As it happened: Hume fashions Mintie necklace during shout-laden, record-setting Senate question time; Tributes flow for Melbourne cricket teen Ben Austin

Thanks for joining us this afternoon. We will be back tomorrow morning with more live coverage. Here’s a quick recap:

• Question time in the Senate descended into a shouting match today, as the government tried to prevent non-government MPs from asking further questions after they voted to extend question time over an unreleased report into Canberra’s “jobs for mates” culture. Coalition senator Jane Hume stole the show at one stage of the record-breaking sitting, making a necklace out of Minties wrappers.
• Meanwhile, the government has introduced its environmental law reforms to parliament. At the National Press Club today, minister Murray Watt defended his controversial change to the so-called national interest provisions. These would enable the minister to approve projects that breach legally binding environment protections.
• Barnaby Joyce has denied an allegation that he shouted at the female staffer of a fellow Nationals MP. The issue has been taken to the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service.
• Woolworths recorded falling earnings in the 2024/25 financial year, while sales were up 3.6 per cent to $69.1 billion but well short of expectations. Chair Scott Perkins said the results reflected the supermarket giant being “distracted by external factors, including a raft of regulatory inquiries, industrial action and CEO succession”.
• Overseas, US President Donald Trump has described his face-to-face with Chinese leader Xi Jinping today as a roaring success, saying he would cut tariffs on China, while Beijing had agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and start buying American soybeans. Read more here.
• People across the northern Caribbean are digging out from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa, as deaths from the catastrophic storm climb to at least 25.
• An Australian man living in the United States faces a likely jail sentence after pleading guilty to stealing defence trade secrets from his American employer for a Russian broker.
• In Victoria, tributes are flowing for a teenage boy who died when struck by a cricket ball while training (see below). The accident has been likened to the ball that claimed the life of Australian batsman Phil Hughes a decade ago.
• In NSW, correctional officers have been ordered back to work after a snap strike. The strike was triggered when an inmate who bashed four guards in February was spared a prison.

With Reuters, AAP

Five new suspects have been arrested over the Louvre robbery, French radio station RTL has reported.

French TV station BFM had reported earlier that one further person had been arrested in the Paris region late on Wednesday, and that this man was suspected of being present on the crime scene on October 19 when the heist took place.

Two men arrested last weekend have “partially admitted” their involvement in the heist, the Paris prosecutor said on Wednesday.

Officials at the Paris prosecutor’s department did not immediately respond to requests for a comment on the situation.

Reuters

Question time has officially adjourned in the Senate after running for three and a half hours, setting a record for the Australian Parliament.

According to the Parliamentary Education Office, the longest question time to take place in parliament was in the House of Representatives on February 14, 2019 lasting for 150 minutes.

However, today’s question time went for 210 minutes before adjourning at 5:30pm, with senators fleeing the chamber as soon as the adjournment was announced.

Finance Minister Katie Gallagher ended the session with a speech railing against the non-government senators, saying they “didn’t land a blow”, and were all “racing out to get their little trolley bags and head off to the [Qantas] Chairman’s Lounge.

Environment Minister Murray Watt has risen to his feet to tell the Senate that two Greens senators are at the airport, preparing to return home for the weekend.

He moved a motion for the Senate to remain in question time until the leader of the government in the chamber - in this case Trade Minister Don Farrell - chose for it to end.

“I am aware that there are at least two green senators at the airport, despite wanting to be in question time instead,” Watt said.

“I seek leave to move that the Senate does not adjourn until the leader of the government in the Senate asks that further questions be placed on notice. Because if people are so insistent about doing question time, we are here all night,” Watt said.

The Coalition opposed the move.

The Senate farce, as it has been described by senators and the president of the chamber, is rolling on.

There has just been a division called, so it has suddenly become quiet, but here’s what happened just before then:

After Katy Gallagher joked that Senator Michaelia Cash, who is not in the chamber presently, would have “turned off the livestream” by this point, Liberal senator James McGrath shouted: “What do you think [Foreign Minister] Penny Wong is doing? She’s put a brick through the TV.”

Wong, who typically leads the government in the Senate, is in South Korea with the prime minister.

Earlier, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie was heard shouting out “death to dixers”, regarding Dorothy Dixers (questions government backbenchers ask those on the frontbench).

A group of Buddhist monks entered the public gallery to view the session, but quickly left the chamber.