Australian children ‘desperate’ to leave Syrian camps, aid agency says
Luca Ittimani
The 20 Australian children detained in Syrian camps have been left “devastated” by the government’s refusal to help them return to their home country, the head of Save the Children has said.
The prime minister has repeatedly said the government will not help repatriate the 34 Australian women and children – wives and children of Islamic State fighters – from their detention camps.
Mat Tinkler, the Save the Children chief exective, said 20 of those 34 were children, some of whom had “never seen a tree” having grown up in detention.
He told the ABC:
We have staff who are supporting the women and children in the camp in Syria, and what I know is that they’re devastated by what’s happened in the last few days, having spent almost seven years of their lives – some of these kids have never seen a tree – and to finally get on a bus and you’re on your way to safety and back home to Australia, only to be turned around, and even then they’ve been displaced from within the camp because their tents have been re-purposed.
They are devastated. They are desperate to get home to Australia. … We have means to put that tragedy to an end right now if we just show courage, the moral clarity and the political will to do what’s right for these innocent Australian children.
Key events
Luca Ittimani
Thanks Nick Visser and good afternoon readers. I’ll be with you for the rest of today’s breaking news.
Nick Visser
That’s all from me. Luca Ittimani will take things from here. Enjoy your Thursday.
Sydney man charged with terrorism offences
A Sydney man was charged with terrorism offences after officers seized several multiple phones during a vehicle stop last year.
NSW police said officers first stopped a vehicle in Sydney’s south west on 31 December 2025. They searched the vehicle and allegedly seized an amount of drugs, cash and three mobile phones. A man, 31, was arrested and charged with drug offences as well as recklessly dealing with the proceeds of crime less than $5,000, among other charges.
Later, investigators examined the phones and allege they contained violent extremist material. This week, officers conducted a search warrant at a home in Bass Hill, seizing more phones, storage devices and a knife.
The man was arrested and taken to the police station, where he was charged with using a carriage service to possess violent extremist material, among other charges.
He was refused bail and will appear before court next month.
Josh Taylor
NBN plans to launch first low-earth orbit satellite services by end of 2026
NBN Co is proposing to retail internet providers that its low-earth orbit satellite internet services will initially be priced on a wholesale price less than or equal to the wholesale price cost (currently up to just over $66 per month, depending on speed) for the Skymuster satellite plus services already in the market.
The speed tiers proposed to industry today would be 50 megabits-per-second (Mbps) download, 10Mbps upload, and 100Mbps/20Mbps.
The initial pricing will be maintained for the first two financial years post launch, subject to annual CPI changes.
The wholesale prices will apply to existing Skymuster customers who order an upgrade within 90 days of services becoming available, and would include $0 cost for customer equipment and installation.
NBN Co has tapped Amazon’s low-earth orbit service to supply the connections, which is due to begin testing and trials in Tasmania between July and September this year.
The rollout will depend on Amazon’s global deployment, but NBN Co has said it is planning to make the service available to the first Australian customers between October and December this year.
Maya Yang
The year of the fire horse – explained
As the lunar new year begins, the focus has turned to the Chinese zodiac and the arrival of the year of the fire horse – a rare pairing in the 60-year lunar cycle.
Drawing on Chinese metaphysics, the fire horse blends the horse’s reputation for energy and independence with the intensity of the fire element, giving it a distinct place in the zodiac tradition.
How and when does the fire horse occur? What are the personality traits of the fire horse? Is the fire horse something to fear?
Read on:
Taylor: ‘They shouldn’t be allowed back in’
Taylor was pressed about the women and children who are in Syria. He maintained that everyone should be kept from entering the country:
The fact of the matter is, these people are supporters of ISIS. They went to another country to support ISIS, and shouldn’t be coming back into the country. It includes these families. I’ve been clear about that.
There’s no proposal to bring the children back without [their parents]. Let’s be clear about that. … These people left Australia, they left Australia to support a terrorist organisation that has heinous views, a heinous ideology, completely at odds with what we believe with our way of life, and they shouldn’t be allowed back in.
Taylor says government should have power to deny passports to Australian citizens
Opposition leader Angus Taylor just spoke on the Gold Coast.
He said the government should have the power to refuse to grant a passport to some Australian citizens amid the controversy surrounding the 34 women and children who are linked to Islamic State fighters and are detained in Syria.
Taylor said:
If this person is going to bring hatred and to our part of the world, does not accept our way of life, does not accept our core beliefs, the government should be doing everything it can to stop them from coming back. And if we need to work with the government and pass legislation, to tighten legislation, to make sure that they can’t come back, we will do that.
I was clear about this on day one in this role. We need to see this government shut the door.
Taylor was asked if Australian citizens have a right to return to Australia. He said:
I don’t believe people who want to bring hate and violence from another part of the world to Australia – people who do not believe in our core beliefs – should be coming into the country. It’s as simple as that. This government has not answered the most basic questions about why these people are coming back to Australia.
eBay buys Depop for US$1.2bn in bid to capture younger shoppers
Online seller eBay has agreed to purchase secondhand fashion marketplace Depop from Etsy for about US$1.2bn in cash, the companies announced on Wednesday, with eBay hoping the acquisition will help it capture a younger demographic.
The deal comes at a time when used clothing has become increasingly popular, sought out by gen Z shoppers searching for unique items that cost less than new ones, and who want to keep older items from heading to landfill.
Depop, based in London, is expected to retain its name, brand, platform and its culture, the companies said. It was founded in 2011.
“We are confident that as part of eBay, Depop will be even more well positioned for long-term growth, benefiting from our scale, complementary offerings, and operational capabilities,” eBay’s CEO, Jamie Ianonne, said.
Read more here:
Luca Ittimani
Steady jobs market supports RBA’s reasons for rate hike, economists say
Continued strength in Australia’s jobs market shows the Reserve Bank was right to say hiring was “tight”, economists have said.
As we reported, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1% in January, when markets had expected it to rise.
The RBA raised interest rates this month to tackle rising inflation, which can be worsened by strong hiring and a low jobless rate.
Today’s data showed the RBA’s judgment the jobs market is tight was correct, according to AMP economist Diana Mousina. She also pointed to underemployment figures staying near their historical low, showing relatively few workers want more hours:
Fundamentally this means that there is little ‘spare capacity’ in the labour market – people who want a job can more or less readily find one and workers are being used to their full capacity for consumer spending.
While the jobs market was already stretched, today’s data did not suggest it was stretching further, according to Devika Shivadekar, an economist with RSM:
With hours worked rising faster than employment, the data suggest firms are relying more on existing staff to meet demand rather than expanding headcount.
Luca Ittimani
Syrian camp ‘one of the most difficult places in the world to be a child’
The Australians stuck in “one of the [world’s] worst” detention camps want to cooperate with strict security demands, the head of Save the Children has said.
The government has refused to repatriate 34 Australian citizens, who are the wives and children of Islamic State fighters, from Syrian detention camps. Those citizens are desperate to leave the camp and would comply with security agencies, according to Mat Tinkler, Save the Children’s chief exective. He told the ABC:
I go to a lot of refugee camps around the world and I can tell you without a doubt this is one of the worst. This is one of the most difficult places in the world to be a child.
Tinkler acknowledged the government had security concerns about the women and has temporarily banned one of them from entering Australia. He said the women were willing to work with Australian agencies:
They have all said they will cooperate fully with law enforcement authorities. In the past, they volunteered to be subjected to terrorism control orders which would be conditions placed on who they meet, wither they live, how they communicate with people. … The best way to mitigate any risk that they pose is to put faith in our security and enforcement agencies.
Read more here:
Australian children ‘desperate’ to leave Syrian camps, aid agency says
Luca Ittimani
The 20 Australian children detained in Syrian camps have been left “devastated” by the government’s refusal to help them return to their home country, the head of Save the Children has said.
The prime minister has repeatedly said the government will not help repatriate the 34 Australian women and children – wives and children of Islamic State fighters – from their detention camps.
Mat Tinkler, the Save the Children chief exective, said 20 of those 34 were children, some of whom had “never seen a tree” having grown up in detention.
He told the ABC:
We have staff who are supporting the women and children in the camp in Syria, and what I know is that they’re devastated by what’s happened in the last few days, having spent almost seven years of their lives – some of these kids have never seen a tree – and to finally get on a bus and you’re on your way to safety and back home to Australia, only to be turned around, and even then they’ve been displaced from within the camp because their tents have been re-purposed.
They are devastated. They are desperate to get home to Australia. … We have means to put that tragedy to an end right now if we just show courage, the moral clarity and the political will to do what’s right for these innocent Australian children.
Lisa Cox
Property developers spark anger over plan to clear woodland home to Baudin’s and Carnaby’s black cockatoos
Property developers in Perth plan to bulldoze an endangered banksia ecosystem used by threatened black cockatoo species, and conservationists have warned the damage cannot be mitigated by proposed offsets.
The developers want to replant the banksia ecosystem within a different type of protected woodland – a proposal that a leading botanist said was doomed to fail.
The woodland to be bulldozed for three housing developments is home to species including the threatened Baudin’s and Carnaby’s black cockatoos.
Prof Kingsley Dixon, a restoration expert and the national expert on the ecosystem – known as the banksia woodlands of the Swan coastal plain – said he had “deep concerns” about the proposal to offset clearing by trying to create banksia woodlands from scratch within another woodland type in protected reserves around Perth.
Read more here:
Benita Kolovos
Jacinta Allan backs CFMEU administrator to ‘weed out the bad apples’
Allan says she’s confident the administrator of the CFMEU was “weeding out the bad apples”. She went on:
Victoria police is making arrests. We have addressed the areas of our responsibility here in the Victorian government, making sure the private companies are required to report these matters, making sure that workers are protected. Because it’s those workers that I am firmly focused on. That’s why a royal commission doesn’t support those workers. It’s about clawing back their wages.
She also refused to comment on a report in the Herald Sun this morning that she met with former premier, Daniel Andrews, after his trip to China last year, in which he posed in a group photo that included Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. Allan said:
I meet regularly with a whole range of former premiers, former ministers from both sides of politics. I’m not going to comment on the conversations I have with those individuals, but let’s remember we’re talking about this because I brought transparency to the ministerial diary process. We introduced the requirement for ministers to report and to publish their diaries.
The very reason we can have this conversation is because I enhanced transparency in this state around the meetings that I and other ministers of the government hold with individuals, with private companies, with a whole range of organisations here in Victoria.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian premier dismisses report of internal push for CFMEU royal commission
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, held a press conference at parliament this morning, which she began by dismissing a report in the ABC that suggested Labor MPs were calling for a royal commission into corruption within the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union.
Allan told reporters “no one in the caucus” had raised a royal commission with her. She went on:
I’m just not going to respond this morning to anonymous gossip, but I’ll repeat why I don’t support a royal commission. The claims don’t stack up. There has already been a royal commission that failed. And furthermore, when Liberals call for a royal commission, it’s all about wanting to claw back workers’ wages, go industry by industry, cutting into workers’ wages. And that is absolutely something I do not support.
She also defended comments made by her attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny, and police minister, Anthony Carbines, who launched an attack on anti-corruption lawyer Geoffrey Watson yesterday. Allan said:
I support the work of my police minister, I support the work of the attorney general … The attorney general made a really important statement yesterday, a statement that just shouldn’t apply to people who are people who come from the legal profession. It should apply to all of us – to politicians, to journalists, to anyone who has a position from which they can commentate on these matters. To repeat unfounded claims is reckless. It is reckless behaviour.
Victoria loses MotoGP to South Australia
Tory Shepherd
One of the weird things about South Australia (along with building a one-way expressway, pie floaters, and a half-hour time difference) is how long it’s held a grudge about Victoria stealing the Formula One Grand Prix.
In 1993, then Victorian premier Jeff Kennett presided over the coup that left residents of the middle bottom bit of the nation aggrieved for decades.
Today, South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas announced that, in what will be seen by some as revenge being served cold, Victoria’s MotoGP will move to SA.
After almost 30 years at Phillip Island, the event will run on the original Adelaide grand prix street circuit from 2027.
Before the announcement, Kennett told ABC Adelaide radio he was “both crying and laughing”:
I’m crying because it’s leaving. I’m laughing because your premier has just taken another page from the Jeff Kennett bible.
He’s gone and borrowed the MotoGP … but don’t think it’s in Adelaide forever, because Phillip Island is a most wonderful circuit, and I’ve just got a feeling in my bones we’re going to get it back.
We never stole the Grand Prix. We borrowed it. The only thing is we forgot to give it back. And I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Peter has borrowed the MotoGP … I’m all for borrowing it back.
Unemployment rate holds at 4.1% in January
Patrick Commins
The unemployment rate remained at 4.1% in January, extending the extraordinary resilience of the post-pandemic jobs market but also underlining the potential for further Reserve Bank rate hikes this year.
The number of employed Australians climbed by 17,800 in January, with a solid 50,500 rise in full-time jobs offset by a 32,700 drop in part-time employment, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The underemployment rate, which measures those with jobs but who are trying to get more hours, lifted from 5.7% in December to 5.9% in the new figures.
The latest jobs numbers come after wages figures on Wednesday showed decent growth in workers’ pay rates were not enough to keep up with resurgent inflation in the back half of last year.
The RBA board, which hiked rates earlier this month, believes the labour market is a “little tight” and so would be contributing to inflationary pressures.
Telstra reports net profit of $1.1bn for second half of 2025
Australia’s biggest telecommunications company has beaten earnings expectations and increased its payout to shareholders after its strong mobile business offset continued weakness in its enterprise division, AAP reports.
Telstra on Thursday delivered a $1.1bn net profit for the six months to 31 December, up 9.4% from the same time in 2024. Revenue climbed 0.3% to $11.6bn.
Chief executive Vicki Brady said it was a strong period for Telstra.
“We delivered ongoing growth in earnings, reflecting momentum across our business, strong cost control and disciplined capital management,” Brady said.
Telstra’s mobile business brought in $2.6bn in earnings. Its average revenue per mobile user rose 5.1% to $45.47 after hiking prices in July, with the cost of most postpaid mobile plans climbing by between $3 and $5 a month.
Despite the price increase, Telstra managed to add another 135,000 mobile customers during the half.
Telstra said it would pay an interim dividend of 10.5 cents per share, with 9.5 cents of that franked and one cent unfranked, up from a fully franked 9.5 cent per share interim dividend a year ago.
Caitlin Cassidy
Linda Burney joins UTS board with a mission to boost Aboriginal participation
Linda Burney has been appointed to her first public role since leaving federal parliament, joining the board of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in a move the New South Wales government hopes will restore faith in the embattled institution.
Burney, the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the federal House of Representatives, ended her two-decade career in politics in early 2025, departing as the minister for Indigenous Australians in mid-2024 and formally leaving office at the end of the 47th parliament.
The Wiradjuri woman carried much of the public weight of the failed voice to parliament referendum, even as she faced some private health challenges.
She said it was not the referendum defeat but a desire to “pass on the baton to the next generation” that led to her resignation from political life.
Read more here:
Chris Minns says Hanson should ‘probably’ apologise, but ‘we’re not going to get it’
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, is speaking in Sydney, saying the country needs an emergence in the “normal middle” of politics free from racist rhetoric.
He said he believes Pauline Hanson should issue an apology for her comments about Muslims, but added a major caveat:
Look, probably, but we’re not going to get it, let’s be honest. In my view, there has to be an emergence of people … in the normal middle that have no interest in hurling racist insults at one another, that don’t want to see Australians divided.
We can’t let the public space be taken over by extremists in these debates, who, let’s be honest, will profit politically by letting us be divided against one another.
