Major home builder Bathla Group collapses, leaving buyers in limbo
Embattled home builder Bathla Group has been placed into voluntary administration, leaving customers in limbo in what it says is a “perfect storm” of circumstances, AAP reports.
Founder and director Bhart Bhushan described the move to voluntary administration as an “orderly restructure of business”.
“Our first thoughts are with our employees and the customers who have put their faith in us to deliver their dream of home ownership,” Bhushan said in a statement on Tuesday.
It is my sincere hope this process can allow that to happen by working collaboratively with the administrators, our suppliers, contractors and lending partners.
Bhushan said the group had confronted a perfect storm of circumstances that contributed to its struggles. These include a significant softening in sales, impacts from the changes made in the federal government’s May budget and falling confidence in key markets.
He also said significant increases in construction costs absorbed by his company played a part.
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Key events
Andrew Messenger
Qld parliament unveils statue of state’s first female MP
A new statue of Queensland’s first female MP has been unveiled at the state’s parliament.
Irene Longman was elected in 1929, serving a single term as a Country and Progressive National Party MP for the seat of Bulimba in Brisbane.
Parliamentary speaker Pat Weir, who commissioned the statue, said Longman had faced challenges her male colleagues never had to worry about.
At the time, the building did not even have women’s toilets and Longman was denied access to the parliamentary dining room. As a result the statue depicts her working on a speech at a small table, while having tea – on the veranda outside.
Weir said Longman had been responsible for genuine and substantial change, including the state’s first female police officers and the establishment of a separate children’s court. In a brief event to mark the unveiling, he said:
The unveiling of the old brand, Irene Long, celebrates the life and legacy of a remarkable Queensland colony whose vision extended far beyond social dimensions of this time.
Longman did not live to see Queenslanders elect a second female MP, Vi Jordan, in 1966, the first minister, Yvonne Chapman, in 1983, or the first female premier, Anna Bligh, in 1995.
Nick Visser
That’s all for me. Achol Arok will be your guide for the rest of the afternoon. Take care.
One Nation’s David Farley ‘needs to shut up’, George Christensen writes
Josh Butler
Former Coalition politician and One Nation member George Christensen claims new MP David Farley “needs to shut up”, accusing him of “freelancing on immigration” after further confusion on the party’s core policy.
Christensen, who quit the Nationals and later ran as a One Nation Senate candidate, said he had “played a small part in helping David Farley get elected”, including having “advised” Farley on messaging and media during his byelection campaign for Farrer – but says Farley runs the risk of “damaging” Pauline Hanson with his comments.
“David Farley repeatedly contradicts One Nation on immigration and leaves Pauline Hanson cleaning up the mess,” Christensen wrote in a blog on his Substack page.
It came after Farley on Sunday told the ABC’s Insiders program that One Nation’s immigration policy numbers would be “not too different” from Labor’s plan, forcing One Nation into damage control. It has also exposed growing confusion about Hanson’s immigration policy, with various members giving different ideas at different times.
Christensen said One Nation “does need to clear up the wording of its policy”, noting “confusion” between its written policy and Hanson’s media interviews. But he also criticised Farley over a number of departures from One Nation stances, including Farley saying he’d display the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in his office, and voicing support for the Sydney Mardi Gras.
“For now, the most useful thing he could learn is when to shut up,” Christensen wrote.
Matcha drinking doubles in Australia, with the going rate for an iced matcha latte about $8 a cup
Guardian Australia’s Isabella Lee has some interesting figures on the popularity of matcha on cafe menus across the country:
The going rate for an iced matcha latte is about $8 – about $2 more than a standard milk coffee – and young Australians are undeterred by the price. An annual report on Australian coffee habits and spending by ordering platform Hey You and Westpac DataX found there has been a 133% increase in matcha orders year-on-year, with customers aged under 35 driving this demand.
The Japanese beverage, traditionally served unsweetened, without milk and prepared in an involved tea ceremony, is now firmly in the mainstream.
Read more here:
Australian shares lift as banks rebound and Coles jumps
A rebound in banking stocks has reawakened Australia’s share market from its recent slumber, putting the beaten-down financials sector on track for its second daily gain in eight sessions, AAP reports.
The S&P/ASX200 was up 0.66% as the broader All Ordinaries gained 0.57%. The local bourse shrugged off a weak session for US tech stocks, which was partially counterbalanced by a rise in financial stocks.
The latter part of the move was echoed in the ASX session, with insurers and banks rebounding from recent sell-downs, with no clear catalyst except an expected dip in headline inflation figures due on Wednesday morning.
Investors will also be poring over Reserve Bank meeting minutes released later on Tuesday.
The Australian dollar is buying 71.52 US cents, down from 71.69 US cents on Monday at 5pm AEST.
Damian Carrington
World’s oceans hit hottest temperature on record in August
The world’s oceans were hotter than ever previously recorded on Saturday, according to the latest data.
The average surface temperature was 21.1C, with the rising marine heat a stark indicator of the climate crisis. More than 90% of the heat trapped by carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning enters the oceans.
Hotter oceans exacerbate the sea level rise and extreme storms that threaten billions of people, as well as driving marine heatwaves that decimate sea life and undermine coastal livelihoods, scientists warned.
“The record is another clear signal of an ocean under growing stress,” said Dr Samantha Burgess, at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which produced the new data.
El Niño is adding heat to the system, but it is doing so on top of decades of human-driven warming. The consequences are already visible: the number of marine heatwave days globally has more than tripled since the early 1990s.
Read more:
Nino Bucci
Ralph Carr, entertainment industry and AFL figure, sentenced to six years for raping ex-staffer
Entertainment and AFL agent Ralph Carr has been sentenced to six years in prison for the rape and sexual assault of a former employee.
Carr, 66, was convicted of two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault after a trial in the county court of Victoria last month.
On Tuesday, Judge Frank Gucciardo sentenced Carr to six years in prison, with a minimum term of four years.
Carr had pleaded not guilty to the offences, which were committed against the former employee in March 2023. He appeared in court via videolink for his sentencing, and has foreshadowed an appeal against his conviction.
Read more here:
Greens senator Barbara Pocock won’t run again
Josh Butler
The Greens senator Barbara Pocock says she won’t run again for the upper house, announcing today that another term “is not right for me”.
Pocock, a senator for South Australia, said on Tuesday that a cancer diagnosis for her partner had been one of the motivating factors for her decision to not run again in 2028.
After much consideration, I have made the decision that I will not be nominating for preselection for a second term in the Senate.
The reasons are personal: for the past year my partner has had brain cancer and despite his good prognosis, I’ve reached the view that running for a second term is not right for me.
Pocock – no relation to the independent ACT senator David Pocock – joined the Senate in 2022 after nearly two decades at the Australia Institute, having worked as an economist including at the Reserve Bank.
The Greens’ spokesperson for housing, finance and the public sector, Pocock has been among the leading voices in interrogating the scandals in consulting firms which have been investigated through parliamentary inquiries.
Pocock said the next election was still “a long way off” and said she still had “plenty of work to do on housing, securing super for under 18-year-olds, holding KPMG to account and reforming the Big Four firms”.
I remain committed to continuing my work on climate and environmental justice.
Patrick Commins
RBA has its finger on the rates trigger, board minutes show
The Reserve Bank’s monetary policy board remains unconvinced that inflation will return to target by the end of next year, and is ready to hike rates again if it sees any evidence that price pressures are coming in hotter than expected.
The RBA held its cash rate at 4.35% at its most recent meeting, even as Michele Bullock, the governor, warned after the decision that it was “quite possible” that there would be another hike.
Minutes from that meeting released this morning revealed board members believe that inflation, while still too high at 3.8%, is tracking as predicted and should return to the 2.5% target by late 2027.
But the board is aware they have little wriggle room to achieve their mandate in a “timely” fashion, the minutes show, and are ready to act if needed. The minutes read:
Several members judged that it was quite possible that the upside risks to the inflation forecast would crystallise, requiring some further tightening. Other members noted the potential for downside risks to offset them.
All members agreed that, given prevailing uncertainties, upcoming decisions would benefit from additional information that could strengthen their conviction about the outlook for inflation.
So it’s watch and wait, the minutes show, and the board “will continue to do what it considers necessary to achieve that outcome, including increasing the cash rate target if upside risks materialise”.
Most economists don’t expect another rate hike this year, but financial markets early this morning were pricing in a 64% chance of an increase by December.
The ABS will release its latest monthly inflation figures at 11:30am tomorrow.
Major home builder Bathla Group collapses, leaving buyers in limbo
Embattled home builder Bathla Group has been placed into voluntary administration, leaving customers in limbo in what it says is a “perfect storm” of circumstances, AAP reports.
Founder and director Bhart Bhushan described the move to voluntary administration as an “orderly restructure of business”.
“Our first thoughts are with our employees and the customers who have put their faith in us to deliver their dream of home ownership,” Bhushan said in a statement on Tuesday.
It is my sincere hope this process can allow that to happen by working collaboratively with the administrators, our suppliers, contractors and lending partners.
Bhushan said the group had confronted a perfect storm of circumstances that contributed to its struggles. These include a significant softening in sales, impacts from the changes made in the federal government’s May budget and falling confidence in key markets.
He also said significant increases in construction costs absorbed by his company played a part.
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Explainer: why is Albanese ‘WA’s daddy’ this week?
Josh Butler
With all the federal focus on Western Australia in recent days, humble readers not living on the west coast may be thinking: “… why?”
Over the last week we’ve had Anthony Albanese inventing ever-more elaborate ways to promise that the federal government won’t be changing WA’s generous GST payments, bringing a full federal ministry meeting to the west again, a clutch of new agreements and funding, federal ministers tripping over themselves to lavish praise on the mining-rich state, and now even the famous Blue Poles painting being sent to Perth for a visit.
Even the always parochial West Australian newspaper was pleased with the largesse from Canberra, branding the prime minister “WA’S DADDY” in a satisfied front page today.
Of course, there are five other states and two other territories in Australia besides WA. So why the focus on Perth?
First and most obviously, West Australians are pretty proud of their state and economy. The mining state is, as Albanese and his team regularly boast, “the engine room of the Australian economy”, and they like being reminded of that fact.
But Albanese, of course, has history with WA. Students of recent political history may remember that it was an unexpectedly strong showing in WA’s seats which got Albanese’s Labor over the line in the 2022 election, flipping a few more seats than they planned and essentially winning power for the ALP. That included launching the national campaign in Perth (a decision repeated in 2025) and a special ad campaign just for the west coast.
Some Labor people believe WA remains a key to their grip on power, and that heaping lavish praise on the west can help keeps the Liberals out of power; Albanese famously begins most of his media appearances in the west by keeping a tally of how many times he’s visited (this is his 45th visit as PM, he said on Monday)
WA also still remains a Labor fortress at the state level, with former premier Mark McGowan (referred to for a time as “state daddy” in the west) winning a landslide victory in 2021 then handing over to current leader Roger Cook. It doesn’t hurt for federal Labor to cosy up to an already-popular state government.
Facial recognition to be mandatory in NSW gaming rooms under new gambling reforms
Achol Arok
NSW gaming rooms will be required to introduce facial-recognition technology when a statewide exclusion register is introduced in 2028 under new gambling reforms announced on Tuesday.
The raft of reforms will also include a third-party exclusion scheme in hotels and clubs, an increased forfeiture rate for the state’s 87,000 poker machines and an end to gambling VIP programs.
A crackdown on gambling advertising will include a ban on ads on all NSW government and council-owned assets, as well as a ban on unsolicited direct marketing to potential customers.
The government said it will also establish a state-based strategy to reduce online gambling harm. Announcing the package, the gaming and racing minister, David Harris, said:
These are common sense reforms that have been developed alongside industry, harm minimisation groups, stakeholders and privacy experts to address gambling harm while supporting the industry and protecting the livelihoods of the many people it employs.
By combining new technology, stronger exclusion tools, strengthened regulation and increased funding for harm reduction, we are building a safer system for the future.
Cait Kelly
Women’s Legal Centre calls for reform to help survivors of sexual assault come forward
Elena Rosenman, CEO of Women’s Legal Centre ACT, has said the greatest motivation for people coming forward is wanting to prevent other people from experiencing the same thing.
The barriers to reporting are structural: the lack of control and of agency in the process, lengthy timeframes that put people’s whole lives on hold often for years, and anxiety about court processes that can retraumatise with no promise of accountability.
We have seen quantifiable increases in requests for assistance in the wake of high-profile cases. Here in Canberra, we began advocating for the establishment of the Sexual Violence Legal Service after tracking the rise in requests for assistance following the advocacy of Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame. High-profile cases can cut both ways. They give people the confidence to come forward, but as these processes extend and become more public, they also show just how gruelling that scrutiny can be, and that’s part of what people weigh up before deciding to report.
Women’s Legal Services has estimated they turn away about 1,000 women every week for capacity and other reasons. The story is similar across community, legal aid and First Nations legal services, she said.
People who have been subjected to violence should seek the assistance that best meets their needs. There are specialist sexual assault support services across the country, and we strongly encourage people to get their own legal advice, either before or as part of reporting. Sexual Violence Legal Services are already operating here in Canberra, as well as in Victoria and WA, with services being established in other jurisdictions.
