Meanwhile Penny Wong says China has agreed to facilitate exports of jet fuel to ease supply disruptions. Follow today’s news live

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Chalmers understands calls for gas export tax, but says government focused on getting fuel for Australians

Chalmers said he understands calls to tax gas exports, but maintained the government was set on securing international supply arrangements during the ongoing fuel crisis. He told ABC News:

I understand that there is a constituency in the Australian community to go further … But there are also, as the prime minister said, really good reasons to prioritise these international supply arrangements particularly during this oil shock.

All of us have been prioritising getting fuel for Australia and for Australians to keep the economy ticking over and that’s why there are good reasons for the comments that the prime minister made yesterday.

We’ve been very upfront with people and said when we think about the intergenerational unfairness in the budget, in our economy, in our society more broadly, a couple of the drivers of that are in housing, are in the tax system.

The fuel crisis is seeing more voters keen to shift to renewable energy rather than stick with fossil fuels

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Most Australians support taxing profits from gas exports and extending the cut to the fuel excise, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll, despite Anthony Albanese on Wednesday ruling out a new tax on existing gas export contracts.

The poll also found the fuel crisis is seeing more voters keen to shift to renewable energy rather than stick with fossil fuels. Australians also say they are already cutting back on travel, switching to public transport and reducing their use of aircon and heating amid the global fuel uncertainty.

Images in Helen Polley’s post included a marching band, people laying wreaths and ex-serving members giving speeches set to a track by US rapper Chingy

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A federal Labor senator has deleted a social media video which mistakenly included audio of an explicit rap song over a carousel of photos of Anzac Day commemorations.

Senator Helen Polley, a former shadow minister and current chair of parliament’s committee on law enforcement, posted a video compilation of images paying respect to Australia’s defence forces.

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• Australians ‘uneasy’ about NDIS cuts amid $53bn in new defence spending, Mark Butler concedes

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James Valentine’s family has released a statement after his death. Here’s what they had to say:

James passed peacefully at home surrounded by his family, who adored him.

Throughout his illness, James did it his way, which lasted all the way until the end when he made the choice to do Voluntary Assisted Dying.

Both he and his family are grateful he was given the option to go out on his own terms. He was calm, dignified as always and somehow still making us laugh.

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NSW commission proposes heat-safe rentals to help tackle extreme temperature

Heat-safe rentals and tougher workplace safety rules for outdoor workers on scorching hot days have been proposed by a state climate policy advisory body, AAP reports.

The government has defended its response, citing the upcoming royal commission and work done by the Islamophobia and antisemitism special envoys

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Federal Labor has been accused of dragging its feet on a plan to combat systemic racism in Australia, nearly 18 months after it received recommendations from the human rights commission.

New documents released to the Senate show no progress on the national strategy delivered to the government and published in November 2024 – despite the race discrimination commissioner imploring the government to take action in five letters and at least two meetings.

Coal Australia denies its donations to the ‘community-driven association’ amount to astroturfing, but critics accuse the group of misleading the public

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An “independent, community-driven association” that ran anti-Labor adverts during the last federal election was entirely funded by a coal industry lobby group, the Guardian can reveal.

Energy for Australians accepted more than $1m from Coal Australia – a group advocating for coal whose members include major miners Yancoal, Peabody, New Hope and Whitehaven.

With a reshuffled cabinet, the premier is hoping to quell leadership rumblings as her party seeks an unprecedented fourth term

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As the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, stood alongside the fresh faces in her reshuffled cabinet on Wednesday, she attempted to send her increasingly jaded electorate a blunt message: despite its 12 years in power, her government is – apparently – new.

In her opening four-minute preamble to reporters, Allan - whose Labor government will in November seek an unprecedented fourth term - repeated the word 17 times. In one sentence alone, she referred to her “new cabinet”, “new portfolios”, “new solutions” and “new areas that are going to drive this government forward”.

Benita Kolovos is Guardian Australia’s Victorian state correspondent

US president told reporters he was ‘not happy with Australia because they were not there when we asked them to be there’

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Donald Trump has again accused Australia of not doing enough to help him in the Middle East war, claiming the US “asked them to be there” despite Australia’s defence minister saying there had been no “specific request”.

The US president made the comments while taking questions from reporters, including Australian correspondents, as he left the White House on Thursday.

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• Australia more dependent on imports after Geelong refinery fire as Chris Bowen warns ‘this is a setback’

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Fire officer says officials haven’t detected any contaminants spreading from blaze

Earlier this morning, Fire Rescue Victoria assistant chief fire officer, Mick McGuinness, provided an update to ABC Radio Melbourne. Shortly before 7am, he said about 50 firefighting vehicles were continuing to fight the blaze in the Mogas (motor gasoline) plant section of the refinery.

This fire has been quite large overnight. It is still burning at the moment, and we would still declare it as not yet under control … And the fire is mainly being fed by various types of hydrocarbon fuels. So predominantly liquid petrol … and also some gas and vapours that are feeding this fire at the moment.

We were concerned with the smoke that was coming off this fire, so our initial reactions were to get an alert message out to the community. We’ve since been able to have our specialist hazardous materials teams come in from locally Geelong and also in Melbourne and set up some atmospheric monitoring equipment and do a lot of sensing and sampling of not only the atmosphere but also the fire water runoff that we’re using to contain the fire. We’ve been able to determine … that we haven’t detected any sort of contaminants there.

We’re predicting that this still could burn for another three or four hours, if not longer. But we are starting to see a reduction in the intensity of the fire, which is an indication that the depressurising of the systems and the pipe work is occurring and that we will see a lesser amount of fuel being available to feed the fire. And of course, that allows us to continue to cool that area more rapidly and then be able to get crews in there to look at how we can start to isolate pipe work and valve systems.

It shows that we have very fragile, very thin energy security platform when it comes to refinery, only the two refineries left. And as mayor, I’ve been calling this out since being elected back in 2024, that Viva is not only a significant employer and corporate citizen for Geelong, but it has a significance for Victoria and Australia.

And it just shows that we, as a country, need to invest more in this type of capability.