The Coalition has told a gas industry conference in Sydney it would give gas the same status as a critical mineral, to allow the industry to access a $4bn export finance fund set up to support the transition to net zero. Queensland senator Susan McDonald told the conference on Wednesday morning the policy would ensure…

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has denied the state’s police force is in chaos after the acting chief commissioner, Rick Nugent, announced he wouldn’t apply for the permanent position after just 41 days in the job. Nugent on Wednesday said he made the “difficult decision” not to seek the role after realising he couldn’t commit…

Dutton gas plan has ‘reckless’ lack of detail, King says Lisa Cox The resources minister, Madeleine King, has told a gas industry conference in Sydney that opposition leader Peter Dutton’s gas plan “is not much of a plan” and contains a “reckless” lack of detail. In a pre-recorded speech, King said: There is a distinct…

Republicans on Tuesday won special elections for two US House of Representatives seats in Florida vacated by Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, dashing Democratic hopes for an upset victory in the first federal special elections held since the president began his second term. But Democratic candidates Josh Weil and Gay Valimont are likely to lose the…

Former Costa Rican president and Nobel winner Óscar Arias said on Tuesday that the US had revoked his visa to enter the country, weeks after he criticized Donald Trump on social media saying he was behaving like “a Roman emperor”. Arias, 84, was president between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010. A…

Pupils in England are to be taught how to spot the risks of in-game purchases as well as to scrutinise the claims of influencers in a new suite of lessons designed to improve their financial literacy. The package of 80 lessons is aimed at teaching pupils aged five to 16 how to navigate online spending,…

The U.S. government is set to increase tariff rates on several categories of imported products. Some economists tracking these trade proposals say the higher tariff rates could lead to higher consumer prices. One model constructed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston suggests that in an “extreme” scenario, heightened taxes on U.S. imports could result…

The representative Jerry Nadler of New York has slammed Donald Trump’s crackdown on American universities in the name of fighting antisemitism, saying that withholding federal funding from schools will “not make Jewish students safer”. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Democratic representative said he condemned Trump’s “latest attacks on higher education cloaked under the…