Category Archives: Australian Greens

Backflip on international student caps ‘baffling’, MP says – as it happened

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Three million Australians are at risk of homelessness, a 63% increase since 2016, a new report from Homelessness NSW and Impact Economics has revealed.

By looking at household data including income, support and rental stress, the report found in 2022 there were 3.04m Australians now at risk of homelessness, an increase on the 1.87m reported in 2016.

1 in every five days the frontline services could not assist a family with children because they were so stretched.

Individuals without children were turned away 1 in every 2 days.

Unaccompanied young people and children without accommodation were turned away on 1 in 9 days.

I think more broadly, the government under Anthony Albanese has got an excellent record of managing relationships around the world, making genuine progress, whether it’s with China, whether it’s with American friends or others.

I think when it comes to Peter Dutton, I think he has a kind of a reckless arrogance which doesn’t lend itself to foreign policy and maintaining and managing some of these complex relationships.

I think he would be a risk to our economy, and that’s because that reckless arrogance, which has been a defining feature of his time as a politician over a long period of time now … [it] doesn’t lend itself to managing these relationships, which are so important to us.

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Greens drop climate trigger demand in attempt to restart Nature Positive talks with Labor

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Minor party’s offer, which includes ban on native-forest logging, represents its second concession on stalled legislation in less than a week

The Greens have dropped their demand for a climate trigger to be incorporated in the government’s stalled Nature Positive legislation, indicating they are now prepared to pass the bills in return for a Australia-wide ban on native-forest logging alone.

The party has previously refused to support Labor’s legislation, insisting that both a climate trigger and forest-logging ban must be included.

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Australia news live: Antic claims misinformation bill is bid to stop young Australians being ‘red pilled’ on social media

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Matt Keogh on Aukus, second Trump presidency

Matt Keogh was also questioned on what he thinks the challenges will be for the Australian government amid a second Trump presidency?

We understand regardless of who is in charge of the White House or what is happening across the globe, what matters to Australians is being able to make ends meet themselves.

We expect that to continue even under a Trump Presidency.

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Fifty-year extension for one of Australia’s biggest CO2 emitters likely after WA ditches emissions-reduction rules

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Extending life of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas processing plant on Burrup Peninsula could result in billions of tonnes of climate pollution, critics say

The Western Australian Labor government appears all but certain to give one of Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters the green light to operate until 2070 after it announced it would abolish state emissions-reduction requirements.

Scientists have warned the proposal to extend the life of the North West Shelf gas processing plant on the Burrup Peninsula in the country’s remote north-west is linked to the development of at least three major gas fields and could ultimately result in billions of tonnes of climate pollution being released into the atmosphere.

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How donations to political parties from gambling companies linked to horse racing have surged

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A total of $2.7m has been donated to the major parties in the past decade from eight companies

Political donations made to the major parties by gambling lobby groups have surged more than 600% in the past decade, new analysis shows, as the debate over whether to implement a total ban on gambling advertising rages on in Canberra.

The figures, reported to the Australian Electoral Commission and analysed by the Parliamentary Library, show donations from the biggest gambling companies involved in horse betting to the major parties have increased from $66,650 in 2013-14 to $488,000 in 2022-23, representing a 632% growth.

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Victoria to cut more than 130 bushfire forest service jobs – As it happened

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Young man dies in multi-vehicle crash in Queensland’s Bundaberg Region

A fatal multi-vehicle traffic crash last night at Elliot in Queensland’s Bundaberg Region last night is being investigated by the police forensic crash Unit.

All travel has been appropriately declared and is a matter of public record.

The only people that need to look at the rules are [shadow transport minister] Bridget McKenzie and Peter Dutton. They’ve got some serious explaining to do.

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‘Bias’ finding over robodebt investigation undermines faith in anti-corruption watchdog, legal expert says

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Review into integrity body especially concerning as it relates to ‘the person at the top’, Geoffrey Watson SC says

The federal anti-corruption watchdog’s conflict of interest is “really concerning” because it relates to “the person at the top”, Geoffrey Watson SC, a former counsel assisting to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, has said.

On Wednesday, the inspector of the National Anti-Corruption Commission released a excoriating review of the Nacc’s decision not to investigate robodebt corruption referrals, finding it to be “affected by apprehended bias”.

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Australia news live: PM to announce clean energy projects; property market losing heat but prices still going up

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Anthony Albanese to launch schemes in NSW and Victoria today; Domain says rate of price increases is cooling. Follow today’s news headlines live

Bowen derides Coalition’s ‘nuclear fantasy’

Chris Bowen, minister for climate change and energy, is speaking on ABC Radio National this morning.

If I was the energy minister of another country, I would consider the opportunities that I had in that country – but a country saying to Australia, with our excellent renewable resources, that we should go down the nuclear road when we have no nuclear industry, no nuclear expertise of the scale that we would need for a nuclear power industry, is like us going to Finland or Scandinavia and saying, ‘Listen, we know [you have] a lot of snow, but you should really try beach surfing.’ It just doesn’t make any sense.

We have to play to our strengths in Australia, and we have the best renewable resources in the world, and the opposition wants to stop us using them, and in turn, keep coal in the system for longer. They’re quite explicit about that while we wait for this nuclear fantasy to come on board. That would be terrible for emissions and fatal for energy reliability.

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Australia news live: Dutton says he ‘respects’ Crisafulli’s rejection of nuclear power but will push for a ‘mature conversation’

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Earlier this morning, David Crisafulli said it was still a ‘no’ to any nuclear proposal, and Dutton said he ‘respected’ that. Follow the day’s news live

Employment minister Murray Watt has refused to comment on reports Anthony Albanese used his membership in Qantas’s chairman’s lounge to solicit flight upgrades when he was transport minister and opposition leader.

Watt was on RN Breakfast, where he refused to be drawn on what he called “unsourced claim by a journalist” that Albanese would reach out directly to former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce directly about his travel.

If you have a look at Peter Dutton behaviour, for example, several upgrades from the Qantas and other airlines, he’s had free flights paid for by Gina Rinehart.

I really would wonder whether it’s wise for the opposition to start calling this kind of stuff into question.

We obviously spend an enormous amount of time at airports. I think this week, I’m going to be in about three or four different cities, flying from place to place. And it is helpful from time to time, to be able to have private meetings or private environments, to be able to have teams meetings with your office, which I do every time I fly.

We want Labor to negotiate like we did in the previous housing legislation, where we not only improved and passed Labour’s housing legislation, but we got $3bn to start building public and community housing.

I think this is part of the message that we’re trying to give to the government. We are up for negotiation.

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Labor lost Queensland election partly because it was obsessed with the Greens, Chandler-Mather says

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Greens housing spokesperson argues that lesson for federal Labor is if PM spends next six months fighting party ‘he’s going to hand the keys to Peter Dutton’

The Greens’ federal housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, says the Queensland election result shows federal Labor needs to drop its “deep hostility” to the minor party – or risk losing next year’s national poll.

The Liberal National party’s victory at the weekend – its first majority in almost a decade – relied upon gains from Labor in regional areas, including heartland seats in central and north Queensland.

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LNP will need to show Brisbane voters it can be a moderate government if it’s to stay in power

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The party won decisively in the regions but was rejected by the city, which was scared off by the hard-right social views of some candidates

The story of the Queensland election is the story of Mackay and Mansfield.

The voters of Mackay stuck with Labor during the landslide loss to Campbell Newman’s Liberal National party in 2012. They voted for the party in the “Adani election” of 2017, at the nadir of the state’s climate wars.

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David Crisafulli claims LNP victory in Queensland election ending Labor’s decade-long reign

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Outgoing premier Steven Miles concedes he cannot form majority government despite a last-minute vote surge

David Crisafulli has claimed victory for the Liberal National party in the Queensland election after a campaign that focused heavily on a series of hardline crime promises.

The election marks the end of Labor’s decade-long reign in Queensland and is only the second time the Liberal or National parties have won a state poll since 1989.

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Low and slow: the tactics that have made the Greens a threat in traditionally safe Queensland Labor seats

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With an aggressive on-the-ground campaign, the party is courting multicultural communities in outer Brisbane

At a suburban park in Logan, more than 20km from the Brisbane CBD, two dozen Greens volunteers stop to take a photograph before heading out to knock on doors.

These are the sorts of intensive “social work” style campaigning efforts that have been responsible for the leftwing party’s growth in Brisbane’s inner suburbs, culminating in the capture of three federal seats in 2022.

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Negative gearing reform could help 292,000 Australian renters become owners, Greens claim

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Parliamentary analysis shows benefit of change, party says, and calls Anthony Albanese ‘biggest blocker’ to change

More than a quarter of a million renters could own their own homes if Labor revived dumped plans to wind back generous tax breaks for residential property investors, new analysis shows.

A Parliamentary Library analysis of NSW Treasury modelling and census data, commissioned by Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather, found home ownership would rise by 4.7%, or 292,902 more owner-occupier houses, if negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts were wound back.

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Dfat says it has told Israel ‘unacceptable’ targeting of UN personnel in Lebanon must cease – as it happened

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Jacinta Nampijinpa Price on Voice referendum, one year on

The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, was on ABC News Breakfast earlier on the first anniversary of the Voice referendum.

We have been calling for an inquiry into statutory authorities for the last 18 months, which we believe need to be looked at closely because of their failures to ... well, not all statutory authorities, but some, in terms of their failures of how they’re supposed to serve the interests of those that they are supposed to represent.

And this has been ongoing now and something that the Albanese Government has continued to ignore. But those voices – especially of Traditional Owners – that I have been speaking to, are growing louder, with more concern. And, really, there is a need to fix the structures that currently exist, and it begins with an inquiry.

There’s no evidence at all that current laws led by the Albanese government are stifling businesses from employing people. In fact, we’ve actually created nearly 1 million jobs since coming to office a bit over two years ago … So unfortunately, for some of the leading business groups calling for this, the evidence of what’s going on in the economy just doesn’t back up their wish list.

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Steven Miles bats away accusations of pinching policies from Greens ahead of Queensland polls opening

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State premier announces free state primary school lunches at campaign launch after revealing plan for state-owned health clinics

Premier Steven Miles has warded off allegations of plagiarism from the Greens for a signature free school lunch policy announced at Sunday’s election campaign launch.

The Labor leader promised a free lunch for every Queensland state primary school student, the day before polls open in the state’s election. It came just a day after he unveiled a policy of state-owned, privately run GP clinics.

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Adam Bandt defends Greens response to bullying allegations against WA senator

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Party follows the recommendations of independent Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, leader says

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has said the party takes the issue of bullying “very seriously” and follows the recommendations of the independent parliament workplace support service after allegations were made in recent media reports against a West Australian senator.

Bandt defended his party’s approach on Thursday afternoon after bullying allegations against Dorinda Cox were published by Nine newspapers.

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Rally organisers and police reach agreement – as it happened

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The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, is speaking with ABC RN from New Zealand where he is meeting with regional counterparts.

Asked about the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, and whether “ceasefire negotiations in Gaza are now dead”, Marles said the “continued violence in the Middle East is obviously giving rise to enormous threat to civilian life”.

I think the international community is desperate to see an end to this violence, and certainly that’s how we’re exercising our international voice.

Israel has a right to defend itself. Every country has a right to defend itself, and to do so in a proportionate way. That said, we are calling for a ceasefire, along with the United States, along with other members of the international community.

The continued violence in the Middle East is giving rise to … unacceptable numbers of civilian lives lost, and the ongoing violence is a threat to civilian life. And we, along with international community, urge an end to this.

We have [been protesting for] 51 weeks in a row, [and it’s been] absolutely peaceful. Millions of Australians have come out, it’s not provocative at all.

What’s provocative is the fact that our government isn’t listening to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of Australians, who have signed petitions, called their MPs, have done everything they’re supposed to do within this democratic framework to say ‘enough’ …

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Greens reveal plan for 1,000 new health clinics with free medical and dental care across Australia

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Adam Bandt to announce $54bn policy for at least six clinics in every electorate paid for by ‘Robin Hood’ tax reform

The Greens want to open 1,000 new health clinics nationwide with free medical and dental care, in a $54bn policy the minor party says it would push in the event of a hung parliament.

The party’s leader, Adam Bandt, will announce the commitment on Thursday in the seat of Perth – one of the Greens’ major targets at the next election.

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Assange says he is free because he ‘pled guilty to journalism’ – as it happened

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National weather forecasts

Sticking with the weather, here’s a look at the forecasts across Australia’s capital cities today:

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