Albanese Holds First Meeting With Japanese PM Since Diplomatic Incident, as Domestic Housing Debate Continues

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held his first meeting with Japan's prime minister since an earlier diplomatic incident, according to ongoing live coverage of the day's political news in Australia. The same coverage reported that police have offered a $1 million reward for information relating to Gus Lamont.

Separately, a domestic debate over housing policy continued within the governing Labor party and the opposition Coalition. Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, the shadow housing minister, said he supports having "big debates" about housing, after proposing that Australians be allowed to use their superannuation savings as collateral to secure a home loan.

Bragg's proposal has not been adopted as official Coalition policy. Opposition leader Angus Taylor said a day earlier that the superannuation-as-collateral idea was not Coalition policy.

Echoes of earlier savings debates

Bragg drew a comparison to national debates in the 1980s and 1990s over savings and housing, which he said contributed to the eventual creation of Australia's compulsory superannuation guarantee system. He argued that Australia, as a wealthy country, should be able to have open debates of this kind about housing affordability and retirement savings policy.

Further details on the Albanese-Japan meeting and the Gus Lamont case were not included in the available source material.