Australia news LIVE: Rogue migration lawyers to be targeted in federal crackdown; US sends thousands of additional troops to Middle East as Trump weighs new strikes on Iran

Updated October 2, 2026 — 10:11am,first published October 2, 2026 — 6:45am

Hello and welcome back to our rolling coverage of national and world news for this Friday, October 2. Here’s what you need to know today.

• Lawyers who lodge visa applications that they know have little chance of success will face tougher consequences under a federal crackdown on misconduct in the Australian migration system. Assistant Minister for Citizenship Julian Hill will use a speech today to outline the proposed changes.
• Some Australians will likely continue to encounter card payment surcharges at the checkout into the weekend despite the RBA’s ban coming into effect yesterday, after business lobby groups warned many smaller shops – particularly those run by migrants – have been left in the dark about how the new payment system works.
• The opposition has criticised the Albanese government’s decision to join a $200 million bailout of Rio Tinto’s Bell Bay smelter in Tasmania, despite saying they would have made the same decision if in government.
• Abroad, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot accused of trying to crash a flight to Israel had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination” leading him to stab the pilot and plunge the aircraft towards the ground in a horrifying ordeal for 174 passengers and crew. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump claimed, without evidence, that Iran might be linked to the incident.
• And the US military is dispatching about 9000 troops aboard a group of ships to the Middle East as Trump weighs new strikes against Iran.

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The family of Renee Good, one of two US citizens fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January, sued the Trump administration, saying there had been “no accountability” for her killing during deportation sweeps.

Good, 37, was shot dead in her car by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on January 7 when she and her wife joined one of the city’s daily protests against masked and armed federal agents deployed to Minnesota to arrest migrants for deportation.

The two lawsuits accuse Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Good, and senior Trump administration officials of unconstitutional negligence and excessive force that violated the civil rights of Good and others in Minneapolis, demanding a jury trial and damages. They are among the first major civil actions taken against US President Donald Trump for his unprecedented deportation sweeps in Minneapolis.

“What happened to Renee was completely senseless and the fact that there’s been no accountability, no investigation, no expression of condolence, no change in policy is completely mind-blowing,” Brett Ganger, Good’s brother, said. “What happened to America? Something must change now.”

Ross could not be reached for comment on Thursday, while a White House spokeswoman called the lawsuits baseless.

Reuters

International students will have to pay about $1200 for a new visa if they want to change universities under a federal crackdown on visa-hopping.

Most students and graduates will also be barred from bringing partners and children to Australia, with exemptions for PhD students, scholarship holders and people from ASEAN and Pacific nations.

Assistant Minister for International Education Julian Hill announced the changes today, warning the government was targeting migrants who move between temporary visas in an attempt to stay in Australia permanently.

Temporary migrants on working holiday or employer-sponsored visas will also be blocked from applying for student visas while in Australia.

The government is seeking to reduce net overseas migration from almost 300,000 a year to 225,000 by 2028.

Hill also outlined tougher measures against migration agents, lawyers and other intermediaries accused of exploiting loopholes in the visa system.

Online gaming platforms are “acting more like social media platforms”, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has warned, as she urged gaming providers to strengthen measures to protect young people.

A new eSafety report published today found a lack of methods were in place to detect harmful and illegal material on gaming platforms, including at Valve, provider of the Steam and Steam Chat platforms, and Epic Games, which publishes popular video game Fortnite.

Speaking to ABC’s Radio National, Inman Grant said the two platforms had failed to comply with industry codes and standards on age assurance and age verification.

“We have said clearly in our regulatory guidance that you have to offer more than one version of age assurance or verification ... We’ve told them what their requirements are, and they’re looking at the other privacy-preserving age assurance tools that they may be able to offer.”

The commissioner noted that, similarly to social media platforms, gaming platforms were employing tactics to keep children online for longer.

“They’re introducing new services like dating services and shopping malls, where the primary demographic is eight to 13, and they’re allowing adults to intermingle ... So you know, this is what’s concerning.”

Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, says she is ready to pass on the leadership after 10 years in the job.

She hinted during a press conference earlier in the week that she might not stay in the role when her term ends at the beginning of 2027.

“I think 10 years is a good round solid number … We’ve increased the office tenfold. We’ve done amazing things. I think with the new digital duty of care [bill], I’m going to be actively shaping that to the extent that I can and getting all the right pieces in place. But it’s probably time for new leadership,” she told ABC Radio National this morning.

“This is not an easy gig from a personal perspective, but also professionally. It’s been the role of a lifetime, and you know, to be able to try and make some positive change has been an incredible opportunity. But yeah, I think it [is] time to be thinking about what’s next.”

David Shoebridge has hit back at Labor MP Josh Burns after he accused the Greens leader of prejudice in comments he made about the party’s relationship with the Jewish Australian community.

Shoebridge said that there were Jewish Australians who shared his party’s views on Gaza when he was asked about social cohesion earlier this week.

Burns, who is Jewish, said yesterday that Shoebridge’s remarks were “shocking”.

“The Jewish community should not be put into categories of good and bad based on their views of what is happening in the Middle East; that is not progressive leadership,” he said. “That’s prejudice.”

Nashville: Christa Pike is critically ill and receiving “life-saving medical care” in hospital after she survived two attempts by Tennessee to execute her with lethal injections, her lawyers say.

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in the 1990s after being convicted of a murder she carried out as a teenager. Her botched execution at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, the second this year in Tennessee, highlights the difficulties US states face in carrying out lethal injections and finding suitable alternative methods of capital punishment.

“Christa is alive right now,” Randall Spivey, one of Pike’s lawyers, said overnight after witnessing the execution attempt.

“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now.”

Opposition spokesman for education Julian Leeser says he has sought clarity on how the government’s Thriving Kids program will roll out in schools, but has received “very little”.

Thriving Kids is the initiative that seeks to provide early intervention support outside the NDIS. It was announced in August by Health Minister Mark Butler.

Asked whether he was satisfied with the information the government had provided about how the program, which launches today, would roll out to schools, Leeser told ABC Radio National:

“Ever since Thriving Kids was announced, I’ve been asking state education teachers and administrators. I’ve been asking people in the Catholic and independent sector, and people can tell me very little.”

He said there were more questions than answers about its implementation.

“The website doesn’t tell you very much. I mean, how does it help a parent who is not sure whether their child needs moderate or high support? Where is the line to be drawn there? What is the role here for teachers and schools, and how does this actually create any additional services in terms of occupational therapists or speech therapists?”

Washington: The US military is dispatching about 9000 troops aboard ships to the Middle East, a US official said.

The bolstering of the American military presence comes as US President Donald Trump warned anew that new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon.

The troop movement, which includes a third aircraft carrier, underscores the rapidly evolving dynamic of Trump’s war against Iran as he ponders his next move, with US midterm elections looming large and new signs that the nature of the conflict may be becoming more complex.

In a Time magazine interview published overnight, Trump said it was “possible” that he would ramp up bombing in Iran after the November 3 elections.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has slammed the Albanese government’s $200 million bailout of Rio Tinto’s Bell Bay aluminium smelter, saying it was an example of “net zero lies and madness killing Australian manufacturing”.

“Yet another smelter is on the brink. And Albanese hands out a taxpayer-funded Band-Aid while Chris Bowen keeps piling on costs through his climate safeguard mechanism,” she wrote on social media.

The leader of the minor party also repeated her vow to scrap net zero and abolish the government’s climate change programs.

“We must use our own resources and stand on our own two feet,” the post said.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor also criticised the bailout during a press conference yesterday, but said the Coalition would have done the same if it were in government.

London: Police have arrested a dual UK-Iranian national on suspicion of plotting a terror attack following a security incident at a US-run military air base in England that British authorities have linked to Tehran.

The 25-year-old man was arrested in central London overnight, and police have searched two properties in the city.

Five men, all British nationals in their 20s and from London, were arrested last weekend on suspicion of explosives and terror offences close to the RAF Fairford air base, which has been used by American bombers to strike Iran. The suspects have since been released on bail.

Police later said they had found a quantity of an accelerant – petrol – in three vans linked to the five suspects, but no explosives.