Australia news live: Albanese congratulates Delta Goodrem on Eurovision fourth-place finish; Queensland Labor set to win Stafford byelection | Australia news

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May 17, 2026

On May 17, 2026

Albanese congratulates Delta Goodrem after Eurovision fourth-place finish

Anthony Albanese diverged briefly from housing in his press conference this morning to congratulate Delta Goodrem, who came in fourth in the Eurovision song contest earlier this morning, after being widely tipped as a likely winner.

Albanese said:

Can I just give a shout out to Delta Goodrem who finished fourth in Eurovision this morning and did Australians proud? We were all cheering on, watching SBS, watching the coverage as the votes rolled in and Delta Goodrem I think is someone who can be very, very proud of her efforts, and all Australians are proud of Delta. Well done.

You can find the full story about the Eurovision results here:

Key events

Josh Taylor

After a week of outages, hundreds of millions of students’ data stolen, delayed assignment due dates, and school login pages being defaced by hackers, US tech firm Instructure – which operates the education platform Canvas, used by education providers worldwide – announced it had “reached an agreement with the unauthorised actor” behind the ransomware attack.

Experts read the careful language as a sign that a ransom has been paid. The company has not confirmed.

The question of whether firms should pay ransomware attackers to regain access to their systems, and potentially prevent further harm from the release of personal information of – in some cases millions – is one that thousands of companies face each year. Although governments across the globe advise against it, many ultimately do.

Read the full story here:

A fifth man Melbourne man has been charged as part of a federal police investigation into the alleged access and distribution of violent extremist material online, just over a week after another four men were charged.

On Saturday, a 25-year-old Meadow Heights man was arrested on arrival at Melbourne International Airport on a flight from Malaysia and charged with possession of violent extremist material, which has a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment, Australian Federal Police said in a statement.

Two Roxburgh Park men aged 20 and 21, and two Clyde North men, aged 19 and 29, were arrested and each charged with possession of violent extremist material on 7 May.

The charges came after investigations that began when one of the Roxburgh Park men was intercepted at Melbourne International Airport on 29 November 2024, following his return to Australia on a flight from Turkey, police said.

During an examination of the man’s mobile phone, border force officers located suspicious content and reported it to the Australian Federal Police, police said. A second Roxburgh Park man was searched at Melbourne International Airport on 1 June 2025, and his luggage searched ahead of his departure to Turkey.

Police alleged forensic analysis of their devices revealed the men had been sending, sharing and receiving suspected violent extremist material, which included images and videos of previous terrorist attacks and other ISIS propaganda.

Four search warrants were executed at homes in the Melbourne suburbs of Roxburgh Park, Clyde South and Meadow Heights on 7 May when the men were arrested.

Albanese congratulates Delta Goodrem after Eurovision fourth-place finish

Albanese said:

Can I just give a shout out to Delta Goodrem who finished fourth in Eurovision this morning and did Australians proud? We were all cheering on, watching SBS, watching the coverage as the votes rolled in and Delta Goodrem I think is someone who can be very, very proud of her efforts, and all Australians are proud of Delta. Well done.

You can find the full story about the Eurovision results here:

CGT changes ‘designed to assist young people’ secure housing, PM says

Anthony Albanese has been speaking with the housing minister, Clare O’Neil, in Melbourne this morning, reiterating his government’s claim that the capital gains tax changes are “designed to assist young people”.

The PM said:

People have written in the newspapers in this country for years have spoken about the need for tax reform. What we’re doing is delivering tax reform, real tax reform that treats in a fair way income that people earn from their work, better aligns it with income that people legitimately earn from assets and from their wealth that they own.
So, better aligning those things is a sensible thing to do.
The capital gains tax changes are about real gains. That is the amount in which an asset increases less inflation. That is the system that occurred right up until 1999. Before 1985, of course, there was no tax in this country about capital at all.
So what it is, is it is only Labor that makes the big reforms. This is a difficult reform, but it’s one that people have spoken about for a long period of time. People have said that we need tax reform in this country. What we’re doing here is delivering tax reform, but with a clear objective tax reform to better align those income from assets compared with income from working. But importantly as well, tax reform that will result in 75,000 Australians getting access to their first home.

Some style for your Sunday: Guardian Australia’s lifestyle team have captured the bright colours, homemade garments and vintage gems worn by the crowd in Sydney at this year’s Australian fashion week.

Chalmers says Labor returning bracket creep in a ‘responsible way’

Krishani Dhanji

Jim Chalmers says the opposition’s policy to index tax brackets would cost the budget a quarter of a trillion dollars over ten years, while claiming that the government is returning bracket creep to taxpayers.

It’s a slightly tricky position, as Angus Taylor argues that Labor is “betraying” itself because the high figure is actually how much the government is keeping and spending through bracket creep ever year.

Bracket creep is where inflation and wage rises push taxpayers into higher tax brackets, so they get taxed more but are still paying more for goods, so end up going backwards.

Chalmers told the ABC’s Insiders program that the government is “enthusiastic” about returning bracket creep but is doing it in a responsible way.

This is a Government that returns bracket creep when it is responsible to do that.
That [policy] would cost tens of billions of dollars in extra debt interest, because he’s got these uncosted, unfunded, tax announcements that he [Taylor] made in his Budget reply, which was all about trying to stave off One Nation.”

Host, David Speers, kept pushing Chalmers on the figure, and whether Labor is returning all of the bracket creep accrued by the government. Chalmers skirted the question and says that it’s being returned in a “responsible and affordable” way.

Chalmers added that Taylor’s proposed measure would stoke inflation in Australia:

What Angus Taylor is proposing to do is to pump the most money into the economy when inflation is already at its highest.

Krishani Dhanji

Taylor rebukes claims his tax bracket indexation will cost $250bn over ten years

Angus Taylor says claims by Labor that his commitment to index tax brackets will cost $250bn over ten years “betrays” how much the government will be claiming in income tax over that period.

Taylor committed to indexing tax brackets to inflation in his budget reply, which he says will cost about $22.5bn over four years, not $35bn as the government has claimed.

The measures would begin for the first two tax brackets from 2028-29 and then for the higher two brackets from 2031-32.

Taylor says:

“This betrays the fact that the government plans to raise income tax rates to the tune of $35 billion This says more about their plan than our plan …
If Labor’s saying that they plan to raise income taxes to the tune of $250 billion in the next 10 years … [if] that is their tax hike, that’s their planned income tax increases.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the government is not contemplating changing its position on the introduction of an export tax on gas.

Labor had been under pressure internally and externally to introduce a 25% export levy as part of the budget, which would have produced an estimated $17bn revenue.

Asked whether they’d change their position on that tax, Chalmers said:

Well, not something that we’ve been contemplating.
Obviously, that’s been a lot of public debate about that and a lot of strong views about that but we’ve made it clear that there are good reasons to prioritise our gas reservation policy and the two-way supply arrangements with Asian partners.

Jim Chalmers says the changes to capital gains taxes for property and non-property investments are designed to “[take] one of the big distortions out of the market.

Chalmers said:

A really big mistake was made in 1999 and it introduced this massive distortion in the way that Australians invest in our economy. It made fixed housing much more attractive and it made other kinds of investment less attractive.
So by taking that distortion out of the system, it is a fairer, more neutral treatment of investment, capital gains in particular, and if you look at the average over a couple of decades, since that policy mistake was made by Howard and Costello, what you can see on average is that established housing was overcompensated. Shares were under-compensated. That’s one of the reasons we had this big spike in prices.
It’s one of the reasons why so many people, particularly young people, have been locked out of the housing market and also why shares over time have become relatively less attractive.

In response to polling this week that suggested voters weren’t particularly thrilled with the economic outlook, Chalmers said:

We didn’t do this to get a bounce in the polls.
We did it to get a boost in first home-ownership, particularly among younger Australians who have been locked out.
If you think about it, you know, we’ve got this Budget full hard decisions, not handouts.

Jim Chalmers claims the tax reform elements of this week’s budget are “broadly neutral” over the forward estimates.

Asked by Insiders host David Speers how much extra tax the changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and trusts actually raise, Chalmers said the changes would also “[return] what we are raising to workers and businesses, principally small businesses.”

Chalmers continued:

Now, over the 10-year period, the capital gains and negative gearing changes are a little bit over $40bn and the trust changes are also a little bit over $40bn.
But there’s also the tax cuts in there, the working Australian tax offset, over the course of the next 10 years, there’s loss-carryback tax cuts for business.
So, overall, we’ve pointed out, David, that if you look at that 10-year period, there’s about three times as much savings as there is tax changes in net terms but those two specific categories are a little bit over $40bn each.

‘Many billions of savings’ from stripping welfare from non-citizens, Taylor says

Krishani Dhanji

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, says “billions” could be saved from removing social welfare entitlements from non-citizens – including permanent residents – but refuses to say how much.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Taylor says the costings will be released ahead of the next election.

There’s many billions of savings. There’s no doubt about that. We’ll put all our costings out, as is the convention, in the lead up to the election, but it’s many billions of savings in this. And this is all about making sure Australian taxpayers’ dollars are well spent, are focused on the benefits of Australians and making Australians better off.

There’s a few key costings and numbers that the opposition’s plan is missing. Taylor also still won’t confirm how much the Coalition would cut the net overseas migration (NOM) target to, after announcing that he would tie immigration intake to new housing construction.

Angus Taylor. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

When probed on Thursday night after his budget reply, Taylor said that the number would be about 40% below current levels and under 200,000. The NOM for the last financial year 2024-25 was 306,000.

What we’re proposing here is each year the housing minister would say we’ve built this many houses, and so the immigration number, the net overseas migration number, can be X.

The opposition leader Angus Taylor was on Sky News this morning suggesting Labor’s plan to index tax thresholds might cost the budget as much as $250bn over a decade.

Jim Chalmers, responding to Taylor’s comments on ABC’s Insiders, said Taylor’s proposed budget approach was “irresponsible”.

Last time we cut income taxes, Angus Taylor voted against it and said he would repeal it.

Chalmers continued:

Angus Taylor would be adding a quarter of a trillion dollars to national debt. That would cost tens of billions of dollars in extra debt interest, because he’s got these uncosted, unfunded, tax announcements that he made in his Budget reply, which was all about trying to stave off One Nation.

Some federal politics for you coming up: we’re expecting to hear the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, speaking on ABC’s Insiders shortly – we’ll bring you that when it happens.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is in Melbourne today and doing a press conference at about the same time as his treasurer is speaking on the telly. We’ll let you know what comes out of that presser too.

LNP concedes Stafford byelection

The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, has conceded the inner-northern Brisbane seat of Stafford to Labor after a tight byelection race.

While the final result was not declared on Saturday night and the outcome could come down to postal votes, Crisafulli acknowledged the Liberal National party candidate, Fiona Hammond, was unlikely to win, but claimed his party had received a substantial swing towards it:

I do think we’re going to fall agonisingly short, guys. I think we’re going to fall agonisingly short, but boy, oh boy, what an incredible campaign from an incredible, incredible candidate.

With almost 80% of ballots counted on Saturday evening, Labor’s Luke Richmond was ahead by 768 votes on late Saturday night. Labor was likely to retain the seat despite a 4.1% swing against them, chief ABC analyst Casey Briggs said on X:

Labor is likely to retain Stafford. There has been a 4.1 per cent swing against Labor with additional postal votes still to be counted. But for the LNP to win from here, those postal votes would need to break very strongly in its favour. That is very unlikely to happen.

Polls closed at 6pm, with more than 14,000 people casting ballots on the day. Almost 42% of people chose to vote early, 13,530 in person and 3,860 by post.

The byelection in the marginal electorate was called after the sudden death of former independent MP Jimmy Sullivan on 9 April. Sullivan was expelled from Labor in May 2025 over medical concerns.

The opposition leader, Steven Miles, told Labor’s packed election night party last night:

I am so thrilled to tell you that Luke Richmond is the new member for Stafford.

The byelection was widely seen as a test of former premier Miles’ leadership. He has led the party since taking over from Annastacia Palaszczuk in December 2023.

Asked if Labor would do better if it were led by someone else, Miles said on Saturday night that would be “a decision for the caucus, but I have the support of the caucus right now to be leader”.