As it happened: Migration intake too high, voters say; 2026 Commonwealth Games cancelled in Victoria

In an interview with Channel Ten’s The Project, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe revealed she is receiving formal protection after experiencing death threats.

Thorpe said there was “pretty serious” backlash to her June 14 speech in the Senate where she accused a fellow senator of sexually assaulting and harassing her. Thorpe withdrew the allegation, citing the “rules of the senate”.

“I’ve felt very unsafe over the last few weeks,” Thorpe told The Project’s Hamish McDonald.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want me in parliament, don’t want me alive,” she continued.

Thorpe also discussed her opposition to the proposed Voice to parliament, and said that she doesn’t recognise King Charles III as sovereign, but as “a violent invader”.

“He wasn’t personally responsible, but he relished in the wealth that has been created on the back of slavery and massacres and murder.”

That’s where we’ll leave today’s live blog coverage. Here are the headlines you need to know from today.

• An exclusive survey conducted for the Herald and The Age found a majority of voters believe Australia’s migrant intake is too high. Only 3 per cent of voters regarded the nation’s overseas migration numbers as being “too low”, while 59 per cent said they were “too high” and 25 per cent believed they were “about right”.
• The fallout from Victoria’s scrapping of the 2026 Commonwealth Games continued, with pundits weighing in on all sides. We covered the consequences of the cancellation, including speaking to some of the athletes who are devastated by the cancellation.
• A proposed levy on the almost $10 billion universities make each year from international student fees could be used to pay for student housing or research, says Education Minister Jason Clare, as he unveils proposals to fund 1.8 million more tertiary students by 2050.

• The northern hemisphere is sweltering as an unrelenting heatwave sweeps across southern Europe, temperatures skyrocket across North America, and flash flooding ravages the US east coast and parts of Asia.
• Ahead of tomorrow’s cinematic release of Barbie, reviews have started to trickle in for the highly anticipated film. We asked, does the movie live up to the insane hype?

Thanks for joining us.

In an interview with Channel Ten’s The Project, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe revealed she is receiving formal protection after experiencing death threats.

Thorpe said there was “pretty serious” backlash to her June 14 speech in the Senate where she accused a fellow senator of sexually assaulting and harassing her. Thorpe withdrew the allegation, citing the “rules of the senate”.

“I’ve felt very unsafe over the last few weeks,” Thorpe told The Project’s Hamish McDonald.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want me in parliament, don’t want me alive,” she continued.

Thorpe also discussed her opposition to the proposed Voice to parliament, and said that she doesn’t recognise King Charles III as sovereign, but as “a violent invader”.

“He wasn’t personally responsible, but he relished in the wealth that has been created on the back of slavery and massacres and murder.”

Business columnist Elizabeth Knight has given her view on the Victoria Commonwealth Games debacle, calling the backflip “a massive case of project mismanagement”.

Whether it was the state government’s stuff-up, or the consultants who advised it, it is implausible that a project that was costed at $2.6 billion last year can come in at around $7 billion now.

One of these two figures was, or is, a fiction. Probably both.”

Knight argues that the fiasco will add further fuel to the view that governments should reduce their reliance on consultants, especially in the wake of the PwC scandal and resulting federal Senate inquiry.

There is certainly a school of thought that consultants tend to give their clients what they want to hear.”

You can read Knight’s full column here.