Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
High-quality international offsets should be part of any credible policy, industry says
Business groups are defying the Morrison government’s political assault on the use of international permits, arguing a credible climate policy should include access to high-quality international offsets, because they are a key mechanism to help Australia meet its Paris target.
With climate change persisting as a significant campaign flashpoint, the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, James Pearson, told Guardian Australia international permits were part of the toolkit for mitigating climate change in a cost-effective way.
Analysis from Grattan Institute says government ‘probably’ on right trajectory for next year but deficit likely later. All the day’s events, live
Does Scott Morrison think he is popular in Victoria, given he has spent two days campaigning there?
There will be two choices after May 18 - there’s myself and Bill Shorten. Both of our parties have changed our rules. Not before time, but we both have. And those rules mean that whoever you elect as prime minister on May 18 - they will be your prime minister for the next three years. So if you vote for Bill Shorten, you’ll get Bill Shorten.
And if you vote for me, and the Liberal and National parties, you will get me to serve you as your prime minister for the next three years, and to pursue the stronger economy that guarantees rely on for essential services.”
On whether Sam Dastyari has any connection to Labor’s pathology announcement:
Well, this would seem to be the suggestion today - that Sam Dastyari was on Bill Shorten’s campaign bus at the last election and the suggestion now is he’s on Bill Shorten’s gravy train when it comes to this latest announcement. Let’s just see what happens there, I suppose. I mean, I have no knowledge of that. But it’s something for Bill Shorten to explain - from the campaign bus to the gravy train - that’s quite a passage for Sam Dastyari. But, you know, if anyone was gonna be able to do it, I suspect it was him.”
WikiLeaks founder’s father says Australian government should ‘do something’ after his arrest in London
The father of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has called on the Australian government to help his son and suggested he could be brought back to his home country.
John Shipton, who lives in Melbourne, urged Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, to step in following Assange’s arrest in London last week.
We are better than our politicians’ dark fears. We are not their hate. We are optimistic about a country built on openness
I have only ever heard Behrouz Boochani’s voice through speakers. One day, he will stand here before us, and we will hear and see him in the flesh. As a free human being. And I am here today to say that day is coming.
Because change is coming. You can feel it, you sense it. It is coming and it will not be denied. But it needs us to fight for it and to keep fighting for it, and we need to fight for it, not only for the refugees of Manus and Nauru, but for our own salvation.
Peter Dutton has apologised for accusing his Labor challenger, Ali France, of “using her disability as an excuse” not to move to the electorate during the campaign.
The apology came a little over an hour after a blistering attack by Labor senator Kristina Keneally, who called Dutton “mean and despicable”, a “thug”, and the “most toxic man in the Liberal party”.
Aid group publishes open letter to political leaders, asking them to act on their words if elected
Save the Children has called on Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten to publicly commit – if they win the election – to bringing home the children of Australian foreign fighters in Syria.
In a letter published on Saturday, the aid organisation demanded that the major parties pledge to “stop the war on children” and repatriate those who were brought to the Syrian conflict or were born there to Australians who chose to fight with Islamic State.
The day started with Scott Morrison talking about a $387bn Labor tax slug and ended with Bill Shorten calling a Peter Dutton jibe ‘disgusting’
Scott Morrison’s ambition to make day two of the election campaign all about a $387bn Labor tax slug has been disrupted by Treasury disavowing the number and Peter Dutton accusing his Labor opponent in Dickson of using her disability “as an excuse’’ for not moving into the electorate.
Morrison hit the hustings on Friday armed with what the government said was new Treasury numbers revealing Labor’s “tax hit on the economy” would be $387bn but, later in the day, the Treasury head Phil Gaetjens confirmed officials had costed Labor measures at the government’s request but had not provided a total, making it clear the calculation was the government’s number.
Day two of the 2019 Australian election campaign is under way, with an opening salvo from the government. All the day’s events, live
The AEC has laid out its plan for counting the 16 million or so votes the federal election should bring in:
Following years of planning, fine tuning and improvements to AEC systems – plus the experience gained from running nine by-elections since 2017 – the AEC expects to:
Bill Shorten and the former AMA president, Brian Owler, the Labor candidate for Bennelong, is announcing Labor’s key policy for today: $125m for cancer research.
The ads use Facebook functionality to target users with an interest in particular car brands, including Toyota Hilux utes
Toyota has said that it was not consulted on a Liberal party campaign that uses targeted Facebook ads to falsely claim Bill Shorten wants to tax popular car brands including the Toyota Hilux and other utility vehicles.
“Toyota Australia were not consulted on the use of the HiLux in government materials.”
We cannot have another pointless, rudderless, parliament like the one that has just limped to an end
There was a moment or two on Wednesday, during Josh Frydenberg’s traditional post-budget address to the National Press Club, where the room felt so depressurised it seemed like oxygen masks could tumble from the ceiling.
This bit of whimsy gripped me so profoundly, at one point I caught myself looking up at the ceiling, before shaking myself and looking back at the podium.
Coalition’s about face on one-off payment prompts Labor to declare the budget is already ‘falling apart’
The Morrison government’s big post-budget sell has been disrupted by its own late-night decision to backflip on providing a one-off payment to recipients of Newstart.
The government used Tuesday night’s budget to provide supplements to welfare recipients, with $75 for singles and $125 for couples going to 2.4 million pensioners, 744,000 disability pensioners, 280,000 carers, 242,000 single parents and 225,000 veterans and their dependents – but not to people on unemployment benefits.
The federal budget is done and the (unofficial) election campaign begins. All the day’s events, live
Penny Wong’s speech on Fraser Anning censure motion
Labor senator and Yawuru man Pat Dodson spoke powerfully about the “Killing times”, Australia’s massacre history, as part of today’s censure motion against Fraser Anning.
Our First Nations people have carried the consequence of murderous prejudice throughout our entwined history.
First Nations peoples in Australia know what it is like to be powerless in the face of hateful prejudice, fanned by the illusion of superiority; and the false courage created by a weapon in their hand and their victims are defenceless.
Labor abandons Kyoto credits and highlights vehicle emissions in climate policy, as budget and election loom. All the day’s events, live
Scott Morrison finishes his press conference with an attack on the Greens, which in this political climate is an attack on Labor:
Now, the Labor party have got to apply their own rule to their own decisions. If they want to have this rule, which says minor parties should be considered separate to the mainstream parties, well it seems that the Labor party doesn’t think the Greens have these extreme views.
They’ve got to apply the same ruler to themselves. We’ve made our decisions on this. The challenge is on Labor now. Are you for national security? Are you for the US alliance? Are you for border protection? Are you against death taxes? If that’s your view, if you’re for all of those things, then by all means put the Greens ahead of the Liberal party. But if you’re not, then you shouldn’t do that.
We now need to change the national anthem. We are no longer girt by sea, apparently, because – Labor.
Scott Morrison:
The only difference, when it comes to the National Energy Guarantee in terms of what Labor are proposing, is this: the reliability energy guarantee, which was part of the Neg we brought forward at the time, that’s now happening.
That’s the important part. The bit Labor are applying to that is legislating a 45% emissions reduction target. That’s what Labor are doing. They are going to legislate that. That’s not going to reduce power prices. Labor’s Neg actually put prices not down, because they are going to legislate a reckless target that will hit wages, that will hit jobs, that will hit production.
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern was greeted with a standing ovation as she took the stage to address a crowd of thousands gathered at Hagley Park for a nationwide remembrance service in honour of 50 people killed in the country’s worst terrorist attack.
Labor senator says those who ‘see political or commercial advantage in heightening cynicism’ are diminishing civic life
Penny Wong will say that “racism is a threat to our democracy” in a speech taking aim at those who see “political or commercial advantage” in increased cynicism towards public institutions.
The Labor senator is set to warn that hate speech and extremist views in parliament and a “lack of unity in response to these” have harmed democracy, pointing the finger in part at the Coalition for its tardy response to condemn One Nation in the 45th parliament.
One Nation leader tells al-Jazeera reporter there are ‘a lot of questions’ about 1996 attack
Pauline Hanson has implied that the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was a government conspiracy, in comments recorded secretly by al-Jazeera.
Hidden camera footage, released by al-Jazeera as part of the undercover operation that revealed One Nation had sought a US$20m (A$28m) donation from the US gun lobby, showed the party’s leader saying she had “a lot of questions” about Port Arthur.
Nationals MPs have demanded action to underwrite new energy generation before the election
The energy minister, Angus Taylor, has signalled to restive Queensland Nationals that taxpayer backing for a dispatchable energy project is on the way as one of the rebel MPs has warned a decision is necessary before the election.
With cabinet set to consider energy among a range of issues on Tuesday, with the budget looming and the federal election now only weeks way, Taylor told journalists it was “critically important” that Queensland see more competition in power generation, and more dispatchable supply.