Australian news and politics live: Taylor says Wong returning from US ‘empty-handed’, making ‘no progress’

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said that the US central bank would have eased monetary policy by now if not for President Donald Trump’s tariff plan.

When asked during a panel at the European Central Bank forum in Sintra in Portugal if the Fed would have lowered rates again this year had Mr Trump not announced his controversial plan to impose higher levies on imported goods earlier this year, Mr Powell said: “I think that’s right.

“In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs.”

Mr Powell’s admission comes as the Fed has entered a holding pattern on interest rates despite mounting pressure from the White House.

Kanye West has officially been banned from Australia after the recent release of an anti-Semitic song, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has revealed.

The American rapper, who is married to Australian designer Bianca Censori, had a tourist visa used to visit family but officials cancelled it after he released a song called Heil Hitler in May.

“He’s been coming to Australia for a long time … and he’s made a lot of offensive comments,” Mr Burke said.

“But my officials looked at it again once he released the Heil Hitler song and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia.”

Mr Burke said it was the only occasion he could think of where someone’s visa had been cancelled over anti-Semitism when the class wasn’t for public advocacy such as a lecture tour.

The Government contemplated barring the rapper in 2023 over anti-Semitic comments.

Fiji would not welcome a Chinese military base in the Pacific, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says.

Amid growing strategic influences in the Pacific region, Mr Rabuka told the National Press Club in Canberra that he did “not believe that China would even need a base in the Pacific”.

When pushed on the subject, he said: “Who would welcome them? Not Fiji.”

However, Mr Rabuka said that Chinese President Xi Jinping was a “great leader”.

“He’s brought up the standard and quality of life in the rural areas,” he said.

“That way he started in the provinces with the economic development of villages and communities and worked his way up the Chinese Communist Party to be the president now.”

New charges have been laid against a second man over child sexual abuse allegations, with the man believed to be known to Joshua Brown — who is accused of sexually assaulting children at a childcare centre.

On Tuesday, Mr Brown was charged with over 70 child sexual abuse charges relating to alleged incidents at a childcare centre in Victoria.

The State Government has recommended that 1200 children seek STI tests.

Police allege that Mr Brown worked at 20 centres across the State between January 2017 and May 2025.

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The sheer amount of data breached in the Qantas hack is what makes it so worrying, according to Macquarie University’s cyber security hub school of computing Professor Dali Kaafar.

“I think the sheer amount of data that has been breached makes it one of the largest and comparable to the ones we’ve had a couple of years ago,” he said.

“Definitely the sensitivity of the information that’s been breached as well, I think, we’re talking about very, very sensitive, very personally identifiable information that was breached.

“You know, we may just refer to email addresses and phone numbers as things that are at the surface of the data itself becoming more public knowledge, but it’s actually not true.

“Birth dates and frequent flyer numbers are very significant.

“The nature of the data breached and the volume, six million records, potentially being lost in the wild makes it really significant.”

The sporting record books are about to be rewritten in America after one of the nation’s biggest universities bowed to pressure from the Trump Administration and agreed to a ban on transgender women competing in female sporting events.

Lia Thomas became the face of the transgender sporting battleground in the US, after the University of Pennsylvania permitted her to compete against female athletes in NCAA swimming events in 2022, where she won a Division I title.

Civil rights activists, athletes and rival sporting programs have been protesting Thomas’s inclusion in the female categories for several years after she originally competed as a male at the college level.

US President Donald Trump’s message has been clear to schools and sporting organisations that receive funding from the US Government: that transgender athletes must not compete in female sporting events if they wish to continue to receive millions of dollars in grants.

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Macquarie University’s cyber security hub school of computing Professor Dali Kaafar went on to advise Qantas customers about what to do to best protect themselves from the breach.

“So the very first thing that I think that everybody should be doing right now if you are a customer of Qantas is to go and change your pin number,” he said.

“That’s a very, very immediate thing to do. The rest, I think, is really up to a very good conversation, transparent conversation with Qantas representatives to understand how they’re really going with the forensics investigation and the remediation of that.

“There is really good practice that needs to be implemented right now in an emergency type of situation like this, which is making sure that no further access to other services are allowed by the loss of such sensitive data.

“Things like making sure that there is a multifactor awe indication to the - authentication to the Qantas mobile app, for instance.

“Making sure that the cyber criminals are not further exploiting the data that they’ve gained access to, to access further services within the customers.

“I think that customer communication support is really crucial at this moment.”

An expert has told how it is reassuring that the Qantas hack didn’t compromise all personal details - but what thieves did get was “significant”.

“Information that no frequent flyer accounts were compromised and things like passwords or pins or log-in details have been accessed is certainly reassuring,” Macquarie University’s cyber security hub school of computing Professor Dali Kaafar told the ABC.

“You would expect that from a customer perspective, personal financial information or even passport details that would be held by a company like Qantas are obviously at risk.

“And so the crucial information here for customers in many ways - you know, it’s really reassuring.

“But on the other hand, I think that it is also really important to understand that breach of names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers is still very, very significant.

“And I think that this type of personal information can be exploited in many different ways.

“Phishing attacks, identity theft or even social engineering efforts here is really at risk and at play.

“It allows malicious actors to complete more complete profiles of individuals making them more susceptible of other forms of cybercrime down the line and that is the real risk here.”

Mr Taylor says he will “actively campaign on sensible policies” when asked about gender quotas in the Liberal Party.

Speaking at a press conference in Canberra on Wednesday, Mr Taylor said he believed in attracting women to the party but refused to make commitments to quotas.

“I will actively campaign on sensible policies in line with Liberal values to get more women and other great people into the Liberal party in New South Wales and in other states,” he told reporters.

“I am a huge believer in the Liberal Party being a grassroots political movement that attracts people to it. It’s broader than just gender.

“It includes gender, but it’s a whole range of issues where the party has been letting itself down and needs to get better.

“That’s why we’re having a review and I’ll strongly support initiatives that ensure that we get to where we need to be.”

Mr Taylor avoided questioning on whether Australia should request that the US increase aid spending in the Pacific, similarly to how America has demanded that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese boost his defence budget.

Australia has long touted that “soft-diplomacy” in the Pacific and investing in relationships is just as critical for security in the region.

But shortly after US President Donald Trump was reelected, he announced that the key ally would axe its aid commitments to Pacific nations.

When asked at a press conference on Wednesday if the US should rethink the decision amid China’s increasing push for influence over Indo-Pacific countries, Mr Taylor just acknowledged the importance of having “good relations with our Pacific partners”.

“I’m not going to get into giving the Americans advice on their aid spending,” he said.

“Obviously, they (Pacific nations) are important allies of ours and partners to ours.

“And we do understand that the Chinese Communist Party is seeking increased influence in that part of the world.

“It’s incredibly important we continue to build those relations.”