Australia’s Treasurer Scott Morrison insists he’s not expecting a fight from Australia’s big banks despite announcing a surprise levy on Tuesday night’s annual budget. Australia’s budget will impose a levy of 6 basis points on banks with liabilities in excess of $100 billion Australian dollars ($74 billion) in an attempt to raise more than A$6 billion over the next four ...

The Australian federal police conducted six internal investigations in the past 18 months into alleged professional misconduct of officers who had been newly approved to access telecommunications data, Guardian Australia can reveal. The latest revelations will heighten concern about the AFP’s handling of Australians’ personal information, after it revealed it had unlawfully accessed a journalist’s phone records without a warrant. ...

Australia may indeed be “blindly and zealously toeing the US line” with regards to North Korea – at least openly – but in truth, Canberra wants to avoid conflict with Pyongyang. There is much at stake for Australia should war resume on the Korean peninsula, after more than 63 years of tense calm. While Julie Bishop stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Mike ...

Australian companies are increasingly attracting potential acquirers as the economy diversifies and North American buyers are drawn to invest in sectors such as infrastructure, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s local head. Interest in the Australian market, particularly from the US and Canada, is rising given the level of transparency relative to other parts of Asia Pacific, said Simon Rothery, chief ...

Sydney – Australia will abolish a temporary work visa that has been popular with foreigners and replace it with a visa requiring better English-language and work skills, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Monday. Turnbull has rejected suggestions that the visa policy change was in response to the country’s far-right wing political parties, such as One Nation, demanding more nationalistic ...

A woman flying to Melbourne from Beijing in February fell asleep while wearing noise-canceling headphones, only to awake to the sounds of a nearby explosion. The battery in her headphones had burst into flame, according to an Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation into the incident released Tuesday.  

Richard Glover is an Australian writer and broadcaster. In the world of 2017, is there any stopping the ascendancy of right-wing populist politicians? From Trump to Brexit, from Martine Le Pen to Geert Wilders, it’s a journalistic cliche to list their successes and to suggest there’s no stopping their rise. Here, though, is some news from Down Under. The Australian ...

A couple has told of facing “waves the size of buildings” when their yacht broke in remote seas off Australia. Irishman Nick Dwyer, 55, and Frenchwoman Barbara Heftman, 44, were sailing from New Zealand to Australia. Australian police rescued the pair 210 nautical miles (390km) off Sydney amid 6m swells and gale-force winds. The sailors, on a circumnavigation of the ...

Declaring that Australia is in the midst of an energy crisis, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he will call together the chief executives of east coast gas companies to address the threat to their customers. Mr Turnbull told delegates to a conference hosted by The Australian Financial Review that he was concerned by Wednesday’s report by the Australian Energy ...

SYDNEY: Australian law enforcement agencies seized a record 1.4 tonnes of cocaine worth AUS$312 million (US$390 million) from an Australia-bound yacht during a covert midnight operation last week, the authorities said on Monday. Six men, including five Australians, have been charged with the conspiracy to import drugs and could face life imprisonment, Justice Minister Michael Keenan and Immigration Minister Peter ...