Luke Siddham Dundon

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Sally Sara |Luke Siddham Dundon

Australians have been told to expect a budget with fewer surprises in it — and a deficit — when Treasurer Jim Chalmers gets to his feet tomorrow night. According to the government, this year's budget contains $2.1 billion worth of savings, and about a third of those savings are from avoiding the use of consultants. But whatever the deficit figure is revealed to be on Tuesday night, it could be a lot worse. That's because a lot of the spending the government has announced is off-budget spending.

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Eleni Psaltis |Luke Siddham Dundon

United Nations-backed human rights experts have accused Israel of “the systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence” in its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Luke Siddham Dundon |Sally Sara

The Australian Defence Force says it's closely monitoring the Chinese warships that have now re-entered Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone after conducting live fire exercises without notice in the Tasman Sea last week. The opposition is accusing Labor of downplaying the incident. Also, Australia's chief financial markets regulator Joe Longo warns he can't do his job properly if he is kept in the dark,  as the size of so-called private investments not on the Australian share market triples.