As it happened: PFAS parliamentary inquiry announced; new laws to stop pets being weaponised in divorce

Thanks for reading the national news blog. This is where we’ll end today’s coverage.

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

• ABC managing director David Anderson has announced his resignation from the public broadcaster 3½years before the end of his second term in the role. The announcement came five months after new ABC chairman Kim Williams took up his post, a period in which he has been critical of the organisation. Anderson told ABC Melbourne radio the greatest challenge he’s faced as the broadcaster’s leader is protecting his staff as they do a “public service for all Australians”.
• Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner Leanne Close told the West Australian Supreme Court of her shock after discovering she was “in the middle of a potential crime scene” midway through a meeting with Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds about Brittany Higgins′ alleged rape.
• Federal parliament will hold a broad-ranging national inquiry into the dangers posed by cancer-causing “forever chemicals” to the Australian public. The announcement of the probe follows months of sustained pressure over revelations from this masthead that the substances are circulating in Australian drinking water and hundreds of household products.
• The Tongan government has invited mercurial billionaire Elon Musk to attend the Pacific Islands Leaders forum in Tonga next week. If he chooses to accept the invite, offered in recognition of the role his Starlink satellite internet service plays in providing telecommunications services to Pacific Islanders, Musk will rub shoulders with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and an array of leaders from across the Pacific.

• And in business news, the local sharemarket has finished higher for a tenth straight day, its longest winning streak since December 2015, after US stocks ticked higher overnight on the back of better-than-expected company earnings.

Thanks again for joining us. This is Cassandra Morgan, signing off.

Chief political correspondent David Crowe writes that Treasurer Jim Chalmers managed to get under Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s skin during question time this week:

Treasurer Jim Chalmers had a sharp line in parliament this week when he ridiculed the Opposition Leader for asking so many questions about Palestinians. Chalmers had good cause for some targeted mockery: while Australians are caught in an economic crunch, Peter Dutton spends all his time talking about a foreign war.

“All we get from those opposite is another day of doubling down on divisiveness and diversion,” Chalmers said at the end of question time on Tuesday. The treasurer highlighted a demonstrable truth: that shadow treasurer Angus Taylor had been mostly silent while Dutton had made every question about people fleeing the war in Gaza. That followed an earlier jibe from Chalmers – that Dutton will not even give Taylor a turn on the dog whistle.

“Every single question was on the Middle East and not one single question was on middle Australia,” Chalmers said on Tuesday. He was right. The Coalition has barely mentioned the cost of living in parliament this week.

Read David Crowe’s full opinion piece here.

The Australian sharemarket has finished higher for a tenth straight day, its longest winning streak since December 2015, after US stocks ticked higher overnight on the back of better-than-expected company earnings.

The S&P/ASX 200 rose 16.50 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 8,027.00, with most sectors in the green, led by information technology (up 1.9 per cent), while healthcare and financial stocks tracked down slightly, and utilities dropped 0.5 per cent.

WiseTech was the biggest large cap advancer yet again, climbing 7.8 per cent following its gains on Wednesday, when the logistics software developer reported a 28 per cent jump in revenue. The stock hit a record high of more than $122 during the session. CEO Richard White, who owns a 35.2 per cent stake, saw his personal wealth leap by some $3.4 billion to more than $14 billion over two days.

You can read our full five-minute recap of the trading day here.

The Greens fear Labor is working towards “even more of a user-pays” aged care model as the government keeps up talks with the Coalition.

Leader Adam Bandt told ABC Afternoon Briefings his party would look to tax reform to overhaul aged care, sticking with the principle that, “in a society where one in three corporations pays no tax and a nurse pays more tax than a multinational, something is wrong”.

Here’s what Bandt had to say:

“One of the things we have seen this week is that as the election gets closer, Labor is choosing to work much more closely with the Liberals than the Greens to rip money out of the NDIS, and now if the reports are correct, working with the Coalition to move aged care towards even more of a user-pays model.

“The more and more that Labor and the Liberals do these deals to say we are going to shift the costs down onto everyday people, instead of taking on the big corporations who are paying no tax or reining in the unfair tax breaks for those very wealthy and the billionaires, I think people will wonder, what kind of society are we going to end up living in?

“If we make the big corporations pay their fair share of tax, we can fund things … but it seems that Labor would much rather work with the Liberals.”

The opening date of the Parramatta light rail has been delayed again after the government’s latest tests on the nearly $3 billion project, which began in December last year, uncovered power supply problems and issues with Opal card readers.

The light rail, stretching 12 kilometres from Westmead to Carlingford through the Parramatta CBD, was due to open in the middle of this year after earlier being delayed from late 2023.

But Transport Minister Jo Haylen confirmed this afternoon the project would most likely open towards the end of the year.

She said the government was “ironing out the kinks in the system” but that there was “a bit more work to do”.

“The testing process has identified some issues for the contractor and Transport for NSW to fix, which is the whole point of the process,” Haylen said.