The Greens lose their leader + What will slow our STI surge?

Sacha Barbour Gatt (0:07)

Hey, Sacha Barbour Gatt with you. Welcome to The Briefing. Australia is in the grip of a concerning rise in cases of syphilis and gonorrhea. Midconcern's current attitudes to things like condoms are changing, and not for the better.

Does that mean it's time for more drastic action when it comes to tackling STIs in Australia?

Dr Stephanie Williams (0:25)

We've taken lessons learned from how people receive information, how we can minimise stigma associated with language, and at the same time, I think we're in a great point in energising information in an accessible way about prevention of STIs.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (0:42)

That chat with Australia's CDC is coming up in the second half of this episode. First, though, it's time for the headlines, and it's just me, myself and I today. Chris is off sick. It's Tuesday, the 29th of September.

Greens leader Larissa Waters has sensationally quit the party's top job due to health problems. The senator who took over the leadership from Adam Bandt after the 2025 election released a statement last night announcing the news. She's revealed she's been battling a pre-existing kidney disease and her health has, quote, declined significantly over the course of recent months. In the statement, Waters said the pressure of leading the Greens, including the necessary travel, meant she couldn't focus properly on her health. The 49-year-old told her party colleagues via a virtual meeting 20 minutes before dropping the statement yesterday, in which she went on to say it had been a tremendous honour to be the leader of the Greens fighting for people and the planet. She also thanked her colleagues as well as doctors for their support. And she did talk up a bunch of her successes. She talked about negotiations with Labour on environmental law reforms and also tougher on laws that were brought in after last year's Bondi Beach terror attack. Now, as to what will happen next, she's going to take a stint of medical leave. And she says she will return to represent Queensland in the Senate. So she's not leaving politics, just the Greens leadership. Now, the next question is, who is going to replace her? Now, we will have a party room meeting for the Greens. That'll happen this week. Apparently, there's a desire to pretty quickly move on this and get things stable. And, you know, the Greens party would have been absolutely blindsided by this. They were only told last night, 20 minutes before the rest of the country was told. So they'll be scrambling at the moment. But we do know that Sarah Hanson Young and Maureen Faruqi are possibilities to take over the leadership. They were part of the contest in the wake of Adam Bandt losing his seat at the 2025 election. So either one of those women could take over. We should have an answer by the end of the week.

It's D-Day for mortgage holders with the Reserve Bank all but guaranteed to lift the official cash rate, the Savo.

Now, if it goes ahead with the predicted hike of 25 basis points, that will lift interest rates to 4.6 per cent, the highest they've been in 15 years. This has prompted increasing scrutiny on the Treasurer who yesterday defended his inflationary record, blaming the war in Iran and high oil prices for the continued pressure on households.

Jim Chalmers (3:12)

Our job, our responsibility, which we embrace and accept, is to continue to manage the budget in the most responsible way that we can, continue to roll out that cost-living help in a responsible and affordable way at the same time as we deal with some of these longer-term economic challenges.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (3:28)

Now, that comment by Jim Chalmers, and he did this whole big press conference yesterday where he announced an improvement to the budget deficit of $6 billion, but his comments around inflation and who to blame are all being seen as a move to get ahead of the RBA, which will make the decision today, and Michelle Bullock, the governor, will make a speech, and she'll likely warn that our unemployment figure needs to lift from its current 4.6% to about 5% to take the heat out of the economy. But Chalmers is keen to blame the war in Iran as the main driver for this ongoing issue with inflation. But we are seeing economists in increasing numbers, say government spending at both a state and federal level, are in a big way to blame for stubborn inflation. Some say it's the biggest contributor. Some are even calling on a change in how we tackle the issue outside of just increasing the official cash rate. So one suggestion by an economist has been for the focus to switch from slugging mortgage holders to implementing a temporary increase to superannuation payments as a way to spread the effect over all earners while still keeping the money in retirement savings. Another option being floated is short-term tax hikes, but that is unlikely to happen given how unpopular it would be with voters. But you can't deny there's this real groundswell at the moment. It seems like there's increasing scrutiny on this tool that the RBA has been using for the last few years now post-COVID and as we continue to battle inflation. Questions about whether it is really the best tool to tackle inflation. So I think we can expect that conversation to continue in earnest, especially if we get what we expect today, which is another rate hike.