Politics live updates: ATO head tells Senate estimates he didn’t realise why people used credit cards

An Australian teen has been charged over alleged terrorism, violent extremist material, and firearm manufacturing offences.

A Northern Territory teenager will appear in Darwin children’s court today charged with collecting documents likely to facilitate terrorist act, as well as schematics for 3D-printed guns.

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Australia’s biggest accounting group has warned Labor’s planned changes to discretionary trusts will force families to irreversibly restructure their wills without fully knowing the details.

CPA Australia, representing Certified Practising Accountants, has lodged a submission with the Senate economics legislation committee warning the Federal Government was forcing families to change their existing wills and testamentary trusts.

“Families are being asked to make permanent decisions before the Government has finished writing the rules,” the group’s tax lead Jenny Wong said.

“No Australian would sign a contract before seeing the full terms and conditions, tax reform should be no different.

“The question for the Senate is straightforward: should Australians be required to make irreversible decisions before all the rules are known?”

Labor is proposing to levy a minimum 30 per cent tax on discretionary trust distributions from July 1, 2028.

To avoid this new tax, discretionary trusts can be restructured into a fixed or excluded election trust at great legal cost where beneficiaries can’t be altered, to avoid this new tax.

Women from across the Federal Parliament have gathered together to form a new support network in the wake of the allegedly deliberate attack on independent MP Helen Haines.

Called Network of Women in Parliament, known as NOW for short, the group is designed to allow women “to share experiences, support one another and learn from each other beyond political lines”.

Politicians from across the spectrum have been shocked by the allegedly deliberate ramming of the Indi MP outside her Wangaratta electorate office last Monday afternoon, which has left her as a double leg amputee.

In a letter signed by Labor’s Katy Gallagher, Coalition’s Melissa McIntosh, Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young and Independent Rebekha Sharkie they vowed to “build connections, strengthen relationships” and create a safer environment.

“The devastating attack on our parliamentary colleague Helen Haines has further highlighted the importance of coming together in support, solidarity and friendship across political divides,” the group said in a joint statement.

“We recognise that while our political views may differ, we share many of the same experiences, challenges and responsibilities as women in public life.

“Through friendship, trust and solidarity, we want to strengthen the voice of women in Parliament, encourage more Australian women into public life and stand together when it matters.”

The group’s inaugural event will also raise funds for Save the Children, Dr Haines’ chosen charity, as a demonstration of our support for her and her family.

The initiative has been supported by the House Speaker Milton Dick and Senate President Sue Lines.

Anthony Albanese and his resources minister Madeleine King said they’re working through foreign investment issues with a WA-based rare earths company project, which they kept the door open to nationalising.

China-linked investors in Northern Minerals continue to defy orders to divest from the strategically sensitive miner, which has dysprosium and terbium, despite orders from Treasurer Jim Chalmers in May.

He had ordered six investors which hold around 17 per cent of Northern Minerals to divest by July 2.

Speaking in Canberra on Thursday, Ms King labelled it a really important deposit and admitted it was “not right and unacceptable”.

“It’s not right and unacceptable that any order of any court in this country is disregarded by foreign shareholders, particularly by anyone at all,” she said.

“The foreign investment review board and the treasure are very seriously looking at how we deal with the Northern Minerals problem.

“We are working on this all the time. We’re diligently going through it.

“It’s a really important deposit that will make an important difference to the supply of rare earth into the global supply chain.

“This is a deposit that should be developed. It’s an Australian asset. It sits within our country, and we’re working on measures within the government’s remit to make sure that happens.”

The Prime Minister echoed Ms King’s remarks that the government was doing what it could to find a solution.

“We’re working these issues through and that we recognise that this is important,” he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.

“We have enormous resources under the ground, we need to not just dig them up and export them as well.

“We need to make sure that we maximise value from it for our national interest.”

An inspection of the Royal Australian Navy’s entire fleet of ships has found no more hidden recording devices after one was discovered in a women’s bathroom earlier this month.

Appearing at a senate estimate hearing, Chief of Defence Force Admiral Mark Hammond described the incident on board HMAS Leeuwin as a “betrayal” but said the ship was now back at sea.

“The audit of the entire fleet has been completed, no other devices have been found, the investigation remains ongoing, the (ADF) member has been stood aside and the ship is on operations,” Admiral Hammond told the committee.

“The act of betrayal involving a recording device on board HMAS Leeuwin was an appalling violation of that trust and the person responsible will be held to account.”

Opposition leader Angus Taylor has labelled Anthony Albanese a “serial liar” for not coming clean over his golf club sewage claim.

The Prime Minister on Tuesday admitted he incorrectly claimed that a $6m grant awarded to the Marrickville Golf Club in his electorate was to prevent effluent flowing into a nearby river.

“The problem with this Prime Minister is he digs in, he denies and he refuses to come clean with the Australian people,” he said.

“Now there is not one skerrick of evidence, not one microscopic piece of evidence that this grant had anything to do with sewerage and yet, he claimed from the beginning, that it did.

“Just come clean, Prime Minister, for once be honest with the Australian people time and time again you’ve been shown to be a serial liar.”

Taxation Commissioner Rob Heferen admitted he wrongly assumed those who used their credit card to pay their tax bill were financially struggling before revealing he now understood it was a practical cash flow option.

The Australian Taxation Office’s proposed ban on accepting credit card payments for tax debts has been pushed out to July 1, from a proposed December 1, following an outcry from business groups.

“Particularly, one of the things we’ve heard, is that people use their credit card to manage their cash flow,” Mr Heferen told the Senate economics committee on Wednesday night.

“Now when I heard that, I had jumped to the conclusion that managing cash flow related to a situation where a person or a business might be struggling and the need for the credit card to help them through that struggle.

“Along with a lot of others, I think, ‘Well, actually if you’re struggling and aren’t going to be able to pay what’s owed on time, a credit card would be a pretty risky way of finance because you’re waiting for something to come in that doesn’t come in, you’re then subject to the very hefty interest charge on the credit card’.

“But, of course, now I’ve learnt that managing the cash flow is not about people who are necessarily struggling but it’s about people who are simply, they can get use of the interest-free period on the credit card to help them manage their cash flow better.”

Since October 1, the Reserve Bank of Australia has banned businesses from charging surcharge fees, or the additional cost of doing a transaction.

Interchange fees have been capped at 0.3 per cent, reflecting what a merchant’s bank or payments provider charges them for processing a transaction.

The Prime Minister has declared challenges in the Australian economy won’t be “solved overnight” following worsening inflation figures released on Wednesday and raised expectations of another rate hike next month.

“These are pressures that we have a role in, in Australia domestically, but some of these pressures are global. We’re not immune from that impact,” Mr Albanese told reporters when asked about cost-of-living concerns.

Mr Albanese says his government will look for “appropriate savings” in the mid-year budget update but has refused to point to specific areas to cut.

“We’re not looking at cutting funding for hospitals and schools and essential services, because we’re a Labor government that understands that people are under pressure,” he said.

“That’s one of the reasons as well, why that’s part of the debate that we’re having, about some of the tax measures that we’re putting in place or whether it be the private health insurance changes.”

The Prime Minister has spruiked his Digital Duty of Care legislation to reporters on Thursday morning in a snap press conference.

Mr Albanese reiterated that big tech companies ought to be held accountable as he pushes to introduce legislation which would allow users to opt out of their algorithm.

“They should be held to account for the role that they play and what appears in their platforms and which, therefore, then gets circulated right around Australia,” he said.

Mr Albanese said it would “empower people” to choose what they receive on their devices and having greater control over their algorithms.

The Prime Minister, once again, said that Australia was “leading the world” when it came to big tech.

Anthony Albanese has called a snap press conference in Canberra.

The Prime Minister has not yet revealed what he will be talking about.

Follow along for updates.