Category Archives: Australian politics

Liberals have ‘a lot of work to do’ after SA wipeout, Anne Ruston says – As it happened

Posted on by

This blog is now closed

Australia not ‘contemplating’ fuel rationing but state and federal governments have powers, Bowen says

State governments also had fuel rationing powers, Chris Bowen said.

When I was a kid … in the 80s in Sydney, I remember petrol rationing was done by state governments – the state governments do have powers there.

Yes, the Commonwealth government, under the fuel emergency act, has powers.

It’s not designed to be invoked lightly. It really has powers primarily around defence and health, in the first instance, to ensure that those key areas are getting diesel that they need, but also other forms of fuel.

I would need to be satisfied that there’s a real shortage and that the powers under that act are useful.

Continue reading...

Gas giants warn against windfall gains tax as Pocock says ‘wartime profits’ should go to struggling Australians

Posted on by

Government faces political fight as industry says mooted 25% levy on exports would hurt Australia’s economy and energy security

Gas giants will lobby against any federal government moves to introduce a 25% export levy on windfall profits, as crossbenchers pressure the prime minister to redirect billions of dollars in “wartime profits” to Australians struggling amid the global energy crisis.

It comes after the prime minister’s department asked Treasury to model the effects of placing a flat 25% tax on gas exports, the ABC reported on Friday, along with any further changes to the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) and corporate income tax.

Continue reading...

Australia news live: Tropical Cyclone Narelle poised to hit Queensland coast within hours with wind gusts up to 250km/h

Posted on by

Tropical cyclone expected to make landfall in far north Queensland within hours. Follow today’s news live

Waves of near-record heights smash Cairns coastline

One of the challenges posed by Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle is the lack of weather monitoring infrastructure in remote parts of Cape York.

Winds of that speed are pretty hard to imagine if you haven’t experienced them before. They are just so, so strong, capable of uprooting really large trees or completely stripping them of their branches …

It can also cause extensive damage to properties in the path of those very strong wind gusts as well as power outages.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Sign up to get Guardian Australia’s weekly media diary as a free newsletter

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...