Thank you for following our national news live blog on Monday, August 17.

Here’s what is making headlines today.

• The Albanese government’s gun buyback scheme adopted by NSW Premier Chris Minns yesterday won’t stop the “next Bondi”, the state’s opposition leader has warned, joining the swath of Coalition and One Nation MPs raising alarm about the scheme. Kellie Sloane, who represents Sydney’s eastern suburbs and one of the first to Bondi after the December attack, said the “real enemy” was terror and hate, rather than guns. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has also opposed the measure.
• Australian voters have condemned the Albanese government’s handling of immigration policy, with 54 per cent agreeing the government is running the portfolio in an “unplanned and unmanaged way”, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor. However, 60 per cent of voters like falling house prices, while concern about the cost of living has fallen to the lowest level since February 2023.
• One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce says he will “absolutely” not attend Mardi Gras, one day after party leader Pauline Hanson doubled down on decades-old comments in which she said she “didn’t like” the LGBTQIA+ event, saying that sexuality should be kept “behind closed doors”. It follows Joyce’s claim that One Nation was “one of the gayest parties in Australia”. He sidestepped a question on whether he supported the Mardi Gras event more generally.
• Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia overnight in an attack that killed at least six people, marking Kyiv’s latest attack in a ramp-up of efforts against Russia this year. Long-range missiles and drones swarmed military industries, energy facilities and retail warehouses across Russia, bringing the war home to the Russian public nearly 4½ years into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.