‘Australia likes being first’: PM defends bid to remove Andrew from succession — as it happened

And that’s where we’ll have to leave the federal politics blog for today. Thank you for joining us!

You can look back on today’s developments below, or download the ABC News app and subscribe to our range of news alerts for the latest updates.

We’ll see you again tomorrow morning for more federal politics news.

A former Reserve Bank governor has told a parliamentary hearing the capital gains tax discount should be scrapped altogether to help improve housing affordability.

Bernie Fraser told a Senate committee hearing on capital gains tax (CGT) that, if it were up to him, he would abolish the discount.

He conceded that a “cartel” of vested interests in the economy, including politicians, home owners and investors, would like to keep the status quo.

Read the full story from business correspondent David Taylor in the link below.

Communications Minister Anika Wells has announced the federal government will conduct a comprehensive review of the legislation and regulations governing Triple Zero.

A review into the 2023 Optus outage, which impacted 10 million Australians, made 18 recommendations, including the establishment of a Triple Zero custodian.

The federal government agreed to all the recommendations, but hasn’t until now announced a review into the laws governing the system.

In a speech to a regional policy forum, Wells says the review will draw on the lessons of the 2023 Optus outage and most recent 2025 Optus outage.

“I will have more to say on the review scope and structure in due course,” Wells says.

“But let me make it very clear. This is of the upmost importance to me, the government, and most importantly the Australian people.

“We must do everything in our power to ensure Triple Zero remains reliable, resilient, and fit for purpose — now and into the future,” she says.

Andrew Bragg says he doesn’t agree that Australian children in Syria linked to ISIS should be provided education after returning home.

The Labor premiers of NSW and South Australia have openly said Australian children in Syria linked to ISIS should be provided with education if they return to Australia.

Speaking to Afternoon Briefing, Bragg says he doesn’t agree with the spirit of their statements.

“I think you have to draw the line somewhere,” Bragg says.

“These families made a judgement to repudiate the promises that they made at citizenship ceremonies if they were naturalised, or if they were born Australians and they have completely undermined this country by going and working for organisations which are against humanity,” he says.

Shadow Housing Minister Andrew Bragg says cutting the capital gains tax discount will only worsen the housing supply crisis.

The treasurer has left the door open to reducing the capital tax gains discount on investment properties.

Speaking to Afternoon Briefing, Bragg says any changes to the current tax regime won’t help increase housing supply.

“Increasing taxes or reducing concessions will not build any more houses and Australia is in the midst of a massive housing supply crisis,” Bragg says.

“The government want to reduce concessions for mum and dad investors, but they want to help their mates and in the super funds to become massive landlords,” he says.

The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion got underway for its first hearing in Sydney today.

Anthony Albanese called the inquiry after the Bondi Beach terror attack which killed 15 people.

The federal opposition has called for the prime minister and cabinet ministers to appear before the royal commission.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher says it’s up to the independent royal commissioner to make a decision on who appears.

“It should be a matter for the royal commissioner herself and I have no doubt she will conduct herself and the royal commission itself with integrity and choose to call witnesses that she believes will help with her inquiry,” Gallagher says.

Minister for Women Katy Gallagher says allegations against a renowned Melbourne surgeon are “extremely concerning”.

Four Corners reported Simon Gordon repeatedly removed tissue and organs from young women for “severe” endometriosis when pathology showed they had little or no trace of the disease.

Speaking to Afternoon Briefing, Gallagher says she was “shocked” by the revelations on Four Corners last night.

The minister says there are broad issues about how the health system works for women.

“We know more broadly across the medical system, we have a lot of work to do to make sure that the health system works for women. It is not always the case,” Gallagher says.

Join along as we bring you parts of the program here live!

It took 15 months to narrow a field of 270 AI experts to 12 nominees for an AI authority, at a cost of almost $200,000, before it was suddenly scrapped by the federal government.

The $21.6 million AI Advisory Body was promised by former industry minister Ed Husic in 2024, after he appointed an interim expert panel to begin work on “AI guardrails” that could ensure the technology was safe.

But emails between the office of Industry Minister Tim Ayres, who replaced Husic, and his department reveal the promised body was scrapped just months after the department had spent $188,000 and more than a year whittling down a list of experts to a shortlist of 12 nominees.

Read the full story from senior political correspondent Jake Evans in the link below.

The office of Mark Carney has released some more detail about his upcoming trip to Australia.

According to his office, Canada’s prime minister wants to deepen ties with Australia in a few key areas:

• defence and maritime security
• trade
• critical minerals
• advanced technologies, including AI

He’s also planning to meet business leaders and investors as he looks for economic opportunities outside the US, which Ottawa now sees as an unreliable and at-times hostile partner.

The trip follows his bombshell speech at the World Economic Forum last month, when he said the rules-based world order had ruptured, and he called for “middle power” countries (like Canada and Australia) to “build something bigger, better, stronger, more just”.

He’ll visit Sydney and Canberra on March 3-6. Read more below.

So migrants who don’t abide by Australian values return to their country of origin, as pushed by One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce?

Anthony Albanese says he doesn’t agree with that sentiment and says Australia has a non-discriminatory immigration policy.

The prime minister says people who come to Australia need to leave hate and prejudice at the door.

He says immigration to Australia has dropped by about 40 per cent and that it is continuing to come down.

“After COVID, when we didn’t allow Australians to come back, remember, of course there was going to be a spike. That of course happened. And you would have expected that but we have got the numbers down by 40 per cent. We’ll continue to do that,” Albanese says.

The prime minister has pushed back on the suggestion he’s sidelining people’s concerns about the economy.

Speaking to Karl Stefanovic about the rise of One Nation, the PM says he acknowledges people are under pressure and “doing it tough”.

But he’s used the opportunity to talk up the government’s cost of living measures and its stewardship of the economy. 

“If you look around the world, most of the economies went into recession in recent years. We didn’t. We haven’t had a single quarter of negative growth. That’s a good thing,” Albanese says.

Asked if it was a poor choice to label One Nation as “dark forces”, the PM says Pauline Hanson amplifies divisions in society.

But he’s rejected that he was referring to the right-wing party’s supporters when making that comment.

Albanese says One Nation has opposed measures to make conditions better for workers.

“They’ve [One Nation] opposed the legislation that we’ve done to enshrine penalty rates on weekends. They oppose the pay increases that we’re put for, workers in the care sector, like aged care,” he says.

Anthony Albanese says he doesn’t think it’s “fair” and “true” to blame his government for a rise in antisemitism in the lead-up to the Bondi attack.

The PM says he was at The Lodge in Canberra when the Bondi Beach terrorist attack happened, and called a meeting of the National Security Committee “immediately” after hearing of the incident.

Asked if he felt like he couldn’t wrap his arms around the local Jewish community in the wake of the attack, the PM says he did but without television cameras.

“They were grieving, they were angry about what had happened. But they were warm and generous. They were very welcoming into their homes,” Albanese says.

“I’m very sorry that that happened on my watch. You know, I’m the prime minister. So something happened while I was prime minister, but one of the things that we can’t do is dismiss the responsibility of these terrorists for making a conscious decision,” he says.

Karl Stefanovic has moved onto the next topic of questioning, this time about the group of families in Syria linked to ISIS fighters.

The group of 34 Australians, including children, tried to return to Australia last week but were blocked by Syrian authorities.

Anthony Albanese says there is no way the federal government can ban the cohort from returning because they are citizens.

The PM says ultimately Australian citizens have the right to return to the country.

He says the Australian government is not assisting the cohort to come back to Australia.

“Australian citizens have rights. The law that is in place is the law that was there under the former government. So these aren’t our laws,” Albanese says.

Albanese says he has “nothing but contempt” for the group in Syria and has repeated the line “if you make your bed, you lie in it”.

He says the group could face charges if they return to Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just popped up for an interview on Karl Stefanovic’s live podcast on YouTube at The Lodge in Canberra.

The PM has been asked about his letter to the UK PM supporting any decision to strip Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of succession.

Albanese says Australians would be disgusted by the revelations emerging over Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to Jeffrey Epstein.

“Australia is directly involved in this and so we’ve got a right to put forward our view. And our view is pretty clear, and I think I speak on behalf of all Australians in saying we don’t want to borrow this bloke,” Albanese says.

So has Albanese used the story to distract from the ongoing story about the families linked to ISIS seeking to return home?

“Oh for goodness sakes,” the PM replies. 

Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson has agreed with former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello’s assessment of the current state of the federal budget.

Costello is set to tell a conference that the federal government is “softening” Australians up for tax increase to pay for debt.

Speaking to Sky News, Wilson says the federal budget needs to return to a some position of “sustainability” that builds on economic progress.

He says the nation’s current debt is pouring “petrol on the inflation fire”

“We need to make sure that there’s a sustainable position for the tax system that builds out the future we want for the next generation because they’re going to be central to our economic success and budget sustainability,” Wilson says.

For those reading the tea leaves to divine the government’s intentions, the questions of Labor senators on the CGT committee are worth listening closely to.

And Richard Dowling, the deputy chair of the committee, who has an economics background, has asked the Australian Tax Office about whether they are well placed to implement a change to the rules of this tax.

Moreover, he asks, don’t they have a ready-made method to calculate inflation precisely, as an alternative to a 50 per cent discount, because that is how it used to be done? Yes, it seems they do.

Not that Dowling, a humble senator, is suggesting that there is a change of rules coming along those lines, of course. He’s just curious about whether if there was, it would be simple to implement.

Officials from Jim Chalmers’ department have appeared before a Senate committee on the capital gains tax discount.

It’s chaired by the Greens, but everyone is watching closely for signs the government might be about to unveil its own plan to make the discount less generous.

Behind closed doors, government sources say they’re considering it. In public, they only say they are thinking about housing and intergenerational fairness as they prepare the budget.

So the ears pricked up when ACT senator David Pocock asked a Treasury official whether they’d modelled something related to CGT and the official declined to answer, saying:

“The Treasurer has spoken about what he’s doing in the lead-up to budget, so because of that we’re not at liberty to discuss what we have and haven’t done … because we don’t want to, I guess, prejudice the discussion.”

From which you might conclude there is a discussion, which we didn’t technically know.

Of course, that’s not the same as suggesting the government has made a decision. But we’re getting warmer.

Independent MP Dai Le says members of her western Sydney community are fearful of the prospect of IS-linked families being resettled in her electorate.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has revealed up to a third of the 34 Australian women and children, currently in a Syrian refugee camp, could come to his state, if and when they eventually return.

Le represents the federal seat of Fowler, where another cohort of Australians with ISIS-links were resettled in 2022.

She says her seat is also home to families who have fled the ISIS regime and they are raising the alarm.

“Communities have approached me, and of course surrounding MPs, to express their fear because this is quite triggering for them,” Le told 702 Sydney.

“We have not lived through what they’ve lived through, so therefore I take seriously their concerns.

“It’s not the immediate threat, it’s what’s going to happen in years to come … the potential setting up of cells by people linked to ISIS, that’s their fear.”

New Zealand’s prime minister has become the latest Commonwealth leader to publicly endorse a push to remove Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of succession.

Mountbatten-Windsor is no longer working as a member of the royal family and was stripped of his titles last year over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

However, his recent arrest in the UK has prompted calls for the British government to go further and pass laws stripping the former prince of his succession rights

Overnight, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese became the first Commonwealth leader to support such a move, writing to his UK counterpart offering Australia’s backing.

Now, we’ve learned the Kiwis have done the same — albeit privately — with Christopher Luxon telling reporters he’s been in direct talks with the UK.

“We’ve already been in conversation with the UK Cabinet Office and they know that we are supportive,” Luxon said.

“Should they remove him from the line of succession, we would be very supportive of that decision.

“We can announce it any way but our position is clear: it’s the same position as the Australian position but rather than a formal letter, we’ve been having conversations directly with the UK government.”