Category Archives: Australian politics

‘I’m here to change the country’: Albanese launches an uncompromising Indigenous voice plan

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Attempting to appease conservatives was pointless and risked failure, the referendum working group told the PM. It appears he listened

It’s on. On Thursday, the Albanese government leapt a major hurdle in the long run to a successful referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament at the end of the year.

After a flurry of late night meetings with his referendum working group – including a robust exchange of views about the amendment and the question, and furious and inaccurate public speculation about concessions and compromises – the final form of words announced on Thursday has not shifted significantly from the one Albanese announced at the Garma festival in July last year.

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Student teachers should spend more time on practical skills, less time on philosophy of education, panel recommends

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An expert panel has outlined plans to radically reform degrees to improve teaching courses and address workforce shortages in Australia

Student teachers should spend more time on practical skills and less time on the history and philosophy of education, an expert panel has recommended.

The teacher education expert panel, set up by the federal government to improve teaching courses and address workforce shortages, released its discussion paper on Thursday, outlining plans to radically reform degrees.

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MP says ‘we as NSW Liberals support asset recycling’ despite premier’s pledge to end privatisation

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Exclusive: Felicity Wilson later told the Guardian a reelected Perrottet government would not privatise more assets

Felicity Wilson, the Liberal MP for the North Shore, has told voters a New South Wales Coalition government would continue asset recycling, spruiking the benefits of privatisation to pay for metro lines, healthcare and schools.

The comments made last Thursday at a candidate forum run contradictory to the premier’s promise not to sell off any more of the state’s assets and come amid political attacks from Labor asserting more privatisations would take place under a reelected Perrottet government.

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Teals and independents are fighting hard to win a seat in the NSW parliament. Have they done enough?

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Three-horse races and optional preferential voting making calling seats ahead of Saturday’s state election a risky wager

Michael Regan, the independent running for the New South Wales seat of Wakehurst, has told staff he wants his to be the first seat called by the ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green, on Saturday night.

By that he means he wants to emulate the blistering win of the independent Zali Steggall, who scored a second term in the overlapping federal seat of Warringah in 2022 with more than 50% of the primary vote.

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Tax perks driving surge in number of SUVs and larger vehicles on Australian roads, experts say

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Calls to tackle rise in SUVs, utes and 4WDs by reducing tax incentives and building narrow lanes and parking spots exclusively for small cars

The surge in popularity of larger vehicles in Australia has been driven by tax perks that incentivise buying SUVs, utes and other 4WDs instead of less-polluting smaller sized cars and sedans, transport experts argue.

SUVs accounted for more than 50% of new vehicles sold in Australia last year, a share which has almost doubled over the past decade. The uptick has prompted calls to tackle the trend by limiting tax incentives, building bus lane-style narrow lanes and more parking spots exclusively for small cars.

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Australia politics live: government and opposition strike agreement over voice referendum machinery changes

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Bipartisan approach likely as Senate addresses changes to the rules governing referendums. Follow the day’s news live

Voice negotiations

The referendum machinery legislation will set up how the voice referendum will run – the machinery surruounding the vote, if you will.

We’re negotiating in good faith in the Senate that’s being led by Jane Hume who is doing an outstanding job. What we said to the government in the beginning is what we’re saying to them now and that is that we are not prepared to trash decades of referendum precedent, and not do this in a way that Australians expect us to, in their interests, for their information.

We’re asking for a pamphlet to outline the yes and no case, and we’ve talked about that. We’re asking for equal funding of the yes or no case, not the millions of dollars that may go into a public campaign on either side of this debate, but just the administration funding.

Fifty-seven per cent of the population does not want to open new coal and gas mines and I think there’s a very clear message coming through there. Secondly, no, I have got a lot of time for Jacqui Lambie, but we had an emissions trading scheme in this country and she was part of a party that voted to repeal it so let’s let’s not get too carried away with the spin here.

We’re in a climate crisis, as the UN secretary general has made clear. The decisions that we make now will reverberate for generations to come and the big decisions that we’ve got to make, do we open new coal and gas mines or not?

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Two arrested as mob sets upon protesters outside Mark Latham event in Sydney

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Rainbow rights group says peaceful protesters were set upon outside a Catholic church in Belfield

A gay and LGBTI rights group says a group attacked peaceful protesters outside a Catholic church in south-west Sydney, where One Nation’s Mark Latham was giving a speech.

Community Action for Rainbow Rights said on Twitter that as they were protesting outside St Michael’s church hall in Belfield, a mob set upon the protesters.

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Majority of Australians on jobseeker and parenting payments live in poverty, study finds

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Report on 3 million people living below the breadline shows welfare payments are ‘totally inadequate’ and action is needed in May budget, Acoss says

The majority of people on the jobseeker and parenting payments are living in poverty while about a third of single parents are also below the breadline, according to a new study.

A report from the University of New South Wales and the Australian Council of Social Service, to be released on Wednesday, provides further insight into the demographics of 3 million people, including 761,000 children, previously identified as living in poverty in the 2019-20 financial year.

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Australia politics live: Albanese condemns Nazi salutes at anti-trans rally after Dutton and Dreyfus clash in question time

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Follow the day’s politics

Jacqui Lambie expresses concerns over housing fund costing

Over on ABC RN Breakfast, Jacqui Lambie is speaking about what it would take for her and Tammy Tyrrell to vote for the housing fund.

We are worried about the $500m annual cap on disbursements to the fund because the way that we’re working out if you look at the next five years is that that that is only going to build it the amount of houses that you need to and I’m sorry, the house that you need to build is only is gonna end up about $80,000 per house. That’s the first problem that they have right now.

We are worried also with the inflation on what that $500m looks like in the next nine or 10 years. That’s your other issue. So we are concerned about that.

Yeah, I think obviously we’ve got to take the advice of our intelligence agencies. And that advice is becoming stronger and stronger. I think it’s unwise to have a TikTok account on your government held phone. We’ve got to understand the world we live in and the risk of having these phones as members of parliament, the privileged position we have, does pose to our national security. So I think it is important that the government takes that advice and if that’s the advice we should act swiftly on it. I would be very disappointed if any members of my National party didn’t adhere to any advice given by a security agency on social media, particularly TikTok.

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‘Shocker’: health experts condemn Nationals proposal to relax vaping laws

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David Littleproud says retailers should be permitted to sell nicotine e-cigarettes without a prescription to customers 18 and over

The Nationals proposal to address skyrocketing youth vaping rates by relaxing laws to allow retailers to sell the products to adults is “a shocker,” the president of the Australian Medical Association, Steve Robson, has said, while other health experts have criticised the proposal for being aligned with big tobacco.

On Tuesday Nationals leader David Littleproud told the ABC that retailers should be allowed to dispense nicotine vaping products, but that sales should be limited to people 18 and over, and attractive packaging marketed to children should be banned.

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Australia’s FOI backlog: 587 cases remain unresolved more than three years on

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Evidence given to federal court reveals extensive delay in the review process, including 42 freedom of information cases languishing for five years

Almost 600 freedom of information cases have languished before the nation’s information commissioner for more than three years, including 42 that are still not resolved after half a decade.

The Office of the Australian Commissioner plays a critical role in the functioning of the FOI system, reviewing decisions made by government departments and ensuring documents are not unlawfully hidden from the public.

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Cross-party anti-poverty push targets ‘inadequate’ jobseeker payments

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Liberal and Labor MPs Bridget Archer and Alicia Payne unite in call for welfare boost

Two major-party MPs have launched a cross-party push to put the focus on unacceptable levels of poverty in Australia as they call for an increase to the “inadequate” jobseeker payment.

The parliamentary friends of ending poverty group, chaired by the Labor backbencher Alicia Payne and the Liberal MP Bridget Archer, will launch on Tuesday night with speeches from the Rev Tim Costello and the economist Chris Richardson, who has long called for an increase to unemployment benefits.

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Guardian Essential poll: support for Aukus and Indigenous voice declines

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Anthony Albanese improves in personal measures, including honesty and vision, despite waning support for major policies

Public support for the Aukus nuclear submarine acquisition and the Indigenous voice to parliament have both declined, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

The poll of 1,124 voters, released on Tuesday, suggests Australians are at odds with the Aukus deal, with just one in five voters labelling China a “threat to be confronted” and only one quarter happy to pay the price tag of up to $368bn to acquire nuclear submarines.

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Voters in city seats support ban on new coal and gas projects, poll shows

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Majority in teal seats of Mackellar and Goldstein – and Labor’s Moreton and Bennelong – also say industry should not use offsets for emissions

The majority of voters in several metropolitan areas support stopping new coal and gas projects and believe industrial polluters should not be able to use carbon offsets for all their greenhouse gas emissions, according to new polling.

The progressive thinktank the Australia Institute commissioned uComms to poll more than 800 residents in each of two “teal” electorates – Mackellar and Goldstein – and the Labor-held seats of Moreton Bennelong and Sydney.

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Star pleads guilty to new charges of breaching Queensland casino law – as it happened

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Half of all school principals at risk of serious mental health issues

One in two principals risk serious mental health concerns amid escalating threats, violence and staff shortages in the sector, new research shows.

Our research shows abuse and intimidation towards principals and the associated health risks suffered by school leaders continues to grow and it must stop. Such a significant shift in red flag warnings in a short space of time suggests the situation is more serious than first thought. For the past 12 years we have looked at trends and this year they are stark – the scale and the rate has intensified, and we are seeing a severe escalation in stress levels.

There is an urgency in our call for action as the time to redress these concerns diminishes. We may see a mass exodus from the profession, and the implication for Australian education would be devastating.”

My amendments will require all new, expanded, or extended fossil fuel facilities to have net zero carbon emissions at commencement, and for the life of the facility. In this scenario:

A new gas project would be required to enter the safeguard mechanism at net zero, and stay there for its operational life.

A coalmine seeking to expand the area of its mining operations would need to ensure the expanded area operates carbon neutrally and remain that way for its operational life.

A company seeking to extend the life of a coal seam gas project would need to ensure the project is net zero from the day of the project’s extension and stay there for its operational life.

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Labor’s opposition to Iraq war ‘vindicated’, Richard Marles says

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Defence minister says any decision to engage in armed conflict should be better debated and scrutinised

Richard Marles says opponents of the Iraq war have been vindicated, prompting fresh calls from campaigners to reform the Australian government’s war powers to prevent a repeat.

The defence minister, who is awaiting a report from a parliamentary inquiry into how the nation decides to engage in armed conflict, said such deployments were among the most significant any government could make.

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Coalition’s super changes will affect three times as many people as Labor’s plan, modelling shows

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Jim Chalmers says figures based on Treasury projections reveals opposition’s ‘deception’

The Coalition’s superannuation changes will affect three times as many people as Labor’s new package over the long term, according to figures compiled by the Albanese government.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the figures showed “the Coalition’s dishonesty, deception and double standards” ahead of the resumption of parliament on Monday.

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Timid NSW transport policies show Labor and the Coalition have taken their feet off the accelerator

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No matter who wins the election, the task of tackling clogged roads and Sydney’s tolling mess will be immense

Sydney has been treated to a boom in public transport and road construction over the past decade, but the so far timid transport policies of the New South Wales election raise concerns the foot is coming off the accelerator.

The main policy differences to emerge between the Coalition and Labor surround how each side plans to expand the metro network westwards, Band-Aid solutions to address the cost of commuting through Sydney’s tolling mess and support for a contentious tunnel.

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‘It’s Up to Us’: squeezed by the housing crisis, a NSW rural community finds its own solution

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After raising $350K, a group of Bega electorate residents provided temporary units for locals, but long-term investment is needed to provide more permanent accommodation

About two years ago, Michael Brosnan decided he could no longer wait for the government to act on the housing crisis.

As more and more people were squeezed into homelessness in his community on the far south coast of New South Wales, he and other locals decided to start a fundraiser.

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Neo-Nazis and trans rights protesters clash in Melbourne; bushfire alert for parts of Great Ocean Road – as it happened

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Melbourne forecast to reach 37C while northern regions of the state could exceed 40C. This blog is now closed

Federal government welcomes decision to hear MH17 case

The federal government has welcomed the International Civil Aviation Organization Council’s decision to hear Australia and the Netherlands’ case against Russia for the downing of flight MH17.

We have maintained since May 2018 that the Russian Federation is responsible under international law for the downing of Flight MH17.

We now look forward to presenting our legal arguments and evidence to the ICAO Council as we continue to seek to hold Russia to account.

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