Natassia Chrysanthos

Analysis suggests that extending bulk-billing incentives to under-35s would save young people $42 a visit in average doctor’s fees, while preventing 9000 hospitalisations.

It will also be cheaper for women to get long-acting contraceptives and menopause assessments, in a significant package that Labor says will save women thousands of dollars.

Anthony Albanese sidestepped the culture war topic, instead laying into Peter Dutton in personal terms over his opposition to Labor’s cost-of-living plans.

Children and older Australians were better off last year under the government’s $3.5 billion boost to bulk-billing. But adults aged 16 to 64 are paying more.

With a New Year’s Day Instagram video that uses the word “together” eight times in less than a minute, Dutton is using the summer period to reveal more of himself.

Melbourne man Oscar Jenkins became the first known Australian to be taken prisoner by Russia in Ukraine, when footage of him appeared on social media.

Labor’s agenda has won the Coalition’s support, but the Greens said it was the most “extreme migration legislation since the White Australia policy”. 

Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan was the featured guest at a private breakfast attended by education and migration agents the day before sinking Labor’s bill.

Coalition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson headlined an event for migration agents and private colleges in the weeks before tanking Labor’s high-profile student caps bill.

Roughly half of Australians believe immigration is too high, although their attitudes appear to be driven by record levels of worry about housing and the economy rather than a surge in anti-migrant sentiment.