Australia news LIVE: IS-linked families leave Syria for Australia; Iran war and inflation hit jobs market as unemployment surges; Australians released from Israeli prison allege mistreatment

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has left the door open to altering contentious tax changes announced in the budget.

Following reporting in this masthead that Albanese would be open to walking back proposed changes to taxing discretionary testamentary trusts – which the opposition have labelled a “death tax” – Albanese said today the government would “work through the legislation”.

The government announced in last week’s budget that a 30 per cent rate would soon apply to all discretionary trusts to better align earnings from investments with income tax.

There are about 10,500 testamentary trusts in the country, created within a person’s will so they can manage their assets and the income derived from them after they die.

In Wollongong this morning, Albanese said: “Let’s be very clear that we’ve said, when it comes to some of the misreporting that’s there, we’re not interested and there’s no measures in there that are going to hurt inheritances.

“So we’ll work through the legislation we’ve said will be introduced in the second half of the year. On trusts, there will be a consultation period about that, and we made that clear on budget night.”