• 52 mins ago

The Reserve Bank has been given licence to leave interest rates on hold at its first board meeting for the year, after the delivery of a low inflation result in line with its expectations and signs it will lift.

Is shotgun-loving senator Bridget McKenzie a double agent inside the newly-formed parliamentary friends of gun control?

Labor has slammed US President Donald Trump's decision to reinstate the anti-abortion global gag rule, calling on the Turnbull government to lobby the new administration to ditch the "dangerous and damaging" policy.

"Without the US, the TPP pact is meaningless, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has clearly said," Japan's deputy cabinet secretary said.

Centrelink public servants have stepped up their internal resistance to the welfare agency's controversial "robo-debt" program.

Architects have backed down on their opposition to a 2.6 metre fence outside Parliament, following a secret briefing.

"God save our gracious queen! Long live our noble queen! God save the queen!"

"Houses will always be incredibly expensive if you can see the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Just accept that," says Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.

'Appeals in our office are at record numbers and no-one is doing them.'

• ANALYSIS

The most widely cited figure in the robo-debt debate is wrong. The true number of mistakes is perhaps as high as 90 per cent.

• EXCLUSIVE

Labor is preparing to fire a fresh salvo in the political fight over penalty rates, ahead of a long-awaited decision from the Fair Work Commission on whether to cut Sunday penalty rates.

• ANALYSIS

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership was really as good for jobs and growth as Malcolm Turnbull says it was, he would be able to point to a study saying so.

Malcolm Turnbull has unleashed a ferocious attack on Bill Shorten, branding him "the greatest example of opposition gutlessness in generations".

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has acknowledged foreign agents may be trying to gather compromising material on individual Australian politicians through cyber attacks, while a Labor MP has said parliamentarians themselves are the "weakest link".

Labor accuses the PM of putting political gain ahead of national security via a newspaper story.

Australia will attempt to salvage what is left of the moribund Trans Pacific Partnership after US President Donald Trump used his first full day of business to formally withdraw from the free trade deal, as he had long promised.

East Timor has dumped its spying case against Australia in the international court, raising hopes of an eventual end to the bitter stand-off over $40 billion in oil and gas fields.

A 31-year-old man detained at Australia's offshore processing centre on Manus Island has been charged with raping a young woman in the provincial centre of Lorengau, Papua New Guinea police said.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, dead as we know it ten years after negotiations began, was designed to create major changes in the economies of the 12 signatory countries, including Australia.

It's the global ranking Australians don't want.

The peak body representing Australian universities has urged the Turnbull government not to pursue a "dramatic overhaul" of the nation's higher education system because only minor changes are needed.

• EXCLUSIVE

They were digital team who figured out how Donald Trump could win - and they're now eyeing off Australia.

• ANALYSIS

The Wire's arch drug lord Avon Barksdale was philosophical in the face of a long jail sentence: "You only serve two days, the day you go in, and the day you get out". You'd think this mentality could work best for parties consigned to the opposition benches. But no. These days, its governments that feel most hemmed in, constrained at every turn by the crushing weight of febrile politics, internal divisions, anaemic growth, and inevitable disappointment.For Malcolm Turnbull, and indeed most governments recently, Barksdale's advice seems most apposite. Although in Turnbull's case, even the day he won was pretty terrible, marred as it was by something of a hissy-fit.

He complained the case was primarily handled by a "junior staff member" rather than by the president, Gillian Triggs, or one of her close aides.

Searchers for MH370 maintain the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is probably to the north of where they had been looking in the southern Indian Ocean.

But Centrelink whisteblowers worried about their own jobs, say public service bosses.

The Turnbull government's proposed version of marriage equality would further entrench discrimination by allowing civil celebrants and service providers to refuse to undertake gay weddings, the peak law body says.

The Turnbull government is making further moves toward establishing a government backed-bond vehicle for affordable housing as Treasurer Scott Morrison heads to Britain to seek guidance on Australia's housing affordability crisis and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull prioritises the issue.

Australia's national leaders have joined the sombre memorial for victims of the Bourke St rampage, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declaring all Australians stood in solidarity with mourners.