Australia

The combined capitals preliminary clearance rate rose to 54.8% on the weekend of 11 July 2026, marking the highest reading in seven weeks and the first time above 50% in three weeks , up from 49.8% the prior weekend. Cotality published the preliminary figures on Sunday 13 July 2026.

Australian residential conveyancing professional fees have compressed to $700, $1,500, with disbursements charged separately on top. The fixed-fee structure creates a unit-economics problem: every additional search a conveyancer orders eats into their own margin, not the client's.

Veteran broadcaster and former Victorian senator Derryn Hinch has died aged 82. Known as the Human Headline, Hinch spent five decades across radio and television and was jailed multiple times for naming sex offenders in defiance of suppression orders.

Airservices Australia activated three new Brisbane flightpath changes on 9 July 2026 under Package 3 of its Noise Action Plan, reducing the number of residents overflown by a combined roughly 138,500 people.

The US Trade Representative named Australia among 54 economies allegedly failing to enforce forced-labour import bans and proposed a 12.5% tariff surcharge, without citing evidence implicating Australian exports specifically.

The Trump administration proposed additional tariffs of 10 to 12.5 per cent on imports from 60 economies, including Australia, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, citing those countries' failure to ban goods made with forced labour.

Australia lost its status as the last continent with wildlife free of H5N1 avian influenza on 20 June 2026, when CSIRO confirmed the virus in a brown skua near Esperance, Western Australia.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva on 6 July 2026, calling for a legally binding ban on lethal autonomous weapons and a new Global Fund for AI.