Inflation in Australia has slowed to its lowest level in a year and a half, easing concerns of another interest rate rise next week.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday revealed the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 4.9 per cent over the last year – the lowest the measure has been at since the same figure was recorded in February 2022.

"This month's annual increase of 4.9 per cent is down from 5.4 per cent in June," ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt said.

READ MORE: 'Don't close the door': PM's plea as Voice vote date revealed

"Annual price rises continue to ease from the peak of 8.4 per cent in December 2022."

Even when price movements in volatile categories were discounted, the CPI still fell, although the decrease was less pronounced.

"CPI inflation is often impacted by items with volatile price changes like automotive fuel, fruit and vegetables, and holiday travel," Marquardt said.

"It can be helpful to exclude these items from the headline CPI indicator to provide a view of underlying inflation.

"When excluding these volatile items, the decline in annual inflation is more modest at 5.8 per cent in July, compared to 6.1 per cent in June."

READ MORE: Incoming RBA governor warns of fresh threat in interest rates battle

The ease in inflation was driven primarily by price drops for petrol and fuel (-7.6 per cent) and fruit and vegetables (-5.4 per cent).

However, costs are still surging in some areas. Electricity prices soared 15.7 per cent over the past 12 months and 6 per cent in July alone – a figure that would have been even higher had it not been for government relief.

"The Energy Bill Relief Fund provides eligible households with rebates ranging from $43.75 to $250 in July," Marquardt said.

"If we exclude the impact of rebates from the July 2023 figures, electricity prices would have recorded a monthly increase of 19.2 per cent."

Tenants across the country would also be unsurprised to see rents continuing to rise. They increased by 7.6 per cent in the past 12 months, up from 7.3 per cent in June.

Further exacerbating issues in the housing market, the ABS also revealed housing construction approvals fell 8.1 per cent in July, on the back of a 7.9 decrease in June.

Australia will head to the polls on October 14 to vote on the referendum on whether to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the Constitution.

Details of the Voice and the wording of the referendum question have also been confirmed by the Australian government.

Any change to Australia's Constitution is a historic moment, as there have only been eight changes to it since 1901.

Let's unpack what the Indigenous Voice to parliament would look like, and what it means for Australia.

READ MORE: Albanese tears up unveiling Voice to Parliament

What is the Indigenous Voice to parliament?

The Indigenous Voice to parliament was a key part of 2017's Uluru Statement from the Heart (which you can read in full further down this page).

The Voice would be a national group of about 20 members who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

This body would be a balanced mix of genders, and include a Youth and Disability Advisory Group.

READ MORE: 'Act of patriotism': Minister unveils Voice details in impassioned plea for Yes vote

The Voice would give advice to parliament on matters that are important to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the group would be "an unflinching source of advice and accountability, not a third chamber, not a rolling veto, not a blank cheque, but a body with the perspective and the power and the platform to tell the government and the parliament the truth about what is working and what is not".

What that means is the group would have input, but elected members of parliament would be the ones accountable to make any changes – and there's no requirement for the government to actually listen to what the Voice says.

Albanese announced his proposal at the 2022 Garma Indigenous Cultural Festival in the Northern Territory.

When will the Voice referendum be held?

Albanese has announced the date for the Voice to parliament referendum is October 14, 2023.

Just like any election, all Australians aged 18 and over are required to vote in the referendum.

What areas would the Voice be able to advise government on?

The Voice would provide advice about issues affecting Indigenous peoples and communities.

That's fairly wide-ranging, but there would not be any compulsion on the government to listen to the advice if it didn't think it was relevant.

Indigenous Australians Minister and Wiradjuri woman Linda Burney gave a few examples of issues the Voice could advise on in a speech in July, including school attendance, community jobs and birthing on country.

Burney said if the Yes vote succeeded at the referendum, she would encourage the Voice to provide advice on four areas.

"From day one, the Voice will have a full in-tray," she said.

"I will ask the Voice to consider four main priority areas: health, education, jobs and housing.

"The Voice will be tasked with taking the long view.

"Unlike government, it won't be distracted by the three-year election cycles.

"It will plan for the next generation, not the next term. It will be focused on making a better future for the next generation.

"The time to make a generational difference is now."

How would the Constitution change?

The proposal would add four sentences to the Constitution:

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

1. There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
2. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
3. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures."

What will the referendum question be?

The question for the referendum will be:

"A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

"Do you approve this proposed alteration?"

Why does the Voice have to be enshrined in the Constitution? Can't the government just create it?

The government could legislate a body like the Voice, but believes a constitutionally enshrined version would be more appropriate.

Burney said creating the Voice via a referendum would allow the body to give honest advice without fear of retaliation.

"A Voice or advisory body cannot be truly independent or give frank advice to the government of the day if the government of the day can abolish it with a stroke of a pattern," she said in a speech to the National Press Club.

"And we have seen that."

She added that a constitutional body is what was requested in the Uluru Statement.

Creating the Voice via a referendum also allows recognition of First Nations peoples to be inserted into the Constitution.

READ MORE: Tens of thousands march for Voice to Parliament

What is the government saying about the Indigenous Voice?

Albanese urged Australians to vote yes on the referendum.

"This is an opportunity to recognise that, firstly, to recognise First Nations people in our Constitution. That this is about closing the gap and showing respect to First Nations people, making a practical difference," he said.

"I say to non-Indigenous Australians, this is also about you because it's about how our nation sees ourselves."

Burney said the process of developing the proposed Voice had been a "rigorous and comprehensive process".

"Australians can be confident that the work has been done to ensure this is a Voice that works," she said.

"A Voice that will make a practical difference. A Voice that will work for you."

What is the opposition saying about the Indigenous Voice?

The Liberal Party is opposed to the Voice, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said he will actively campaign for the No vote.

Dutton announced the party's position in early April, saying he doesn't think the model proposed "is in our country's best interests".

He said the Liberals will support constitutional recognition for First Nations peoples at the same time as opposing the Voice referendum.

However, he admitted the Liberals will not ask the government to split the two proposals into separate questions in the referendum, meaning Australians will only be given the option of voting on the one question later this year.

The Liberal position, in line with party policy, is only binding on frontbenchers, meaning backbenchers are able to advocate for the Yes vote.

Julian Leeser, the former shadow minister for Indigenous Australians and shadow attorney-general, quit the Liberals' shadow cabinet so he could campaign in the Yes camp, while backbencher Bridget Archer also supports the Voice.

Former Liberal MP Ken Wyatt, who became the first Indigenous person to be Indigenous Australians minister when he held the portfolio during the Morrison government, quit the party over its opposition to the Voice.

The Liberals' decision came after the junior Coalition partner, the Nationals, announced it would oppose the proposition.

Indigenous parliamentarians Senators Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (a Northern Territory Senator who sits with the Nationals in federal parliament and the new shadow minister for Indigenous Australians) and Lidia Thorpe are on essentially opposite ends of the political spectrum but both oppose a Voice.

Thorpe left the Greens over their support for it, saying she wanted to pursue Black sovereignty – a position a number of other Indigenous activists also hold, as seen at the Invasion Day protests on January 26, 2023.

The full details of the Indigenous Voice Discussion Papers can be accessed here.

Are there similar bodies already established?

In South Australia, the state Labor government committed in early 2023 to establishing a state-based Voice to parliament through legislation.

Premier Peter Malinauskas said it was a "whole-heartedly good thing to do".

As with the proposed federal body, the state body would be advisory and consist of Indigenous representatives elected across South Australia.

In Victoria, the First Peoples' Assembly, elected in 2019, advocates for Indigenous issues to the government.

Its members are taken from traditional owner corporations around the state.

What happens next and what will you need to do?

Any change to the Constitution needs to be agreed on by the Australian people via a referendum.

A referendum needs the majority of people and the majority of states (what's known as a double majority) to vote in favour of a Yes-No proposal.

A referendum for the Indigenous Voice to parliament will happen on October 14.

Albanese has said that if the referendum succeeds, the government will propose legislation for the Voice this parliamentary term.

How do referendums work?

Many Australians will have never voted in a referendum.

While the postal survey plebiscite on the issue of same-sex marriage asked Australians a Yes-No question on an issue before parliament, it did not operate in the same way.

A referendum works in the same way as an election day.

All voters must go to a polling place and fill in a ballot, although the ballot is less complicated than numbering boxes on a vote for parliamentarians.

Instead, voters simply have to pick Yes or No.

The last referendum was in 1999 when Australians voted against becoming a republic.

The last time voters chose to amend the Constitution was in 1977, when three amendments were approved.

Those votes required Senate vacancies to be filled by a member of the same party, allowed residents of territories to vote in referendums and set a mandatory retirement age for federal judges.

What does the Uluru Statement from the Heart say?

This is the full statement:

We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from 'time immemorial', and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.

This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or 'mother nature', and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?

With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia's nationhood.

Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are alienated from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.

These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.

We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.

We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.

We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.

In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.

The value of crypto assets surged Tuesday after a US court cleared a path for the nation's first bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

The ruling is a breakthrough moment for crypto investors and a setback for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been trying to rein in the digital asset industry.

The three-judge panel for the DC Court of Appeals overruled an SEC decision denying Grayscale Invesments permission to launch a bitcoin-focused ETF. The panel said the regulator had failed to adequately explain why it rejected the firm's application.

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"The denial of Grayscale's proposal was arbitrary and capricious because the Commission failed to explain its different treatment of similar products," Judge Neomi Rao wrote.

An SEC spokesperson said Tuesday the agency was "reviewing the court's decision to determine next steps."

Major crypto tokens surged on the news. Bitcoin prices, which have been especially volatile in recent weeks, were up 7 per cent to nearly $43,000 AUD. Coinbase (COIN), the largest publicly traded US crypto exchange, jumped 15 per cent.

The bitcoin fund at the center of the case, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, or GBTC, was up 17 per cent.

READ MORE: Once-in-a-lifetime storm closes in on millions

Grayscale had argued that is proposal was materially similar to other bitcoin investment products that the SEC has already approved. The two other bitcoin products, from crypto firms Valkyrie and Teucrium, hold futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Grayscale had presented "uncontested evidence" that the underlying assets — bitcoin and bitcoin futures — were virtually identical, the judges wrote.

The ruling opens the door to an investment product that investors have been demanding for years.

A spot bitcoin ETF would allow traditional investors to have exposure to the digital asset without actually owning it.

"This is a historic milestone for American investors, the Bitcoin ecosystem, and all those who have been advocating for Bitcoin exposure through the added protections of the ETF wrapper," Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein said in a statement. "It's incredibly exciting that we are one step closer to making a US spot Bitcoin ETF a reality."

Grayscale is one of several firms that has applied for a spot bitcoin ETF. Earlier this year, BlackRock, Fidelity and Invesco, among others, sought permission to launch their own bitcoin funds.

Bitcoin is up some 65 per cent this year, though remains far off its late-2021 high above $87,000.

The information provided on this website is general in nature only and does not constitute personal financial advice. The information has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information on this website you should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.

If you fancy oysters straight off the rocks and an ocean view, this place could be just right.

John Moratelli has never seen anything like it. And he's mortified.

Having lived on Sydney's lower North Shore for more than 25 years, Moratelli is no stranger to stories of the odd tree being illegally cut down.

But the scale of tree vandalism inflicted on bushland adjacent to an affluent street of multi-million-dollar homes in Castle Cove, where 265 trees were callously cut down or poisoned, has left him flabbergasted.

READ MORE: Once-in-a-lifetime storm closes in on millions

"I have never heard of anything approaching this level, nothing like it," Moratelli, the Willoughby Environmental Protection Association president, told 9news.com.au.

"I've heard of individual trees, maybe a handful of trees, but 265 trees?

"It's in another realm entirely."

The affected area measures 3600 square metres – the size of 14 tennis courts – and the number of trees killed is also set to rise as the poison used to wipe out a range of species spreads through the earth and contaminates other root systems.

An 80-year-old angophora costatas, which can reach heights of 30 metres when fully mature, has been poisoned. A range of Christmas bushes, old man banksias, she oaks, cheese trees and tea trees have also been destroyed or infected with toxic poison.

Pictures of the crime scene show trees felled and hacked down, and what appears to be a bottle of poison and a protective rubber glove in scrub.

Do you know more? Email ms**********@******om.au

Adelaide recorded its warmest winter day in 14 years as it simmered in summer-esque heat this week.

The South Australia capital hit 26.4 degrees just after noon yesterday, Weatherzone reported.

"This was more than 10 degrees above average for August and close to Adelaide's mean maximum temperature in December, which is 26.9 degrees," Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino said.

READ MORE: PM to announce referendum date today

The weather reporting service said temperatures ballooned across the state due to an unusually warm air mass.

In some places, temperatures were 11 to 12 degrees higher than average.

Tarcoola, in the state's north, recorded a temperature of 33.4 degrees, its hottest day since 2009.

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But things are set to cool down today with south-westerly winds across the state, Weatherzone reported.

Temperatures are set to drop by about 10 degrees statewide from yesterday, with the capital set to only reach a top of 16 degrees.

The US government is trying to stop a planned expedition to recover items of historical interest from the sunken Titanic, citing a federal law and an international agreement that treat the shipwreck as a hallowed gravesite.

The expedition is being organised by RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia-based firm that owns the salvage rights to the world’s most famous shipwreck. The company exhibits artifacts that have been recovered from the wreck site at the bottom of the North Atlantic, from silverware to a piece of the Titanic's hull.

The government's challenge comes more than two months after the Titan submersible imploded near the sunken ocean liner, killing five people. But this legal fight has nothing to do with the June tragedy, which involved a different company and an unconventionally designed vessel.

READ MORE: How the wreck of the Titanic was first rediscovered

The battle in the US District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees Titanic salvage matters, hinges instead on federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the sunken Titanic as a memorial to the more than 1,500 people who died. The ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.

The US argues that entering the Titanic's severed hull — or physically altering or disturbing the wreck — is regulated by federal law and its agreement with Britain. Among the government's concerns is the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist.

“RMST is not free to disregard this validly enacted federal law, yet that is its stated intent,” US lawyers argued in court documents filed Friday. They added that the shipwreck “will be deprived of the protections Congress granted it.”

RMST's expedition is tentatively planned for May 2024, according to a report it filed with the court in June.

The company said it plans to take images of the entire wreck. That includes “inside the wreck where deterioration has opened chasms sufficient to permit a remotely operated vehicle to penetrate the hull without interfering with the current structure.”

RMST said it would recover artifacts from the debris field and “may recover free-standing objects inside the wreck.” Those could include “objects from inside the Marconi room, but only if such objects are not affixed to the wreck itself.”

The Marconi room holds the ship's radio — a Marconi wireless telegraph machine — which broadcast the Titanic's increasingly frantic distress signals after the ocean liner hit an iceberg.

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The messages in Morse code were picked up by other ships and onshore receiving stations, helping to save the lives of about 700 people who fled in life boats. There had been 2,208 passengers and crew on the Titanic's maiden voyage, from Southampton, England, to New York.

“At this time, the company does not intend to cut into the wreck or detach any part of the wreck,” RMST stated.

The company said it would “work collaboratively” with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US agency that represents the public's interest in the wreck. But RMST said it does not intend to seek a permit.

US government lawyers said the firm can't proceed without one, arguing that RMST needs approval from the US Secretary of Commerce, who oversees NOAA.

The company has not filed a response in court, but it previously challenged the constitutionality of US efforts to “infringe” on its salvage rights to a wreck in international waters. The firm has argued that only the court in Norfolk has jurisdiction, and points to centuries of precedent in maritime law.

In 2020, the US government and RMST engaged in a nearly identical legal battle over a proposed expedition that could have cut into the wreck. But the proceedings were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic and never fully played out.

The company's plan then was to retrieve the radio, which sits in a deck house near the grand staircase. An un-crewed submersible was to slip through a skylight or cut the heavily corroded roof. A “suction dredge” would remove loose silt, while manipulator arms could cut electrical cords.

The company said it would exhibit the radio along with stories of the men who tapped out distress calls “until seawater was literally lapping at their feet.”

In May 2020, US District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith gave RMST permission, writing that the radio is historically and culturally important and could soon be lost to decay. Smith wrote that recovering the telegraph would “contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking.”

A few weeks later, the US government filed an official legal challenge against the 2020 expedition, which never happened. The firm indefinitely delayed its plans in early 2021 because of complications wrought by the pandemic.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has thrown his support behind Jo Haylen following the revelation the under-fire transport minister received a pre-election donation from the man she appointed to a plum role against the advice of an external recruiter.

Former Labor staffer Josh Murray was deemed to be a "significant risk" lacking experience for the $588,000-a-year position of Transport for NSW secretary, yet was still hand-picked for the job by Haylen.

She says that appointment had nothing to do with the $500 Murray donated to her campaign before this year's election, nor the $250 his wife contributed.

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"That would be absurd, to make a connection between buying a couple of tickets for a fundraiser six months out from an election and a very important senior public service job," Haylen told 2GB on Tuesday morning.

Haylen didn't declare the donation – it fell well under the $1000 threshold set by the NSW Electoral Commission – and Minns didn't find out until the information was included in a set of pre-interview talking points provided by Haylen's office on July 16.

But the premier insisted his transport minister had done nothing wrong.

"My understanding is that it was a donation below the declarable limit as far as the electoral commission was concerned," Minns said on Tuesday.

"I don't believe that purchasing a ticket to a fundraising dinner constitutes the minister being influenced in terms of her public duty, so I believe that she had followed the correct process."

https://omny.fm/shows/the-drive-program/exclusive-anti-corruption-expert-calls-for-josh-mu/embed?style=cover

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The opposition, though, says Haylen should have declared what it says is a conflict of interest during the hiring process, and is calling on her to provide documents to prove she did just that.

"There clearly is a conflict of interest," Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said.

"If Josh Murray didn't have Labor connections, would he have been appointed as the transport secretary?

"And we all know the resounding answer is no."

The director of the Centre for Public Integrity, former Counsel Assisting ICAC Geoffrey Watson, said the scenario demanded Murray's resignation.

"He should recognise his position's untenable and he should resign or alternatively, restart the hiring process", Watson told 2GB on Tuesday afternoon.

Haylen will face a parliamentary committee to answer questions over the matter on Thursday.

An Adelaide paedophile has been given permission to end his life after being jailed for sexually abusing his students while working as a music teacher, 9News can exclusively reveal.

Malcolm Day, 81, is thought to be the first prisoner in the nation to be granted a voluntary assisted dying permit after having been diagnosed with a terminal illness, believed to be cancer.

Day was sentenced to 20 years in prison last June and has 17 years left on his sentence.

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There is an 11-step process to access voluntary assisted dying in the state and 9News understands Day is towards the end of that process, meaning it could be finalised within the next few days.

The director of pro-euthanasia group Exit International Philip Nitschke said use of the scheme by a prisoner was going to happen sooner or later.

"By the sound of it, he satisfies all the conditions of the South Australian assisted dying legislation," Nitschke said.

"So there should be no impediment… he should be given the option that any other person would have if they were terminally ill."

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Day forever changed the lives of two of his students as a South Australian music teacher in the 1980s.

He groomed and abused students, then denied any wrongdoing when investigated by the education department.

One of his victims has described his offending as "selfish and disgraceful".

The victim told the court Day poisoned her future for his own pleasure and went on to lie about it.

At the time of his sentencing, his barrister Stephen Ey said it was likely he would die in jail.

"Well, that's a real prospect, isn't it… given his age," Ey said.

The latest SA Health data shows 39 terminally ill South Australians have ended their own lives after being granted a permit since voluntary assisted dying was introduced in January this year.

Both the corrections department and SA Health have been contacted for comment.

A series of tweets said the party did not stand for xenophobia and racism in any form.