Afternoon Update: Jewish Australians give evidence at royal commission; Chalmers downplays hope for tax relief; and a living library

Sheina Gutnick, whose father was killed in the Bondi beach terror attack, has said the place holds a ‘really heavy weight in our community’s heart’. Photograph: George Chan/AFP/Getty Images

Good afternoon. Several members of Australia’s Jewish community have given evidence on the first day of public hearings of the royal commission into antisemitism and social cohesion before former high court justice Virginia Bell in Sydney.

Sheina Gutnick (pictured), the commission’s first witness, told the hearing Bondi beach “holds many complicated and conflicting feelings for me” as the place where her parents first met but also where her father, 62-year-old Reuven Morrison, was shot and killed on 14 December, allegedly by two Islamic State-inspired gunmen.

Alex Ryvchin, co-chair of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, gave impassioned evidence, saying Jewish Australians feared the country was no longer safe for them, while the progressive Jewish Council of Australia said in a statement that treating Jewish Australians as “a politically homogenous bloc, who all support Israel … obscures the real diversity of our community”.

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• ‘Increasingly unsafe’: Australia’s in-home childcare program under threat from rising costs, advocate warns

• Rare comet to flash through New Zealand skies – before it disappears for 170,000 years

• ‘Y’all are pissin’ me off’: The Pitt star Isa Briones tells ‘disrespectful’ fans to stop shouting at her during Broadway show

In pictures

Under the grass-covered roof of the Queenscliff marine research centre in Victoria, associated professor Prue Francis keeps an array of beakers – filled with bubbling brown gunk and bathed in red light – inside a fridge equipped with sensors, alarms and a backup generator. The beakers contain algal-stage golden kelp and form part of Deakin University’s living library, one of an array of biobanks throughout Australia which can store everything from seeds of native plants to the cells and tissue of threatened animal species.

What they said …

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“Planets are hard to find. It’s like trying to see a candle right next to a big street light.” – Ben Montet, UNSW associate professor

Astronomers have discovered 27 new potential planets that orbit two stars, like the fictional desert planet Tatooine from the Star Wars universe.

Full Story

Bondi royal commission: what more could have been done?

The interim report of the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion has handed down its first 14 recommendations. Reged Ahmad and Ben Doherty discuss why the inquiry’s first findings raise more questions than answers.

Listen to the episode here.

Before bed read

On a three-week drive over several thousand kilometres in an electric car, Paul Daley quickly discovered two important things. “The first is that ‘range anxiety’ is very real. The second is that veteran EV drivers are often there for us neophytes.”

With recharge stops featuring cafes, pubs and craft shops, and time to walk the dog or just chill out, he wonders if EVs might “fundamentally change the way we do road trips”.

Daily word game

Today’s starter word is: OPED. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.

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