a two-party-preferred basis by 52 per cent to 48 per cent.

The poll of 1006 voters was taken from Monday to Friday last week and has a margin of error of 3.4 per cent. This encompassed the period during which One Nation struggled to explain its pledge to cut net overseas migration to 130,000 a year.

Noting there had also been a slight softening of support for Hanson personally, Redbridge polling director Tony Barry said at this stage the waxing and waning between Labor and One Nation could be more about the softness of the vote rather than people making definitive decisions.

“A majority of respondents at 52 per cent now self-report as soft voters which is why we are seeing instability at the edges of the party vote,” he said

“The challenge for the major parties in this fragmented vote market is that this includes much of their traditional bases, forcing them to choose between trying to hold on to them or competing for the moderate centre.”

Despite One Nation’s stumbles on immigration, it remains unchallenged as the party most preferred by voters to handle the issue. With the poll showing “the rate of immigration” had moved into fourth place in the list of issues that most concern voters, 39 per cent prefer One Nation to deal with it, followed by 19 per cent for Labor and 15 per cent for the Coalition.

In terms of net favorability, which is a leader’s favorability rating minus their unfavourably rating, Hanson slipped two points to minus 12 per cent – her lowest yet – while Albanese’s rating improved two points to minus 17 per cent.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor is significantly more popular than either, with a rating of minus 3 per cent, an increase of three points in a month.

Albanese’s lead as preferred prime minister is largely unchanged from last month. He is on 31 per cent, followed by Hanson on 24 per cent and Taylor on 15 per cent.

In a speech to the Queensland Labor conference, Albanese said the best way to break the deadlock and beat One Nation was via “delivering economic growth, generational equity and making the economy work for people”.

“This a crucial time for our movement,” he said.

“Across the world, hard right populists are on the march. Peddling politics that is dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest.

“We simply must defeat them. We owe it to history.”

Seizing on previous comments by Hanson regarding small business operators struggling with Labor’s industrial relations laws, early access to superannuation in times of hardship, and qualifications she made about some domestic violence incidents, Albanese went for the throat.

“They think Australians are lazy and overpaid, that people working from home are bludging, that domestic violence is sometimes a woman’s fault,” he said. “It’s obvious, One Nation are not on the side of working people.”

Albanese drew on One Nation’s collapse almost 30 years ago as evidence the latest ascendancy would not endure. “Remember when they won 11 seats in Queensland in 1998? They lost all of them in record time,” he said.

But One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said Labor was becoming a victim of its own arrogance.

“Arrogance will get your political hide handed to you on a plate,” he said.

Speaking at the conference before the prime minister, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said One Nation and the Coalition needed each other.

“Today the biggest fault lines in our politics aren’t just between the centre left and the extreme right, but between those of us who want to address and alleviate the legitimate frustrations people feel about the cost of living and other pressures, and those who just want to pick at them and prey on them, to politicise them and capitalise on them while leaving our major challenges largely undisturbed,” he said.

Treasury says roughly two-thirds of Australian businesses use some AI, but fewer than 10% report significant adoption. Its advice to Jim Chalmers argues that productivity gains depend on changing workflows, management and workforce skills, rather than simply buying access. Officials say the feared large-scale jobs shock has not materialised here so far, while monitoring overseas entry-level employment.