Category Archives: Tanya Plibersek

Tanya Plibersek urges assault survivors to reach out for help after her daughter reveals own story

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In an extract of a new book, Plibersek says her daughter’s experience was part of the reason she didn’t seek the Labor leadership in 2019

Tanya Plibersek has urged survivors of assault to reach out for help after her daughter revealed her own story of sexual and domestic violence.

In an extract from Margaret Simons’ book Tanya Plibersek: On Her Own Terms, published in the Good Weekend magazine on Saturday, the former Labor deputy leader revealed part of the reason she did not run for leader of the party in 2019 was because her daughter was involved in legal action related to the abuse at the time, and would be appearing as a witness in court.

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Murray-Darling Basin plan in chaos as Victoria and NSW oppose further water buybacks

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Both states are behind on their commitments and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says South Australia is being left ‘high and dry’

A meeting of water ministers has descended into acrimony over the final stage of the $13bn Murray-Darling Basin plan, with Victoria and New South Wales joining forces to oppose further buybacks of water and demanding two more years to deliver.

The fiery meeting in Sydney ended with little progress.

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Voice to parliament should not be the subject of a partisan debate, Albanese says

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The PM promises to ‘reach out’ to any opposition politician who wants to discuss how the voice will work as he kicks off a national week of action on the referendum

The Indigenous voice to parliament should not be the subject of partisan debate, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said, promising to “reach out” to any opposition politician who wants to discuss how the voice will work.

He opened a national week of action on the referendum in front of an enthusiastic crowd in his home electorate in Sydney’s inner west on Saturday.

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Japan’s new whaling ‘mother ship’ being built to travel as far as Antarctica

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Company says vessel’s construction will help ‘pass on our whaling culture to the next generation’

A Japanese company is building a new whaling ship designed to travel as far as Antarctica, sparking fears commercial operations could resume in the Southern Ocean.

Australia’s environment minister, Tanya Plibsersek, reaffirmed the Albanese government’s commitment to a global moratorium on commercial whaling, while Greenpeace condemned the practice as “brutal and unnecessary”.

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Bodies of missing men found – as it happened

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Where the parties stand

So the Greens are pushing hard against new coal and gas but have not indicated they are willing to kill off the legislation.

We’re willing to negotiate on everything that we consider will be in keeping with our government’s approach and our election mandate. Nothing more, nothing less. We went to the people seeking a mandate. That’s what we will implement.

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Wong urged to raise human rights concerns on Beijing trip – as it happened

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It’s officially a week before Christmas, which means the forecasters at the Bureau of Meteorology are fairly confident they can tell us what whether we can set up for an al fresco Christmas lunch or not.

For some parts of the country, there is a chance of showers:

Particularly in the south, we can get some volatile weather but all the patterns really starting to change as we move into later part of this week.

So we’ll see a weather system move through southern parts of the country, Thursday and Friday. Then a big high-pressure system behind it will quickly move into the Tasman Sea and then kind of sit there over the Christmas weekend into early the following week and normally that drives a lot of warm weather across much of southern parts of the country and our guidance is showing a similar pattern with that as well.

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Victoria police to prosecute pitch invaders; more contaminated spinach cases in Queensland – as it happened

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Sport governing body says ‘such behaviour has no place in Australian football’. This blog is now closed

‘We will look at the facts’

James Johnson is asked whether Melbourne Victory has any outstanding sanctions for past incidents. He says he is not aware of any but past events may be considered as an “aggravating factor” as an investigation into the incident unfolds:

There is no other suspended disciplinary action that I’m aware of, but what I will say is that we will be working through that today. We have already started working on the show cause process as of late last night, and we will be moving forward as quickly and swiftly as possible to finalise it, because it is important we get ahead of this issue as a sport.

What I can say is that we will look at the facts, we’ll look at it objectively and we will take a decision that we believe is in the overall best interest of the game but I prefer not to comment on the specifics of the outcome because we have to go through that process first.

What happened during the game last night and what happens with the result;

A “show cause letter” to Melbourne Victory;

An attempt to identify individuals involved in the pitch invasion.

This is an element that … infiltrates our game and tries to ruin it for the people who love us was in. We’ll be looking to weed out those people from the sport.

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Electricity generated by burning native Australian timber no longer classified as renewable energy

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Labor revokes Abbott government move which allowed energy from burning wood waste to be counted with solar and wind

Electricity generated by burning native forest wood waste will no longer be allowed to be classified as renewable energy under a regulatory change adopted by the Albanese government.

The decision, which Labor had promised to consider after it was recommended by a Senate committee in September, reverses a 2015 Abbott government move which allowed burning native forest timber to be counted alongside solar and wind energy towards the national renewable energy target.

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Andrews government on track to surpass ‘Danslide’ – as it happened

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Government yet to cap wholesale coal price, but still aiming to land ‘before Christmas’, treasurer says

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is speaking to ABC Radio. RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas asks him:

Has the government resolved to cap the wholesale coal price at $125 a tonne and the gas price at $13 a gigajoule?

There hasn’t been a concluded view reached yet, and that’s because this is a challenge of such complexity and such consequence for industry and for Australians around the country, that it needs to be a genuine partnership between governments and that requires all sides to come to the table in a reasonable and a constructive way, which recognises that one level of government can’t fix this all on its own.

The need for Aukus is even clearer today. More than ever, our three countries share of similar outlook on the key challenges and opportunities confronting our world. Aukus will enhance our shared ability to sustain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, and since creating this trilateral security partnership our defense forces, industries, and scientific communities have been hard at work. Over the past 15 months we’ve made great progress toward identifying a pathway for Australia to acquire conventionally armed and nuclear-powered submarines. Today on behalf of President Biden, I want to reaffirm the US commitment to ensuring that Australia acquires this capability at the earliest possible date, and in adherence with the highest nonproliferation standards.

And central to that is Australia being able to acquire a nuclear-powered, highly capable submarine and we are deeply grateful for the work that we’ve been able to do with both the UK and the US to enable Australia to acquire that capability. And it’s not lost on us the significance of the US and the UK, working together and transferring this technology to Australia. And there has been an enormous amount of work being done by our officials to bring this about, and obviously to bring today about. I think as we talk today, we’re all going to speak to the fact that we’re on track to be able to make this announcement in respect of what will be the optimal pathway for Australia to take in the first part of next year, which is what we have always intended to do.

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David Pocock and the Greens welcome Labor’s environmental reforms but push for more urgent action

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Crossbench says government’s response ‘moving in the right direction’ but lacks aspects such as a climate trigger and a pause on logging

The Greens and independent senator David Pocock have signalled they will expect the Albanese government to move more urgently to improve environmental protection if it is to win their support for conservation law changes next year.

On Thursday, the government released its response to the 2020 review of national environmental laws by the former competition watchdog Graeme Samuel. The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, announced a suite of proposed reforms, including a new environment protection authority and national environmental standards.

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Australia urged to take leadership role at Cop15 biodiversity summit

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‘The conference for nature this month in Montreal could be what Paris was for climate. We must seize this opportunity’, environment minister Tanya Plibersek says

Australia is being urged to take a leadership role at a global summit that aims to reach what has been described as the nature equivalent of the landmark Paris agreement on climate change.

Countries will meet in Montreal for the Cop15 biodiversity summit from 7 December to work on a new framework agreement to end biodiversity decline. Campaigners say if successful it should result in the global destruction of nature being halted and reversed such that wild areas and habitat for threatened species start to increase in size between now and 2030.

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Australia politics live: Dutton says Coalition won’t support motion to censure Morrison – but Archer says she is ‘inclined to’

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The censure motion against Scott Morrison over multiple ministries scandal will be debated in House of Representatives tomorrow. Follow the day’s news live

Bipartisanship cedes to brinkmanship in battle over integrity commission

Meanwhile, Mark Dreyfus is preparing to stare down the Liberals and the Greens over an amendment to the national anti-corruption commission legislation which Dreyfus says risks establishing the commission and the Liberals and Greens say will ensure it won’t be political.

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Dutton given official warning by Speaker – as it happened

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How can strengthening federal laws stop the destruction of sacred heritage sites?

Tanya Plibersek:

I think I think it’s really worth having a look at the two inquiries that the the parliament undertook into the Juukan Gorge destruction because it describes not just the failure of laws, but the failure of process and the failure of people to listen and that happened at the commonwealth level and it also happened at the West Australian state government level.

The other thing that it describes is a company that paid lip service to consultation and really, you know, really didn’t do what it should have done when Aboriginal people said you can’t blow up caves that are 46,000 years old, that have examples of continuous use and habitation that you know, the site of finds like a 4,000-year-old hair belt, and tools that are tens of thousands of years old.

There’s absolutely a sense of urgency to ensure that this sort of cultural heritage destruction doesn’t happen again.

I completely agree with that, but a very strong message from the the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance is also that they genuinely want to sit at the table to work through these issues in partnership and cooperation.

Yeah, I’m not going to put I’m not going to put a timeline on it yet. I think that’s something that we determined as we work through the complexity of these issues, and there are a lot of complexities involved.

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Bob Brown accuses Tanya Plibersek of putting industry above environment on Tarkine trip

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Environment minister visited Tasmania for two days and insists she’s taking mine decision seriously but Brown wanted her to visit rainforest with him

Bob Brown has accused the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, of prioritising industry over the environment by not accepting his invitation to tour Tasmania’s takayna/Tarkine rainforest when she visited the site of a controversial mining proposal.

Plibersek visited Tasmania last week to meet with representatives and workers from the minerals company MMG about its proposal to build a tailings waste dam and pipeline infrastructure in rainforest near the town of Rosebery in the state’s north-west.

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Tanya Plibersek to reassess 18 proposed oil and gas projects to consider their climate change impact

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Queensland environment group had asked federal minister to revisit decisions made going back to 2011

Federal environment officials have agreed to look again at 18 proposed new coal and gas projects after a Queensland environment group submitted requests to have the effects of climate change considered.

None of the 18 projects has been approved under the country’s environment law, but have been through a process where the environment minister determines the nature and scale of their likely impacts.

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Banks raise interest rates in response to RBA – as it happened

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Australian dollar drops and shares bounce higher on reserve bank’s dovish move. This blog is now closed

Sexual violence rife on dating apps

Dating apps need to better protect their users after a study revealed high rates of sexual violence, stalking, assault and unwanted sharing of explicit images, AAP reports.

This is highly concerning given the significant and potentially long-term impacts associated with these victimisation experiences.

These impacts include poorer health and wellbeing, including overall life satisfaction, social isolation and lower self-esteem, as well as increased risk of re-victimisation.

Considering the long- and short-term implications for victim-survivors after experiencing these harmful behaviours, there is an obvious need to develop mechanisms for protecting users.

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Time is running out on the Murray-Darling plan. Should Tanya Plibersek reach for the big guns?

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NSW and Victoria have dragged their heels and now risk the federal government taking over Australia’s most important river system

State governments which have dragged their heels on delivering on their commitments under the Murray-Darling Basin plan are now risking a federal government takeover of water policy after June 2024.

They must judge whether the federal water minister, Tanya Plibersek, will be prepared to reach for the cudgels that are built into the Murray-Darling Basin plan and take over administration of Australia’s most important river system.

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ACT urges Tanya Plibersek to quash defence housing plan that would destroy critically endangered grasslands

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Defence Housing Australia wants to clear nearly 16 hectares of natural temperate grassland in Canberra’s north-west

The ACT government has urged the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, to reject a defence housing development that would destroy critically endangered grasslands in Canberra’s north-west.

Defence Housing Australia (DHA) has proposed building hundreds of houses on an old naval transmission site in the suburb of Lawson.

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Tanya Plibersek urged to save Gouldian finches from NT defence development

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Conservationists call on government to reconsider project near Darwin after 100-plus birds were spotted in bushland marked for clearing

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is being urged to intervene to save a population of endangered Gouldian finches threatened by a defence development in the Northern Territory.

The first stage of clearing has begun to allow a defence housing development in savannah woodlands at Lee Point, in Darwin’s north, having been approved in 2019.

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Indigenous group says Tanya Plibersek ‘hasn’t done her homework’ on Burrup peninsula fertiliser plant

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Save Our Songlines accuses environment minister of ‘false conclusions’ and ‘faulty reasoning’ about support for development and says it risks ‘another Juukan Gorge’

Traditional custodians opposed to a contentious $4.5bn fertiliser plant on Western Australia’s Burrup peninsula have accused Tanya Plibersek of “faulty reasoning” and drawing “false conclusions” about the views of local Aboriginal communities after she decided not to pause the development.

The environment minister decided work on the plant could go ahead after visiting the peninsula, in the state’s north, earlier this month. She said her decision was based on support for the development from the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, which she described as the “legally constituted and democratically elected group that safeguards First Nations culture in the Burrup area”.

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