Australia news LIVE: JD Vance rebukes Israel for US-Iran peace deal criticism; KMPG to face parliamentary hearing

Kyle Sandilands has claimed he has been messaging One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and helping “get the [party’s] message across”.

Sandilands made the claim in a lengthy interview with the Game Changers Radio podcast out this morning.

“I was with Pauline Hanson for a couple of days, just spending time with her camp … working on getting their messaging across,” he said.

“She’s one of my favourite people now.”

The federal government will provide an additional $100 million in aid to Ukraine, bringing the nation’s total contribution to more than $1.6 billion, as the war with Russia continues into its fourth year.

“What happens in Ukraine matters here in the Indo-Pacific, which is why it is so important for Australia to stay the course and continue to stand with Ukraine until they find peace on their terms,” Defence Minister Richard Marles said in a statement.

“Australia was proud to be the first non-NATO contributor to the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, alongside New Zealand. Our ongoing contribution ensures that Ukraine is receiving the support it needs to make a tangible difference in its defence against Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked aggression.”

The two payments, of $50 million each, will be handed over in the next 12 months to go towards the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List. Funds are provided by NATO allies for the co-ordinated purchase of defence equipment from the United States.

One Nation senator Sean Bell has claimed his party is responsible for the government’s concessions to budgetary tax measures, announced yesterday, as Treasurer Jim Chalmers repeatedly argued the changes were made based on pre-announced community consultation.

“The Labor government is going to attempt to ram this through in the next eight days with very little scrutiny, very little that we do not know the full repercussions, and if they’ve admitted to this, if they’re already admitting that these changes need to be made, what else is in there that is absolutely flawed,” Bell told Sky News this morning.

“This is a disaster for [the] Labor government, and I believe that One Nation’s campaign to ‘Fire the Liar’ rattled them. They realise they’re exposed, and that is what has driven them into this hugely embarrassing backflip,” he said.

One Nation’s “Fire the Liar” fundraising campaign following the budget has so far raised about $4.7 million from 75,000 donors.

In a series of media appearances yesterday and this morning, Chalmers denied that public pressure was responsible for concessions made to the budget’s tax measures. He repeatedly said that consultation on the measures was announced on budget night, and yesterday’s alterations were a result of that.

Opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg said the two-party system has failed Australians in recent years, leading to a fall in the Coalition and Labor’s vote share and the rise of parties such as One Nation.

“I do think the two-party system, although it has been in the main very good for Australia, has in the last decade or so really not delivered all that well for the country, and I think the Australian people want to, in some quarters, want to break the system because they feel like it’s not working for them any more,” Bragg told the ABC this morning.

“I understand that. I don’t think there’s been enough policy competition on budget management, debt management, tax policy, superannuation, industrial relations. I just think we haven’t been bold enough, we haven’t had enough difference [in] market competition amongst the major parties, and I think that’s really led the country down a bad ravine,” the Liberal senator said.

“I mean, the fact that we haven’t had a serious debate about structural tax stuff or structural industrial relations stuff for 20 years shows you how bad the country’s public debate is.”

In the most recent Resolve Political Monitor published by this masthead, the Coalition fell to a record low of 20 per cent of the primary vote, behind Labor on 28 per cent and One Nation on 29 per cent.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the government is close to a decision on whether to extend a cut to fuel excise beyond the end of the month.

The cut came after oil prices surged following the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, but prices have fallen in recent days as an end to the conflict looms.

The excise cut is worth about 26 cents per litre of petrol, rising to about 32 cents when GST is factored in.

“We have been able to get some of the edge off these petrol prices that spiked in March because of the war in the Middle East,” Chalmers told ABC News Breakfast this morning.

“We are reviewing that on a week-to-week basis.

“We’ll need to make a decision between now and the end of the month. When we come to a final view, a concluded view, we’ll make that view known.”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor told the same program that the Coalition was watching global oil prices closely, but inflation remained an issue.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has described One Nation’s appeal as “a big fraud” following Pauline Hanson’s address to the National Press Club this week.

“What we saw once again is One Nation desperate to prey on the legitimate concerns that people have, but they don’t want to do anything to actually address them,” Chalmers told ABC radio this morning.

“We know that because every time they’re asked to vote for tax cuts for workers or decent-paying conditions or our cost-of-living help, they vote directly against the interests of people who struggle and people who work in our country, and that’s the big fraud at the core of One Nation’s appeal,” he said.

Chalmers said One Nation was uninterested in doing “anything” to fix voters’ concerns about the country, saying there was an “absurd irony” of the party wanting to be in government “in order to leave everything the same”.

“[One Nation] will always do what Gina Rinehart tells them to do, but never do what the workers and battlers of this country need them to do,” Chalmers said.

Health Minister Mark Butler has described a claim that he is set to be the next prime minister as “total rubbish” after shadow treasurer Tim Wilson speculated that the budget would bring about the end of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s tenure.

The altercation took place during a panel appearance on Seven’s Sunrise this morning, in which Wilson and Butler sparred over concessions that were announced yesterday to budgetary tax measures.

Host Natalie Barr asked Butler whether Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers were “getting along this week”, to which Butler responded: “Yes, of course, they are. They work, they work closely. They have, they’ve had a productive relationship for the four years we’ve been in government ... this is an enormously productive relationship, which I watch up close.”

Barr attempted to end the interview, but was interrupted by Wilson, who said: “He does watch it up close because I suspect this is the treasurer’s last budget, and the prime minister is probably going to fall with him, and the person who’s going to win out of that is going to be prime minister Mark Butler”.

British police have arrested a 30-year-old man on suspicion of attempted murder after a three-year-old boy ended up in a crocodile enclosure at a zoo near Cambridge.

Cambridgeshire Police said officers were called early on Thursday afternoon to Johnsons Zoo in Old Hurst following “reports of an incident involving a three-year-old boy, during which he ended up in the crocodile enclosure”.

The boy was taken to hospital in a critical but stable condition, police said, while a man from the nearby county of Norfolk was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

“We do not believe the man arrested and the child are known to each other,” said Detective Inspector Verity McCann.

The London Telegraph quoted one witness, Pete Lewis, as saying that zoo staff may have saved the toddler’s life.

Former US president Barack Obama, joined by three former presidents, has celebrated the opening of his presidential museum in Chicago in an extraordinary event that brought together politicians, A-list celebrities, athletes and other internationally known figures.

Bono, John Legend, Christina Aguilera, Marc Anthony and Eddie Vedder took turns on the stage ahead of Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder.

“I hope this centre will serve as an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is and remind us what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens,” Obama told the crowd.

President Donald Trump was conspicuous both in his physical absence and by not being mentioned by any of the speakers or performers. Trump called the $US850 million centre a “total disaster” in a social media post in February.

AP

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the announced changes to capital gains tax were a result of consultation, not backlash to the budget.

“The next steps that we announced yesterday are all about providing more certainty for investors, more support for small businesses, and more incentives for innovation,” Chalmers told ABC News Breakfast this morning.

Chalmers said the changes came “because we’ve consulted in a meaningful, genuine way”.

Asked why the government didn’t do that before the budget, Chalmers said the issues had been “a feature in the public debate” for some time.