What we covered today

Thanks for joining our national news live blog for Thursday, June 11. Here’s what made news today:

Politics: Liberal and National party leaders have denied a plan to collude with One Nation to oust Labor from power, as treasurer Jim Chalmers accused the right-wing parties of working together to entrench a broken status quo. It followed South Australian Liberal frontbencher Tony Pasin urging his party to discuss working with One Nation to avoid competing against each other.
Meanwhile, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has made his most full-throated defence of his contentious budget while rounding on the Liberal Party and One Nation for wanting no change to a “generational crisis” in the housing market.
Brittany Higgins is returning to frontline politics, launching a campaign against One Nation and what she describes as a rising tide of “misogyny, extremism and anti-democratic movements” in Australia.
Consumer affairs: Optus breached Australian privacy law by failing to protect customers’ personal information from being wrongly published in the White Pages, the Australian Privacy Commissioner has found. Commissioner Carly Kind finalised a long-running investigation into disclosures that occurred between October 2015 and September 2019, finding Optus failed to take reasonable steps to prevent unauthorised publication, despite previous warnings and known weaknesses in its systems.
US: President Donald Trump’s planned UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House (due Monday) has required a monumental effort from more than seven federal agencies, hundreds of staff working on site daily and at least AU$85.5 million. The plan is subject to an ongoing court challenge.
Middle East: Iran has retaliated against US air and cruise missile strikes as hostilities escalated Thursday with attacks against Kuwait and Bahrain in renewed fighting after U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Tehran would “pay the price” for stalled negotiations. The exchange came shortly after the U.S. launched a second round of airstrikes overnight Thursday.

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yesterday 5.48pm

US-Iran talks still on track despite trading attacks

Talks to reach a deal between Washington and Iran are still on track after overnight negotiations, CNN reported on Thursday, citing a diplomatic source.

The US and Iran traded air attacks for a second straight day on Thursday, with President Donald Trump vowing further strikes if Tehran does not immediately agree to a peace deal.

Reuters

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yesterday 5.32pm

The weather bureau is expecting the next few months to be hot and dry – by winter standards – with an El Niño likely to form by spring.

The long-range forecast for July to September put out by the Bureau of Meteorology this afternoon across most of Australia, shows:

Rainfall is likely to be below average across parts of southern and eastern Australia. There is 40-60 per cent chance of unusually low rainfall across parts of south-west Western Australia and south-east Australia.
Temperatures are likely to be above average south of the tropics and overnight temperatures are likely to be above average for much of Australia. The chance of unusually high maximum and minimum temperatures across much of Southern Australia including eastern NSW and Victoria is more than 60 per cent.
Sea surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific now exceed El Niño thresholds, while atmospheric indicators are also starting to align with an El Niño state. The BoM will only declare an El Niño once there is a sustained atmospheric response.

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Cricket Australia chairman Mike Baird has been called up before a parliamentary committee investigating the KPMG whistleblower scandal. He was a member of the KPMG board which pushed for more scrutiny of the allegations.

Tony Pasin in the House of Representatives.Dominic Lorrimer

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor.Alex Ellinghausen

Townsville mayor Nick Dametto.Cameron Laird

Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler has been explaining the new changes to the NDIS since unveiling an overhaul two months ago.Alex Ellinghausen

Pauline Hanson with Rod Caddies, the WA state leader of One Nation, in Midland, an eastern suburb of Perth where One Nation held an event this week.Trevor Collens

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Australia news as it happened: Coalition leaders rubbish idea of One Nation non-compete clause; Optus breached privacy rules; JB Hi-Fi to refund customers over misleading prices