Queensland Opposition Leader Steven Miles has challenged Premier David Crisafulli to appoint an experienced replacement for Amanda Camm after she announced her decision to step down from the child safety and domestic and family violence portfolios. Miles says the choice will reveal how seriously the government takes services for vulnerable children and families. Crisafulli has praised Camm’s record and defended the reforms initiated during her term. Camm says her decision was personal and followed major surgery and an incomplete recovery. She has also referred to the stress of her ministerial workload and the impact of public harassment. Her resignation should not be portrayed as an admission that the criticism of her administration was correct. The policy dispute and the reasons she has given for leaving office are separate facts.

NSW Deputy Chief Judge Sharon Freund has taken her challenge to a watchdog referral before the Court of Appeal amid a prolonged dispute involving Local Court Chief Judge Michael Allen. The latest proceedings concern whether decisions and observations arising from a Judicial Commission process were reached and handled lawfully. The legal contest remains unresolved, and the allegations at its centre must not be treated as disciplinary findings against either judge. Published accounts of the Court of Appeal proceedings say Freund’s lawyers have challenged the Attorney-General’s referral of her conduct to the NSW Judicial Commission. The dispute has been linked to questions about the handling of a criminal case involving a judicial colleague’s adult child and to competing allegations about procedural propriety. Those accounts remain contested, and the Court of Appeal’s task is not identical to a final disciplinary inquiry.

Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell has described her earlier parliamentary remarks about Small Business Minister Anne Aly and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as regrettable, calling them a poor choice of words after a furious public dispute over violent imagery in political debate. Bell says the comment was neither helpful nor planned, and that she withdrew it and tried to rectify the matter with Aly. The new statement follows criticism from Aly, who described the original language as racist and misogynistic. The exchange is significant not because the words have just been spoken, but because Bell has now publicly addressed them. Her expression of regret should be reported accurately without claiming that she accepted every criticism Aly made or that the parties have resolved their disagreement.

Labor MP Nina Taylor has defended the Victorian government’s approach to Fishermans Bend as rival candidates in the Albert Park electorate demanded faster public transport and better infrastructure for the growing inner-Melbourne precinct. The debate at a local election forum highlighted the gap between plans for a major urban renewal area and the transport connections residents and businesses can already use. Candidates questioned why promised tram and rail links remain distant prospects despite long-running plans to accommodate substantially more homes and jobs. Taylor pointed to recent planning steps, the Metro Tunnel and expanded bus services, while opponents pressed the government to deliver infrastructure earlier. The disagreement concerns priorities, funding and sequencing; a planning announcement should not be confused with a completed railway or tram service.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has called for Energy Minister Chris Bowen to resign after Snowy Hydro revised the cost and completion forecast for Snowy 2.0, reviving a political argument over who is responsible for one of Australia’s most expensive energy projects. The company’s updated target is $22.2 billion, with an allowance for a cost of up to $25 billion, while commissioning is now expected in late 2029. The latest assessment is a major test for the Commonwealth-owned company and for governments of both political persuasions. Taylor was energy minister when the project was approved under the Coalition. Bowen, who oversees the project as a shareholder minister under Labor, says the early design and engineering assumptions left a lasting problem. Neither side’s political account changes the figures Australians now need to assess.

Independent senator David Pocock has challenged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s explanation of a document circulated from his office about fellow independent Helen Haines, drawing a sharp distinction between routine political briefing and material that can cast doubt on an MP’s integrity. Albanese says the file concerned Haines’s requests for funding for her electorate and was not intended as a personal attack. The row has taken on particular sensitivity after the alleged vehicle attack that left Haines critically injured. That incident is the subject of a separate criminal investigation. No established evidence links the circulation of the political document to the alleged attack or identifies political briefing as a motive. Treating the two events as causally connected would go beyond the facts.