Category Archives: Australian politics

Voter ID bill may discourage turnout and no evidence it will prevent fraud, committee says

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Parliamentary committee on human rights warns Coalition’s plan could disproportionately impact disadvantaged groups

The Coalition’s voter ID bill may discourage people from voting and “no evidence” has been provided regarding how it could prevent fraud, a parliamentary committee has warned.

The joint committee on human rights, chaired by Nationals MP Anne Webster, issued the warning in a report on Wednesday. It called on the special minister of state, Ben Morton, to explain how the bill would be effective and its impact on vulnerable groups.

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‘Throwing toothpicks at the mountain’: Paul Keating says Aukus submarines plan will have no impact on China

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Former Australian prime minister also says Britain ‘like an old theme park sliding into the Atlantic’ compared to modern China

The former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has denounced the US- and UK-backed plan for nuclear-powered submarines as “like throwing a handful of toothpicks at the mountain”, declaring Australia should avoid being drawn into a war with China.

The former Labor leader on Wednesday accused the major Australian political parties of losing their way on foreign policy, while dismissing the credibility of the UK’s “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific region.

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Australian corporations’ treatment of Indigenous customers to be investigated by inquiry

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String of scandals involving some of Australia’s biggest business names prompts parliamentary probe

After a series of high-profile cases of corporate failures, the way big businesses in Australia treat Indigenous customers will be examined by a parliamentary inquiry.

The destruction of Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto was one of the most recent inexcusable acts, but it is not alone. Woolworths was forced to abandon plans to build a liquor warehouse near three dry Aboriginal communities. Earlier this year, Telstra was fined $50m by the federal court which found it had exploited Indigenous customers by signing them up for phone contracts they could not understand or afford.

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Australia news live update: WA nurse charged over alleged Covid vaccine fraud; booster shots available from today; more freedoms for NSW

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Nurse accused of faking a Covid vaccination; Adem Somyurek appears before Ibac; Victoria records 1,126 cases and five deaths; NSW reports 187 cases, seven deaths; ACT has 13 new cases; Barnaby Joyce slams ex-PMs’ criticisms of PM; vaccine boosters roll out; NSW scraps home-visit limits for vaccinated. Follow the day’s news

Health minister Greg Hunt is also on the interview circuit this morning and has been asked if booster shots will be required for people to keep the freedoms given to those who have been double vaccinated:

Not at this stage. it is not our medical advice. What a booster is, is exactly as the name says. It adds to your vaccination. It boosts your vaccination. It boosts your vaccination and protection.

We are opening up today across the country to anyone who is six months or more from their vaccination.

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Jobs at risk without boost in research investment, peak body warns after Scott Morrison praises scientists

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Australia currently spends just 1.8% of GDP on research and development, lagging OECD average

Australia risks losing jobs to other countries if it fails to lift its below-average spending on research and development, a peak science body has warned, amid Scott Morrison’s vow to promote “technology not taxes” on climate policy.

Australia invests just 1.8% of its economic output in research and development, well behind the OECD average of 2.5%.

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Australia news live updates: NT to decide if Covid lockdown extended, Tim Smith won’t contest Victoria election after drunken crash

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Katherine stay-at-home restrictions due to lift at midnight, but source of outbreak still not known. Follow updates live

Labor will create a national anti-scam centre and double funding for services helping aggrieved Australians get stolen IDs back to counter scammers if it wins government, AAP reports.

Forcing companies to take down fraudulent ads faster, a review of the current penalties in place for scammers and a new ministerial portfolio for the issue will be introduced under its “scambuster” plan.

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Cost of Australia holding each refugee on Nauru balloons to $4.3m a year

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Exclusive: Taxpayer cost of offshore processing regime revealed as government remains silent on where $400m went

The cost to Australian taxpayers to hold a single refugee on Nauru has escalated tenfold to more than $350,000 every month – or $4.3m a year – as the government refuses to reveal where nearly $400m spent on offshore processing on the island has gone.

Australia currently pays about $40m a month to run its offshore processing regime on Nauru, an amount almost identical to 2016 when there were nearly 10 times as many people held on the island.

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Australia live news update: Victoria and NSW record 10 Covid deaths; NT races to trace case; Australia reaches 80% vaccination target

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Victoria records 1,268 cases, NSW 270, ACT 18 and Qld one as Katharine in Northern Territory in lockdown

Nationals MP Darren Chester and Labor MP Amanda Rishworth were on ABC 24 earlier, being asked whether Scott Morrison had “shamed Australia on the global stage” at the Cop26 summit and worsened tensions with French president Emmanuel Macron. The following exchange took place.

Chester:

I know it’s a spring racing carnival and Labor wants an each-way bet on everything, but the Labor party has supported the Aukus deal. The Labor party has spoken in positive terms ...

The Labor party has been very bipartisan on the Aukus deal but to say the prime minister has handled this anything but appallingly would be an understatement. There’s no doubt the French were upset, but even President Biden admitted that perhaps this whole thing was handled clumsily. Rather than the [Australian] prime minister work on his diplomatic relationships there, what he’s done is he’s doubled down and allegedly his office has leaked private text messages. And then we’ve had government ministers criticising the press for asking questions. This really goes to the character of our prime minister.

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The Macron spat over Aukus submarines has taught world leaders a lot about Scott Morrison | Katharine Murphy

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The Australian PM is a relatively new player on the global stage, but the leak of the French president’s text message spoke volumes

As Scott Morrison flew towards Australia’s military base for operations in the Middle East on Wednesday, Jean-Pierre Thébault was using an appearance at the National Press Club in Canberra to continue France’s rolling excoriation of Australia’s conduct while dumping a multibillion-dollar submarine contract.

By the time Morrison touched down in the desert, the French ambassador had landed a potent extrapolation. If Scott Morrison’s operation was prepared to leak private text messages from world leaders to settle diplomatic scores, who could trust Australia?

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French ambassador says leak of Macron text ‘new low’ as submarines rift deepens

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Jean-Pierre Thébault says Morrison government’s ‘deceit was intentional’ and questions whether any country could trust ‘the value of Australia’s signature’

The French ambassador has denounced the Australian government’s release of a private text message from Emmanuel Macron as “an unprecedented new low”, arguing other world leaders would now worry their words might be “weaponised” against them.

Jean-Pierre Thébault said the leaking of the text message from the French president was a setback “in terms of truth and trust”, and it would be “sad” if this was the Australian government’s answer to France’s request for concrete actions to heal the relationship.

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‘Not going to cop sledging’: Scott Morrison hits back at Macron in row over submarine deal

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Prime minister gives details of contract talks after French president accuses him of lying about plans to cancel $90bn deal

Scott Morrison has hit back against an extraordinary accusation from the French president that Australia’s prime minister lied to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, declaring he will not “cop sledging” about Australia’s integrity.

Speaking to reporters in Glasgow where he is attending the UN climate conference Cop26, Morrison said Emmanuel Macron was well aware that Australia was contemplating pulling out of the troubled Naval Group diesel submarine contract.

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‘I don’t think, I know’: Macron accuses Scott Morrison of lying about submarine contract – video

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Emmanuel Macron has accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, in a significant escalation of tensions between Paris and Canberra. 'I just say when we have respect, you have to be true and you have to behave in line and consistent with this value,' the French president said. When asked whether he thought Morrison had lied to him by not revealing Australia’s dialogue with the UK and US over the acquisition of nuclear submarines, Macron was direct in his response. 'I don’t think, I know'.  

Video courtesy of Pablo Viñales

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Scott Morrison to use final G20 remarks to defend climate policy ahead of Cop26

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PM says Australia has cut emissions by ‘more than most of the countries sitting around this table’

Scott Morrison will use his final remarks at the G20 summit in Rome to declare climate finance must focus on adaptation and “empowerment”, not just on emissions reduction.

Australia’s prime minister will also push back at coordinated global efforts to phase out fossil fuels.

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Australia news live update: international border reopens as those stranded set to return home; Morrison doubles down on Aukus deal

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International border bans are set to end on Monday with Australians able to leave the country and return home; Scott Morrison defends the Aukus deal at G20 in Rome. Follow all the day’s news live

Minister for energy and emissions reduction Angus Taylor will be speaking on ABC Insiders this morning.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is currently in Glasgow today for the UN’s climate change conference, Cop26. Australia has international faced pressure to ramp up its action on climate change. As such, over the last few weeks, Morrison and Taylor raced to secure Nationals party room support for a target of net zero emissions by 2050.

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Macron’s anger over nuclear submarine deal linked to French election, Peter Dutton says

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Australian defence minister’s claim comes as French president and PM Scott Morrison speak for first time since rift over Aukus deal

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Peter Dutton says sustained expressions of outrage from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, may be connected to the European country’s looming national election rather than the cancellation of a $90bn submarine contract.

Australia’s defence minister told the Nine network a call on Thursday night between Macron and the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, had been “productive”. The conversation was the first time the two leaders have spoken since the unveiling of the Aukus pact sent diplomatic relationship between Canberra and Paris into freefall.

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Thousands of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine doses going to waste despite near-record production

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Authorities move to head off supply glut amid calls for increased donations to lower-income neighbouring countries

Almost 1,000 Covid vaccination providers are destroying expired AstraZeneca supplies, with the wastage of 31,833 doses reported despite Australian production of the vaccine continuing at near-record rates.

There are now fears more will be binned as rates of uptake wane due to increased vaccination choice and the federal health department stepping in to manage the overstock.

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Australia politics live news: government faces net zero ‘plan’ fallout; Covid vaccine booster shots approved; overseas travel for fully vaccinated

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Question time tackles climate policy as PM faces mounting criticism over roadmap for reducing emissions by 2050; vaccine booster program to begin from 8 November; 16 Covid deaths in Victoria and NSW; international travel exemption scrapped for vaccinated Australians; national child abuse prevention strategy announced. Follow all the day’s news

The UN Environment Programme’s latest emissions gap report is out and it makes for sobering reading. The accompanying statement includes this:

Alok Sharma, incoming COP26 President, said the report underlined why countries need to show ambitious climate action at COP26:

“As this report makes clear, if countries deliver on their 2030 NDCs and net zero commitments which have been announced by the end of September, we will be heading towards average global temperature rises of just above 2C.

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Australia news live update: Scott Morrison unveils details of 2050 net zero plan; Victoria premier outlines new pandemic laws

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Prime minister gives press conference on Australia’s commitments to climate action; Daniel Andrews explains new measures; Victoria confirms four Covid deaths overnight, NSW one death – follow all the day’s news

The estimates hearings today cover off the same committees as yesterday:

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Under the radar: the Australian intelligence chief in the shadows of the Aukus deal

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Andrew Shearer’s unreported meeting in April with Joe Biden’s top Indo-Pacific adviser may have been the clincher for the Aukus security agreement

It was late April when one of Australia’s top intelligence chiefs arrived in Washington for important talks with key officials in the relatively new Biden administration.

Andrew Shearer, a longtime foreign policy hawk and one of Scott Morrison’s most influential advisers on how Australia should position itself at a time of rising tensions with China, met with Joe Biden’s top Indo-Pacific adviser, Kurt Campbell, in the building next to the White House on 30 April.

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Australia Covid live updates: Victoria to have freedom of movement from Friday as state records 1,935 cases; 296 cases in NSW

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Victoria may reach jab milestone allowing greater freedoms this week, while figures show worrying number of school closures from outbreaks

The full rundown on Covid in NSW today, brought to you by AAP:

NSW has added a further 296 locally acquired infections to its Covid caseload along with four more deaths.

Some 480 people with the virus remain in hospitals across the state, 119 of them in intensive care.

Meanwhile, Halloween enthusiasts are being warned to keep trick-or-treating Covid-safe.

“If you and your family are planning to celebrate Halloween this year ... aim to keep the celebrations outside, provide closed packaging for treats and instead of communal lolly bowls consider other ways to distribute your treats,” NSW Health’s Jeremy McAnulty advised on Saturday.

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