One Nation’s billionaire benefactor Gina Rinehart has purchased an $8m inner-city Brisbane office building that Pauline Hanson’s party will use as its new headquarters as it seeks to ramp up operations in her home state.

Hanrine Investments, a subsidiary of Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, finalised the purchase of the three-storey building at Spring Hill last week, with the right-wing party due to relocate there once a fit-out is complete.

Hancock Prospecting insists One Nation will not be given free or cheap rent at the 160 Wharf Street building, which features “two upper levels of spacious, light-filled office”, 10 carparking spots, and a large top-floor balcony with “expansive views of the city, perfect for corporate gatherings”.

Revelations of the purchase came as Senator Hanson hit the campaign trail on Sunday, joining her Victorian frontman Warren Pickering for a lap of go-karting at a campaign event in Geelong.

One Nation supporters came under fire at the weekend after cheering on a state candidate who vowed to put former premiers Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan in prison “by Christmas” if the party triumphed at the November 28 Victorian poll.

On Sunday, Senator Hanson declared Labor “finished” in Victoria and predicted the Liberals would rely on her party’s support to form government.

The result in Victoria next month will be pored over by Anthony Albanese, Angus Taylor and Nationals leader Matt Canavan who are all looking to suppress One Nation’s growing support before the next federal election, due in 2028.

Senator Hanson hits the campaign trail in Geelong on Sunday. Picture: Mark Wilson

Last week, Newspoll quarterly analysis published in The Australian revealed the minor party had lifted its primary vote in Queensland to 36 per cent. It also showed a majority of voters in the state would prefer Senator Hanson as prime minister over Mr Albanese.

The relocation of One Nation’s headquarters from Brisbane Airport to Mrs Rinehart’s newly purchased building on the fringe of the Brisbane CBD comes as Queensland once again shapes as the major battle ground at a federal election.

After the fit-out is complete, One Nation will occupy level one and part of level two of the building, totalling about 650sqm of office space. Half of the office suite’s second floor is already occupied by a consultancy business with an existing lease.

It was understood the property, which settled on September 30, sold for upwards of $8m. It was previously owned by not-for-profit API Leisure and Lifestyle, which bought the building in 2003 for $2.4m.

A spokesman for One Nation said on Sunday that the party was “finalising leasing arrangements for its new premises at Spring Hill”.

“Due to the expansion in state and federal staffing requirements, the Brisbane Airport premises are no longer fit for purpose,” the spokesman said in a statement to The Australian.

“The new Spring Hill premises will be leased at commercial market rate.”

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart pictured in 2016.

Mrs Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, is One Nation’s biggest donor. Earlier this year she gifted Senator Hanson a “sexy” Cirrus G7 private plane and bankrolled her European jaunt in June, which included a ticket to the Dolce and Gabbana fashion show.

In a social media post on X in April, Senator Hanson bragged about receiving the $1.5m plane. “BREAKING NEWS – I’ve got a new plane … Yes it was donated. Yes I’m super happy. Yes it’s fast. Yes it’s amazing,” she wrote.

She added: “It means I can visit more regional towns across the country more often. Yes it’s a Cirrus G7. Yes it’s sexy. Yes I have a pilot. No I won’t be doing welcome to country each (time) we land. No it’s not battery operated.”

After the fit-out is complete, One Nation will occupy level one and part of level two of the Spring Hill building. Picture: Dan Peled

Senator Hanson was also spotted poolside alongside Mrs Rinehart at an exclusive five-star resort in Taormina, Sicily, in June. Photos of the pair at the Grand Hotel San Pietro showed the One Nation leader walking across the pool deck as Mrs Rinehart relaxed in the water.

The Queensland senator made the side-trip to Italy to attend the Dolce and Gabbana show with Mrs Rinehart after appearing on UK far-right agitator Tommy Robinson’s controversial podcast.

In the past year, Senator Hanson’s register of interests reveals that Mrs Rinehart and her company, Hancock Prospecting, have paid for multiple flights for the One Nation leader including a trip between Brisbane and Florida in late November.

The trip was for Senator Hanson and Mrs Rinehart to attend a $25,000-a-head, Great Gatsby-themed Halloween event hosted by Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

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When asked about their relationship at a business breakfast in Perth earlier this year, Senator Hanson praised the mining magnate, saying she was “wonderful” and said they had bonded over their “tough” origins, building their careers from the ground up. Senator Hanson has also said that she considers Mrs Rinehart “a friend” and turns to her for “very beneficial” policy advice.

“I consider her a friend and I’m very … grateful for her support. She’s an Australian identity, she’s one of the highest taxpayers in the country,” she told ABC radio in June, before adding: “I have a lot of respect for the woman and what she’s done.”

In a statement, a Hancock Prospecting spokesman said: “Hancock Prospecting holds a range of commercial property, and this building is one of them. Hancock is not providing free or discounted space to any outside tenant, political or otherwise”.

One Nation is expected to target a swath of Liberal National Party-held seats in Queensland in coming months, including Wright, Capricornia and Wide Bay.

Traditionally a fortress for the Coalition, Labor made a major breakthrough in Queensland at the 2025 federal election and now holds 12 of the state’s 30 lower house seats.

But a senior Queensland Labor source said the party was bracing for support that the ALP found in outer-suburban seats in 2025 to shift to One Nation because “people are really pissed off at both major parties”.

The US “wants to fight their next war from Australia”, new Greens leader David Shoebridge has warned, in remarks branding the alliance a “deep betrayal of Australia’s interests”.

Senator Shoebridge claimed his party’s top job last week in a snap leadership contest held after former leader Larissa Waters stepped down due to health issues.

In an exclusive interview with NewsWire, Senator Shoebridge said Australia’s alliance with the US is making it a target in any future conflict in the region.

“Australia is in one of the most geopolitically safe parts of the planet,” he said.

“We have the Pacific Ocean on one side, the Indian Ocean on the other, this massive island archipelago, and thousands of kilometres between us and any other significant landmass.

“And our only security threat comes from hosting a superpower’s bases here that make us a target in a conflict.”

While there are no permanent US bases in Australia, access arrangements let the US military deploy troops and assets to Australia, such as the 2000 marines based in Darwin.

Australia and the US also jointly operate more than a dozen defence facilities across the continent.

“The United States has decided that its ability to fight the next war it wants to have — in this case, a war against China — is unachievable from its current bases in the western Pacific,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“They know that, and so they have decided to bring the front line of that war to Australia.

“That’s why they’ve located nuclear-capable B-52 bombers here.

“That’s why they’ve got our government to build them, at incredible expense, a nuclear submarine base off Perth.

“That’s why they’re doubling down on Pine Gap. That’s why they’re covering the country with munition dumps. That’s why they’re trying to make our military interoperable with them.

“Because the United States wants to fight its next war from Australia.”

Pointing to American allies in the Middle East, he said US bases have only endangered them amid the spiralling conflict with Iran and its proxies. “They are becoming targets now,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“I can understand why the United States might want to do this – it may well be in their interests.

“But for the life of me, I cannot understand how the Labor Party, the Coalition, and One Nation all want to do this.

“It is a deep betrayal of Australia’s interests. It is a deep, deep betrayal.”

The Albanese government has committed almost $120bn to boosting Australia’s advanced missile stocks, kitting out the navy with state-of-the-art frigates and building the infrastructure to support a bigger military.

The build up comes against a backdrop of increasing Chinese military aggression toward Australia and its Asian neighbours, especially the Philippines.

Last year, Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia and carried out live fire drills off the East Coast.

In comments afterwards, Defence Minister Richard Marles stopped just short of confirming the flotilla had targeted Australian cities.

He refused to confirm because it would reveal “our surveillance capabilities”.

“So we do know exactly what they were doing and exactly what they were rehearsing,” he said at the time.

Canberra has also accused China of “unsafe” activity, including dropping flares close to Australian surveillance planes in international airspace.

Asked about Australia’s role in a potential conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, Senator Shoebridge said Australia “should act for its material interests”.

He dismissed the idea that the US would come to Taiwan’s aid “because they believe in Taiwanese democracy”.

The US “wants to fight their next war from Australia”, new Greens leader David Shoebridge has warned, in remarks branding the alliance a “deep betrayal of Australia’s interests”.

Senator Shoebridge claimed his party’s top job last week in a snap leadership contest held after former leader Larissa Waters stepped down due to health issues.

He won alongside running mate and upper house colleague Steph Hodgins-May, with the pair declaring that only the Greens can “stop One Nation” while vowing to “replace Labor” because of its rightward drift.

In an exclusive interview with NewsWire, Senator Shoebridge said Australia’s alliance with the US is making it a target in any future conflict in the region.

New Greens leader David Shoebridge says the US alliance needs a rethink. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

“Australia is in one of the most geopolitically safe parts of the planet,” he said.

“We have the Pacific Ocean on one side, the Indian Ocean on the other, this massive island archipelago, and thousands of kilometres between us and any other significant landmass.

“And our only security threat comes from hosting a superpower’s bases here that make us a target in a conflict.”

While there are no permanent US bases in Australia, access arrangements let the US military deploy troops and assets to Australia, such as the 2000 marines based in Darwin.

Australia and the US also jointly operate more than a dozen defence facilities across the continent.

“The United States has decided that its ability to fight the next war it wants to have — in this case, a war against China — is unachievable from its current bases in the western Pacific,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“They know that, and so they have decided to bring the front line of that war to Australia.

“That’s why they’ve located nuclear-capable B-52 bombers here.

“That’s why they’ve got our government to build them, at incredible expense, a nuclear submarine base off Perth.

“That’s why they’re doubling down on Pine Gap. That’s why they’re covering the country with munition dumps. That’s why they’re trying to make our military interoperable with them.

“Because the United States wants to fight its next war from Australia.”

Senator Shoebridge says the US wants to fight a war against China ‘from Australia’. Picture: AFP / Saul Loeb

Pointing to American allies in the Middle East, he said US bases have only endangered them amid the spiralling conflict with Iran and its proxies. “They are becoming targets now,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“I can understand why the United States might want to do this – it may well be in their interests.

“But for the life of me, I cannot understand how the Labor Party, the Coalition, and One Nation all want to do this.

“It is a deep betrayal of Australia’s interests. It is a deep, deep betrayal.”

The Albanese government has committed almost $120bn to boosting Australia’s advanced missile stocks, kitting out the navy with state-of-the-art frigates and building the infrastructure to support a bigger military.

The build up comes against a backdrop of increasing Chinese military aggression toward Australia and its Asian neighbours, especially the Philippines.

Last year, Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia and carried out live fire drills off the East Coast.

In comments afterwards, Defence Minister Richard Marles stopped just short of confirming the flotilla had targeted Australian cities.

He refused to confirm because it would reveal “our surveillance capabilities”.

“So we do know exactly what they were doing and exactly what they were rehearsing,” he said at the time.

Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia in 2025. Picture: NewsWire / Handout / Department of Defence

Canberra has also accused China of “unsafe” activity, including dropping flares close to Australian surveillance planes in international airspace.

Asked about Australia’s role in a potential conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, Senator Shoebridge said Australia “should act for its material interests”.

He dismissed the idea that the US would come to Taiwan’s aid “because they believe in Taiwanese democracy”.

“The United States is acting for its own material interests, and Australia should act for its material interests,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“And for the people of Taiwan, a catastrophic war that destroys Taiwan is not in the interests of the people of Taiwan.

“Australia should be doing all we can to de-escalate in the region and to deal with the region through our national interests, not through those of Washington.”

News Corp continues to make serious money in Australia while paying no tax. But even the Murdoch monolith isn’t the nation’s worst tax dodger.

Despite its pretensions to lecture Australia about its values and how it should be run, the Murdoch family’s News Corp really has nothing to do with Australia. It is a foreign company, and it serially pays no tax here, despite earning billions in revenue on our shores.

In 2024-25, according to the Australian Tax Office’s corporate tax data released today, News Australia Holdings — the official name of News Corp’s Australian subsidiary — racked up 10 years of paying precisely zero tax. For that year, it earned $1.89 billion in revenue, made more than $300 million in profit (a record for the past decade) and paid nothing in tax.

Indeed, there’s a peculiar steadiness to News Corp’s tax dodging. For the past four years, it has earned around $1.8 billion in revenue and paid no tax on around $300 million in profits in 2023-24 and 2024-25, and $200 million in profits in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

You can go all the way back to when the first corporate tax transparency data was released for 2014-15 — the result of a Rudd-Gillard government initiative (opposed by the Coalition) — and find News Corp’s main company has paid no tax across those years, on revenue of, in total, $23.9 billion and profits of $1.38 billion.

The only News Corp entities to pay tax in that time were an investment company, which paid $200,000 (sic) in 2017-18 on $291 million in profits, and a pay TV financing arm, which paid $8 million in 2015-16. Real estate listing oligopolist REA Group, which News Corp part-owns, paid $246 million in tax.

Otherwise, News Corp’s only contributions to Australia are social division and the fostering of hate and resentment.

In contrast, Nine Entertainment paid $76.7 million tax on $290 million in profits; ailing Stokes family company Seven West Media — since folded into ailing Southern Cross Media — managed $3 million on $11 million profits, based on $1.3 billion in revenue. Southern Cross paid $4 million on $14 million. Ten Network, as usual, made nothing and paid nothing.

The 2024-25 data — which, as the ATO is always eager to note, contains details of corporations that pay no tax for perfectly good and legal reasons — show that fossil fuel and energy companies dominate the ranks of those paying zero tax.

Japanese-owned Ichthys LNG paid nothing on $10.6 billion in revenue. Climate criminal Santos also claimed not to have made any money in 2024-25, off over $5 billion in revenue, and paid no tax. (Santos did pay around $250 million in petroleum resources rent tax (PRRT) on its gas exports, but it is not merely one of Australia’s most toxic sources of carbon pollution, but also one of our worst tax dodgers: since 2014-15, Santos has reported a total of $48.4 billion in revenue, just $221 million in profits and paid zero tax. Its only significant contribution has been $1.37 billion in total PRRT payments.)

Power companies AGL and Energy Australia continue to utilise tax losses to avoid tax on $13 billion and $7 billion in revenue, respectively. But Origin Energy paid just under $200 million on $1.8 billion in profits. Santos’ fellow climate criminal Woodside, lifting its game, paid more than $1 billion in tax and over $800 million in PRRT.

Optus owner Singtel, a serial non-payer, again paid no tax, on $8 billion in revenue. Corruption-riddled meat multinational JBS, for the second year, paid no tax, on $4.8 billion in revenue. Another scandal-plagued company, Western Australia’s Mineral Resources, also racked up another year of paying nothing, on $4.8 billion in revenue and no declared profits — all perhaps consumed by its dodgy road at Onslow.

Toll giant Transurban also continued its long run of gouging motorists across Australian cities while paying no tax: in 2024-25, it unusually managed to report some taxable income, of $2.6 million on nearly $2.9 billion in revenue, but paid nothing. Over the past decade, Transurban has accumulated $27.6 billion in revenue, declared $520 million in profits, and paid not a single cent to the government.

At the other end of the scale, iron ore and finance dominate: Rio Tinto and BHP were again the top taxpayers, with $5.2 billion and $5.3 billion in tax, respectively, on combined profits of more than $52 billion. Fortescue paid $2.4 billion. CBA delivered $3.8 billion to federal coffers; Westpac $2.7 billion; NAB $2.3 billion; ANZ $1.7 billion.

For other prominent oligopolists, Qantas, after a paltry $8 million in 2023-24, paid $567 million in tax. Woolworths paid $622 million; Coles paid $414 million. Telstra $776 million. The tech giants paid $700 million in tax, off nearly $43 billion in revenue, led by Apple ($199 million) and Amazon ($210 million off both cloud services and packages).

Australia Institute source link

The Australia Institute has produced a sequel to its popular Big Gas is Taking the Piss ad campaign.

Launched today, the video reminds Australians that every week the Albanese Government delays implementing a 25% gas export tax, the nation loses $350 million, which could be spent on hospitals, schools, roads, the NDIS and dozens of other essential services.

The ad reminds consumers that the reason Big Gas makes such enormous profits is because it gets so much of Australia’s gas for free. Australia Institute research reveals the gas industry pays zero royalties on more than half the gas which leaves our shores.

Qatar exports a similar volume of gas to Australia, but raises around five times more revenue. Norway charges gas exporters 22% in company tax and 56% tax on profits, for a combined 78% tax. Australia Institute analysis suggests a 25% gas export tax would raise more than $17 billion a year.

No politician loves journalists. The relationship between media and governments has always been fractious, combative, resentful and at times downright hostile. But that is how it is meant to be. Governments wield power; media monitor and report on it.

That dynamic is critical to any functioning democracy. Formal checks and balances will only go so far in exposing abuses of power, so the system requires vigorous, professional and independent individuals devoted to investigating and reporting how governments behave. It isn’t always pretty but it has been an essential component of every effective modern democracy.

That is why the US has its storied First Amendment – arguably the world’s most elegant constitutional guarantee of basic freedoms including freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

At the weekend, Donald Trump banned journalists from CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House. He described them as “fake news”, without giving more details.

“It’s really just cumulative stories over the last few years,” he told a news conference. “You just get sick of it.”

It is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on how big a deal this is. Barack Obama articulated it well in a response at the weekend.

“If you have a certain cohort – let’s call it 30 to 35 per cent of the country right now – which thinks that’s OK, what that means is we have not developed the kind of understanding of what democracy requires,” the former president said.

“I’m trying to think what would have happened if I’d said, ‘You know what, Fox News … you’re outta here.’ It’s unimaginable.”

In solidarity, four other big US broadcasters who routinely film and distribute White House events on behalf of the media – ABC, NBC, Fox News and CBS – have suspended what’s known as the press pool.

That won’t stop the news from getting out. The White House’s own feed and others will still cover the events but it is a sharp escalation of the administration’s attacks on media coverage it doesn’t like.

Australians cannot afford to be complacent. One Nation – now slightly in front of Labor as our most popular political party – also thinks it is OK to ban journalists. It has repeatedly shut out reporters from the ABC and the Guardian from its news conferences and signalled that it will do the same for other news organisations it doesn’t like.

In the US, the three news organisations have gone to the district court to challenge the ban as a violation of their First Amendment rights. In Australia, we have no such protection.

In fact, we are the only liberal democracy in the world without any protection for press freedom or freedom of speech enshrined in our constitution or in a bill of rights. The most we have is an “implied freedom of political communication” that the high court has inferred from our constitution.

At times, that implied freedom has helped protect the rights that most of us assume are hardwired into our political system. But because that right is merely inferred, and not part of any explicit constitutional clause, it can – and has been – overridden at critical points. The ABC discovered that to its cost when it tried and failed to use the implied freedom to overturn a search warrant that the Australian federal police used in 2019 when it investigated the broadcaster’s Afghan Files reporting.

Trump said he would probably lose the lawsuit brought by the three media organisations and expected to “go for appeal”. But even though there is no guarantee that the US media companies will win their court case, the First Amendment remains a powerful bulwark against the kinds of attacks the Trump administration is now launching.

It is unrealistic to think we can get some kind of constitutional reform like the First Amendment but the US experience shows that it would be naive to assume press freedom is a given here, even with our robust and longstanding traditions.

That is why the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom is advocating for a media freedom bill. Our bill, that we expect to publish later this year, would enshrine the principle of media freedom in our legal code. Under it, parliament would have to treat press freedom as something to be protected like any other human right, and the courts would have to recognise the public interest in the work that journalists produce, whenever they are interpreting existing laws.

Trump’s attack on press freedom is an inflection point – one that shows how far democratic norms have shifted under his presidency. It also shows that relying on convention rather than established law is dangerous.

The three news organisations might well lose their district court challenge but at least they have that constitutional backstop. We don’t, and we shouldn’t wait until journalists deemed unfriendly are being kicked out of Parliament House or worse before we think about writing their role into legislation. By then, it will be too late.

Peter Greste is the executive director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom and a professor of journalism at Macquarie University

Together, we can build a system that puts people above corporate profits. But we can't do it without you - join the campaign at taxthe1percent.com.au

The Labor opposition in Queensland has slammed the state LNP government over its decision to halt government funding in EV charging networks, despite the near doubling of electric car ownership in regional areas.

Opposition energy spokesman Lance McCallum also said that the LNP’s recent decision to scrap electric buses and to by 630 diesel buses instead was likely to cost more than $250 million, as well as lost jobs and other opportunities.

“In Queensland, the shift (to EVs) is running hardest where you might least expect it. It’s not inner city Brisbane. It’s in the regions,” McCallum said at the Smart Energy Council’s Queensland Energy Summit in Brisbane on Tuesday.

McCallum noted data that showed electric car ownership in the Western Downs region grew by almost 98%, in Gladstone by 76%, and in the Gold Coast by 47%.

“Regional Queensland is now taking up electric vehicles faster than the southeast corner,” he said. “Think about what that tells us. The people buying EVs in Queensland today are not in our inner city, they are farmers, tradies, and families in places like Chinchilla and Kingaroy, Rockhampton, who looked at fuel prices, looked at the numbers, and made a hard-headed economic decision.”

However, he said the programs that saw the rollout of the state’s electric superhighway – started in 2017 – has now been exhausted and the LNP government says there are no plans for further funding rounds. The LNP has also scrapped the transition of the government fleet to electric vehicles, and last week announced its decision to buy 630 diesel buses, instead of electric ones.

“It is a betrayal of Queensland taxpayers, and Queensland communities will be paying for this decision for years to come,” McCallum said.

“EV ownership in Queensland is growing at between 40 and 90% a year, but it’s sitting on top of a public charging program that has effectively stopped, and a government that is scrapping electric transport in favor of diesel. Talk about taking Queensland backwards.” 

Queensland was one of the first to rollout fast-charging networks in regional areas, and its so-called Electric Superhighway was one of the first. But McCallum said it was nearly a decade old, and needed updating.

“Many (of the fast chargers) deliver 50 kilowatts, which was pretty respectable back in 2017, but these days it’s not that great when you consider that a new car, new EV, can accept six or seven times that.

“Back in 2017 we built the longest electric highway in the world, and the rest of the country followed us. But being first is not the same as staying ahead.

“Today we have the fastest-growing regional uptake of EVs in the nation, sitting on a charging network that has stopped growing because the government won’t invest and has an energy plan that takes away the storage and generation that those chargers will lean on and that consumers want.”

A shopper walks into a supermarket and grabs a basket. By that time, a camera has scanned their face. 

That is what experts warn could be the new normal for Australians.

Supermarkets started with exit gates and bagging-area cameras. Now they are trialling facial recognition technology.

In August, Coles and Woolworths rolled out facial recognition technology trials in a bid to combat crime with about a third of retail workers not feeling safe in their workplace, according to a union survey of about 3,000 staff.

Last week, Coles reported that incidents of abuse towards retail staff had increased by 85 per cent over the past two years in Victoria.

The technology scans the features of a person's face to create a unique digital code and identify them.

Neither of the supermarket giants has said if it would be rolled out in their Australian stores.

However, both companies said they were looking into improving protection for their customers and staff.

Industry groups say the move is about safety, but experts warn once the technology is installed the "scope creep" does not stop.

'Scope creep'

Scope creep, also known as function creep, is when society incrementally allows things to happen over time that people feel uncomfortable about.

"We let it pass and all of a sudden you see a layering of the technology being used for more privacy-intrusive purposes," said responsible technology policy specialist Lauren Perry from the University of Technology Sydney.

She is concerned face scans could shift from safety and security to customer experience in ways that could disadvantage and harm the consumer.

The layering of new technologies such as face scan-enabled EFTPOS machines and the widespread rollout of digital price tags across supermarkets could tailor the real-life shopping experience.

"I hear people say, 'I don't really care about my personal information that much. It's all over the internet anyway. I've got nothing to hide,'" she said.

"You've only got one face. You can change your password if it gets hacked … but you can't change your face.

"Would every single person who walks into a supermarket have to give up their sensitive biometric data to buy a bottle of milk?"

Facial data gives companies more information about consumer purchasing behaviour and how they move through the store, paving the way for options like discriminatory pricing, Ms Perry said.

"Now they have your face, they have your loyalty card, your bank card, they can piece together a pretty clear picture of individual shopping behaviours," she said.

>"For example, supermarkets know that a lot of women visit suburban grocery stores with their kids at the end of the school day. They could use this information to jack up the prices of things like lunch box foods at those stores."

A Coles spokesperson told the ABC: "While no decision has been made about the use of this technology, we absolutely reject any claim that this technology would be used to monitor team or regular shoppers, or for marketing or pricing purposes."Facial data gives companies more
information about consumer purchasing behaviour and how they move
through the store, paving the way for options like discriminatory
pricing, Ms Perry said."Now
they have your face, they have your loyalty card, your bank card, they
can piece together a pretty clear picture of individual shopping
behaviours," she said."For
example, supermarkets know that a lot of women visit suburban grocery
stores with their kids at the end of the school day. They could use this
information to jack up the prices of things like lunch box foods at
those stores."A
Coles spokesperson told the ABC: "While no decision has been made about
the use of this technology, we absolutely reject any claim that this
technology would be used to monitor team or regular shoppers, or for
marketing or pricing purposes."

Not a bad read.

One Nation MP David Farley says immigration rates to Australia would not be "too different" to Labor or the Coalition under Pauline Hanson, as he suggested a figure close to the government's migration target of 225,000 by 2028.

Mr Farley told ABC Insiders One Nation would not seek to cut migration rates deeper than about 230,000 a year, saying the migration target would be a net overseas migration (NOM) rate of about 130,000 plus "a minimum" 100,000 skilled workers under established visa schemes.

The net overseas migration (NOM) rate accounts for the total number of people entering Australia with plans to stay at least a year minus those leaving, including those entering on visa programs such as working holiday-maker visas, the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, and skilled worker visas.

Mr Farley admitted once One Nation's "true NOM" and skilled visa targets were combined, its migration rate of about 230,000 would be similar to figures already forecast by the government.

"The raw number is not too different, but the reality is where do we need them. We don't need them in the great urban 'metroplex'. We need them out to be productive, working out in agriculture, engineering, mining, etc," Mr Farley said.

"The big difference is we are focusing on what are the skills we need as a nation."

Mr Farley said One Nation was focused on net migration "in its true form", plus workers from several necessary visa programs, citing about 40,000 migrants under the Pacific workers visa, about 68,000 to 70,000 skilled aged care migrants and skilled mechanical and engineering workers.

He said that category would make up "a minimum" of 100,000 more visas granted each year under a One Nation government, on top of what he described as the "true" net overseas migration rate of 130,000.

While the government has forecast migration returning to about 225,000 by 2028, it has repeatedly overshot those forecasts, particularly after the reopening of international borders following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The One Nation MP's comments follow weeks of debate on how deeply migration rates should be cut, an issue that has become a political battleground in part because of One Nation's rise in popularity on a platform of slashing migration.

The party has also laid out its intentions to restrict migration from some countries deemed to be higher risk, suggesting it could use travel advice to determine which countries should be affected by migration restrictions.

The Coalition has been developing a migration policy to combat One Nation, as the right wing party has emerged from the fringe of politics to threaten the Coalition's status as the opposition.

While it has not yet set migration targets, the Coalition intends to tie migration to housing construction rates, saying that migration rates will be restricted to the pace of housing completions in the previous year in order to close the supply shortfall in the housing sector.

The government, meanwhile, has been planning reforms to further tightening of temporary visas as it seeks to bring down net overseas migration from 300,000 to its goal of 225,000 by 2028.

Those reforms were postponed, with the policy still to be settled by cabinet.

In July, the government issued a directive to prioritise people already onshore for visa processing, slowing arrivals overseas — including for in-demand skilled workers in nursing, teaching and elsewhere.