Australia news as it happened: Annual inflation remains steady, ABS figures show; MPs respond to news PM was forced to evacuate The Lodge over security threat

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.

Here’s a look back at some of the day’s major stories:

• Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed annual inflation was steady at 3.8 per cent through the 12 months to the end of January. Underlying inflation, closely watched by the Reserve Bank, was up by 0.3 per cent in January, taking the annual rate up slightly to 3.4 per cent and leaving the Reserve Bank poised to hit the economy with an interest rate hike before the May budget.
• A bomb threat that forced the evacuation of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese from his official Canberra residence came after an email that claimed explosives had been planted around The Lodge and would be detonated unless performances by a Chinese dance troupe were cancelled.
• US President Donald Trump delivered the longest ever State of the Union address. Trump took a triumphant tone in the speech, which clocked over 100 minutes, saying “our nation is back bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before”.
• Government ministers have been directed by Albanese to find billions of dollars in cuts and delay spending to avoid adding fuel to the inflation fire ahead of the May budget. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher confirmed this morning that the government was seeking “significant savings” in its next budget.
• WiseTech Global announced it would cut roughly 2000 staff – nearly one-third of its workforce of 7000 – over the next two years as chief executive Zubin Appoo bets the logistics software giant’s future on artificial intelligence.

Thanks again for joining us.

Australia has suffered its first major round of AI job cuts as the country’s largest locally listed software company axed almost one-third of its workforce to manage deep fears in financial markets that new coding tools will make big technology firms vulnerable to disruption.

WiseTech Global will cut about 2000 staff – nearly one-third of its workforce of 7000 – over the next two years as chief executive Zubin Appoo bets the logistics software giant’s future on artificial intelligence.

Some teams face headcount reductions of up to 50 per cent, starting with product development and customer service, after the company realised that recent AI tool releases such as Claude Opus 4.6 from the US giant Anthropic in February had changed how software could be built.

Appoo rejected the suggestion that cutting nearly a third of the workforce risked degrading the company’s products, which are ubiquitous for freight forwarders and customs documentation.

“We’re not halving the capacity,” Appoo said. “We’re halving the human capacity, but we’re significantly increasing the overall capacity through agentic AI.”

Read the full story by David Swan here.

Bondi gunman Naveed Akram has been denied a visit from his family members after a search of their car found a fruit knife and a handwritten note.

NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon confirmed Corrective Services stopped the family of the 24-year-old prisoner outside the super-max jail in Goulburn on Saturday.

“A search was conducted with the vehicle and found what has been described as a fruit knife and other pieces of writing,” Lanyon told reporters on Wednesday.

Counter-terrorism police investigated the note and deemed it unrelated to terrorism matters. Lanyon would not divulge details of what the note contained.

AAP

Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has revealed how the “disaster” in Australian housing policy has affected him and his family.

Henry said he had stood alongside his children as they sought to buy a home in Sydney, only to be out-bid by investors who had the financial advantage of the tax system supporting them.

“There would be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of parents in Australia who could tell the same story: stories of standing at an auction, seeing their kids – potential owner-occupiers – being out-bid by investors,” he said.

Henry pushed back at claims by the housing industry that the sector was over-taxed.

He noted that because of negative gearing, rental housing actually cost the federal budget.

Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has bemoaned the state of the nation’s tax system, saying it was full of holes, suffered from deliberate negligence and encouraged higher-income earners to find “creative ways” to reduce their tax.

Henry, giving evidence this afternoon to a Senate inquiry into the capital gains tax, said the tax system was clearly struggling with little reform in recent years.

He said given the Hawke and then Howard governments had sliced the top marginal tax rate from 60 per cent to 45 per cent, it should be even lower today.

“After all the work that was done, we should have been able to get the top marginal rate of tax ... to [one with] a 3 in front of it,” he said.

Henry said the current tax structure, including capital gains tax and negative gearing, effectively made investment in the rental market a tax avoidance system.

“Rental property investments are primarily under Australian tax law a vehicle for sheltering wage and salary income from tax,” he said.