Chalmers says PBS ‘not up for negotiation’ in Trump tariff fight
Jim Chalmers says the government will continue to defend Australia’s pharmaceutical benefits scheme with its US counterparts.
Speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing just now, the treasurer said the Albanese government had told the US administration that “our pharmaceutical benefits scheme is very near and dear to us, we won’t be diminishing it or trading it away in the interests of trying to secure a deal in this instance”:
We will continue to maintain, indeed, strengthen the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. It’s a very important part of our health architecture, it helps a lot of people, we’re making medicines cheaper and that’s not on the table when it comes to the engagement, the negotiations that we’ve been having and will continue to have with our counterparts in Washington DC.
The point I’m making is our pharmaceutical benefits scheme is not up for negotiation.
Key events
Affinity Education Group – the childcare provider which owns 10 out of the 20 childcare centres on the Victorian government’s list of centres in which Joshua Dale Brown worked – says it is “deeply distressed” by the charges laid against Brown, who worked in Affinity centres.
Affinity CEO Tim Hickey said in a statement this afternoon:
I am deeply sorry for the distress this is causing our families – no family should have to go through this.
We are committed to supporting every family impacted and will continue to cooperate fully with the authorities as the investigation continues.
We also welcome any review of regulation that strengthens safeguards, enhances accountability, and ensures the highest standards of safety and care for every child. Our educators and staff share the deep concern over failings when they occur in the early childhood education and care sector. The safety, wellbeing, and development of every child must always come first.
In the statement, Affinity said it has a “zero-tolerance approach to any form of abuse or misconduct involving children” and that the “safety and wellbeing of every child in our care is – and always will be – our highest priority.”
It said it was strengthening safety measures, including the installation of CCTV across all centres, seeking parental preference regarding who assists their child with toileting or nappy changes and rolling out personal device lock boxes nationally.
Ed Husic has described the Israeli defense minister’s plans to force Palestinians in Gaza into a camp on the ruins of Rafah as a “a new cell block within [Gaza’s] open air prison”.
Speaking with the ABC a shirt time ago, the Labor MP said this week had particular significance for violations of international law.
“Friday will mark 30 years since the horrific events of Srebrenica in Bosnia. In just a few days, 8,000 men and boys were killed, an episode that was later … declared an act of genocide … The world said we would learn from that,” he said.
Fast forward, he said, and constructs being put forward could see “the potential displacement of Palestinians”:
Even before October 7, Gaza was likened to an open air prison because of the strict conditions, the movement limitations that have been placed on Gaza.
These proposals … are sort of building a new cell block within that open air prison and it’s no wonder the UN and others are deeply concerned about it.
You’re treating people in their daily lives as they’re going through a prison and forcibly interning them in that way – it does not give grounds to a more secure region. All it does is create further division and a feeling that people are not treated like second class, but third, fourth, or fifth class citizens within a country that should be declared as a state of its own in terms of Palestine.
Husic: potential tariffs on PBS ‘no way to treat an ally’
Ed Husic, the member for Chifley, says potential 200% tariffs on Australia’s pharmaceutical benefit scheme is “no way to treat an ally”.
“It’s bad for them and it’s bad for us. Because we provide pretty critical inputs to the production of US medicines. It would drive up the cost of their medicines,” he told the ABC a short time ago.
He said US pharmaceutical firms potentially stopping clinical trials in Australia was an “absolutely bonkers suggestion”:
It sounds to me some of their executives have been squishing too many cans of Budweiser on the forehead and have lost perspective.
I have lost count of the number of times that pharmaceutical executives have sung the praises of Australia as a place to conduct clinical trials, great medical researchers, rule of law, a country with an advanced healthcare system and a market where they can undertake this type of testing securely.
We need to have perspective across the relationship between the US and Australia and emphasise to our American friends some of the acts they’re taking are acts that are against their own self-interest and are no way to treat an ally.
Early education minister says laws to withdraw funding to childcare providers that are ‘doing the wrong thing’ are on their way
Senator Jess Walsh says while the vast majority of children in early learning are safe, “we’re not there” when it comes to keeping all children safe.
Speaking with the ABC a short time ago, the early education minister said legislation to better protect young children was well on its way to parliament:
There is no doubt there is a minority of providers doing the wrong thing. They’re putting profit ahead of child safety. And that’s why we’ve bringing legislation to the first sitting of parliament to make sure that in those circumstances we can withdraw commonwealth funding from those providers.
We’re really concerned about … this small minority of providers who are doing the wrong thing, who are prioritising profit over children and who should not be in the early learning sector.
If providers persistently do the wrong thing, we’ll withdraw your funding, because there’s no place for providers like that in this sector.
She also said a national regulatory body akin to a commission could be part of the early learning sector’s longer term future.
McKenzie to Rudd: ‘Do your job, please’
Bridget McKenzie has not held back on her views about Kevin Rudd.
Speaking about the ambassador to the US, the shadow infrastructure minister told the ABC she would “like” Rudd “to do his job, please”.
If he was, the prime minister would be able to pick up the phone and we wouldn’t be having to be worried about reviews into Aukus [and] a $2bn export industry potentially at risk.
We’ve got issues with copper, we’ve got issues with steel and aluminium, and we’ve got calls from the US to increase defence spending that we continually ignore.
So, on a raft of issues, there is an issue with the Australian-US relationship and it’s the ambassador’s main job to smooth those waters and if he was doing his job, things wouldn’t be as clunky as they seem to be.
Opposition agrees PBS not on the table in Trump trade tariff dispute
In a rare display of unity, Bridget McKenzie has echoed Jim Chalmers by saying the pharmaceutical benefits scheme is not going to change in the face of potential new US tariffs on Australian pharmaceuticals.
The shadow infrastructure, transport and regional development minister told the ABC a short time ago:
There’s always been a bipartisan approach to protecting the PBS. That hasn’t changed. We are gifted with universal healthcare in this country and it’s something the Coalition strongly supports. We back Medicare, we back our PBS, and that doesn’t change.
We’re equally concerned of news out of the US that our $2bn pharmaceutical export industry to the United States seems to be again under question.”
That’s where the consensus ended. She went on to say:
We hope the government is successful, bearing in mind the difference is we had an ambassador that could push on an open door at the White House, I don’t believe Ambassador Rudd has the same relationship with the White House. And indeed, our current prime minister doesn’t have the personal relationship with President Trump that we would like him to have, 240-odd days after the US election.
Chalmers says he hopes shadow treasurer brings ‘constructive approach’ to productivity roundtable
Jim Chalmers says next month’s productivity roundtable is “a real test for the opposition” – and that he hopes his counterpart Ted O’Brien brings a “constructive approach” to the meeting.
The treasurer told the ABC just now:
We’ve extended an invitation to the shadow treasurer in good faith … the opposition in the last term that said no to everything, to obstruct everything, to make no real positive contribution to the future of our economy and the future of our country.
I hope the shadow treasurer and the leader of the opposition has learned from that. From the comments that Mr O’Brien made today, I’m worried he hasn’t.
Chalmers says PBS ‘not up for negotiation’ in Trump tariff fight
Jim Chalmers says the government will continue to defend Australia’s pharmaceutical benefits scheme with its US counterparts.
Speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing just now, the treasurer said the Albanese government had told the US administration that “our pharmaceutical benefits scheme is very near and dear to us, we won’t be diminishing it or trading it away in the interests of trying to secure a deal in this instance”:
We will continue to maintain, indeed, strengthen the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. It’s a very important part of our health architecture, it helps a lot of people, we’re making medicines cheaper and that’s not on the table when it comes to the engagement, the negotiations that we’ve been having and will continue to have with our counterparts in Washington DC.
The point I’m making is our pharmaceutical benefits scheme is not up for negotiation.
Chalmers says government still examining the ‘costs and consequences’ of potential Trump tariffs on copper and medicines
Jim Chalmers says the government is “working through the potential costs and consequences” of potential new tariffs, including on Australian pharmaceuticals, posed by the US overnight.
The treasurer has just told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing:
We will work through this in the usual methodical way to understand any potential impacts on our own industries. Some of these issues have been in the public domain for a little while now, some of the other issues – around potential tariff on copper, for example – are relatively more recent, and so these announcements were only made overnight.
When it comes to pharmaceuticals, there’s an indication that President Trump will take some time to think through these issues.
So, we’ve got an opportunity to continue to engage with the Americans, also to engage with our own industries to properly understand the possible consequences of what has been proposed overnight.
German backpacker missing in WA
Significant land and air resources have been deployed in the search for a missing German backpacker in Western Australia.
Police have reiterated their concern for the welfare of 26-year-old Carolina Wilga, who has not been heard from for more than a week. She was in the Beacon area of the Wheatbelt region at the time of her last contact with friends on Sunday 29 June, police said.
Police believe she visited a convenience store on Stirling Terrace, near the intersection of Goomalling-Toodyay Road in Toodyay on 28 June.
Wilga had been backpacking in Australia for the last two years and lived mainly in hostels, police said.
Police described Wilga as having a slim build, frizzy or curly long dark blond hair and brown eyes. She has several tattoos, including one which depicts symbols on her left arm. She may have been travelling in a black and silver 1995 Mitsubishi Station sedan, with WA registration 1HDS 330.
On Wednesday, WA police urged anyone with any information or footage in the area of Beacon and the north-east Wheatbelt area between 29 June 2025 and 4 July to contact Crime Stoppers.
Man dies after explosion in NSW retirement unit
A man has died after being badly burned in an that explosion tore through a retirement unit in Kingscliff, northern New South Wales.
The 85-year-old suffered severe injuries in the suspected gas explosion on Monday morning and had been taken to Royal Brisbane hospital in a critical condition.
Police said on Wednesday the man had died and that a report would be prepared for the coroner.
On Monday, Fire and Rescue NSW said it was investigating whether a fire, which destroyed the demountable home, was caused by a leaking LPG system. At the time, the fire service said an 83-year-old woman sustained minor burns to her face and body and was in a stable condition at Tweed Valley hospital.
Murray Watt accuses Greens of ‘grandstanding’ on Murujuga World Heritage bid
Graham Readfearn
Environment minister Murray Watt has responded to calls for him to rescind a provisional approval for Woodside’s massive North West Shelf project from the Greens’ leader, Larissa Waters.
Waters said earlier that rescinding the approval would improve the chances of the Murujuga rock art complex being added to the World Heritage list during a meeting in Paris later this week. Watts has responded, saying:
For over 20 years, the traditional owners of Murujuga have been fighting for its World Heritage listing. The Albanese government is proud to support this First Nations-led nomination. It’s disappointing to see the Greens party choosing to grandstand on this issue, instead of supporting the wishes of Murujuga’s traditional owners.
Unesco’s advisers have recommended the World Heritage committee refer the Murujuga nomination back to Australia, after raising concerns about “acidic emissions” from nearby industry, including Woodside’s Karratha gas plant.
The government has been lobbying Unesco and members of the 21-country World Heritage committee to ignore that recommendation – saying it was based on “factual inaccuracies” – and instead vote to inscribe Murujuga on the World Heritage list.
Daisy Dumas
Thank you, as ever, Rafqa Touma. Let’s get straight on with the rest of the day’s news.