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News live: Australian passengers on MV Hondius to return via Netherlands; Jane Hume refuses to rule out Coalition alliance with One Nation | Australian budget 2026
Australians on hantavirus-hit ship to be repatriated via Netherlands
Australians among the remaining 22 passengers on board the MV Hondius were scheduled to be evacuated on a Dutch flight to the Netherlands overnight.
The repatriation operation had evacuated 94 people of 19 different nationalities on Sunday, said the Spanish health minister, Mónica García.
García said it was decided to fly the Australians to the Netherlands because of timing problems with a second plane that was to fly passengers back to Australia from Tenerife.
Instead all the remaining passengers were evacuated on the Netherlands flight.
Key events
Cait Kelly
Only 10 electorates in the country where rent affordable on a median household income, report finds
Anglicare Australia’s Rental Affordability Snapshot has found there are only 10 electorates in the country where median rent is considered affordable for a household on the median income.
Using the standard benchmark of rental affordability (30% of income), the analysis compared median rents by federal electorate against median household incomes, and found that a typical household would be in rental stress in 140 electorates.
It found the only affordable electorates were McEwen, Gellibrand, Lalor, Gorton, La Trobe and Ballarat, all in Victoria, and Canberra, Fenner and Bean in the ACT.
Some of the worst results are in regional and coastal electorates previously seen as more affordable. Richmond on the NSW north coast was the worst in the country, with median rent consuming 69% of median household income.
The executive director of Anglicare Australia, Kasy Chambers, said:
This analysis shows the housing crisis is no longer something affecting only people on the lowest incomes. Even households on median incomes are being priced out of large parts of the country.
In all but 10 electorates, the median rent is now unaffordable for a household on the median income. That should ring alarm bells in every part of politics.
We need governments to stop relying almost entirely on the private market to solve this crisis. Australia urgently needs large-scale investment in public and community housing, alongside reforms that slow the growth in housing costs.
Chalmers says budget will include efforts to ‘rebalance’ the tax system
Jim Chalmers, the federal treasurer, said the war in the Middle East has been a “big influence” on the budget, saying the crisis and its impact on fuel prices had made the inflation challenge much worse and put pressure on economic growth.
Chalmers told RN Breakfast:
We’ve made sure that our policy decisions are making a positive contribution to the budget rather than detracting from the budget position. And we’re showing spending restraint as well. And so, what that means is the budget tonight will be stronger than it was in December … It will be focused on resilience and reform.
The treasurer went on to say that the housing market “isn’t working” and that the tax system surrounding it is “out of whack”:
There will be efforts to rebalance the tax system so that we can better align the treatment of income from people who work with the people who earn their income in other ways. … The fairer the tax system is and the stronger the tax system is too.
Overwhelmingly, the tax system and the housing market is not working, particularly for younger Australians. There is an urgency now to fixing this.
Finance minister says budget will look at all the ‘levers available’ to address housing crunch
Katy Gallagher, the finance minister, is doing the rounds this morning before the release of the budget.
She told ABC News Breakfast the budget was all about seeing deficits fall, the budget in a stronger position as well as dealing with “some of these really difficult challenges across the economy, including housing”. She added the budget was about putting “fairness at the centre”:
We’ve made it clear that we’ve been trying to look in housing. Our focus had been on supply and it remains on supply. We need to build more houses in this country.
But we also need to look at all of the different, I guess, impacts and levers available to government to respond to this housing challenge.
It’s an entrenched issue and we need to make sure that we’re all pulling all the levers available to make sure younger people can realise that dream of home ownership.
Good morning, Nick Visser here to snag the blog. Let’s dive into budget day.
Hume won’t rule out Coalition-One Nation alliance
Caitlin Cassidy
Asked last night about a possible Liberal/National alliance with One Nation, Jane Hume refused to reject the idea outright.
Pressed on the possible scenario, she said “only One Nation are in favour of that” and wouldn’t talk about “what is going to happen after the next election”.
It came after the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, said he had “never ever” and “never ever” would make a statement in favour of the hypothetical alliance.
Hume said:
The most important is to get the primary vote up for the Liberal and National party … There are so many hypotheticals … I will say that the Coalition are determined and dedicated to present to the Australian public a platform that they can vote for.
There is no one in the Coalition party room today that is telling us we need to expand the Coalition to include One Nation.
On the Coalition’s decision to preference One Nation over the independent candidate, Hume said it was a decision for the “party organisation, not for the parliamentary team”.
The message we sent in Farrer was that the teals vote with Greens, 70% of the time and for the people of Farrer that wasn’t going to represent their interests … We will always put our preferences where we think the national interests lies, where we think the interests of the electorate lies and that is what we did in Farrer.
Caitlin Cassidy
Jane Hume says ‘no one wanted’ Farrer byelection
The deputy Liberal leader, senator Jane Hume, says the Coalition should be listening “very carefully” to the people of Farrer after facing a thumping loss at this weekend’s byelection.
Appearing on ABC’s 7.30 program last night, Hume acknowledged it was a “tough night” for the Coalition and “the message that we heard from voters was loud and clear”.
They wanted change. Standing on a booth with teals in orange on one side and One Nation in orange on the other, both of them were saying ‘vote for change’.
Asked if the Liberal party would be “squeezed out of existence”, Hume said that’s “not our intention” and added the Coalition had been responsible for “years of prosperity and progress”.
This is … a byelection that nobody wanted. It occurred only a year after the election, after a local member had retired, after a quarter of a century which is a long time to have a seat … There was no love lost for the Labor party either. It is just that the Labor party didn’t have the balls to turn up … The Liberal party lost its way. The Coalition lost its way. We split twice in the last 12 months. There is frustration out there. We will take the result with humility.
Australians on hantavirus-hit ship to be repatriated via Netherlands
Australians among the remaining 22 passengers on board the MV Hondius were scheduled to be evacuated on a Dutch flight to the Netherlands overnight.
The repatriation operation had evacuated 94 people of 19 different nationalities on Sunday, said the Spanish health minister, Mónica García.
García said it was decided to fly the Australians to the Netherlands because of timing problems with a second plane that was to fly passengers back to Australia from Tenerife.
Instead all the remaining passengers were evacuated on the Netherlands flight.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser with the main action.
The deputy Liberal leader, senator Jane Hume, says the Coalition should be listening “very carefully” to the people of Farrer after facing a thumping loss at the weekend’s byelection.
As Donald Trump prepares to meet Xi Jinping this week in Beijing, Malcolm Turnbull has been urging global leaders to “stand their ground” when dealing with the US president and said doing otherwise was a “massive mistake”.
And of course, the federal budget is due to be handed down today – and one commentator thinks it could mark the end of the Howard era. We’ll be bringing you a lot more on that, and all today’s stories as they happen.
