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Larissa Waters has stepped down as leader of the Australian Greens. In a Facebook post, she said a downturn in the chronic kidney disease she has been quietly managing means her doctors have advised a slower pace of life than leading a political party allows. She will take medical leave and return to the Senate as one of the Greens’ two senators for Queensland.

Waters pointed to the party’s wins under her leadership, including the November 2025 overhaul of Australia’s 25-year-old environment laws and the push to split gun safety measures from hate speech laws after the Bondi Beach terror attack. The Greens have also used their Senate balance of power to stall National Disability Insurance Scheme reforms. We look at what her exit means for the party and who holds the numbers in the Senate now.

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Australia’s unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in August, even as employers added 39,000 jobs, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday. The number of unemployed people climbed by 28,000 over the same month.

Part-time employment rose by 46,000 people, while full-time employment fell by 6,000, according to the bureau. ABS head of labour statistics Sean Crick said a higher share of people who had been outside the labour force moved straight into unemployment compared with recent years. That pushed the participation rate up 0.2 percentage point to 67.1%.

The bureau cautioned that a recent change to how part of the survey is run could have an unintended effect on August’s seasonally adjusted figures, though its testing put any impact below normal sampling variability. It recommended trend data as the best guide to the labour market. The trend unemployment rate also rose marginally to 4.6%.

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Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock used her last public appearance before next week’s board meeting to knock back questions about how she’ll vote, telling a CEDA audience in Sydney she doesn’t speak for the board and won’t discuss her own position.

Bullock did confirm the board has flagged inflation risk skewed to the upside since its last meeting, citing excess demand in the economy, a Middle East conflict now in its seventh month, and oil prices that remain elevated. She also said the Reserve Bank is watching for signs that AI-driven investment is outrunning company earnings, warning it “might not be a bubble, but it might be.”

The Monetary Policy Board meets September 28-29. The Reserve Bank’s Financial Stability Review, which will address the AI investment risk in more detail, is due October 1.

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