Category Archives: Australian politics

Bernardi vows to pay for flights taken with Hanson on Rinehart’s plane amid confusion about SA’s donations ban

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World-leading laws to be tested before South Australian election, complicated by Hanson and Bernardi’s political status

Cory Bernardi says he will pay for multiple flights with Pauline Hanson in a plane registered to Gina Rinehart’s company amid confusion about whether the trips may contravene South Australia’s new laws banning political donations.

Saturday’s SA election is the first since the new laws came into effect. There are a range of exemptions to the ban, but it is not clear if any of them apply to One Nation as parties, candidates and the electoral commission work through the “world-leading” laws for the first time.

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Australia’s high court orders ankle bracelets be removed and curfews end for 43 former immigration detainees

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Labor’s preventative detention regime suffers blow as court finds tough laws for NZYQ group are unconstitutional

Dozens of former immigration detainees who have already served prison sentences will have ankle bracelets removed and curfews scrapped, with the high court again striking down laws targeting the group.

On Wednesday, the Albanese government’s preventative detention regime suffered another blow as the court ruled the tough laws to deal with the NZYQ cohort were unconstitutional.

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Australia’s environment minister wants to ban fishers and drillers from more ocean – and avoid a culture war

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Conservationists hope Murray Watt’s review of national marine parks will ‘right the wrongs’ of previous downgrade of protection

The federal environment minister, Murray Watt, has pledged to put an extra half a million square kilometres of Australia’s ocean out of reach of fishers and drillers in a step conservationists hope will “right the wrongs” of an Abbott-era downgrade of marine protection.

Watt confirmed last year Australia would put 30% of its ocean estate under a high level of protection that bans extractive industries as part of an international agreement to protect 30% of the planet’s oceans.

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Australian soldiers’ bodies ‘very likely’ disturbed by Israeli bulldozing at Gaza cemetery, senator says

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David Pocock’s comments come as new photos show scale of damage and government official says its ‘quite possible’ bodies disturbed

The bodies of Australian soldiers buried in Gaza have “very likely” been disturbed, the independent senator David Pocock says, as new photos tendered to parliament show widespread damage of graves by Israeli bulldozers.

About 146 of the 263 graves of Australian soldiers buried in Gaza have been damaged, Senate estimates heard last week.

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‘Cannot wait until December’: Dennis Richardson calls for urgency over Bondi attack failures after quitting inquiry

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Former spy chief says recommendations regarding intelligence agencies shouldn’t wait for royal commission’s final report

Improvements to public safety and intelligence in the wake of the Bondi terrorist attack “cannot wait until December”, former spy chief Dennis Richardson has said just days after he sensationally quit the antisemitism royal commission.

“You cannot leave matters that go to public safety till the end of the year, particularly when you have a small section of the community living in such fear,” Richardson told an ABC podcast.

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‘We’re living in an Orwellian nightmare’: Grace Tame calls Anthony Albanese a ‘coward’ in scathing critique

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In an essay for Crikey, the former Australian of the Year says the PM is a ‘turncoat’ who is ‘capitulating to foreign powers’ amid the US-Israel war on Iran

Grace Tame has said “we’re living in an Orwellian nightmare” in a scathing critique of the prime minister and his government’s position on the war in the Middle East.

In an essay published in Crikey on Friday, the advocate for sexual abuse survivors and human rights activist accused Anthony Albanese of being a “coward” and a “turncoat” for refusing to condemn the US-Israel strikes on Iran.

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Iraqi official urges Australia to take back alleged IS fighters during meeting with ambassador

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Iraq’s national security adviser Qassim al-Araji says he told Australian ambassador that countries should repatriate prisoners

A senior Iraqi government official has implored Australia to repatriate a group of suspected Islamic State fighters, raising the issue with Canberra’s top diplomat in Baghdad just weeks after the detainees were transferred out of Syria.

In a post on X, Iraq’s national security adviser, Qassim al-Araji, said he met with ambassador Glenn Miles last week, and told him that foreign detainees should be returned to their home countries. This is despite such a task being made more difficult by growing instability in the region, caused by the war in Iran.

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‘Naming them is not justice’: robodebt victims feel let down by findings of corruption watchdog

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Nacc report into unlawful scheme found two senior public servants engaged in corrupt conduct but declined to refer them for charges in what victims call a ‘massive letdown’

The mother of a robodebt victim who took his own life says she feels “sheer frustration” at the findings of a report on potential corruption related to the unlawful income averaging scheme.

Wednesday’s release of a 445-page report from the National Anti-Corruption Commission examined the actions of five former public servants and the former prime minister Scott Morrison. The report found two senior public officials to have engaged in corrupt conduct, but they will not be referred for charges.

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Payman, Thorpe and Faruqi demand Labor change parliamentary rules to counter ‘overt’ racism

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Exclusive: independent and Greens senators ask president to set up inquiry and anti-racism training for politicians to prevent bigotry ‘corroding democracy’

Increasingly ugly abuse in federal parliament has prompted a group of independents and the Greens to call for an urgent intervention from Labor to change the rules, warning that allowing racism and bigotry to “fester” is corroding democracy.

Guardian Australia can reveal independents, Fatima Payman and Lidia Thorpe, and the Greens’ Mehreen Faruqi are demanding Senate president Sue Lines take the problem seriously with a new inquiry and mandatory anti-racism training for politicians.

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Australian governments subsidising fossil fuel use by more than $30,000 a minute, analysis finds

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Australia Institute data finds state and federal subsidies for coal, gas and oil products increased 10% in past year, growing at a faster pace than funding to NDIS

Australian federal and state government subsidies that encourage fossil fuel use and help drive the climate crisis will reach $16.3bn this year after leaping by nearly 10%, according to a new analysis.

It found federal and state governments will pay or forgo the equivalent of $31,020 each minute in 2025-26 to subsidise companies producing and using coal, gas and especially oil, mostly in the form of diesel.

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At Perth’s CPAC conference, Liberal party faithful speak of ‘the lost Australians’ – with no sign of One Nation

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Andrew Hastie, Basil Zempilas and Warren Mundine were among the guests at the conservative convention, which focused on immigration and housing

The rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) made its foray into Western Australia on Friday evening, with no sign of One Nation on a stage dominated by Liberal politicians.

The event, dubbed Reset the West, was a rallying call for conservatives to work together, but what emerged was a Liberal party attempt to rebuild the centre-right with itself at its core.

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Ex-Liberal MP says the party must introduce gender quotas to start winning elections

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Jenny Ware says party is ‘at crisis point’ and cannot be competitive at election time unless it selects candidates who better reflect the makeup of Australia

The former Liberal MP Jenny Ware says her party must implement gender quotas for candidates for office, warning the opposition “cannot get back into government” without putting forward candidates who are more reflective of the broader community.

Ware, who lost her seat of Hughes at the 2025 election, said it was “deeply embarrassing” that the Liberal party executive had not released its own review of the electoral wipeout, and which was then tabled in parliament by Anthony Albanese this week.

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Jillian Segal’s office hand-picked candidate to assess controversial university antisemitism report card

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Greg Craven, a former vice-chancellor of Australian Catholic University, chosen after no other bids made for the tender

Australia’s antisemitism envoy hand-picked Greg Craven to lead her controversial university report card process after receiving no response from five firms approached during an open tender process.

Documents released under freedom of information laws showed Jillian Segal’s office initially approached three independent consulting firms and two law firms to potentially conduct the assessment of Australian universities and how well they were dealing with antisemitism on campus, but all of them declined to bid on the tender.

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Australia news live: luxury car tax change could seal EU trade deal; far north Queensland braces for severe weather

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Jim Chalmers hints concession on threshold for imports could finally lead to an agreement. Follow the latest updates live

Two flights from Dubai land in Sydney and Melbourne

A second commercial flight landed in Sydney last night from Dubai and the first made its way to Melbourne from the Middle Eastern hub.

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Plibersek accuses Mafs of platforming ‘coercive control’ after contestant wanted a woman ‘obedient’ like a dog

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Social services minister Tanya Plibersek criticises hit reality TV show Married at First Sight for ‘messaging which encourages control and dehumanises women’

The social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, has accused Australia’s biggest media company, Nine Entertainment, of “normalising” coercive control by airing an exchange in which a Married at First Sight contestant says he wants a woman to be obedient like a dog.

Plibersek urged parents not to let their children watch the “dangerous” reality TV juggernaut, which regularly attracts more than 2 million viewers on broadcast television alone.

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Pauline Hanson censured over Muslim comments but only two Coalition senators back motion

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It is Hanson’s second censure within four months, this time over comments questioning whether there were ‘good’ Muslims

Pauline Hanson has been censured again by the federal Senate, with two Liberal senators crossing the floor to support a motion calling out the One Nation leader’s “inflammatory and divisive” recent comments about Australian Muslims.

Hanson dismissed the motion – her second censure within four months, after her stunt of wearing a hijab in the parliament last year – as a “joke”, theatrically slapping herself on the wrist before storming out of the chamber prior to the final vote. The Greens and much of the crossbench backed Labor’s censure motion, while the Coalition resolved to oppose it, saying censures should be reserved for the most serious conduct.

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Angus Taylor snaps at journalist as Liberals ramp up rhetoric against Australian children in Syrian camp

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Opposition leader suggests 23 children and 11 women attempting to leave al-Roj are Islamic State ‘sympathisers’

Angus Taylor has suggested the Australian children remaining in a Syrian detention camp are “Isis sympathisers” as the Liberal party ramps up its rhetoric against the families of dead or jailed Islamic State fighters.

The opposition leader also chided a member of the press for attempting to force his response on why the group of 23 children and 11 women should be another country’s responsibility.

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Flights from Australia to Middle East cancelled – as it happened

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The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says Australia was not told in advance about the bombing of Iran but won’t say whether intelligence facilities here were used.

“We weren’t told advance. You wouldn’t expect us to be but you would see there’s obviously been a lot of discussion,” she said.

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‘People have lost all sense of shame’: three threats against federal politicians reported to police every day

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At least 21 charges have been laid against individuals since October, Australian federal police say, following 951 reports to June

Nearly three violent or menacing threats against federal politicians are being reported to police daily, according to Australian federal police data, with rates almost doubling in two years.

The soaring danger for elected officials and their staff reached new heights this week when Anthony Albanese was evacuated from The Lodge in Canberra over a bomb threat.

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Polls, preferences, potential defections: can Victoria’s Liberal party ward off the rising threat of One Nation?

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Opposition leader Jess Wilson is under pressure to reveal her position on a deal with Pauline Hanson’s party as the state election approaches

While internal divisions have long been the Victorian Liberal party’s main obstacle to winning government, a new threat is emerging on its right flank: One Nation.

Just four years ago, One Nation received just 8,077 lower house first-preference votes out of more than 3.6m cast in Victoria – equivalent to 0.22% of the total – and won a single seat in the upper house.

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