As it happened: Australian activists released from Israeli jail and deported to Jordan; Gaza ceasefire talks continue in Egypt

Thanks for reading our national news live blog. We have now ended our coverage for today and will be back tomorrow morning to cover all the latest developments.

Here’s a look back at the biggest stories:

• A Senate inquiry has been told that when Optus tried to notify the Department of Communications of its September 18 network outage it sent emails to an incorrect and defunct address, meaning the department was not made aware of the Triple Zero failure until it received a phone call from the communications regulator the following afternoon. The revelation put Communications Minister Anika Wells under fresh scrutiny from the Coalition, which peppered her with questions in parliament.
• The Department of Home Affairs has granted citizenship to two of the children of the wives of former Islamic State fighters, secretary Stephanie Foster confirmed in a Senate estimates hearing. This appears to indicate the two children granted citizenship were born overseas.
• The federal government offered a taxpayer bailout to Swiss multinational Glencore’s struggling Mount Isa copper smelter today. Industry Minister Tim Ayres travelled to the north-west Queensland city to announce the deal, which would secure 1100 jobs, the government said. The government has already bailed out the Whyalla Steelworks to the tune of $2.4 billion and is negotiating a lifeline deal for the Tomago aluminium smelter.
• Three judges will make a decision on whether tens of thousands are allowed to march to the Sydney Opera House in a pro-Palestine protest tomorrow morning. Today the NSW Court of Appeal heard that police held significant concerns over safety and the potential for a crowd crush.
• Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong is visiting Australia this week and spoke alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a press conference in Canberra this morning, saying Singapore would commit to deepening its relationship with Australia, including helping Australia become a renewable superpower.

The Australian sharemarket had another dour session as retail and technology stocks took a tumble and investors opted to cash in on the price of gold topping $US4000 an ounce for the first time.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 pared some of its early losses but still finished 9.2 points (down 0.1 per cent) in the red, with seven of the 11 sectors keeping their head above water. The sharemarket, which fell 0.3 per cent on Tuesday, has racked up losses for three straight sessions this week.

Tracking their peers on Wall Street, tech stocks were among the session’s biggest losers, with WiseTech Global, the nation’s biggest IT stock, edging down 0.4 per cent. Accounting software maker Xero lost 1.7 per cent and tracking app Life360 sank 3 per cent.

Consumer discretionary stocks had another bad day, with Bunnings and Officeworks owner Wesfarmers down 2.2 per cent, electronics chain JB Hi-Fi down 1.3 per cent and furniture seller Harvey Norman down 0.6 per cent. The iron ore heavyweights were mixed, with BHP and Fortescue down 0.2 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively, while Rio Tinto rose 0.9 per cent.

The financial sector, which makes up more than a third of the ASX, finished mixed. Commonwealth Bank, the biggest stock on the ASX, closed flat, Westpac slipped 0.3 per cent and NAB closed 0.4 per cent lower. ANZ (up 0.5 per cent) closed in the black.

Read the full market wrap here.

Australia should establish an east coast gas reservation policy setting aside a portion of the nation’s gas for domestic use to avoid overpaying, says Labor MP Ed Husic.

Speaking on the ABC, Husic said part of the problem was foreign buyers of Australian gas were selling it on for massive profits, driving up the price Australia paid for gas.

“Our gas, our prices should be as simple as that,” Husic said.

“Australia’s averaging $10 a gigajoule for gas. In Qatar, you can get [it] for $2.20 and in the US for $3.”

Husic said if foreign buyers were not using Australian gas for themselves and were instead selling it on at a profit “we should have a mechanism to intervene”.

The Coalition supports the government’s $600 million bailout for Glencore’s Mount Isa copper smelter, but unfriendly Labor policies have crippled heavy manufacturing in Australia, opposition industry and science spokesman Alex Hawke said.

The Glencore bailout follows the $2.4 billion support package for the Whyalla steelworks (a joint federal and SA government deal). Multibillion-dollar negotiations to support the Tomago aluminum smelter in NSW are ongoing.

“The simple fact is it’s too expensive to do business in Australia at the moment,” Hawke told the ABC.

“We’re asking the government to get on with the plan of how you actually make it viable to have heavy industry manufacturing in Australia.”

The government should have written in a renewables power purchase agreement when granting Glencore $600 million to keep its Mount Isa copper smelter open, Greens leader Larissa Waters said.

Waters said the bailout was important to ensure workers kept their jobs, but she hoped the government had imposed conditions on Glencore such as a power purchase agreement, binding it to use renewable energy.

“It seems like it is a big wad of free cash with no strings attached, which is perplexing when Glencore, a Swiss multinational, has made record profits in the last few years and so happened to pay no tax at all on that earnings, which is a bit dodgy,” Waters told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.

“Rather than the government just giving free cash to a company … [it] could have instead said … essentially we’ll help you meet your energy needs but do it cleanly.

“I don’t know that is what the government has done, but if it is not too late, that is what they should do.”