Australia news as it happened: Dutton says government allowed 81 ‘hardcore criminals’ into community; Identity of ‘third party’ behind Optus outage revealed

Good evening and thanks for following along with our national news blog today. In case you missed anything, here are some of the developments we have covered:

• New legislation will be introduced tomorrow to deal with immigration detainees set free after High Court decision
• Australian shares have posted their best performance in four months
• Lobster might be back on Chinese menus after Trade Minister Don Farrell said he hopes a deal with Beijing to lift longstanding export barriers might be executed by Christmas
• The Greens have urged the government to be cautious when devising its legislation to deal with the High Court decision that freed 83 people in immigration detention
• ‘Nasty and vindictive’: The water wars of the Murray Darling Basin plan fired up in federal parliament
• Opposition leader Peter Dutton has called on Anthony Albanese to cancel his upcoming US trip amid a rise in antisemitism

The blog will be back tomorrow morning but until then, have a lovely evening.

And in a late development, the Albanese government will tomorrow introduce new laws to deal with a landmark High Court ruling which found it was illegal to hold people in immigration detention indefinitely and hopes to pass the legislation by the end of the week.

And taking a look at the markets now, where Australian stocks have posted their best performance in four months after US inflation data came in weaker than expected, supporting the view the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hiking cycle is over.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index on Wednesday finished up 99.2 points, or 1.42 per cent, to an eight-week high of 7,105.9, while the broader All Ordinaries gained 109.6 points, or 1.52 per cent, to 7,316.7.

US inflation came in slightly softer than expected, with core consumer prices rising 4.0 per cent in the year to October, from 4.1 per cent from in September.

GSFM investment strategist Stephen Miller said the readout suggested the US rate-hiking cycle was in abeyance, probably indefinitely.

While there was still one more monthly consumer price readout before the Federal Reserve meets in December, it was difficult to see a number that would cause the Fed to enact a rate hike at its final meeting for 2023, Mr Miller said.

Closer to home, the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday reported wages rose 1.3 per cent in the September - the highest quarterly growth in the 26-year history of the wage price index.

But ANZ economists Catherine Birch and Madeline Dunk said the record growth was widely expected and given that it was partly driven by temporary factors, the data would not concern the Reserve Bank as much as might be expected on face value. AAP

Before question time, the Greens held a press conference arguing the government should not rush through legislation on the High Court decision that indefinite detention is illegal.

“We are talking about one of the most fundamental rights in any liberal democracy which is the right to freedom … [it] should not be an absolute right, but it should only be good times in situations of the highest necessity,” the Greens immigration spokesperson, Senator Nick McKim, said.

“What we are seeing from the government, it seems, is a willingness to work with Peter Dutton to rush legislation through this parliament to override or at least curtail that fundamental right … that should never be done in a panicked rush.”

McKim said if Labor puts through legislation, it could constitute more issues in the future.

“It will be somewhere between difficult and impossible for the government to legislate out of that High Court decision because it was a constitutional decision not based on legislation but based on the Constitution,” he said.

Earlier in Senate question time, Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed that the government intended to introduce legislation to respond to the High Court decision which has resulted in up to 83 detainees being released from immigration detention.

Shadow minister for home affairs James Paterson asked Wong what consequences the detainees faced if they breached the conditions of their bridging visas.

“If visas have now been granted to these people, what are the consequences if they … breach the conditions of those visas, is it the case that breaching a visa requires that they be detained pending deportation which the High Court has ruled is not applicable for this cohort?” Paterson asked.

Wong answered: “I am advised that this is one of the consequences of this decision of the High Court and I can indicate to the chamber that the government intends to introduce legislation shortly to respond to the decision of the High Court and we look forward to the opposition’s support in that regard.”