Australia news LIVE: Elon Musk has win over online safety watchdog; federal budget promises good news on inflation

A lack of competition is being blamed for the latest surge in petrol costs in the major capital cities, as high prices at the bowser risk keeping inflation higher for longer and reduce the chance of interest rate cuts any time soon.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said Sydney and Melbourne recently broke petrol price records and Brisbane had come close to new highs.

He said the fuel price cycles in those cities were experiencing bigger upswings and that more service stations were charging prices at the top of the range.

“When we get to the highest point in those capital cities, what we noticed in the last cycle was over 50 per cent of the service stations were charging on or near the highest price in Sydney,” Khoury said.

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The number of international students applying for study visas from inside Australia has reached a record high, casting doubt on a crucial Labor pledge to control the post-pandemic explosion in foreign enrolments.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that the number of internal student visa applications rose to 35,000 in March.

Over the past two years, internal student visa applications have generally hovered between 9000 and 20,000.

The Coalition has seized on the data to warn that the uptick in existing visa holders seeking to extend their stay threatens to counteract Labor’s push to drastically cut the number of students entering Australia.

“It’s a mess,” said opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan, who also warned of the risk of future rises in bridging visas and bogus asylum claims.

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Returning to Australia, where International Education Association of Australia boss Phil Honeywood has spoken about a federal plan for universities to slash overseas student numbers.

This masthead revealed the Labor government’s plan for a drastic cap on overseas students, which would force universities to stop a surge in international students to help cut annual migration to 260,000 a year.

Four ministers; Education Minister Jason Clare, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles and Skills Minister Brendan O’Connor, will join a meeting this morning with the Council for International Education to discuss the draft law.

Honeywood told ABC RN Breakfast this morning said the sector needed to establish what the proposal really meant, and that policy couldn’t be decided on the run.

“This comes off the back … off English language entry levels already being lifted a couple of months ago … it also comes off the back of student visa fees in this week’s budget to be almost doubled, making it expensive student visa destination in the world,” he said.

However, he said the organisation supported the government’s position on “quality over quantity”, but was worried it would a very blunt instrument.

“We’re worried how the government is going to be able to negotiation with 1,400 international education colleges, let alone 39 public universities to agree on different numbers, bearing in mind this is going to be based on what courses we want,” he said.

In overseas news, Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced defence minister Sergei Shoigu in a cabinet shakeup that comes as he begins his fifth term in office.

In line with Russian law, the entire Russian cabinet resigned Tuesday following Putin’s glittering inauguration in the Kremlin, and most members have been widely expected to keep their jobs.

Putin signed a decree on Sunday appointing Shoigu as secretary of Russia’s Security Council, the Kremlin said.

The appointment was announced shortly after Putin proposed Andrei Belousov to become the country’s defence minister.

The announcement of Shoigu’s new role came as 13 people were reported dead and 20 more wounded in Russia’s border city of Belgorod, where a section of a residential building collapsed after what Russian officials said was Ukrainian shelling.

Belousov’s candidacy will need to be approved by Russia’s upper house in parliament, the Federation Council.

It reported Sunday that Putin introduced proposals for othercabinet positions as well but Shoigu is the only minister on that list who is being replaced. Several other new candidates for federal ministers were proposed Saturday by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, reappointed by Putin on Friday.

AP

Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie says she wants to see more mental health funding in the budget when it gets handed down tomorrow.

“Right now we have a lot of kids there that are most at risk, whether they’ve got addictions to screen, drugs or alcohol, we have kids out there are completely out of control,” Lambie told Nine’s Today program this morning.

She pointed to statistics that showed up to 40 per cent of young people age 16 to 24 were having mental health problems.

“We have a problem here, and we have a crisis with mental health for our youth, and we’re going to have to throw a lot of money behind it. There’s no other way to put it,” she said.

The proposed legislation which would give Education Minister Jason Clare unprecedented powers to set the overseas student intake for every university is something the Coalition will wait to read through before coming to a position, says Coalition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume.

Speaking on ABC Radio National, Hume said all the Coalition have seen so far is a press release.

“It will inevitably affect the university sector, and we would like to have a better understanding from them exactly how the government’s policy will do that,” Hume said.

“Labor keeps telling us that they’re cracking down, but it just doesn’t seem to be working. Housing completions aren’t keeping up with immigration, there’s a resurgence in illegal boat arrivals, this is an area of profound failure of government.

“Hopefully, this is a policy that is backed up with evidence but frankly it may be too little too late because we’re already in a per capita recession, we’re only being propped up by those migration figures, it’s really important this budget delivers on its promise to restore economic growth.”

Earlier, NSW Premier Chris Minns responded to calls from the state opposition to extend electronic monitoring for domestic violence offenders.

The Coalition introduced a separate bill aimed to extend electronic monitoring, but it did not get the support of Labor, with the attorney-general saying the government had received advice from some experts in the domestic violence sector urging caution.

Minns told 2GB’s Ben Fordham this morning the government had assessed programs in other states and was not convinced electronic monitoring would be enough to curb high-risk offenders.

“I’m particularly worried about the individual who says, ‘I don’t care whether I spend the rest of my life in a jail cell, I’m determined to hurt or inflict assault or damage or even go in further and kill my former partner – and I don’t care about the consequences’,” Minns said.

“Electronic monitoring is not going to make a difference to those particular offenders – remand [staying in custody until trial] is the only answer for them.”

Minns said police issued 39,000 domestic violence charges in NSW every year.

“That is a massive number, it affects a lot of families and a lot of people have to go through a very difficult period in their life,” he said.

“We have to make sure that we’ve got a balanced package that the police can … make a case for remand because they think it’s in the public’s interest.”

Staying with the opposition’s finance spokeswoman Jane Hume, who was quizzed about the Coalition’s plans for nuclear energy.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton delayed announcing up to six sites for future nuclear power plants, and the announcement is now expected after the budget.

She told ABC RN Breakfast this morning the Coalition would announce the policy “in advance of the next election”.

“It will be very clear in advance of the next election the way we want to go about opening up a new energy source for Australia, that will deliver emissions-free energy and lower energy prices by increasing the mix of types of energy over the long term,” Hume said this morning.

In the short and medium term Australia needed to transition through gas, but she lashed the government’s plans because it had “torn their cabinet apart”.

Hume said the future gas strategy announced last week didn’t show any financial support, but hoped it would be included in the budget tomorrow night.

It didn’t need to be subsidies for the industry, but could include fast-tracking of approvals in places like the Beetaloo, Scarborough or the Bass Strait, she said.

The MP was also quizzed on when the Australian public could expect to hear about their nuclear policy, and this is what she said:

“We will announce our policy on energy, and we will on tax as we will on other issues prior to the next election. We won’t be driven by the government’s agenda.”