![\"Adeshola](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Adeshola_Ore.png\")
Adeshola Ore<\/p>\nKey events<\/p>\n
Show key events only<\/p>\n
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature<\/p>\n
What we learned, Tuesday 5 MayAdeshola Ore<\/p>\n
Thanks for joining us today. Here\u2019s a reminder of the day\u2019s top stories:<\/p>\n
The Reserve Bank has increased its official interest rate to 4.35%, as prices rise at their fastest pace since 2023.<\/p>\n
The Reserve Bank of Australian governor, Michele Bullock, says \u201cAustralians are poorer\u201d because of the energy crisis linked to the Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n
The federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says the RBA\u2019s decision to raise the cash rate will \u201cmake it tougher\u201d for Australians already paying a \u201chefty price\u201d for the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The antisemitism royal commission has continued, with the inquiry hearing from a witness about \u201cchildren \u201csaying heil Hitler and putting up their arm in a salute\u201d.<\/p>\n
Victoria has recorded a surplus for the first time since the pandemic but the state\u2019s financial recovery remains uncertain with debt forecast to near $200bn in coming years amid global uncertainty.<\/p>\n
NSW police have confirmed the deaths of three people including two Marine Rescue volunteers, as the search operation after a boating incident in waters off Ballina overnight is suspended.<\/p>\n
Four Australians are stuck on a luxury cruise ship stranded off the coast of Cape Verde<\/a> after a suspected outbreak of a rare respiratory virus killed three people, left three others seriously ill and forced nearly 150 people from across the world to isolate onboard.<\/p>\n The search for a missing Australian hiker in the Canadian wilderness has been suspended with no further search activity planned after authorities spent six days scouring the region from air and ground to no avail.<\/p>\n Days out from Farrer byelection, Pauline Hanson has suggested she may step down from the Senate and run for the House of Representatives at the next election.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.49 EDT<\/p>\n Northern Great Barrier Reef had a summer of coral bleaching and cyclone damage, says agency<\/p>\n The Great Barrier Reef\u2019s northern area between Cairns and Cooktown suffered a region-wide coral bleaching event this summer as well as impacts from two tropical cyclones.<\/p>\n In a \u201csummer snapshot<\/a>\u201c report released this afternoon by the Great Barrier Reef Management Authority, the agency said 28 of 79 reefs surveyed in the northern region had recorded \u201cprevalent bleaching\u201d that was \u201clikely a cumulative effect of heat stress and freshwater impacts from flood plumes, particularly on inshore and mid-shelf reefs\u201d.<\/p>\n Physical damage from Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle<\/a>, which crossed Queensland\u2019s far north coast in March as a category four system, had been observed as far south as Cairns more than 400km to the south.<\/p>\n Cyclone Narelle and Cyclone Koji<\/a>, a weak category one system that crossed north of Bowen in January, had also sent flood plumes into the reefs lagoons. Fresh water and nutrients can both be damaging for coral reefs.<\/p>\n The agency said it was still assessing the impacts from the summer.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.38 EDT<\/p>\n Electric truck fleet to deliver appliances across Sydney and Melbourne<\/p>\n A fleet of 30 electric trucks will be delivering appliances across Sydney and Melbourne after a $3.5m government grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena).<\/p>\n Fleet electrification company Zenob\u0113 announced a deal with appliance business Winnings to supply the trucks and the charging infrastructure using the Arena money.<\/p>\n Winnings, which said it was aiming to \u201cmove from port to door with zero emissions\u201d, will deploy 10 4.5-tonne trucks in Sydney and 20 8.5-tonne trucks in Melbourne. Arena chief executive Darren Miller said:<\/p>\n double quotation markWhat sets this project apart is the focus on real world operations \u2013 heavy payloads, managed from active depots, running on real delivery routes in New South Wales and Victoria. That\u2019s where electric trucks need to prove themselves if they\u2019re going to scale.<\/p>\n Zenob\u0113 is delivering the trucks under a model known as Electric Vehicle as a Service, where vehicle financing and maintenance are provided as a package.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.30 EDT<\/p>\n Ecaj co-CEO tells antisemitism inquiry pro-Palestine protests after 7 October were \u2018shocking\u2019<\/p>\n The Executive Council of Australian Jewry (Ecaj) co-chief executive Peter Wertheim spoke to the antisemitism royal commission today about the impact of the Holocaust on his family.<\/p>\n He said there was only \u201clow-level\u201d antisemitism when he was young and that it used to just come from the far right. Now, though, it also comes from the far left and from Islamist movements, he said, and added that after 7 October, reports of antisemitism more than tripled.<\/p>\n The pro-Palestine protests <\/a>in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel were \u201cshocking\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n He said Jewish people felt an \u201cemotional reaction, the triggering of historical and family memories\u201d when they heard antisemitic chants and when there were attacks such as those in the \u201csummer of terror<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Antisemitic incidents led people in the Jewish community to wonder whether it was \u201cstill safe\u201d to live in Australia, he said.<\/p>\n Wertheim said creatives in a WhatsApp group chat <\/a>that was publicly released had been feeling pressure to \u201cpublicly recant their Jewish identity\u201d and so sought comfort in the group. He said people in the group, even if they were passive members, had been \u201cdoxed\u201d, and sent hate messages and threats.<\/p>\n He said there was \u201ca lot of sympathy for Palestinians as a people\u201d in the Jewish community. He said:<\/p>\n double quotation markI don\u2019t want anyone to think that we\u2019re impervious to human suffering wherever it occurs.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s just take a step backwards and understand that this was an attack that had been initiated by Hamas, which happens to be the most powerful organisation still in the Palestinian community.<\/p>\n They are a very powerful element of Palestinian society, if not the most powerful element.<\/p>\n Wertheim also said the \u201cwrong call\u201d was made by police in allowing a neo-Nazi gathering <\/a>outside NSW parliament to go ahead.<\/p>\n Accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is an attempt to \u201cre-stigmatise Jews collectively\u201d, he said, adding that Ecaj had received threats, hate mail and a \u201ctorrent of abuse\u201d on social media and that even their lawyers needed security during a court case involving a Muslim cleric<\/a>.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.32 EDT<\/p>\n Jefferson Lewis excused from first court appearance after being charged with murder of Kumanjayi Little Baby<\/p>\n The man accused of murdering five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby near a town camp on the outskirts of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory last week has been excused from his first court appearance.<\/p>\n Jefferson Lewis, 47, was expected to appear in the Alice Springs Local Court via video link on Tuesday morning, charged with murder and two other charges that cannot be published for legal reasons.<\/p>\n Instead, he was excused from appearing at the request of his lawyer, Mitchell Donaldson from Legal Aid NT.<\/p>\n Donaldson did not apply for bail for his client.<\/p>\n Lewis was arrested on Thursday night last week, after a five-day manhunt following the alleged murder of Warlpiri girl Kumanjayi Little Baby, whose body was found 5km from the Old Timers town camp where she was taken.<\/p>\n Kumanjayi Little Baby, the name used after her death at her family\u2019s request in line with cultural protocols, went missing on Saturday 25 April from a bed at the town camp, 5km south of Alice Springs.<\/p>\n After her disappearance, hundreds of volunteers searched for five days through kilometres of buffel grass near the town camp, before her body was found just before noon on Thursday.<\/p>\n Lewis was charged over the weekend with her murder.<\/p>\n The case will return to court on 30 July.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.21 EDT<\/p>\n Labor frontbencher rejects accusations government spending was inflationary<\/p>\n Federal Labor frontbencher Julian Hill has rejected accusations the government the country\u2019s inflationary pressures are homegrown:<\/p>\n Speaking to the ABC, Hill said:<\/p>\n double quotation markMultiple statements that the Reserve Banks put out make no mention of government spending, but the treasurer has been clear. The government\u2019s been clear that inflation was too high before the war started.<\/p>\n Hill says Australia\u2019s economy is not immune from energy shocks caused by the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a003.17 EDT<\/p>\n Deputy opposition leader says Labor\u2019s spending partly responsible for inflation<\/p>\n Jane Hume, deputy leader of the federal opposition, say the federal government\u2019s spending is one reason inflation is \u201ctoo high\u201d.<\/p>\n Speaking to the ABC, Hume said Australia was a more \u201cvulnerable economy\u201d because of decisions the government had made:<\/p>\n double quotation markUnless you can get inflation under control, you are leaving our economy and every single citizen exposed to shocks from overseas and that\u2019s what\u2019s happening right now.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a002.53 EDT<\/p>\n RBA warns government spending must be targeted ahead of budget<\/p>\n A week out from the federal budget, the RBA governor has warned the government to be \u201ccareful\u201d its spending doesn\u2019t add to inflation.<\/p>\n Michele Bullock has repeatedly avoided commenting on government spending in recent years. But when asked today, she told reporters the private sector and the public sector would both need to cut their spending to avoiding locking in higher prices set by businesses.<\/p>\n During her press conference, Bullock suggested that extended to cost-of-living relief:<\/p>\n double quotation markThe extent to which government make up the shortfalls for households by giving them more money, it makes it harder to dampen demand \u2026<\/p>\n Fiscal policy has many more things that it can do but it has to be careful, I guess, in the sense that it needs to be targeting where it\u2019s most needed \u2026 You can\u2019t just go out there and add to demand.<\/p>\n Bullock said there was a role for governments specifically to cut back on spending.<\/p>\n double quotation markWhen governments are spending a lot of money and we\u2019re running up against capacity constraints, then they do need to think about whether or not there\u2019s ways they can help the inflation problem by looking for ways to constrain demand.<\/p>\n However, Bullock was quick to say the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, was on the same page, adding she was not calling for fiscal settings to take the lead on fighting inflation and state government spending also played a role.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a002.35 EDT<\/p>\n \u2018Jews get abused and that\u2019s just the way it is,\u2019 witness tells antisemitism inquiry<\/p>\n Kovi Paneth told the royal commission he was worried about the \u201cnormalisation\u201d of antisemitism after he was abused on a train and nobody intervened:<\/p>\n double quotation markIn Australia, Jews get abused and that\u2019s just the way it is. And that\u2019s the part that was very, very upsetting to me, in that it\u2019s just \u2026 normalised in society and quite acceptable.<\/p>\n He said his daughter was asked if she was a \u201cdirty effing Jew\u201d while in a bar. She tried to record the man, then his friend grabbed the phone and said \u201cignore him, he\u2019s drunk, I\u2019m sure not all Jews are dirty effing dogs\u201d.<\/p>\n He said he wouldn\u2019t let his wife or children walk alone at night now:<\/p>\n double quotation markSince October 7, antisemitism has gotten real \u2026 it\u2019s gotten violent.<\/p>\n AAO\u2019s relative was killed in 7 October attacks on Israel, and since then she hasn\u2019t worn anything that publicly identifies her as a Jew.<\/p>\n She told the inquiry she had been at the Australian Open at Rod Laver Arena, when a woman they didn\u2019t know said to them that \u201cthe job that they did in Bondi wasn\u2019t good enough, and that Jews are the worst, and they kill babies\u201d. \u201cIt was very deep-seated, the hatred,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The woman would not have known she was Jewish, she said. She gave a statement to the police, who removed the woman from the tennis.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a002.34 EDT<\/p>\n Vic Alhadeff tells royal commission antisemitism is \u2018front and centre in our ecosystem\u2019<\/p>\n Returning to the antisemitisim royal commission, Dr Vic Alhadeff (you can see his impressive achievements here<\/a>) posed this question to the inquiry: \u201cIs it too late to repair the fracturing of the social fabric in this country?\u201d<\/p>\n He listed a range of ways in which Jewish people have been vilified or made to feel unsafe.<\/p>\n Antisemitism, he said, had morphed from being \u201cat the edges\u201d of society to \u201cfront and centre in our ecosystem\u201d.<\/p>\n He said he had met with three high school students who had posted on Twitter that it was time to \u201cburn the Jews\u201d and to \u201cgas the Jews\u201d, and had \u201cposted a photograph of themselves with their arms in the form \u2026 of a swastika\u201d.<\/p>\n He took along a photo of his grandparents, who were murdered in the Holocaust, in order to educate them.<\/p>\n He also confronted a priest who told a school congregation that Jews were \u201ca jealous people\u201d, referred a driver whose number plate had Nazi connotations to the police, and experienced road rage from a man who called him an \u201ceffing South African Jew\u201d.<\/p>\n He also told the commission about going to the Sydney Writers\u2019 festival last year and hearing an audience member asking about the \u201celephant in the room \u2026 the Jewish tentacles\u201d, with no one rebutting that trope.<\/p>\n He also talked about his work campaigning for tougher anti-hate laws<\/a>, and his disappointment in the \u201csilence\u201d and indifference from an interfaith group on the Bondi attack. One member, he said, held him responsible for Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza:<\/p>\n double quotation markThis issue goes to one of the issues which is information a lot of the antisemitism which has been rocking this country \u2026 for the last two and a half years, holding Jewish Australians accountable for what is taking place on the other side of the world.<\/p>\n Jewish Australians feared there would be \u201canother Bondi\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n The royal commission was an opportunity to push antisemitism \u201cback to the margin\u201d and repair \u201csocial cohesion\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a002.32 EDT<\/p>\n RBA governor says \u2018we still have no idea\u2019 when Middle East war will be over<\/p>\n Asked by Guardian Australia\u2019s Patrick Commins about the chance the RBA\u2019s prediction is too optimistic, Michele Bullock said:<\/p>\n double quotation markIt may well be, certainly. When I stood here at March, I think the war was maybe a week or two old and everyone was thinking it\u2019ll be over in a couple of weeks. It isn\u2019t. We\u2019re still here. We still have no idea.<\/p>\n The bank was alert to the chance of a bigger rise in unemployment and would \u201cwait and see\u201d as it considered another interest rate rise, Bullock said.<\/p>\n She said:<\/p>\n double quotation markWe don\u2019t know one reason for deciding to increase interest rates, to give ourselves space now to sit and see what happens, whether the baseline turns out or it\u2019s an adverse scenario. That was part of the thinking, I think, in terms of increase now and then give yourself space.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a002.13 EDT<\/p>\n Bullock stressed that low-income Australians are the ones most affected by inflation:<\/p>\n She said:<\/p>\n double quotation markThe people who are most impacted by inflation are the most vulnerable. The people on the lowest incomes, they\u2019re the ones who they don\u2019t have savings, they don\u2019t have earnings from interest or anything like that \u2026 they\u2019re just getting hit by inflation.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a002.09 EDT<\/p>\n Price rises due to global fuel price shock \u2018completely out of our control\u2019: Bullock<\/p>\n Bullock says prices will rise regardless of what the central bank does with interest rates.<\/p>\n She says Australia\u2019s economy has been irreparably hit by the global fuel price shock, caused by the US-Israel war on Iran. She added:<\/p>\n double quotation markThese interest rate rises are not going to do anything for inflation in the next six months. That\u2019s done and dusted. We know that prices are coming through.<\/p>\n Bullock said the rate rises aimed to prevent further secondary price rises and offer households and businesses certainty that inflation would slow. But she went on:<\/p>\n double quotation markIt\u2019s not something we can offer in the next 12 months. This is a shock completely out of our control.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a001.58 EDT<\/p>\n Bullock says Australians are \u2018poorer\u2019 after RBA rate hike<\/p>\n Speaking about the impact of the Middle East conflict, Bullock says:<\/p>\n double quotation markAustralians are poorer because of this shock to oil prices and energy prices and all the other commodity prices that are being impacted. So we are poorer, and there is no way out of that. The trade-off is much worse.<\/p>\n![\"Graham](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Graham_Redfearn.png\")
Graham Readfearn<\/p>\nGraham Readfearn<\/p>\n![\"Tory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Tory_Shepherd.png\")
Tory Shepherd<\/p>\n![\"Douglas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Douglas_Smith.png\")
Douglas Smith<\/p>\n![\"Luca](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Luca_Ittimani.png\")
Luca Ittimani<\/p>\nTory Shepherd<\/p>\nTory Shepherd<\/p>\nLuca Ittimani<\/p>\nLuca Ittimani<\/p>\n