Australia news live: Bowen decries Coalition’s ‘disgusting’ partisan ‘pile-on’ after Bondi attack; ABC defends Tingle and Ferguson over coverage

NSW Liberals voted with Labor to pass anti-protest and gun reform legislation last night, while the Nationals opposed the bill. Follow live updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastShareholders have overwhelmingly thrown their support behind a deal to create an Australian media giant spanning television, radio, print and digital, Australian Associated Press reports.Shareholders in the company that owns Seven Network and the West Australian yesterday approved its merger with the group that owns Triple M and the Hit Network radio stations.The combination of these two great companies will bring together the best content creators in the country and deliver significant financial and strategic benefits.This is an opportunity to create a national, diversified media organisation with extensive scale and reach across free-to-air television, streaming, audio and digital publishing assets.There will be a public version of the report. I mean, there will be elements of it which necessarily deal with classified information and it’s, by definition, important that remains classified. But we’ve made clear there’ll be transparency in respect of this.Dennis Richardson is a person with enormous experience, first-hand experience, in terms of being secretaries of departments, but also these intelligence agencies. Continue reading...