‘There’s never been an election where the main polling companies have got it wrong’.

Born completely deaf, Katya knows how hard it is when you lose a speech processor.

The vote was 9-3, with one councillor calling the decision ‘totally wrong’.

Australia's gender pay gap has decreased to 13 per cent with women earning an average of $13,000 less than men each year.

New Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data showed the nation's gender pay gap now sits at 13 per cent which is a 0.3 per cent decrease on February's figures.

On average, for every $1 men earn women make 87 cents.

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The ABS said the reduction is due to an improvement in the income of women in typically lower-paid female-dominated industries like education, training and healthcare.

But Workplace Gender Equality Agency CEO Mary Wooldridge said even with the slight reduction, now is not the time for the nation to "rest on its laurels".

"Employers have a key role to play in addressing the entrenched gender norms and stereotypes that are a barrier to women's progression or full participation in the workplace," she said.

"With dedicated, intentional action to address the gender pay gap in their organisation, Australian  employers will contribute to accelerating progress to close the national gender pay gap."

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The ABS data also showed the gender pay gap increased in a number of industries in the last six months including mining, financial and insurance services, real estate and retail trade.

There were some significant decreases in health care and construction.

An Australian surfer who was missing off the Indonesian coast for two days has thanked the public for their support in an Instagram post.

Elliot Foote was missing for two days after the boat he and his friends were on sank in bad weather during a surf trip for his 30th birthday.

Foote swam to the shore alone to get help, not knowing if his friends and the Indonesian tour guides who accompanied them were alive.

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"The last few days have been something that I cannot comprehend. My emotions are incredibly mixed; elation, guilt, complete adrenaline, anxiety, pure joy and happiness," Foote said in an Instagram post.

"From the moment the boat went under until the time we were reunited on Pinang Island, uncertainty was the only certainty."

"The 'lucky' four. True grit and determination in a life and death situation, paddling for hours on end with nothing but a hunch. I love you guys."

Foote's partner Steph Weisse and friends Will Teagle and Jordan Short were found on Tuesday morning on their surfboards in the ocean off Tengku Island, part of the Bankyaks, after 36 hours stranded at sea.

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Foote was found 90 minutes later on a nearby island.

Their Indonesian guide, Fifan, has not been found.

"My deepest thoughts are with the family of Fifan," Foote said.

"Our joyful young guide who hasn't been found. I wish there was more we could have done to help you, and that will stay with me as a burden to bear.

"I understand the loneliness you must've felt in those hours by yourself, and my condolences to your family."

"(To) the greater global community who reached out… thank you, it means so much to me. I'm truly moved and am filled with love and gratitude for life."

National’s KiwiSaver diversification proposal has been met with scepticism.

The goal is to prevent mis-scans at the checkout, Woollies says.

Hillsong founder Brian Houston says the extent of his serial paedophile father's offending will probably never be known, but he did not cover up his father's crimes.

The former leader of the international Pentecostal mega-church dismissed allegations levelled against him as a "targeted attack" as he was acquitted in court of concealing his father Frank's abuse.

"If I wasn't Brian Houston from Hillsong, this charge would never have happened," he said on Thursday.

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The 69-year-old was cleared in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court of concealing a serious indictable offence for not reporting his father's abuse of Brett Sengstock to police.

Sengstock, 61, said outside court he had received a life sentence of trauma for the abuse he experienced as a boy.

"Today I have received some recognition for a seven-year-old child who was brutally abused at the hands of a self-confessed child rapist and coward, Frank Houston.

"His legacy remains a faded memory of a paedophile."

Houston did not report his father to police after he admitted abusing Sengstock in 1999.

Frank Houston died in 2004.

The charge stemmed from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, however Houston described his prosecution as a "targeted attack".

"I have been found not guilty today, but in fact I have always been not guilty," Houston said.

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He added he felt genuine sadness about what his father did to Sengstock and the other people he abused, describing him as a serial paedophile.

"We probably will never know the extent of his paedophilia," Houston said.

"But I am not my father, I did not commit this offence."

In 1999, Houston told the national executive committee of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal church association he presided over, that his father had admitted abuse.

Word of the elder Houston's confession eventually reached Sengstock, but he could not remember who told him, telling the court "it was gossip everywhere".

Houston argued he never told police about his father's abuse because Sengstock did not want it reported and was by then an adult who could have disclosed it himself if he wished to.

Sengstock said he never told Houston he did not want the abuse reported.

But magistrate Gareth Christofi said the Hillsong leader had knowledge of the abuse survivor's attitude towards an investigation.

He found Houston not guilty because he had a reasonable excuse not to report the abuse to police.

"Victims of sexual abuse ought to feel safe to confide in others without being concerned they are exposing those others to a criminal offence," Christofi said.

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The prosecution said Houston adopted a convenient excuse in order to protect the church and his father.

Proving that beyond reasonable doubt was "a tall order indeed", Christofi said.

It was also submitted Houston had used vague language speaking publicly about his father's abuse and subsequent removal as a minister.

Houston might have been "euphemistic" when talking to thousands of people in sermons later televised, but it was obvious what he was talking about and anyone left wondering needed only to ask around, Christofi said.

The fact he was speaking "widely and freely" about the abuse perpetrated by his father publicly indicated he wanted people to know.

"That is the very opposite of a cover-up," Christofi said.

Houston in 2022 resigned as leader of the mega-church he founded in Sydney's Hills district after internal investigations found he had engaged in inappropriate conduct with two women.

Australian wealthy women have total combined net worth of a whopping $60 billion, according to the latest study from City Index.

Tens of thousands of low and middle-income earners will receive substantial government contributions to help them buy a home from next year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed at Labor's National Conference.

The states and territories all agreed at Wednesday's national cabinet meeting to pass legislation this year to implement the Help to Buy Scheme, which will see the federal government contribute up to 40 per cent of the cost of a new home to eligible buyers.

The policy was first announced during last year's federal election campaign and was originally slated to come into effect this year.

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Under it, the government will provide an equity contribution to low and middle-income-earning home-buyers of up to 30 per cent of the purchase price for existing homes and up to 40 per cent for new properties.

To be eligible, single people must have an income of no more than $90,000 while couples' combined income mustn't be more than $120,000.

There are also price caps placed on the properties the government will support, which vary by state and city.

The four-year plan, which has previously been estimated to cost $329 million over four years, will support up to 10,000 homeowners per year.

Albanese said the scheme will provide support to those who need it most.

"So often, these Australians have done all the right things – worked hard, saved up, made sacrifices, but a deposit for a home is still out of reach," he told the ALP National Conference.

"Our government will step up and put in our share, opening the door of home ownership to tens of thousands of hard-working people."

The confirmation that the states and territories will support the scheme comes on the back of yesterday's housing announcement that saw Albanese commit to building 1.2 million new homes over five years, up from the previous target of 1 million.