News and politics recap: NAB downgrades house price forecast as Sydney and Melbourne face 10pc falls

We are wrapping up another day of our live coverage of Australia’s news and politics.

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In the meantime, read the latest edition of The Nightly here.

Dark news emerged for home owners today, in the form of a prediction from the National Australia Bank that homeowners are in for a $900 billion hit to their wealth from falling property prices this year.

Then an explanation of sorts came from someone who once inhabited the Albanese Government inner sanctum. Former prime ministerial economics adviser Alex Sanchez vented his frustrations with the big government and high taxing policies of his former boss over chicken and salmon lunch at a Sydney think tank.

Mr Sanchez revealed he tried to convince the Government to cut the top rate of income tax below 40 per cent, from 47 per cent, and main corporate rate to 25 per cent from 30 per cent.

“I wanted to flatten the tax scales desperately,” he told the Centre for Independent Studies, which advocates for free markets and smaller government.

“I had this sort of crazy Crocodile Dundee view of the world, which was, ‘That ain’t a knife. This is a knife’, and I was going to try and bring down the top rate of tax to put a three in front of it.

Read the full opinion here.

The Liberal Party’s only Jewish MP in Federal Parliament was worried right-wing Christian conservatives were stacking branches in his local area, an anti-corruption hearing has been told.

Former NSW Liberal minister Damien Tudehope, who is now a State Upper House MP, told the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s Operation Rosny inquiry on Tuesday that Julian Leeser, the member for Berowra, was worried about a right-wing Christian group called the Reformers stacking branches in Sydney’s Hills District.

“Certainly, Julian Leeser was very exercised about it because he saw members going into branches which were Federal branches which impacted on the seat of Berowra,” he said.

“That would have given rise to his concerns that it may well have been that putting members into those branches may well have impacted on the State seat as well.”

Former premier Dominic Perrottet’s younger brother Jean-Claude Perrottet and Christian Ellis were both organising events for the Reformers and actively recruiting new Liberal Party members, primarily with the goal of unseating Federal MP Alex Hawke, a future immigration minister from the Centre Right faction who had previously been a key player in the Right as NSW Young Liberals president.

Read more.

A top NSW cop has claimed a pro-Palestine protest at Sydney’s Opera House which involved flag-burning and extreme chants was sensationalised in news coverage when it was actually “under control”.

The rally on the forecourt on October 9, 2023 has been cited throughout a royal commission launched after the deadly Bondi Beach terror attack as a milestone for anti-Semitism in Australia.

A hearing on Tuesday examining extremism and the police response to the protests heard that the rally had caused widespread distress in the Jewish community as they grieved the Hamas terror attack on an Israeli music festival just two days earlier.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip labelled the decision to call the rally as “insensitive”, “while women were still being raped, while children were being kidnapped, whilst families were being burnt alive”.

Police had issued the Jewish community a warning to stay away from the Opera House after receiving intelligence that a planned pro-Palestine protest at the Town Hall had intended to march to the Opera House.

It followed a decision by the NSW government to project the Israel flag on the monument’s sails.

Read the full story here.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has brushed aside concerns over how long it is taking to investigate alleged Australian war crimes, declaring it is “really important” to allow the “appropriate” process to play out.

Over recent weeks members of the Army’s special forces community have increasingly criticised the slow handling of cases from the Afghanistan conflict which were uncovered by the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force.

In his 2020 report, Justice Paul Brereton recommended 19 soldiers be investigated by police for the “murder” of 39 Afghan prisoners and civilians, and the cruel treatment of two others.

Appearing on Sydney radio station 2GB on Tuesday, the Defence Minister was asked whether the allegations needed to be investigated more swiftly, given only two charges have so far been laid.

“Well, they do, but they need to be done thoroughly and it’s important that they be looked at,” Mr Marles explained.

Read the full story here.

Labor has been accused of “crashing” wealth, with one big four bank now predicting double-digit property price falls this year in Australia’s biggest city.

National Australia Bank has dramatically updated its forecasts to have Sydney property values plunging by 10 per cent in 2026 as Melbourne values fell by 9 per cent, with dwelling values in those biggest cities 5 per cent below recent peaks reached earlier this year.

Just last month, NAB was predicting a 6 per cent fall in Sydney, and a 7 per cent decline in Melbourne.

Capital city house prices overall are now expected to fall by 5 per cent this year, which is worse than NAB’s July forecast of a 2 per cent decline for 2026, following the Reserve Bank’s three interest rate rises so far this year, and Labor’s May Budget taxes on investment properties.

“Revisions continue to show starker price declines than initially reported,” NAB’s housing monitor report for August released on Tuesday said.

“Recent data had left the risk skewed firmly to the downside of our earlier house price forecasts.”

Brisbane’s growth was expected to slow to just 2 per cent, down from an earlier forecast of 9 per cent.

Read more.

Australia’s new Defence Chief has declared US nuclear-powered submarines will have “enduring access” to Perth’s HMAS Stirling naval base, comparing their impending arrival to America’s naval presence here during World War II.

In one of his first major public appearances since assuming the ADF’s top job last month, Admiral Mark Hammond has also praised Ukraine’s rapid technological production as he warns this country must also prepare for conflict.

American officials last week sought urgent assurances from the Albanese Government over plans for Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) after Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy suggested the arrangement would be limited to five years.

Under the AUKUS partnership British and American submarines are scheduled to begin regular rotations out of WA from next year, before the Royal Australian Navy is expected to begin receiving its own fleet of second-hand US boats in the early 2030s.

Defence Minister Richard Marles on Friday clarified Minister Conroy’s comments saying the US nuclear-powered boats would have an “enduring presence” out of Western Australia and stressing that “has been the position of the government from the outset”.

Read the full story here.

National Australia Bank is now tipping that Australia’s biggest city could see double-digit falls this year.

The bank had previously expected a smaller decline, but its latest housing monitor now predicts Sydney values will fall 10 per cent and Melbourne prices will drop 9 per cent.

Across all capital cities, NAB now expects prices to fall 5 per cent this year, more than double its previous forecast of a 2 per cent decline.

The bank said the downgrade was driven by the impact of three Reserve Bank interest rate rises and the May Budget’s new taxes on property investors.

“Revisions continue to show starker price declines than initially reported,” NAB’s housing monitor report for August said.

KPMG is meanwhile forecasting a 4.4 per cent drop in Sydney house prices and a 5 per cent decline in Melbourne home values.

Australia’s Defence Chief Admiral Mark Hammond has dodged questions about a senior officer who will soon face a military court martial, saying the matter is subject to a suppression order.

The Nightly last month revealed a star-ranking officer is facing several charges relating to the awarding of lucractive military contracts in Western Australia.

In one of his first major public appearance since taking over as CDF in early July, Admiral Hammond was questioned about the matter that is scheduled to go trial in September.

“What I can tell you is that that case is subject to a suppression order ordered by the Chief Judge Advocate,” he told reporters in Adelaide.

“The Chief Judge Advocate, (the) director of military prosecutions sit outside of the chain of command of the Australian Defence Force. They are statutory appointments that report directly to government.“

“Given that there is suppression order in play, and there are legal proceedings underway I have no further comment,” Admiral Hammond said.

Royal Commissioner Virgina Bell has had to interrupt a lawyer for a Palestinian group after her line of questioning strayed into broader Middle Eastern history and detailed military action rather than focusing on the Royal Commission’s terms of reference around anti-Semitism and social cohesion.

Counsel for the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) Ragni Mathur had disputed SW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip’s claim that a protest at Sydney Opera House had been a celebratory affair, insisting Israel at that point hadn’t launched widespread retaliatory action to the Hamas October 7 terror attack.

Commissioner Bell had to step in during Ms Mathur’s cross examination to remind the hearing that the high profile probe wasn’t focused on exploring the hostilities of the Middle East “in greater detail” but rather focus on anti-Semitism in Australia.

“Ms Mathur, I don’t think you’re going to get very far with this line,” Ms Bell interrupted her.

“The witness has acknowledged that it is a very contested history.

“That there have been innocent Palestinian lives lost, just as innocent Israeli lives lost.

“I understand the matters that you wish to canvas, but the witness isn’t in a position to do more than possibly agree that that is a fair reading of a portion of the United Nations Commission report, that can be referred to in submissions.

“I do think that we’ve gone as far as we can with this line of questioning.”