Australian news and politics live: O’Brien accuses Chalmers of sparking ‘Jimflation’ as CPI soars 3.8 per cent

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You can read tonight’s edition of The Nightly below:

A new Senate inquiry will be launched into the decision to axe hundreds of jobs from CSIRO.

The call to cut up to 350 full-time scientists and researchers was announced earlier this month after the agency claimed it was at a “critical inflection point”.

It blamed rising costs and funding gaps for the latest round of cuts, insisting it needed to de-prioritise some areas to sharpen its key focuses.

Independent MP David Pocock and The Greens secured the inquiry in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, with the matter referred to the Economics References Committee.

The inquiry will be expected to report by March 31, 2026.

Greens science spokesman Peter Whish-Wilson described them as “the most savage job cuts in the science agency’s entire history”.

“Science is one of the best defences we have in tackling Australia’s biggest future challenges – including climate change, food security, and health emergencies,” he said.

“It is critical the Senate examines how the CSIRO ended up in this position, who knew about the dire state of the agency and for how long, and why senior executives took bonuses while funding cliffs were obviously approaching.”

The Federal Parliament’s lower house is expected to sit for 18 weeks in 2026, according to the latest calendar circulated on Wednesday.

The proposed calendar shows Parliament will return on February 3 after the summer recess.

Communications Minister Anika Wells has used Parliament Question Time to issue a firm warning that the Government “wouldn’t be intimidated” by legal challenges to its Australia’s social media ban.

It comes as advocacy group Digital Freedom Project launched a high court challenge on Wednesday in a bid to overturn the laws due to come into effect on December 10.

“Despite the fact that we are receiving threats and legal challenges by people with ulterior motives, the Albanese government remains steadfastly on the side of parents and not of platforms,” she said.

“We will not be intimidated by threats. We will not be intimidated by legal challenges. We will not be intimidated by big tech.”

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A high court challenge has been launched against Australia’s under-16 social media ban just a fortnight before its due to come into effect on December 10.

Advocacy group Digital Freedom Project launched proceedings on Wednesday in a bid to overturn the laws, with two 15-year-olds listed as the plaintiffs.

The group’s president and NSW parliamentarian John Ruddick said the ban “should concern every Australian” and labelled the ban as “a direct assault on young people’s right to freedom”.

In a statement, listed plaintiffs Macy Neyland and Noah Jones criticised the blanket ban as “lazy” and warned it could push young people to unsafe corners of the internet and “silence” true digital natives in an increasingly “digital world”.

The lights went out in the House of Representatives chamber halfway through Question Time and Opposition MPs immediately started shouting and pointing at Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

They’ve been pursuing him this week with questions about the “part-time energy grid”.

Multiple backbenchers pulled out their phones and lit the torches, waving them in the air during the partial blackout.

“We can hear you, but we can’t see you!” Nationals leader David Littleproud hollered at Minister Mark Butler, who was mid-answer.

Shadow Communications Minister Melssia McIntosh says she’s concerned that platforms aren’t communicating adequate information about Australia’s social media ban a fortnight out from it launching.

She said news Snapchat was giving out incorrect information about the ban via its in-platform AI chat bot was “really concerning”.

Speaking at a press conference in Canberra on Wednesday, she criticised the Government as being “rushed”, “unprepared” and “not being straight with the Australian people”.

“I’m concerned around AI chatbots giving out incorrect information,” she said.

“I’ve been warning about this. It is rushed. The Government is unprepared. The minister has not been straight to the Australian people, and we are now just weeks away.”

Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien has blamed Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ “spending spree” for a big leap in inflation, warning mortgage holders could kiss goodbye any chance of an interest rate cut.

“That dream of home ownership just keeps getting further away… and that is why I refer to it as Jimflation, or the Jimflation effect. It is a direct consequence of the spending spree,” Mr O’Brien said.

The consumer price index in October rose to 3.8 per cent from a year earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday, up from 3.6 per cent in September.

In a National Press Club speech the Liberal frontbencher also took aim at his Government counterpart for avoiding real wage figures, which he claims are 2.2 per cent lower than when Labor took office.

“With just 29 days until Christmas, this is the worst possible news for struggling mortgage holders who can now kiss goodbye to any rate cut,” he said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has insisted there has been “absolute flurry of activity” out of his much hyped economic roundtable hosted in August.

“We’ve made an extraordinary amount of progress in the 100 days or so since the economic reform roundtable,” he claimed at a press conference in Canberra on Wednesday.

He went on to rattle off a list: “Cutting tariffs, freezing the Construction Code, accelerating housing approvals, fast tracking the EPBC legislation, 400 different ways to better regulate the financial sector, the AI strategy, FIRB reform, we’ve opened the single front door for investors”.

“There’s been an absolute flurry of activity capitalising on the momentum and the consensus that we built around the Cabinet table at the economic reform roundtable.

“That progress already has been substantial, but there’s also a lot more work going on behind the scenes.

“The economic reform roundtable will be one of the primary influences of the Budget that I hand down in May as well.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has told a press conference in Canberra he “won’t take lectures” from the Opposition.

It comes as his shadow Ted O’Brien delivered an address at the National Press Club on Wednesday, presenting tax cuts as its solution to an “intergenerational tragedy”.

“We won’t be taking lectures from the Coalition about responsible economic management,” he said.

“If they’d had their way and won the election, Australians would be earning less, paying higher income taxes, and there’d be bigger deficits and more debt.

“We’re providing cost of living help in the most responsible way that we can. We’re managing the budget in the most responsible way that we can. And both of those things are very important in the context of price pressures.”