Sky News Business Reporter Ed Boyd says the local market opened higher on Wednesday before it slumped in the afternoon. Litigation funder Omni Bridgeway jumped 14.19 per cent but is still down almost 70 per cent over the past 12 months. Car dealership business AP Eagers plummeted 15.01 per cent after flagging a fall in profit due to the tough operating environment for car dealers.

One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson says she has never seen such an “incompetent” leader in Australian politics as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. “In my 27 years since I was first elected in parliament, he is the worst,” Ms Hanson said. “He is pathetic, incompetent, hopeless … I would swap Bill Shorten for him in a heartbeat.”

Liberal Senator Dave Sharma has taken aim at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “moral cowardice” after he refused to criticise the ICC’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders. Mr Sharma pointed out US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the ICC’s actions. “Any number of world leaders have found a way to condemn this action,” Mr Sharma told Sky News host Chris Kenny.

Sky News host Chris Kenny has blasted the Albanese government for betting the future of Australia on “unreliable” renewable energy. “Labor is betting the future of this country on unreliable renewable energy,” Mr Kenny said. “The Albanese Labor government is conducting the highest risk technological experiment in the world, trying to transition a modern, energy-dependent economy from fossil fuels to an untried, unprecedented renewables plus storage model. “They have no plan B.”

Former New South Wales Labor treasurer Michael Costa discusses the need for a stream of “sustainable migration”. This comes amid concern regarding Australia’s increasing migration numbers putting a strain on housing, as well as the country’s economic position. “The per capita recession has only been a recent phenomena,” Mr Costa told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “The two decades prior to that we had growth in real incomes even though productivity was low. “I don’t think we should be throwing out the baby with the bath water. “A temporary suspension of the migration program and a rebalancing towards the skills that we need, as Peter Dutton is proposing, makes a lot of sense, and I think it should be supported. “But as a country, we do need to have a steady state of sustainable migration.”

Former New South Wales Labor treasurer Michael Costa says the “balance” regarding migration is “not right”. This comes amid concern regarding Australia’s increasing migration numbers putting a strain on housing, as well as the country’s economic position. “But as a country, we do need to have a steady state of sustainable migration,” Mr Costa told Sky News host Andrew Bolt. “Our birth rates, for a start, are declining, and if we don’t do that, we’re going to end up in all sorts of problems supporting our welfare system, our infrastructure that’s declining. “It’s a matter of getting the balance right, and at the moment, it’s not right.”

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor says accelerated depreciation is an “unbelievably effective way” to drive productivity growth which Australia “desperately needs”. “This is why accelerated depreciation is so powerful – it is an unbelievably effective way to drive productivity growth … that you desperately need in the economy,” Mr Taylor said in his address at the National Press Club on Wednesday. “The small business sector is crucial to doing that.”

Assistant Education Minister Anthony Chisholm discusses Education Minister Jason Clare’s announcement to establish university study hubs in the outer suburbs of major Australian cities. “What we know from many outer suburban areas is that their rate of attainment of higher education degrees are quite low,” Mr Chisholm told Sky News Australia. “Quite often, there can be a significant barrier between travelling from these outer suburban locations to actually get to a university in the city. They are not always blessed with great public transport. “I’ve been to a lot of the regional and rural university centres that we have set up, it has been really encouraging to see the type of people that are studying a these paces and the support they can get. “If we can replicate that in outer suburban areas, the country will be much better off.”

Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume has called for Australia to “improve” its productivity. Ms Hume said productivity is currently “floundering” in Australia. “it’s slowed right down to a point where it’s 5.4 per cent lower prior to what it was before the pandemic. “Unless we lower energy prices, lower inflation, improve our industrial relations system to make it more flexible for employers so that they can invest in their business and employ more people. “Till we cut that red and green tape that is getting in the way of progress and unless we improve our tax system, productivity will continue to flounder. “If we’re going to restore prosperity and opportunity for all Australians we must improve our productivity.”

Sky News host Paul Murray says former president Donald Trump’s hush-money trial “should not have gone on as long as it has”. “It is about how all of that was accounted for in the books," he said. “This trial that really shouldn’t have gone on as long as it has, has gone for the best part of a month.”

Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell questions whether the Coalition government’s “ambitious” proposed net migration cut is “achievable”. “We’ve seen their migration promise; they have got a pretty simple message there and popular message,” Mr Clennell said. “Nuclear, however, yet to be convinced that’s a vote winner and that won’t suffer from a scare campaign for them. “Nevertheless, this Angus Taylor address will have more interest than it would’ve had for the last two years because we are getting closer to that election day.”

Sky News host Rita Panahi reacts to podcasters being outraged over Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s graduation speech at Benedictine College. Butker made international headlines when he claimed his wife’s life “truly started” when she started “living her vocation as a wife and as a mother”. Actress Jennifer Welch accused the NFL star of being sexist on a podcast.

Sky News Aviation Expert Captain Byron Bailey says the London to Singapore flight which was hit by severe turbulence possibly experienced “inadvertent thunderstorm penetration”. “I’ve flown a [Boeing] 777 hundreds of times across this very route, the area that they were passing through the Bay of Bengal is the most intense cyclogenetic area in the world with the most active thunderstorms,” he told Sky News Australia. “When you’re travelling from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere you’ve always got to pass through the intertropical convergent zone – that line of thunderstorms, very active.”

The government has to get the budget “under control” because the risk to the Australian economy is “simply too high,” according to Nationals MP Keith Pitt.  “They have spent everything that they received and then some, you have deficits across the horizon for as far as the eye can see,” Mr Pitt told Sky News Australia.  “It’s an extraordinary risk for the Australian economy in terms of inflation.”

Two people have been killed in a single-vehicle crash in northern New South Wales. The vehicle hit a tree in Bonville, south of Coffs Harbour, at 12:40am on Wednesday morning. The female driver and a male passenger died at the scene. A second man, aged 20, has been taken to hospital in a critical condition.

Support for the Victoria government has fallen to its lowest level in three years. According to data from Resolve Political Monitoring, if an election were to be held today, Labor would only gain 28 per cent of the primary vote, compared to the Coalition's 37. Premier Jacinta Allan still remains the preferred leader over the Opposition's John Pesutto.

Australia has deviated from the US in support of the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants of Israel’s and Hamas’ leaders. The ICC is accusing Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade released a post on X, saying "Australia respects the ICC and the important role it has in upholding international law". "The decision on whether to issue arrest warrants is a matter for the court in the independent exercise of its functions."

A new report has found an Australian nuclear energy plant could not become operational before 2040. According to the CSIRO and AEMO, a large-scale nuclear reactor would cost around $16 billion. The 2024 GenCost report claims nuclear energy would be around twice the cost of renewable alternatives. The findings call into question the Opposition’s commitment to nuclear after claiming it would build seven nuclear reactors if elected next year.

Reports are circulating that Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate could soon be up for auction. It comes after reports of an alleged foreclosure. The auction was to take place but a judge blocked the sale after Presley’s granddaughter filed a temporary restraining order.

GB News host Nigel Farage says the hush money trial against former president Donald Trump reveals the US judicial system “is now politicised and rotten to the core”. “This case wasn’t about what may or may not have happened but of course he allowed her to go on and on and on,” Mr Farage said of Adult Film Star Stormy Daniels. “Obviously, she is making money off the back of these salacious stories.”