Australia news live: national cabinet meets to discuss fuel crisis; police treating fire at Melbourne car dealership as suspicious

<p>Follow updates live</p><ul><li><p>Get our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email</a>, <a href="https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast</a></p></li></ul><p><strong>Federal shadow treasurer says any handouts in budget could add to inflation</strong></p><p>The federal shadow treasurer, <strong>Tim Wilson</strong>, has warned that potential cash handouts in next week’s federal budget could add to inflation.</p><p>Unfortunately when the government hasn’t take inflation seriously, we’ve ended up in this situation and the risk is that if you keep handing out money to households, what you’ll actually do is fuel inflation.</p><p>This is a government that cuts taxes. We’ve cut taxes already and we will cut taxes again, we made that clear and we made that public.</p><p>The issue is, the budget won’t be pumping a lot of extra stimulus in the economy, in fact overall we’ll be winding back spending in the budget.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2026/may/06/national-cabinet-fuel-crisis-anthony-albanese-labor-angus-taylor-coalition-matt-canavan-federal-budget-interest-rates-reserve-bank-inflation-fears-ntwnfb">Continue reading...</a>