Afternoon Update: Barnaby Joyce’s bungled interview; 100,000 cockroaches seized; and a ‘kick in the bollocks’ for music

Good afternoon.

Barnaby Joyce and a One Nation colleague have struggled to detail the party’s housing policy, with Joyce requesting a second TV appearance to do so and Senator Sean Bell being cut off during what a radio host described as a “trainwreck” interview.

Joyce told Sky News that his party wanted to force permanent residents to sell their homes – before clarifying with colleagues and quickly returning to say that wasn’t One Nation policy.

Pauline Hanson intervened on Friday morning by saying One Nation’s policy would allow permanent residents to own homes but force “foreign owners” like temporary visa holders to sell properties within two years.

Pressed repeatedly by 2GB host Mark Levy on whether One Nation would dispossess non-residents of their homes if the property wasn’t sold, Bell said it was “an excellent question”.

Levy cut Bell off, ending the interview and stating: “This is turning into a trainwreck.”

Top news

More than 100,000 cockroaches worth $200,000 seized from NSW breeder in record-breaking bust

Bondi attack hero Ahmed al-Ahmed says he’s ‘shocked’ after being charged with assaulting his father

Police sergeant avoids jail over death of 16-year-old Indigenous teenager Jai Wright

Pam Bondi claims Todd Blanche was ‘in charge’ of ‘entire release’ of Epstein files

Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns storms out of meeting after discussion of Henry Nowak murder

NBA fans given life bans for selfie with superstar Wembanyama

In pictures

The 2026 Houses awards shortlist celebrates the country’s most “intelligent, dynamic and visually compelling homes”. For the apartment category, jury chair Alexa Kempton says judges looked for “density done well”.

“Building is high-cost and comes with environmental consequences, and the jury observed architects rising to the challenge,” she says.

What they said …

“If I could afford it I’d have a defibrillator machine. Instead of dying from heroin, the poor buggers are just eating too many fatty foods.” – studio owner Alan Scott.

Alan Scott, who has just closed his business Zen Studios, says in the 1990s he would lose his rock musician customers to drug overdoses “and other nefarious, self-inflicted wounds”. In 2026, he says, they are more likely to die of cancer and heart attacks – a combination of poor diet, no exercise and old age.

Changing tastes and rising rents are having a significant impact on the Australian music industry, as Adelaide rehearsal space owner Hamish Cox laments: “Without an affordable place to hone their craft we would lose artists and never hear songs we should hear, and that would be a kick in the bollocks for our music industry.”

Full Story

Newsroom edition: House prices in Australia are falling – will it hurt Labor?

Josephine Tovey, Gabrielle Jackson and Patrick Keneally speak to business editor Jonathan Barrett about why Labor is damned if they do and damned if they don’t when it comes to the diabolical political conundrum of trying to solve the housing affordability crisis without bringing down house prices.

Listen to the episode here

Before bed read

For those reading in bed when they’d rather be otherwise occupied, some advice from Eleanor Gordon-Smith to this burning question: “I want sex more often than my husband does – what can we do?”

Daily word game

Today’s starter word is: EALE. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.

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