Australia news live: Minns promises fare-free day and independent review into Sydney’s ‘nowhere near good enough’ trains | Australia news

Catie McLeod

‘Lots of flooding to come’ in NSW mid-north coast: BoM

Intense rainfall is expected to continue in the New South Wales mid-north coast and northern Hunter regions for another two days with “lots of flooding to come”, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology has said.

Speaking on ABC News Breakfast a short time ago, the weather bureau’s Dean Narramore said he was expecting another day of 50mm to 150mm rainfall in parts of the state north of Forster with isolated falls in excess of 200m possible.

Narramore said some areas had already been inundated by 300mm to 400mm of rain – and the town of Taree by even more – causing widespread flash flooding and major river flooding to continue.

He said the floods weren’t expected to ease until later in the week and that:

There’s a severe weather warning current for heavy to locally intense rainfall from Yamba all the way down to just north of Forster and extending inland as well.

[The weather system] wobbles north today and then it will probably come back south, unfortunately, tomorrow, and then finally clearing out on Friday from the mid-north coast.

But [there are] still two days of rainfall on the way, with lots of flooding to come.

Catie McLeod

What is the ‘designated complaint’ system?

Under the federal designated complaints mechanism, introduced by the Albanese government last year, a select group of consumer and small business groups are permitted to make one special complaint a year.

A designated complaint must relate to a significant or systemic market issue affecting Australian consumers or small businesses, the ACCC says.

It must also relate to either a potential breach of the laws the ACCC enforces, or the regulator’s functions or powers.

Under the mechanism, the ACCC must consider and publicly respond to designated complaints within 90 days.

The Consumer Action Law Centre lodged Australia’s first designated complaint in March, in relation to unsolicited door-to-door sales.

Catie McLeod

Choice says ACCC should stop ‘dodgy practices’ of energy companies to save consumers money

In a statement, Choice’s CEO, Ashley de Silva, said:

Among the energy bills we collected, we found 64 examples of retailers telling consumers to switch to a plan with the same name.

Across these 64 examples, people could have saved an average of $171 annually had they switched to the cheaper plan, even though it had the same name.

The highest potential savings among these examples was $588 per year.

De Silva said Choice was calling on the ACCC to take court action to stop what he described as “dodgy practices” that he said were costing consumers money.

Choice makes ‘designated complaint’ to ACCC over ‘misleading’ energy retailers

Catie McLeod

Choice has asked the consumer watchdog to investigate some of Australia’s biggest energy retailers over concerns they are potentially misleading customers with the way they describe and promote their plans.

The consumer advocacy group has raised the allegations in its first designated complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), only the second of its kind in Australia, which requires the regulator to respond within 90 days.

Choice’s chief executive officer, Ashley de Silva, said energy customers could be missing out on approximately $65m in collective savings.

Choice says it analysed nearly 400 energy bills from supporters between January and March 2025, which found many retailers were reusing identical names for energy plans, despite offering them at different prices.

Several bills informed consumers they could save money by switching to a plan with the same name as their existing plan, Choice says, leading to confusion among many customers who believed they were already on the best plan and their potentially missing out on savings as a result.

Good news for Sydney commuters: repairs are complete and trains will progressively recover throughout the day – but expect reduced off-timetable services.

Extensive repairs have been completed to overhead wiring at Homebush, Transport for NSW said in a statement. Power was switched back on at 7:20am, and the first train service through previously closed lines was in action at 8:05am.

Services will now be able to progressively move through those sections of track.

Services will gradually recover, but Transport for NSW warns passengers should expect residual delays for the remainer of the day.

They continue to urge commuters to delay travel or use alternative transport, flagging there will be reduced services on all lines but trains will not run to timetable.

Sydney Trains teams worked hard overnight in tough rainy conditions to remove a defective train and repair the overhead wiring that caused major disruption on the rail network yesterday.

The state government is looking at beginning an independent review to look into maintenance and punctuality of Sydney trains, NSW premier Chris Minns says.

It comes as Sydney commuters avoid travelling by train this morning after major disruptions to the network yesterday afternoon involving high-voltage wires collapsing on the top of a train and shutting down the entire westbound line.

The premier said on 2GB:

We’ve got to get better, this is nowhere near good enough, and it’s certainly not on par with international standards.

I need an independent review into this. We are looking at bringing someone in from the airline sector … A fresh set of eyes that can look at three things. The maintenance program that we’ve undertaken, the punctuality of trains on the Sydney trains network, and also communication … I don’t think that we are clear enough about what the immedaite and longer-term impacts will be.

Moving away for a moment now from the flurry of discussion on the Coalition split: public transport fares in Sydney will be free for commuters next Monday after major disruptions to the network yesterday evening and this morning. The NSW premier, Chris Minns, confirmed the fare-free day on 2GB this morning:

The government will announce today that on Monday there will be a fare-free day. No way will that make up for the disruption of the last 24 hours, but hopefully it can go some way to alleviating the financial burden that families have had to deal with.

Sydney commuters have been told to avoid travelling by train this morning after major disruptions to the network yesterday afternoon involving high-voltage wires collapsing on the top of a train and shutting down the entire westbound line.

‘Having the coalition back together is more important than anything else’: Howard

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard tells the Nationals they should “work from tomorrow to put the coalition back together”.

He said on ABC Radio National:

One lesson I learned was in 1996 when we won a thumping victory over the Keating government. We campaigned as a coalition, but we won enough seats, the Liberal party did, to have governed in its own right. And there were some people who said to me, oh, you should dump the Nationaal party. I said, No, we work together to win the election, and we’re going to honour that partnership.

And my message to our National party friends … [is] that you should work from tomorrow to put the coalition back together. And having the coalition back together is more important than anything else.

John Howard says Liberals and Nationals policy differences best resolved within a coalition

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard says policy differences between the Nationals and Liberals are best resolved in the framework of a coalition.

He said on ABC Radio National this morning:

If the two parties remain separate for too long away from a coalition, then the differences on policy will harden and it will be more difficult to resolve them. We had differences of policy when we were in coalition, but we were able to resolve them.

Littleproud on a potential reconciliation: ‘my door’s always open’

Asked whether the aim is to “have the coalition back together before the next election,” Nationals leader David Littleproud says “my door’s always open”.

He was speaking on ABC Radio National:

The last conversation Sussan and I had yesterday was about that we’d both expend energy in trying to keep the communication lines open to the extent that we can get back a coalition, but not at any cost.

And you know, we want to see the Albanese government brought down. To do that, you’ve got to go to the electorate and say you stand for something, and that’s what we’ve drawn a line in the sand and said we stand for this, and we’re prepared to support the Liberal party, and we understand they’re going through a journey of rediscovery. We’ll let them do that and create the environment for that. But we don’t intend to stand still or look backwards. We intend to look forward.

Littleproud: Ley approached coalition agreements in great faith

Nationals leader David Littleproud recognises Liberal leader Sussan Ley approached coalition discussions in good faith while dealing with an “insidious situation” of having to rebuild the Liberal party after their brutal federal election loss.

He was speaking on ABC Radio National a short while ago:

Sussan went into these discussions in great faith, and she’s in an insidious situation too. I think we’ve got to appreciate that she’s rebuilding a party that’s lost 30+ seats over the last two elections, and I understand the predicament she’s in.

We had a great hug at the end of it, when I went around and told her the formal notification of our position, and I’m committed to … helping Sussan get her party up and going, but I’m not going to do that at the expense of the people we represent.

Littleproud said the Nationals would still have split with the Liberals if the leader were Angus Taylor instead of Ley:

If the same situation was put to us, this would be the same circumstance.

David Littleproud says there are conditions to forming a coalition with the Liberals again

Nationals leader David Littleproud says conditions have to be met before they form a coalition with the Liberal party again. He was speaking on ABC Radio National a short while ago:

If we get to a juncture after the next election where we can form a government with the Liberal party, then obviously we’re going to support the Liberal party. But there will be conditions, and the conditions are about those things that are core to making the lives of those people that we represent better, and giving them a future, keeping them safe …

Littleproud reiterated policy differences between the Nationals and Liberals, including those you can read about here:

We’re not asking for a lot, but I appreciate the Liberal party couldn’t get to a juncture to guarantee that, and we made this decision predicated on principle.

O’Brien says Nationals could not give a guarantee for shadow cabinet solidarity

Ted O’Brien doesn’t see why differences between the Nationals and Liberals “couldn’t be settled in the usual way”. The deputy Liberal leader said the Nationals could not guarantee shadow cabinet solidarity. He was on ABC Radio National a short while ago:

I see no reason why those differences, again, the extent to which they were to arise, couldn’t be settled in the usual way.

But the National party did make the decision that the second point of difference, over and above process of formulating policy, was that the National party could not give a guarantee that shadow cabinet solidarity would be on it. As you can imagine, this is a big deal.

I’ve sat in the shadow cabinet room and you have fierce debate – and it’s not a debate always, by the way, between the National party the Liberal party – but that’s what that’s what a good cabinet process is all about.

But once things are thrashed out and resolved, you leave that room as a united shadow cabinet. So that was another sticking point, where the National party could not give a guarantee that that solidarity would be honoured.

Deputy Liberal leader says coalition split ‘on process to formulate policy’

Deputy Liberal leader Ted O’Brien is optimistic his party and the Nationals can get back together. He is speaking on ABC Radio National this morning.

He said the Coalition split “actually wasn’t on policy, it was on process to formulate policy”:

None of the policy positions that David Littleproud put to Sussan Ley were rejected. None of them were.

Instead, as Sussan had made it clear to the Australian people last week, we heard a big message from the Australian people on the third of May. We now need to listen to them. We need to respect, reflect and represent modern Australia, and we need to go through a process, and that process includes having every MP and every senator in the Liberal party who were elected by their constituents to be heard, to have a say, and the policies that the National party have very deep interests in, and I respect that, that they will go through that process.

That was the big issue that came to a head. To do anything other than that would be for Sussan Ley to make a captain’s call, and she made it very clear that she won’t be doing that. That’s not the style of her leadership.

The Liberal party could not guarantee keeping policies on nuclear and divestiture of supermarkets, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie says.

She is speaking on ABC News Breakfast:

The decision we made yesterday was to leave the Coalition and it was based on principles. We had four policy positions that were really the first gate for us to get through as a partnership before signing a coalition agreement and it was clear to us that the Liberal party had no way to be able to guarantee that we would be keeping policies that we believe deeply in, like divestiture of supermarkets and big-box retailers, like mobile-phone coverage in the bush, like nuclear power generation, and indeed our $20bn regional futures fund.

If you can’t get through the front door and guarantee the bare minimum, we saw that as an opportunity for us now to go alone.

SES issues evacuation warnings in Buladelah as rain threatens mid north coast

More on the heavy falls around the NSW mid north coast continuing today: six-hourly rainfall totals between 100mm and 140mm are possible through the day, the SES has warned.

In the state’s Hunter region, the Myall River is among the areas on flood watch with local residents warned to monitor forecasts and rainfall and be ready to move to higher ground. The SES warned Buladelah residents to evacuate some areas yesterday afternoon.

Rain is expected to continue into the weekend amid the multi-day flood event.

Taree copped more than 267mm of rain across Monday and Tuesday, among some of the heaviest falls from the system.

– Australian Associated Press