Australia news as it happened: Barnaby Joyce in talks to join One Nation; Australia promises US a defence revamp ahead of Albanese-Trump meeting

Thanks for reading our national news live blog. Our coverage has now concluded for the day. We will continue our coverage next week.

Here’s a look back at today’s biggest stories:

• Barnaby Joyce is in advanced talks to defect from the Nationals to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party. Such a move by the former Nationals leader would cause another headache for the Coalition after the recent loss of Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to the backbench.
• Melbourne Cup favourite Sir Delius has been scratched from the race, dealing a bitter blow to training partners Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. The five-year-old stallion has also been pulled out of the Cox Plate, robbing Waterhouse of the chance to win the coveted Moonee Valley weight-for-age championship for the first time.
• An intensive foot search of the area surrounding the remote South Australian homestead where Gus Lamont vanished has been called off after no trace of the four-year-old was found. Police said the renewed four-day search at Oak Park Station had concluded without any evidence being found. Gus was last seen at the station homestead by his grandmother at 5pm on September 27.
• US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet to discuss an “end to the war” in Ukraine. A phone call between Trump and Putin has cleared the way for a high-stakes meeting between the pair in Hungary to try to end the war following the ceasefire in Gaza. Trump said the peace deal in the Middle East would help the negotiations over Ukraine. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Russian officials next week to prepare for the leadership summit with Putin.
• Trump has warned Hamas that “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them” if internal bloodshed persists in Gaza. The grim warning came after the US leader previously played down the internal violence in the territory since a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect last week. Trump did not say how he would follow through on his latest threat posted on his Truth Social platform. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking clarity.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers is in the US attending the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and has met key US officials during his visit to Washington, where critical minerals have been high on the agenda. This morning, the treasurer said critical minerals were “an absolutely golden opportunity for Australia” and the government needed to “make the most of” it. The government hopes the country’s supply of critical minerals could be leveraged to convince the US to drop the tariffs it has imposed on Australia.

Melbourne Cup favourite Sir Delius has been scratched from the race, dealing a bitter blow to training partners Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott.

The five-year-old stallion has also been pulled out of the Cox Plate, robbing Waterhouse of the chance to win the coveted Moonee Valley weight-for-age championship for the first time.

Racing Victoria released a statement on Friday afternoon to say that compulsory CT leg scans revealed Sir Delius was at “heightened risk of injury” if the horse ran over the coming three weeks.

The Australian sharemarket closed lower today after hitting a fresh high on Thursday, dragged down by a poor day for energy giants, tech players and banks.

Tensions between China and the US helped drive the gold price to a fresh record.

The S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.8 per cent, or 73.4 points, lower at 8995 points. Eight of the market’s 11 sectors traded in the red. Despite Friday’s losses, the index finished the week 0.4 per cent higher than it began.

On Thursday, Australia’s sharemarket hit a record high after a rise in unemployment sparked bets of interest rate cuts as soon as next month from the Reserve Bank. The Australian dollar is buying US64.74¢ down from US64.94¢ on Thursday at 5pm.

Energy stocks plummeted 2.8 per cent on the back of global crude oil prices falling after US President Donald Trump agreed to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Hungary next week in the hope of resolving the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, gold stocks have rallied again. The precious metal’s price continues to rise to record highs, a trend experts say is probably linked to uncertainty over global trade and the prospect of more interest rate cuts from central banks.

With APP, AP and Reuters

State and territory governments support changing their environmental protection laws to accelerate approvals processes for infrastructure projects such as renewables and housing developments, says Environment Minister Murray Watt.

Watt said current environment protection laws meant approvals had to be repeated at a federal and state level, but talks were progressing to reduce it to a single approvals process.

“One of the things we are trying to achieve through these reforms is to remove that duplication as much as we can and wherever possible, have one level of government undertaking ... the assessment of a project rather than having to double up,” he told the ABC.

“From a business perspective, time is money, so the faster we can get these things through, the better.”