Australia news as it happened: Littleproud survives Nationals leadership challenge; police reveal ‘strong belief’ Dezi Freeman is dead amid search for body in Victoria’s High Country

Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage. We will be back tomorrow with the latest news.

To conclude, here’s a look back at some of the day’s major stories:

• The leadership challenge by rogue Nationals MP Colin Boyce against leader David Littleproud failed, but there is mounting pressure on the party to reunite the Coalition.
• Liberal MP Aaron Violi criticised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for comparing the Coalition to the reality-TV show, Married at First Sight, saying the government had failed to protect Australians from cost-of-living pressures.
• An Australian snowboarder has died after a ski lift accident at a Japanese resort.
• Police revealed they have no proof that alleged double police killer Dezi Freeman is still alive, and have returned to Victoria’s High Country in a hunt for his body.
• Former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison has questioned the policy platform of One Nation, suggesting the minor party can’t hope to be considered a party of opposition without feasible policies.
• And overseas, Billie Eilish became the highest profile artist to add her voice to the ICE Out protest movement at the Grammys on Monday, concluding her speech while accepting the award for song of the year (for Wildflower) with “f--- ICE … sorry.”

Thanks again for joining us. This is Isabel McMillan signing off.

Scott Morrison has rejected Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly’s criticism that he risked inflaming community tensions for singling out Muslims in comments he made in Jerusalem last week.

Morrison had called for Australia’s Muslim leaders to license preachers, translate all sermons into English and set up a board to police radicals in a speech at an antisemitism conference.

“[Aly’s response is] predictable, and it follows the pattern of not wanting to confront this issue, and setting up a sort of a straw man argument for things that frankly, I’ve never said,” Morrison told Sky News.

“I don’t want there to be any sense of blame against the Islamic community at all. But what I do want is for religious leaders to be part of the solution here, and to be able to protect their own people in their own faith from that radicalisation.”

Former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison has questioned the policy platform of One Nation, suggesting the minor party can’t hope to be considered a party of opposition without feasible policies.

“Yes, [One Nation is] attracting a lot of support. Maybe that’s out of grievance, frustration, any number of things they’re identifying with. But you know, when a party starts to be attracting those sort of polling numbers, then I think people have a right to ask, OK, well, what are their policies?” Morrison told Sky News.

“What’s their policy on taxation? What’s their policy on immigration? They say, well, we’re trying to cut it. Well, where? Which programs and what are the implications of that? They say they want to do something about the NDIS. Okay, which area is it going to pull back on? And how’s that going to be worked out? How’s that going to get through the parliament?

“I don’t raise those issues necessarily to draw criticism, but I think, you know, parties who pretend to be parties of government have got to have answers to those sorts of questions.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud is being urged by his own MPs to reunite the Coalition.

A motion put by Nationals MP Darren Chester to reconnect with the Liberals after a damaging split was backed by the majority of MPs in a Nationals party room meeting on Wednesday.

Littleproud is due to meet with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley at 6pm.

Liberal sources do not expect Ley to accept the Nationals’ demand to reinstate three MPs who resigned from the frontbench over a breach of shadow cabinet solidarity.