Littleproud: ‘We cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley’
Littleproud said:
There’s no other position. Our party room has made it clear that we cannot be part of a shadow ministry under Sussan Ley.
When asked what that means, he said “we sit by ourselves”:
We will sit and we will undertake what we have done and I think we’ve got a pretty good record.
And we made it very clear that there would be a consequence, that if Sussan accepted those resignations, then that consequence [would be that] the Coalition would be untenable.
Key events
Barnaby Joyce is speaking now. He said there was no time to read the bill properly. He said:
You know that legislation, I got it on my table when the Parliament was already sitting. It was about 10:00. The guillotine, which is when they – when you have to vote, was at 1.
So I got between 10 and 1 to deal with some of the most fundamental laws about the freedom of the press the public discussion, the public square in Australia. You know how you deal when people play that trick with you? You vote it out. No way. It should have gone to an inquiry.
Adeshola Ore
The Anglican archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Ric Thorpe, is addressing the state vigil in Melbourne. He says political and community leader have come together to mourn the lives of the 15 people “cut tragically short on Bondi Beach”.
The Anglican Dean of Melbourne, Dr Andreas Loewe, says:
We stand side by side with members of the Jewish community here in and Melbourne and throughout Australia, and with countless people the world over who, like us, condemn anti-Semtiism, hate crime persecution and violence.
Jewish group handing out free candles in Bondi today ahead of moment of silence
The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies is distributing free candles at Bondi Beach, Bondi Junction and in Martin Place in the Sydney CBD today for people to display in their windows this evening.
The body said the country was standing in solidarity with the victims’ families, their loved ones and all Australians “affected by this act of terror”, writing in a statement:
This day provides an opportunity for communities across our nation to come together, to pause, and to reflect. These candles may be used by individuals and families as a quiet symbol of solidarity and remembrance.
We encourage members of the community to light candles in line with the minute of silence at 7:01 pm. …
Their memory must compel all of us to ensure that Jewish Australians can live openly, safely, and without fear.
Adeshola Ore
The Victorian governor, Margaret Gardner, and the premier, Jacinta Allan, have arrived at the state vigil.
The official service is due to begin at 11.15am.
Adeshola Ore
Arrivals begin ahead of state vigil for Bondi victims in Melbourne
Members of the public have begun arriving at Melbourne’s St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral for the state vigil to remember the 15 people killed in the Bondi terror attack.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, is expected to join multifaith leaders at the service, which begins at 11.15am, to mark the national day of mourning.
The vigil is open to the public and will be live-streamed online.
Across Victoria, flags are being flown at half mast at all government buildings and landmark buildings will be lit up in white as a symbol of light tonight.
Colonial monuments vandalised in Melbourne’s Flagstaff gardens
Stephanie Convery
Two monuments to colonial Australia have been vandalised in Melbourne’s Flagstaff gardens in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Police said they believed machinery was used to pull down the Pioneer monument, a sandstone obelisk erected in 1871 to commemorate the first European burial ground on the site.
The monument was smashed into pieces beside the plinth and daubed with the words “land back” and “death to Australia” red paint.
Another nearby monument, the Separation Memorial, was also vandalised with red paint, police said.
The Separation Memorial was erected in 1950 to mark the centenary of the formal separation of the Port Phillip colony, now known as Victoria, from New South Wales.
A crime scene has been established and the investigation is ongoing, police said in a statement on Thursday.
The paint had been largely washed off the monuments and workmen were removing the smashed masonry from the site just after 10am this morning, though the words “land back” were still faintly visible on a broken part of the Pioneer memorial.
Turnbull praises Carney speech at Davos: ‘We’ve got to deal with the world as it is’
Turnbull also praised Canadian prime minister Mark Carney after the latter’s speech at Davos, where he warned the world was undergoing a geopolitical “rupture”.
The former Australia prime minister said he believed the speech was “one of the most important” made in the current time:
Certainly the most important speech since Trump became president for the second time.
Turnbull said the world needed to recognised that things had changed in America, advising Anthony Albanese to pay close attention to Carney’s remarks. He said:
We’re dealing with a very different America. And I think a lot of people in government, perhaps all of us, have a sort of a cognitive dissonance problem here. On the one half of our brain is recognising the reality. The other half is saying, no, no, things are going to go back to normal, everything’s okay. …
Well, I’m afraid. It isn’t. And even if it does go back, hopefully it does, but we cannot rely on that. And again, quoting Carney, you know, ‘nostalgia is not a strategy, hope is not a strategy.’ We’ve got to deal with the world as it is.
I’ve given the biggest, biggest plug for a Canadian prime minister’s speech ever given on Australian radio, and I think everyone should read it, particularly Albo. He should watch it twice.
Malcolm Turnbull says Coalition remnants look like a ‘smouldering wreckage’
The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said the turmoil in the Coalition was “just making them more unelectable than they were before”.
He spoke to ABC Radio Melbourne this morning, questioning how Sussan Ley and the opposition could expect to lead the country “if you’re divided internally”:
The bottom line is this: the Liberal party, to form government, needs to have the National party because it needs to have those regional seats.
It also needs to win back seats in the city, which had been thought to be their biggest problem, but now they’ve lost the National party.
Turnbull was asked who as at fault for the split, but he said “it takes two to tango”:
I think there’s mismanagement on both sides, but the better way to handle it would have been for the two leaders to sit down and say, okay, our party rooms have got different perspectives. We want to be able to maintain faith with our own bases. …
But I think when they survey the scene, it looks like just a smouldering wreckage, doesn’t it?
Prue Leith to leave Great British Bake Off
In a moment of lightness/sadness that transcends international boundaries, there’s big news from The Great British Bake Off: judge Prue Leith is leaving.
She wrote on social media about her decision:
Bake Off has been a fabulous part of my life for the last nine years, I have genuinely loved it and I’m sure I’ll miss working with my fellow judge Paul, Alison and Noel…
But now feels like the right time to step back (I’m 86 for goodness sake!), there’s so much I’d like to do – not least spend summers enjoying my garden. Whoever joins the team, I’m sure they’ll love it as much as I have. I feel very lucky to have been part of it.
Read more about her decision and legacy on the popular program here:
Jewish group says country should ‘contemplate how we got here’
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry said today is a chance for the country to “come together in support of 15 devastated families and thousands more dealing with physical and mental trauma that won’t soon heal”.
Alex Ryvchin, the co-chief executive of the body, said the national day of mourning should be a moment to reflect and attempt to try “contributing more, giving more and loving more”:
It is also incumbent on us to contemplate how we got here. How we as a nation allowed a poison to flourish in our beautiful country. How hateful mobs and sinister clerics used our landmarks and our streets to summon others to do violence. How our institutions became inhospitable to Jewish Australians. How synagogues and businesses burned. And how 15 of our fellow Australians died for the crime of being Jewish.
We know that the overwhelming majority of Australians are good, kind, fair-minded and loving people. Many thousands have conveyed their sorrow and solidarity and it meant so much to us. Now let this be the day we turn our pain and grief into a revolution of goodness, of mitzvot (good deeds big and small) that unites our country and drives out the evil. They want it darker but we’ll bring the light.
Luca Ittimani
Perth house prices pass $1m, Domain data shows
Perth house prices have surpassed $1m for the first time and Melbourne’s have hit a new record for the first time in four years, Domain’s median measure shows.
House prices across the capitals picked up 3.9% over the last three months of December, new analysis today found, with Perth surging 9.9% to become the sixth city in the $1m club. Perth also became the sixth city with median unit prices over $600,000.
Melbourne’s median house price reached a record $1.11m as all cities but Canberra rose to new records.
Canberra’s house prices are still more expensive than Melbourne’s, near a median $1.14m, but the capital’s unit prices went backwards in the December quarter, from nearly $620,000 to less than $612,000.
Housing demand surged amid 2025’s interest rate cuts and lower-priced homes had an extra boost from the government’s 5% deposit first-home scheme. Lower-priced cities and markets are seeing an especially strong boost, according to Domain’s chief of research and economics, Dr Nicola Powell.
“We’re seeing buyers gravitate towards units in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in search of relative value, while smaller capitals like Perth and Adelaide are leading the charge on house price growth,” she said.
Ley says focus of today must be on Jewish Australians
Sussan Ley released her own statement on the day of mourning. She said:
Today the focus must be on Jewish Australians, indeed all Australians, as we mourn the victims of the Bondi terrorist attack.
This is a national day of mourning and my responsibility as leader of the opposition and leader of the Liberal party is to Australians in mourning.
I have grieved with the Bondi Chabad community and stood with them in their synagogues, their homes and at many funerals. I will again stand with them tonight at the Opera House, as we make clear that ‘Light Will Win’.
Minute of silence to come at 7.01pm
Albanese said a minute of silence tonight at 7.01pm is “an opportunity to just take that minute to really think about what’s happened and to pay respects and I invite all Australians to participate in observing that minute of silence”.
He is also asking for people to show an act of remembrance and have a candle on a window sill or a doorstep.
Albanese addresses nation on national day of mourning
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking in Canberra about today’s national day of mourning.
He said of the Bondi attack:
It was a tragic attack not just on Jewish Australians, but on the Australian way of life. … for this to happen on the first night of Hanukkah, a celebration of the victory of light over darkness …
For darkness to descend on that is, indeed, something that is a stain on our nation.
Albanese said today is about remembering the victims of the attack.
It’s an opportunity for us as a nation to wrap our arms around the Jewish community because people were targeted because they were Jewish-Australians. Every Jewish-Australian felt that very deeply that evening, and ever since as well. Today, we share their grief. A grief with no ending, only a beginning.
