Australia news live: top 100 CEOs bank 16% pay rise; Husic warns Labor over Gaza policy

Key events

20m ago

Victorian teachers to walk out today over pay dispute

49m ago

Union demands government bring ATO’s outsourced phone calls in-house

1h ago

Husic warns Labor over Gaza policy

1h ago

Top 100 CEOs paid a median $4.8m in 2025, analysis shows

2h ago

Welcome

Bill Shorten shocked by testimony given to royal commission on antisemitism

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten, now the vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra, said he was shocked by the evidence given from the university sector during the latest round of hearings before the royal commission on antisemitism.

Shorten told RN Breakfast this morning:

It describes an Australia … and Australian universities that I don’t recognise. But the fact is that these voices who are speaking up through the vehicle of the royal commission are revealing things, which mean that there’s no excuse to ignore them.

Shorten said there was “nothing wrong with protesting”, but said people had gone over the line:

Once people are putting coverings over their faces so they can’t be identified, once they’re going to people’s individual offices, they’ve crossed a line. This is not a protest any more. It’s just bullying. It’s thuggery. It’s cowardice. It’s intimidation. And I don’t really care how righteous you think your cause is. You’ve got no right in this country to make someone else’s life so scary, so miserable, so fearful, just because you happen to have a view.

Victoria government urges teachers’ union to return to negotiations

The state government urged the Australian Education Union to return to negotiations to prevent disruptions to families across the state, AAP adds.

“This deal, which was endorsed by the AEU leadership, would have made Victorian teachers the best paid in the country together with the best conditions,” a government spokesperson said.

We will always back our hard-working teachers, school leaders and education support staff.

Teachers previously walked off the job in March, when staff took to the streets of Melbourne in the tens of thousands dressed in AEU red.

As many as 35,000 people marched to the front steps of state parliament during the strikes, the first of its kind in more than 13 years.

Victorian teachers to walk out today over pay dispute

Hundreds of government schools will be affected by the latest round of teacher strikes as a pay dispute rages on, Australian Associated Press reports.

Public school staff across Victoria will walk off the job today after a vote by the Australian Education Union’s state branch yesterday.

Teachers will down tools and also refuse to work unpaid overtime unless an eleventh-hour agreement can be struck with the state government.

It comes after the powerful teacher’s union in June knocked back the Labor government’s offer of a 28% pay rise over four years.

Branch president Justin Mullaly said teachers, faced with untenable workloads and uncompetitive pay, had been left with no choice.

“In this underfunded system, teachers, principals, and education support staff are working an average of 12 hours unpaid overtime every week,” he said.

The government must stop relying on the goodwill of school employees as a core part of their funding model for schools.

Central office for AI policy a ‘world first’, assistant technology minister says

Andrew Charlton, the assistant minister for science, technology and the digital economy, is speaking this morning about the new announcement of a federal office of AI, which will fast-track approvals for datacentres and create a central framework for the technology.

Charlton said the decision would be a “world first” and reflects the government’s methodical approach to the expansion of AI technology.

He told RN Breakfast:

We need to make sure that Australia shapes the future of how this technology is deployed. And there are many different levels of government that are involved in the way that large AI datacentres are deployed. There are many different departments within government that have equities in this space. So the prime minister is bringing national leadership to the issue. He is well placed to bring together the states and territories, bring together different parts of government, and make sure that we have a consistent national framework.

When asked about copyright for creative works, Charlton said the government’s position had not changed and that it would remain a supporter of creators.

We have ruled out a text and data mining exemption and we have said that where Australian copyrighted material is used, it must be used with consent and with compensation for the creatives and copyright holders who made it.

Union demands government bring ATO’s outsourced phone calls in-house

Luca Ittimani

A top union has warned Australians their tax time phone calls to tax office employees are being directed to lower-paid workers at outsourced call centres.

The Australian Taxation Office is set to face landmark “same job, same pay” hearings in the coming month, with a call centre worker saying his outsource colleagues were paid up to 40% less than their public service counterparts.

The Community and Public Sector Union has today lodged reply submissions supporting the Fair Work Commission case. In a statement, it said outsource workers were answering the same calls as ATO employees, with the same systems, equipment, policies and procedures. The union said they should therefore have the same pay and employment conditions.

The CPSU said it submitted outsource labour hire companies were wrongly claiming they provided a specialised service and value for money. It described answering calls as “core ATO work” that should be brought back into the public service.

Melissa Donnelly, the CPSU’s national secretary, called on the Albanese government to direct the ATO to bring the call centre work in-house. She said:

These outsourced call centre workers are doing the same job as their ATO counterparts, but with worse pay and conditions. …

Right now, millions of Australians are doing their taxes. They need to know they are talking to fully trained and trusted public sector employees – not outsourced workers being underpaid by profit-driven firms.

You can read about the case here:

Husic warns Labor over Gaza policy

Labor risks losing voter support in a similar way to the Democrats in the US if it continues to respond to questions around Palestinian rights with “fear and loathing”, former cabinet minister Ed Husic has said.

The western Sydney MP, the most outspoken Labor member on the war in Gaza, also wants a dedicated federal police team to monitor dual Australian-Israeli citizens who travel to the Middle East to fight for the Israel Defense Forces, Australian Associated Press reports.

“What I am deeply concerned about is there are elements of fear and loathing that drive the way we respond to these issues,” Husic told a Labor Friends of Palestine event over the weekend.

Fear to have your own view, and loathing if you do.

First reported by Labor Tribune, which bills itself as a voice for the “Marxist left” in the labour movement, Husic’s comments were made on the sidelines of the NSW Labor conference in Sydney.

They foreshadow a possible battle over Palestinian rights at Labor’s national conference later in July.

While elements of the party are keen to ventilate the issue at the party’s most significant policymaking forum, multiple Labor sources confirmed to AAP debate was likely to be tightly stage-managed and relatively sedate.

Husic said the Labor party he’d grown up in had similar debates and went on to win multiple elections.

He warned the political movement risked losing support if it continued to stifle what he said was “legitimate debate” on the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

“That cannot be the way that we continue. Otherwise, we will see what happened to the US Democrats happen with us as our members and supporters drift off, and we cannot have that,” Husic said.

Good morning, Nick Visser here to snag the blog. Let’s get to it.

Luca Ittimani

More on the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors’ CEO pay report, which reveals that Life360’s founder Chris Hulls was the top-paid chief executive of an Australian-listed company in 2025’s financial year.

Hulls earned $47.7m in realised pay, which was about 437 times more than the average Australian full-time adult worker.

The other top earners were also heads of ASX-listed companies headquartered overseas: ResMed’s Mick Farrell took home $35.1m and News Corp’s Robert Thomson $33.5m. Thomson had been last year’s top earner.

Out of the 200 biggest ASX-listed companies, the CEO with the lowest realised pay in 2025 was Temple & Webster’s Mark Coulter at $506,000.

ACSI’s Louise Davidson said Australian investors were doing a good job at keeping a lid on executive pay. Fixed pay for the top 100 companies rose 4% to a median $1.83m, still below 2012 levels. The difference is made up by bonuses: the median ASX100 CEO received 70.7% of their maximum bonus, on the higher end. Just five CEOs missed out on their bonus. Nine CEOs received termination payments averaging $2.2m each.

Top 100 CEOs paid a median $4.8m in 2025, analysis shows

Luca Ittimani

Chief executives of Australia’s 100 biggest companies earned a median $4.8m in realised pay in 2025’s financial year, a 16% increase from 2024, a new report has found.

The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors has calculated take-home pay, which includes reported pay plus bonuses, vested shares and other extras.

At the 100 biggest ASX companies, the $4.8m median was the highest recorded over the 12 years the calculations have been done. Two Australian-based CEOs had realised pay above $30m – Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake and Goodman’s Greg Goodman – where none did in 2024. Incumbent CEOs tended to see higher pay gains. The average hit $6m.

ACSI found the gap between top CEOs and ordinary workers was the same as in 2024, with chief executives again earning 55 times the average Australian adult’s weekly full-time earnings as of May 2025. Average earnings have slowed since then so the gap may have widened.

Welcome

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Nick Visser with the main action.

Ed Husic has warned the Labor party that it risks losing voter support in a similar way to the Democrats in the US if it continues to respond to questions around Palestinian rights with “fear and loathing”. More coming up.

Chief executives of Australia’s 100 biggest companies earned $4.8m in realised pay in 2025’s financial year, a 16% increase from 2024. We have more details on that shortly.