Australia news LIVE: Labor weighs security upgrades for MPs as Haines’ condition ‘critical but stable’; Canavan eyes lower house move

Updated October 23, 2026 — 11:20am,first published October 23, 2026 — 6:45am

Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of national and world news for this Friday, October 23. Here’s what is making headlines this morning.

• Indi MP Helen Haines remains in a critical but stable condition after losing both her legs in an attack outside her electorate office in Wangaratta on Monday afternoon. A fundraiser for Save the Children has raised more than $600,000 in her honour.
• Politicians could receive bolstered police protection and security for homes and offices under options being weighed by Labor to address mounting safety concerns among MPs after the attack on Haines.
• Nationals MP Michelle Landry is expected to announce her retirement today, paving the way for party leader Matt Canavan to announce a move to the lower house at the next election, according to the ABC. Canavan is set to nominate for preselection to run as the Nationals candidate in the Queensland electorate of Capricornia.
• And Labor’s controversial invite-only election grant program “piqued” the interest of the acting head of Australia’s corruption watchdog during an inquiry yesterday, as departmental staff were grilled over the funding promises one legal expert says amounts to “grey corruption”.

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The Prince of Wales has become the first ever British Royal to appear on the popular Graham Norton Show, marking the debut alongside Australian legends Cate Blanchett and Robert Irwin.

Price William made the surprise visit to the sit-down talk-show as a special edition to promote the Earthshot Prize – a global environmental award launched in 2020 by William and The Royal Foundation – an initiative Blanchett, Irwin and Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham are also involved in.

During the episode, which airs Saturday (AEDT), Norton had the three stars on the sofa to discuss the award before surprising them, and the audience, by inviting the prince to join, according to the BBC.

The group discussed the need to pair optimism and urgency when tackling climate change, the BBC also reported, as well as William’s long-time support for Aston Villa and love of Christopher Nolan films.

Blanchett said the prize was a “tapestry of solutions,” according to GB News, while Irwin said it helped galvanise younger generations towards environmental action.

William drew inspiration from former US President John F Kennedy’s Moonshot project – an initiative challenging scientists encouraging astronauts to the Moon and back safely – to establish the prize. He has committed to the prize until 2030, and this year’s winners will be announced in Mumbai in November.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s attempt to explain away a reported “dirt file” on Helen Haines is “not good enough”, independent senator David Pocock said in a statement issued this morning.

Haines’ integrity was “beyond question”, Pocock said.

“Helen is one of the most principled people I know.

Australia Post chief executive Paul Graham will retire in the middle of next year to round out more than five years in the role.

Graham has steered the postal service through a period of transformation and restructuring that led to parcel deliveries becoming the major revenue driver while letter deliveries, which are in long-term decline, shifted to every second business day.

The former Woolworths executive also lifted the cost of the basic postage stamp to $1.50, accelerated the network’s digital transformation and expanded 24/7 parcel lockers in major metropolitan hubs.

He was also a key figure in renegotiating deals with the big four banks to pay higher fees that flowed to local post offices, which became proxy bank tellers processing more than $10 billion in cash every year in the face of bank branch closures.

“Australia Post is a remarkable organisation with a unique place in the lives and hearts of the Australian community, and I am extremely proud of what our team has achieved,” Graham said in a statement.

“We have worked hard to ensure Australia Post remains one of the very few national postal operators to not require government funding and remain in public hands, while continuing to invest and grow our operations and supporting our team members, licensees and the Australian community.”

People needed rescuing from floodwater as a severe thunderstorm battered the northern Greater Brisbane region yesterday.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a warning for flash flooding between the Sunshine Coast and the state border, including Brisbane, Caboolture, and Ipswich, and a second front threatened residents south of the city.

“This [storm] will be the first big one and certainly the one that’s bringing the most intense rainfall,” senior meteorologist Angus Hines said.

From 6.30am to 2pm yesterday, 277 SES call-outs were made, with most in Moreton Bay, and almost a quarter from the Sunshine Coast region.

Read the full update here.

Liberal senator Sarah Henderson has called for Energy Minister Chris Bowen to be sacked following revelations the cost of the Snowy Hydro 2.0 energy project could reach $25 billion.

She told News24 this morning that the Albanese government had displayed “sheer incompetence” in its management of the project.

“The only thing that can happen now is for the prime minister to sack Chris Bowen. This is gross mismanagement. There was a change in the way that the contract was managed back in 2023, which has contributed to the blowout,” Henderson said.

She accused Bowen of wasting public money and said there was every possibility the total cost could blow out to over $40 billion.

Minister for Emergency Management Kristy McBain says the government will not abandon the Snowy Hydro 2.0 project despite a $22.2 billion cost blowout.

Updated advice released by Snowy Hydro Limited last night revealed the potential price tag of the problem-plagued energy project could reach $25 billion, marking the most severe setback yet for Australia’s largest renewable energy development.

The review also found the facility may be operational a year later than initially promised.

But the government has no plans to walk away from the project, which McBain described as “generational”.

“Now that the project is 65 per cent complete, we need this project completed because we need it to be dispatching energy to the grid,” McBain told ABC’s Radio National.

“We want to see it complete.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has said overnight that “illegitimate” protests would be banned in the coming days and blamed “seditious” ultra-left groups and vandals for last weekend’s riots and looting.

Speaking after a meeting with intelligence chiefs and senior ministers, Macron said demonstrations organised by groups such as trade unions would be allowed to go ahead but could be diverted along alternative routes to protect businesses.

“Last Saturday we had political and seditious acts by ultra-left groups whose aim is to bring down the Republic,” he said.

His comments came as authorities across France prepared for fresh protests following some of the country’s worst urban unrest in years.

Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume accused the prime minister of having a “tenuous” relationship with the truth after he denied suggestions yesterday that his office had compiled a “dirt sheet” on Helen Haines.

“There is no doubt that his office circulated this file that didn’t just list the projects that Helen Haines had requested, they also implied that she had some sort of conflict of interest,” she told Sunrise this morning.

“But the prime minister’s tenuous relationship with the truth is becoming a pattern of behaviour … The fact is, the prime minister has denied that there was any problem with this. Just own it. If he can justify its existence, justify it. If he can’t, he should own it and just apologise. But he seems to be unable to do that.”

Appearing alongside Hume on a regular panel was Health Minister Mark Butler, who said he had seen dirt sheets during his time in parliament and that this was certainly not one.

“Dirt sheets tend to sort of imply, you know, scandalous behaviour, and say things that people aren’t willing to say in the parliament,” he said.

“There was a list of the projects that Helen was advocating for in the lead-up to the election, like every lower house member … I just don’t think there’s anything remarkable about that.”

Health Minister Mark Butler says there is a time for political debate but that politicians and the media should refrain from discussing reports the prime minister’s office circulated a “dirt sheet” on member for Indi Helen Haines “this week of all weeks”.

Haines is still in hospital in a critical condition after losing both of her legs following an attack outside her electorate office on Monday.

“If people want to have a post-mortem about that debate that involved government members, Coalition members, crossbench members, all of whom made election commitments before the 2025 election. By all means, let’s have a let’s have a debate about that,” Butler told Sunrise this morning.

“This week, of all weeks, when Helen is in a critical condition, I don’t understand why we are devoting energy to this rather than coming together, sending our love, sending our energy to Helen and her family, and having the debate that I think we are rightly having about the tenor of community discussion right now.”

The Greens leader said he was relieved to see Meta facing a class action in Australia for allegations its social media platforms are harming children and that it proved the need for more comprehensive protections in Labor’s Digital Duty of Care.

Shoebridge pointed to features designed to make platforms more addictive and said they should be a focus of the government’s Digital Duty of Care laws.

“What we actually need to do is make the platforms, make Meta, make all of these platforms safe for everybody,” he told Nine’s Today show this morning.

“If we can work through a digital duty of care, so that these platforms do not have as part of their design addictive design, autoplay, auto-scroll, the things that parents are complaining about in this class action, that’s work that parliament can and must do.”

Shoebridge also said the lawsuit was evidence Labor’s social media ban for under-16s had failed.

“The ban … is clearly not working because parents are having to go to court now in a class action to protect their kids.”