Calls for ALP to support a ceasefire grow as rank and file members quit and migrant communities in heartland seats threaten to turn away
When asked how Muslim and Arab communities feel about Labor’s stance on the conflict in Gaza, Randa Abdel-Fattah doesn’t hesitate.
“They are feeling rage, disappointment and betrayal,” the activist and author said.
Continue reading...Aboriginal teenager died in a hospital in October, a week after being found unresponsive inside a maximum security prison. Follow live
This morning Guardian Australia revealed that the Albanese government will immediately begin releasing people from indefinite detention after receiving a flurry of demands from long-term detainees to be set free due to Wednesday’s landmark high court ruling.
In question time on Thursday the government confirmed it had released the plaintiff in that case, a stateless Rohingya man known as NZYQ who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old, but claimed it needed to wait for the court’s full reasons and legal advice before making a call on others.
Yesterday the government assured the Senate they would not be releasing any other detainees before the court published its reasoning. The fact they are doing so less than 24 hours later shows how unprepared they were for this case. Sadly the Australian people cannot rely on their assurances about community safety if they are not even across fundamental legal questions like this.
It is the duty of journalists to seek out sources, including documentary evidence, in order to report to the public on the activities of the government. The United States must not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalising common journalistic practices and thus chilling the work of the free press. We urge you to ensure that this case be brought to a close in as timely a manner as possible.
Continue reading...Maga Republican and leftwing Democrat among 16 US Congress members lobbying Joe Biden to drop extradition attempts against WikiLeaks founder
Maga Republican and fierce Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene and leftwing Democratic firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have found common ground in freeing Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The pair are among 16 members of the US Congress who have written directly to president Joe Biden urging the United States to drop its extradition attempts against Assange and halt any prosecutorial proceedings immediately.
Continue reading...Opposition climate and energy spokesperson had pointed to SMRs as a solution to Australia’s energy needs, but experts raise questions over price tag
The only small modular nuclear power plant approved in the US – cited by the Australian opposition as evidence of a “burgeoning” global nuclear industry – has been cancelled due to rising costs.
NuScale Power announced on Wednesday that it had dropped plans to build a long-promised “carbon free power project” in Idaho. It blamed the decision on a lack of subscribers for the plant’s electricity.
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Rowland: ‘consumers were clearly frustrated with lack of information’ over outage
Rowland says the key issue of the Optus outage was “getting some more understanding of the nature of the problem”. She tells ABC TV:
I made it clear from the outset that consumers were clearly frustrated with the lack of information. Australians are reasonable people. They understand that things need to be resolved and that may take some time, but the key issue here was getting some understanding of the nature of the problem, how long it may take and what the impacts would be.
And I think it goes to the issue of how reliant we are on our digital devices and connectivity overall, including for consuming messages and news media. And, in this case, the broadcasting platforms were there to be utilised and I did encourage Optus to do that as well.
It’s important, I believe, to have a post-incident review that is both thorough in scope but also is completed expeditiously and goes to the precise issues of what has caused this, considering the considerable amount of disruption, the distress it has caused, but also the economic impact as well. And to understand what [can] be done in future by the sector as a whole to take the lesson and mitigate that going forward.
So this is important, because Australians expect that there will be follow-up, that there will be lessons learned. But, importantly for the sector as a whole, it’s important to understand how this can be certainly avoided in future.
Continue reading...Seven vessels have been turned back or returned to their place of origin as Labor quietly continues Coalition policy of operation sovereign borders
The Albanese government turned vessels back or returned asylum seekers aboard them on seven occasions in its first nine months in office, quietly continuing the Coalition’s operation sovereign borders policy.
New details of the ventures to Australia reveal that almost two hundred people, including 14 children, have attempted to come by boat since Labor’s election in May 2022.
Continue reading...A record level of stressed households are projected as economists tip Melbourne Cup Day interest rate rise. Follow the day’s news live
The government services minister, Bill Shorten, was also asked about the Reserve Bank’s upcoming decision on interest rates later today.
He acknowledged the Reserve Bank is independent of the government but said “I hope it stays static”:
[I] just know a lot of mortgage holders are doing it tough, but the bank will make its decision independently.
For the Albanese government, we know that inflation is a cost of living issue. We have put in a whole heap of measures from childcare to parental leave and energy support. People are doing it tough at the moment, I think it’s hard out there.
Continue reading...Deputy premier Steven Miles says it’s ‘too late’ to cancel projects and any effect on demand is likely to be years away
The Queensland deputy premier has demanded that federal Labor explain why it is cutting infrastructure spending to fight inflation rather than revisiting controversial tax cuts for high income earners.
Steven Miles has upped the pressure on the Albanese government over looming infrastructure cuts in an opinion piece in the Courier-Mail, arguing it is “too late” to cut projects to fight inflation and urging it to reconsider stage-three tax cuts instead.
Continue reading...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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Husic was on the show to discuss the results of the AI Safety Summit held in the UK this week, where Australia and 27 other countries signed a major artificial intelligence agreement.
The Bletchley Declaration affirms that AI should be developed, designed and deployed in a human-centric and safe manner.
It has been very clear from a number of countries, not the least of which the US, which brought in a big executive order this week to improve AI safety and security, that there will be more safety testing and also evaluating those AI models, and holding companies much more accountable for the way that they do that development work.
There will be safety institutes set up in the US and the UK to help with that testing and it will involve researchers in that work and a state of the science report that will look at the developments particularly around what they call frontier AI, generative AI and Australia will have a voice there with the CSIRO’s chief scientist, Dr Bronwyn Fox, who will represent our country in the development of that research work to give governments and regulators a heads up on how the technology is evolving too.
I have been concerned for weeks about where things would head. I was concerned that innocent Palestinian families would bear the brunt and the heaviest burden, in terms of the type of action that was being foreshadowed.
I think the world, the international community, is watching very closely. I have said previously there has to be a much more strategic, precise way to hold Hamas to account. Israel’s actions do matter, in terms of the way in which they conduct these military operations, and I think a lot of us are deeply concerned about the impact, not only on innocent Palestinians but particularly kids.
Continue reading...Opposition says there’s ‘no excuse’ for further delays on the government reviving the ACCC flight monitoring regime
More than two weeks after announcing it was reviving an airline industry monitoring program, the Albanese government is yet to formally direct the competition watchdog to conduct the investigation.
After months of scrutiny into Qantas’s influence in the government’s decision to block rival Qatar Airways’ push to boost its flights to Australia, the Greens and independent senator David Pocock in October knocked back a proposal to extend a Senate inquiry on the topic.
Continue reading...Damning report finds state’s blue card screening system creates unnecessary barriers to placing children with their families
Queensland’s family and child commissioner has called for blue card requirements to be scrapped for First Nations kinship carers after a report found the system relies on “irrelevant information, overpolicing and subjective assessments”.
Since 2001, Queenslanders who work around children have needed to obtain a blue card, with offences including drug trafficking, murder and child abuse disqualifying a person from obtaining one. But a report by the Queensland Family & Child Commission (QFCC) found blue cards create additional barriers to placing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with their families.
Continue reading...PM says he hopes there’s a retreat from ‘rhetorical positions’ on social issues, adding family violence is not ‘confined to one section of the population’
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says the government will “push back” on Coalition calls to promote assimilation of Indigenous communities in the wake of the voice referendum, saying the vote’s defeat is not an endorsement of such policies.
Albanese also appeared to take a swipe at the Coalition’s calls for inquiries into social issues in Indigenous communities, saying family violence is not “confined to one section of the population”.
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Watts has gone on to confirm that there are still 65 Australians stuck in Gaza that the government is “supporting” and are being provided consular assistance.
Watts says Dfat is working to get those individuals to the Rafah crossing and out of Gaza “as soon as possible”.
We know this is an incredibly distressing time for Australians in Gaza and their families and we are providing all possible support we can, communicating through all available channels the best information and options we have about their safety in a very difficult situation.
The circumstances on the ground are incredibly challenging and they are changing on a day to day basis. This is a conflict zone. It is a very difficult operating environment so we do the best job we can in the circumstances.
Crossings like this are the result of an enormous effort from Australian consular officials and diplomats in the region. So many conversations at the ministerial level, foreign minister Wong spoke with her counterparts in the region and we’re grateful that this initial cohort has made the crossing from Gaza to Egypt.
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The NSW RFS has confirmed that just after 4am this morning one of its firefighting tanks rolled over 10km south of Jennings in the Tenterfield LGA.
A spokesperson said there were four firefighters on board. They were all taken from the truck, with three being taken to hospital for observation.
They’ve said they’ll be returning to bulk billing, or many of them who are considering a change would stick with bulk billing, for those more than 11 million Australians.
That’s about 60% or more of the throughput of the average general practice. So it’s a huge boost in confidence and funding to a sector that I think is probably in its most powerless status been in the 40 year history of Medicare.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...PM also acknowledged ‘tragic’ Queensland bushfires on Tuesday, warning pf ‘difficult summer’. Follow the day’s news live
Fire at Tara ‘remains uncontained’, QFES acting deputy commissioner says
QFES acting deputy commissioner Joanne Greenfield also spoke to Sunrise this morning, and provided an update on the bushfire at Tara:
The Tara fire is quite large now and still remains uncontained in most of its edges.
Crews have been down there working overnight trying to strengthen the control line and try to bring areas of it into containment.
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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.
Continue reading...Daniel Andrews went out on top but in Queensland the premier fights on, even as the LNP gears up to go all-in on regional seats
“What you see is what you get” has been Annastacia Palaszczuk’s unofficial political motto. She’s used the line dozens of times, as the fledgling “unexpected” premier in 2015; ahead of a leaders’ debate in 2017; and again and again during the bruising Covid campaign of 2020.
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that a year before the next election and with polls showing Palasczuk and her government on shaky ground the Queensland premier has retreated to familiar territory.
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Pay deal averts six-day strike by dairy workers
A looming strike at one of Victoria’s major milk companies has been averted after the processor struck a pay deal with the union.
There is some concern around Mount Isa, and we are looking at what we can do to support that area being so remote in the western part of our state.
So looking at the weather we have today, still very extreme fire danger in the western part of Queensland. We are certainly looking at another challenging day.
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