Bradfield candidates to wait until Monday before vote counting continues
Henry Belot
Candidates in the Sydney seat of Bradfield face a nervous weekend with the Australian Electoral Commission confirming there will be no more vote counting until Monday.
Scrutineers had expected to receive an additional dispatch of votes this afternoon, but have just been told that will no longer happen.
All outstanding ballot papers will be opened and added to the count on Monday, before the full distribution of preference. This count may take up most of next week.
At the moment, Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian leads the independent candidate Nicolette Boele by just 43 votes.
There are slightly more than 300 votes left to count at this stage, but that number may increase if more postal votes are received before tonight’s midnight deadline. As mentioned earlier, some of these votes will be coming from Nairobi.
If the margin in Bradfield remains under 100 once all remaining votes are processed then there will be an automatic recount. Liberal sources concede that is the likely outcome.
Key events
Election result ‘bittersweet’ for Greens: Faruqi
Faruqi said the Greens would do a “detailed evaluation” of the election result, adding there had been “highs and there’s been lows”.
We lost wonderful, wonderful colleagues and representatives of their communities. Where changes need to be made, we’ll make the changes … It’s been bittersweet for us, losing those lower house seats, but then getting sole balance of power in the Senate and tens of thousands of people in migrant and multicultural communities really backing our stance on the cost-of-living crisis, a strong stand against the genocide in Gaza and against racism.
Pressed on whether she was “comfortable” with the Greens’ position on Gaza given how the “public debate … played out in the domestic scene”, Faruqi replied:
Our position against a genocide in Gaza is not a position taken because we would win votes or lose votes.
I couldn’t sleep at night if the Greens hadn’t spoken up in the strongest way against the massacre of tens of thousands – of if not hundreds of thousands of – innocent people who are now being starved. There were just 100 people in Gaza that were murdered last night. So, we took a strong moral position and a position of justice. And we will not back away from that.
Mehreen Faruqi defends Greens’ record in previous parliament
The deputy Greens leader, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, appeared on ABC Afternoon Briefing earlier after being re-endorsed for her position.
Asked if the approach her party had taken was “not effective” given they lost three lower house seats, Faruqi said the Greens had the trust of “millions of people who have put us in the sole balance of power in the Senate”:
There’s tens of thousands of voters who have voted for the Greens for the first time in communities that had not done that before … migrant and multicultural communities … to hold the Labor government to account. And that will take many shapes and forms. Of course we’ll work constructively and cooperatively when needed. But we’ll also fight for people and the planet when needed. That’s what people are asking us to do.
On whether the Greens had been too obstructive in the last parliament, Faruqi said that was a narrative pushed by Labor and her party had negotiated a number of concessions.
Because of the pressure we put on Labor for the last three years and even beyond that, wiping all student debt, making price gouging illegal for supermarkets, and on free GPs, because of Greens pressure, Labor took on those policies and I think the first cab off the rank in the next parliament should be for Labor to do that work and we are ready and willing to do that.
ANZ predicts just two interest rate cuts this year
Luca Ittimani
ANZ has lowered its interest rate cut prediction to just two for 2025 and expects a third in 2026, becoming the first major bank to push its prediction back that far.
Even a heavily tipped rate cut from the Reserve Bank next week is no longer a “near certainty” but only a two-in-three chance, ANZ analysts wrote on Friday, stepping back from their previous assurance:
We have lessened our conviction on this, though we still consider a May cut more likely than not.
Financial markets, though, were this morning predicting a 95% chance of the RBA board will cut when it meets on Tuesday. Markets expect a further two in 2025, as do Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, the latter of which says holding rates was out of the question in its own note today.
But ANZ thinks even that figure is too high, after signs the US and China are getting closer to a deal on lower tariffs. At home, slight improvements in business and household confidence and sustained strength in job growth and wage levels add to arguments for a hold, the bank’s analysts say.
All of these predictions are well below the five or more cuts markets were expecting in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariff announcement in April. NAB is the only major bank expecting five cuts this year, including a double-sized rate cut on Tuesday.
That said, ANZ still expects Australia’s economy will need lower rates to manage the damage it sustains from heightened global uncertainty in the wake of Trump’s tariffs. The bank is expecting unemployment to rise to 4.4% over 2025, from its current level of 4.1%, and the economy to grow just 2%, below the 2.4% the RBA predicted in February.
Police officer allegedly punched and stabbed in Wagga Wagga
A man is in custody after a female police officer was allegedly stabbed and punched in the New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga this afternoon.
The, officer aged in her 20s, was allegedly attacked in Kooringal shortly before 2pm today when trying to stop a man who was riding a bike without a helmet.
Police allege the 31-year-old man punched her multiple times in the head before stabbing her in the arm and abdomen with a small screwdriver.
The officer was treated at the scene by NSW Ambulance paramedics before being taken to Wagga Wagga Base hospital in a stable condition. She was also being checked for suspected fractures to her fingers and a head injury.
The man was arrested at the scene and taken to Wagga Wagga police station.
Algal bloom linked to surge in shark sightings in South Australia
A sharp rise in shark sightings could be linked to an algal bloom that has killed about 100 species of fish and sharks amid a nine-month long marine heatwave across southern Australia, AAP reports.
A shark attack at a popular Adelaide beach on Thursday, in which a swimmer aged in his 60s had his leg mauled, has focused attention on the growing number of sightings and strandings since the bloom formed in March.
South Australia’s shark sightings log shows 195 reports so far in 2025, compared with 313 in 2024, 148 (2023), 153 (2022), 264 (2021) and 84 (2020).
Since the microalgae bloom, karenia mikimotoi, was identified off the Fleurieu Peninsula in March, there have been hundreds of reports of marine deaths, ranging from sharks and penguins, to popular fishing species such as flathead, squid, crabs, and rock lobsters.
The state environment minister, Susan Close, said the bloom had grown to an unprecedented scale, close to the size of Kangaroo Island, which is 4,405 sq km, and as deep as 20m.
Earlier in May, authorities removed a dead white shark washed up on Henley beach in Adelaide and two other sharks were reported dead at Port Willunga in Adelaide’s south and at Port Moorowie, on the south coast of Yorke Peninsula.
Wet and wintry weekend ahead for south-east Australia
Get your umbrellas and thick socks outs, winter is coming for south-eastern Australia this weekend.
The Bureau of Meteorology forecasting rain, hail and even snow for some parts of the country. In New South Wales, wet and windy conditions could see a “really rough end to the weekend”, Miriam Bradbury, a senior meteorologist at the bureau, said.
Read the story from Petra Stock here:
Lisa Cox
Pfas contamination in Blue Mountains may be due to 1992 crash, WaterNSW says
A rural fire station and a petrol tanker crash in 1992 may be possible causes of elevated levels of Pfas chemicals in untreated water in the NSW Blue Mountains, WaterNSW says.
It completed an initial investigation into the source of Pfas in the Adams Creek and Medlow catchments after disconnecting two dams from the water network last year due to the detection of elevated levels of so-called “forever chemicals”.
The state water agency said on Friday it was commencing a more detailed investigation, with support from the Environment Protection Authority, to try to confirm the source and identify possible management measures.
The Medlow and Greaves Creek dams are part of the raw water supply network that feeds into the Cascade filtration plant for treatment.
The agency said in a statement the two dams “will only be returned to the raw water supply network once WaterNSW is confident appropriate permanent mitigation measures are in place”:
With these disconnections in place and according to the most recent monitoring results, NSW Health and Sydney Water have advised drinking water in the Blue Mountains meets the existing Australian Drinking Water Guidelines and is safe to drink.
WaterNSW said its investigation included taking more than 250 samples from 37 different locations.
The initial report finds the Medlow Bath fire station on the Great Western Highway in the upper portion of the Adams Creek catchment and two vehicle crashes on the highway – one in 1992 and one in 2002 – were potential sources of the Pfas contamination.
The report said fire-fighting foam containing Pfas had reportedly been used at both vehicle accidents.
The report recommended further investigation to confirm if any of the three options were the source of the contamination.
It found Pfas concentrations were higher in the upper Adams Creek catchment than downstream in Lake Medlow or Lake Greaves.
WaterNSW said this suggested that “any contamination may be moving downstream into the Medlow/Greaves catchment via rainfall and surface water runoff, and previous water transfers between dams”.
Thank you for joining me on the blog today. Handing over now to Caitlin Cassidy who will keep you posted with the afternoon’s news.
Government invests in new ADF munitions
The Albanese government is investing in developing precision loitering munitions for the Australian Defence Force.
Mission Talon Strike has been launched as an advanced strategic capabilities accelerator mission to “support the development of medium-range precision loitering munition systems that carry a kinetic payload and have the precision strike capabilities of a guided missile”, according to a statement.
This comes after last week’s “Mission Syracuse” announcement, which supports the ADF’s drone countering capabilities. The minister for defence industry, Pat Conroy, said:
The launch of Mission Talon Strike by ASCA is about developing a priority capability at an accelerated pace.
This mission is aligned with the Albanese government’s work over the last three years, in conjunction with the ADF, to develop a domestically manufactured precision loitering munition capability that addresses threats quickly and accurately.
Through Talon Strike, we are continuing to back Australian industry and ingenuity while demonstrating support for a critical pathway to meet the needs of the ADF.
Bradfield candidates to wait until Monday before vote counting continues
Henry Belot
Candidates in the Sydney seat of Bradfield face a nervous weekend with the Australian Electoral Commission confirming there will be no more vote counting until Monday.
Scrutineers had expected to receive an additional dispatch of votes this afternoon, but have just been told that will no longer happen.
All outstanding ballot papers will be opened and added to the count on Monday, before the full distribution of preference. This count may take up most of next week.
At the moment, Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian leads the independent candidate Nicolette Boele by just 43 votes.
There are slightly more than 300 votes left to count at this stage, but that number may increase if more postal votes are received before tonight’s midnight deadline. As mentioned earlier, some of these votes will be coming from Nairobi.
If the margin in Bradfield remains under 100 once all remaining votes are processed then there will be an automatic recount. Liberal sources concede that is the likely outcome.
