Category Archives: Liberal party

Lehrmann proceedings day seven – as it happened

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Brittany Higgins says she does not count Linda Reynolds and her chief of staff Fiona Brown as villains in her story.

“Fiona Brown was just following instructions and I’ve never blamed her and I don’t blame her,” Higgins said.

“Linda Reynolds avoided me in my view, and did not meet her duty of care. I felt unsupported. I felt unsupported by both of them, but I don’t count them as villains in this story. I just don’t think they did the right thing by me.”

Higgins said her experience damaged her relationship with the Liberal party and she revealed she is no longer a Liberal.

She denied a suggestion from Whybrow that she leaked her story to the media in order to damage the Liberal party ahead of the election.

“I had no intention of impacting the election, but I did want to change the culture in Parliament House,” Higgins said.

“I was angry at the culture of Parliament House and I was hurt by the Liberal party, but I was still a Liberal.

“No longer, but I was still for a really long time.”

• an earlier version of this post incorrectly identified the election referred to as being in 2019

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Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial live: Brittany Higgins tells court accusation she lied about rape to keep job is ‘insulting’ and ‘incorrect’

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A warning for readers: this blog contains graphic details of allegations of sexual assault. Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson in the federal court of Australia over allegations Higgins was raped by a Liberal staffer in Parliament House. Follow the latest news and updates

Higgins questioned about sequence of events

Steve Whybrow SC asked Higgins: “I’m suggesting to you that you alter and evolve your evidence as you find that extra information. Do you accept that?”

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Climate protesters arrested at Port of Newcastle blockade – as it happened

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‘The biggest transformation in our country’s history’

Chris Bowen has been talking about Labor’s plans for reducing emissions, but he’s pressed on the fact that the government has been approving new coalmines and gas projects, which add to global emissions.

The way I see this, David, you can enter into a discussion with your international counterparts which we are doing which is us saying to them, “We will continue to be a reliable energy supplier but we want to work with you on your decarbonisation because we have advantages that you don’t have. We can provide renewable energy.” That is an important conversation to have.

Frankly the approach of others is more a slogan than a policy. We are making the biggest transformation in our country’s history and that involves both domestic policies and strong international engagements, as I will be doing over the next couple of weeks and we have been doing all the way through.

It will be treated in the budget statement of risks and liabilities in the normal fashion. But this is the right policy for the right times to ensure emissions come down and reliability goes up.

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Moderate Dave Sharma wins NSW Liberal Senate spot after beating both Peter Dutton-endorsed candidates

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Liberal leader Peter Dutton had endorsed Andrew Constance and Zed Seselja for the seat opened up by Marise Payne’s resignation

Former Wentworth Liberal MP Dave Sharma is returning to parliament after emerging victorious in the NSW Liberal Senate race in what was largely a conservative field.

Sharma beat fellow moderate Andrew Constance, who was billed as the front runner, and hard-line conservative and former junior minister in the Morrison government, Zed Seselja, to take the seat opened up by Marise Payne’s resignation.

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Australia news live: Bruce Lehrmann back in the witness box as defamation case kicks off third day

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Former Liberal staffer’s defamation trial against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson continues in the federal court. Follow the day’s news live

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has said the government is yet to decide how to best consult with First Nations people after the loss of the Indigenous voice referendum.

Burney was on RN Breakfast earlier and said today’s Closing the Gap meeting, the first since the referendum, would focus on the silver linings from the loss.

What we have seen is a group of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people get involved in the political process.

We had 6 million Australians say yes. And the thing that really excited me about the outcome in places like the Tiwi Islands, where … Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wanted this change. And those votes are really important.

Education is the most powerful cause for good in this world, that is where you learn.

If you want to protest, do it on the weekend. School is on, we expect them to be there.

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What’s Dutton’s strategy for picking the NSW Senate spot winner? Back both frontrunners

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Leading moderate Andrew Constance is up against rightwinger Zed Seselja to fill the Liberals’ seat – but a dark horse could spoil the party

The Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, wants to back a winner. Even if it means endorsing two candidates in the New South Wales Senate race.

Dutton has backed the former ACT Liberal senator Zed Seselja for the spot that was opened up by Marise Payne’s resignation, with Seselja the hope of the party’s hard right.

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Moira Deeming says she’ll lodge defamation claim against Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto in court

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First-term MP says mediation with the party leader failed, as she seeks to return to the Liberal party room

Victorian MP Moira Deeming says she will lodge defamation proceedings against the state’s Liberal leader, John Pesutto, declaring mediation has failed.

The first-term MP was expelled from the parliamentary Liberal party after she took part in an anti-transgender rally in March that was gatecrashed by a group of masked men who performed Nazi salutes.

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‘Absolutely absurd’: lawyers criticise opposition proposal to re-detain immigration cases

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James Paterson refuses to back Peter Dutton’s plan to send people back to immigration detention but pushes alternative method of jailing them

The federal opposition’s home affairs spokesperson, James Paterson, has refused to back Peter Dutton’s suggestion the government could simply re-detain 93 people released from indefinite immigration detention after a landmark high court ruling.

But the Liberal frontbencher’s alternative proposal – to use terrorist-style preventative or continuing detention orders – has been lashed as “absurd” by leading lawyer Greg Barns SC who claimed there was no evidence any of the released detainees were at high risk of reoffending.

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Mulgrave byelection: Labor retains Daniel Andrews’ seat despite swing against Victorian government

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Dandenong mayor Eden Foster leading 54-46 on a two-party preferred basis after Saturday’s byelection

Victorian Labor has retained Daniel Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave despite a significant swing against the government in the former premier’s seat.

The Dandenong mayor, Eden Foster, was leading with more than 40% of the primary vote in Saturday’s byelection, which was down more than 10 percentage points from Andrews’ showing at last year’s state poll.

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Tanya Plibersek accuses Peter Dutton of ‘killing people’s faith in government’

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Environment minister hammers opposition leader’s record, as Labor and Liberal road test lines of attack for next federal election

Senior government minister Tanya Plibersek has accused Peter Dutton of seeking to “kick the underdog when they’re down” and “killing people’s faith in government”, as Labor targets the opposition leader ahead of the next election.

Plibersek will use a speech at Labor’s state conference in Western Australia on Saturday to criticise Dutton, calling his politics “the poisonous politics of no”.

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Victoria’s yearly document ‘dump day’ reveals a mix of good, bad and ugly

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Among the 241 annual reports released all at once are 45 children’s deaths, triple-zero success and a fish ‘misadventure’ at the zoo

Every year, the Victorian parliament partakes in a tradition that has come to be known as “dump day”.

Usually towards the end of the sitting year, the government will release a bewildering number of annual reports at once, presumably so that journalists and other interested parties are rendered physically incapable of taking them all in.

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Icac says Berejiklian inquiry sent ‘clear message’ – as it happened

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Australia’s ‘agricultural demands’ did not meet recent negotiations, EU spokesperson says

According to Politico, a spokesperson for the EU executive had this to say about the breakdown of free trade deal negotiations:

The European Commission regrets the lack of progress made during talks in Osaka today.

Our negotiating teams made good progress in recent weeks, including in the days leading up to the Osaka meeting. There was optimism that a deal was within reach.

My job as Australia’s trade minister is to get the best deal that we can for our producers, our businesses, our workers and our consumers.

Unfortunately we’ve not been able to make progress.

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Paul Keating says voice referendum was ‘wrong fight’ and has ‘ruined the game’ for a treaty

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Exclusive: Former PM accuses John Howard and Tony Abbott of ‘outrageously and wilfully misinterpreting’ result in attempt to return to ‘great assimilation project’

Indigenous Australians were always “fighting the wrong fight” with a voice to parliament, the former prime minister Paul Keating has said, and the failure of the referendum has now “ruined the game” for a treaty that could have properly acknowledged prior Indigenous ownership and dispossession.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, Keating accused the former Liberal prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, and the historian Geoffrey Blainey, of “outrageously and wilfully misinterpreting” the referendum result in an attempt to return to “the great assimilation project”.

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Victorian Liberals’ moderate credentials looking shaky as commitment to treaty wavers

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After the voice referendum, John Pesutto appears non-committal on treaty – but it’s unclear whether an about-face will be well-received in the ‘Massachusetts of Australia’

It was not even 18 months ago that the Victorian Coalition was seeking to dispel the “myth” that only the Labor party supported a treaty with the state’s First Nations people.

“This side of the house, both the Liberal and the National parties, are committed to working with the Indigenous community on treaty,” the Nationals leader, Peter Walsh, told parliament last year when he spoke in support of a bill establishing a Treaty Authority.

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Liberal party apologises to voice voters for giving advice labelled ‘blatant disregard’ of rules

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People who took up party’s incorrect suggestion on applying for postal ballots could miss out on voting in referendum, MP warns

The Liberal party has apologised to voters for incorrectly suggesting they could apply for a postal vote before writs for the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum had been issued, with the party conceding they will now need to reapply.

The independent MP Kate Chaney has blasted the party for its “blatant disregard” of Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) guidelines and warned that voters may be disenfranchised because they were informed less than two weeks from the 14 October poll.

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Liberals say Warren Mundine’s stance on treaties and Australia Day could cost him Senate seat

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Senior party source says the leading no campaigner ‘made it very difficult for himself’ in race to succeed retiring NSW senator Marise Payne

Leading no campaigner Warren Mundine’s support for treaties with First Nations people and moving the date of Australia Day will likely sink his chances of taking a vacant Liberal Senate seat, party sources have said.

Mundine has been touted as a possible candidate for the New South Wales vacancy created by Marise Payne’s resignation. He has been supported by the former prime minister Scott Morrison and his centre-right factional ally Alex Hawke.

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Politics live: Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says she does not believe legacy of colonisation continues to impact Indigenous Australians

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Shadow Indigenous affairs minister last spoke at forum alongside Marcia Langton and Josephine Cashman in 2016. Follow live news updates today

We’ll be hearing from Michael Long and the Long walkers very soon.

In other news ahead of us, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price will give an address to the national press club and then she is down for an event with the Australian newspaper later this afternoon.

[It’s an issue that’s been identified across international media and domestically, but we need to make sure that there are absolutely no loopholes or ability for people to think that they can operate contrary to Australia’s national interest.

And so we’re making sure that our laws clearly identify and make it clear to any veteran to any firm former service personnel to public servants that have worked in defence that we take the integrity of our information, our national security information and training very seriously, and that we are going to properly regulate any work that they do for a foreign military or companies associated with them so that we’re protecting our national interest.

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Voice can close economic gap for Indigenous Australians, says Julian Leeser

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Former Liberal frontbencher supports referendum as a way of getting First Nations people ‘to the same starting line’ as other Australians

The Liberal MP Julian Leeser says a voice to parliament is not about “special treatment or privileges” but about getting Indigenous Australians “to the same starting line that other Australians are at”.

Amid rising partisan rancour in the referendum debate, with his own side leading the charge for the no campaign, Leeser told parliament he supported the voice because it was a manifestation of “deeply Liberal and conservative ideas”.

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‘Hi it’s Jacinta Price’: Liberal anti-voice mass text campaign branded ‘deceptive’ by teals

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Australian Electoral Commission says texts purporting to be from no campaign leader are legal, but MPs say they are ‘predatory’

A Liberal party mass text campaign against the Indigenous voice that encourages voters to sign up for a postal vote on the party’s website has been branded as “deceptive” by teal independent MPs.

Many thousands of Australians are believed to have received unsolicited texts from the Liberal party, some sent in the name of no campaign leader Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, branding the Indigenous voice as “risky”.

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Politics live: James Paterson calls for security vetting of Australian parliament staff in wake of UK espionage scandal

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Shadow home affairs minister calls for extra checks ‘at the very least for MPs who work on sensitive committees’. Follow today’s live news updates

Ley defends pharmacists’ opposition to 60-day dispensing rule for prescriptions

The interview then gets to the issue of pharmacists and the change the government made to allow for 60-day dispensing (two-for-one prescriptions) which will save chronically ill patients up to $180 a year (as well as money on less trips to the doctor, travel etc.) but will cost pharmacists up to $150,000 a year (from the fourth year of the change) in lost dispensing fees (plus people buying fewer ‘incidentals’ such as jelly beans).

I’ve been in contact with many pharmacists over recent weeks, including those who left their businesses and assembled here a couple of weeks ago and I really am concerned about the impact this policy change is going to have.

I’m hearing [about] pharmacies who are already laying off staff. They’re already letting people go and most importantly, they can’t continue to provide the previously free support services that they used to …

Because they’ve told me.

Because if the government has changed the contract it has with pharmacy and is paying them less, they have to change their business in response. It’s as simple as that.

I would like to absolutely recognise the contribution she has made. She has been a trailblazer for our party. She has changed national politics and I have seen the work that she’s done over many years, much of it very modest, very behind the scenes, very in community.

So people often think of her as a defence and foreign affairs minister. I’ve seen her as a local champion for Western Sydney, and disadvantaged people across this country, and I have yeah, I mean, I’ll be really sad to see her go.

Always standing up for Australia’s national interest and a safer, stronger region. It’s as simple as that.

I think we did extremely good work with the Solomon Islands and, indeed, with the Pacific and people are looking at this through the lens of Covid and suggesting that we could have done more when, in fact, travel was an impossibility. I think that issue is well and truly being put to bed.

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