Category Archives: Tanya Plibersek

Labor’s refusal to tie public hospital funding to full reproductive care condemned as ‘outrageous’

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Women forced to ‘shop around’ for abortion care due to Catholic public hospitals’ refusal to provide terminations

Despite harrowing stories from women about having to “shop around” for abortion care even when their pregnancies are unviable, the federal government will not make providing abortion services a condition tied to millions of dollars in funding it allocates to major public hospitals.

An investigation by Guardian Australia detailed the still widespread practice of Catholic hospitals across Australia using the cover of religion to opt out of providing reproductive care, with devastating consequences.

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Foreign ownership of Australia’s water rights on the rise

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Report reveals that foreign interests hold 11.3% of Australia’s water entitlements – about half of which are in the food and fibre producing Murray-Darling Basin

Foreign interests hold almost 12% of all water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin and the level of foreign ownership in water is increasing, a new report shows.

Foreigners own or have a significant share in 4,503GL of Australian water entitlements, which is 11.3% of all the entitlements across the country, the Australian Taxation Office’s report says.

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Five species face immediate concern of extinction, scientific committee warns Labor

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Further 41 species on course to be declared critically endangered, complicating Albanese government’s zero extinctions target

Five species, including Tasmania’s Maugean skate, could jeopardise the Albanese government’s zero extinctions target, according to a scientific committee that provides advice on endangered species.

A further 41 species are on course to be declared critically endangered, sparking alarm from environment groups at the pace at which plants and animals are reaching the most urgent status on the threatened list.

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Cancelling Antarctic climate research will damage Australia’s reputation, experts say

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Exclusive: Lawyers and environmentalists warn international community is watching carefully amid ‘science, logistics and influence race’

Australia’s international reputation and diplomatic influence will be damaged unless the federal government intervenes to ensure crucial climate change research in Antarctica is not cancelled, international lawyers and environmentalists have warned.

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is also facing political pressure from the Greens and the Coalition, which have both raised concerns about plans to cancel or heavily restrict studies of record-low sea ice, ice shelves and declining penguin populations due to a budget crunch.

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Australia news live: Burney condemns ‘Trump-style’ voice politics; ‘well publicised’ matters referred to federal corruption watchdog

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Follow the day’s news live

Prime minister Anthony Albanese says he is “one of the millions of Australians” who welcomed the decision from the Reserve Bank yesterday, on Nine’s Today program this morning.

People are doing it tough out there … I am determined to work each and every day to provide whatever assistance the government can do. Whether that be the direct assistance in cheaper childcare, the tripling [of] the Medibank bulk billing incentive so people can see their doctor for free, or fee-free TAFE and all those measures to take pressure off cost-of-living.

As well, of course, managing the economy and producing a surplus in excess of $2.4bn to put that downward pressure on inflation.

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PwC walks back report used to claim Australia’s nature repair market could be worth $137bn

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Report cited by environment minister in support of offset bill was criticised for inflated figures and lack of clarity on outcomes

PwC has walked back a report used to claim the nature repair market could be worth $137bn, accepting it measures “indirect spending towards biodiversity” but the amount spent on “threatened species conservation, with clear outcomes, is likely much less”.

The consultancy firm made that submission to a Senate inquiry examining the Albanese government’s nature repair market bill in response to a critique of the report from progressive thinktank the Australia Institute.

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Tanya Plibersek approves habitat clearing in Darwin despite risk to endangered bird

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Environment minister says redesign would ‘avoid most adverse impacts’ on Gouldian finch, while critics point to Australia’s ‘terrible record on extinctions’

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has approved habitat clearing for a defence housing development in Darwin despite acknowledging there is a significant risk for what has been described as one of Australia’s most beautiful endangered birds.

Plibersek had been asked last year to reconsider the development in savanna woodlands at Lee Point after more than 100 endangered Gouldian finches were spotted in bushland marked for imminent clearing.

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Australia politics live: Labor blocks Zoe Daniel’s push to ban gambling ads but promises ‘comprehensive’ response to issue

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Tony Burke says Labor committed to strong consumer protections regarding online gambling and does not oppose principle behind independent’s bill

‘A sackable offence’

Here is how that “conversation” played out.

What we want understand now is whether this Labor minister was in fact complicit in politicising this event. That is unforgivable.

Not only that, misleading parliament is a serious offence, a sackable offence and standing by this minister, if she has misled parliament, has consequences.

You were in the Senate yesterday when Katy went through what happened and what I’d like to understand from you is how is it the two years after this event you are trying to make this somehow the problem of the current government when we were not even in government, not four years after this event occurred.

The real issue is the fact that a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted in our workplace and I would really like to focus on that is the main issue here because that is the main issue here, because that is the subject that matters.

What we are finding out now is what the minister knew and why her testimony to the Senate as different from that. There’s a lot of considerations here, I know people are talking about how this information came into the media and certainly the media has a lot of considerations to make.

There has to be respect for the parliament and the court and the law but that information is now out there and journalists need to make decisions about whether it is in the public interest.

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Australia news live: economists push interest rate forecasts higher; teens arrested over violent carjacking

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Eight teenagers in police custody after allegedly dragging woman from car on the Gold Coast. Follow the day’s news live

Business groups argue ‘same job, same pay’ laws would disadvantage workers

I mentioned a little earlier that business groups have glommed together to launch a campaign against the federal government’s proposed “same job, same pay” industrial relations laws.

The so-called ‘Same Job, Same Pay’ proposals does not mean equal pay for men and women. It does not speak of fairness and justice, as its name falsely represents.

It means by law, employers will have to pay workers with little knowledge or experience exactly the same as workers with decades of knowledge and experience.

Without a real threat of losing passengers to other airlines, the Qantas and Virgin Australia airline groups have had less incentive to offer attractive airfares, develop more direct routes, operate more reliable services, and invest in systems to provide high levels of customer service.

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Failure to protect nature is a bigger threat to humanity than inflation, Australian scientists warn

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‘For just 10% of the stage-three tax cuts, we could recover every one of Australia’s almost 2,000 threatened species,’ says ecologist

Leading Australian scientists have accused the Albanese government of offering “grossly inadequate” funding to stop environmental decline, and warned that failing to protect nature would lead to “an existential threat greater than inflation”.

The Biodiversity Council, an independent research hub, said the limited funding for environment programs announced this week suggested that environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s promised target of ending species extinctions in the country was “still hollow”.

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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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This blog is now closed

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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