Category Archives: Anthony Albanese

Australia news live: Dfat issues Middle East travel advice; Nationals concerned after fire ants spotted near Murray Darling Basin

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Reports of explosions in Iranian city of Isfahan prompt sell-off of stocks in Australia – and in other markets such as Japan. Follow the day’s news live

The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, is speaking to the media after a 16-year-old was charged with a “terrorist act” for allegedly stabbing a bishop on Monday and is expected to appear at a bedside hearing today.

She said members of the joint counter-terrorism team interviewed the alleged offender at a medical facility last night, and he was subsequently charged with a commonwealth offence for terrorism and refused bail.

We expect he will be attending a bedside court hearing today to determine bail. This relates to the stabbing of the Bishop [Mar Mari Emmanuel, who] we allege on Monday night [was] stabbed up to six times.

We also allege that the boy had travelled for 90 minutes to attend that location from his home address.

We’ve got a crisis of male violence in Australia. We know that it’s a scourge in our society, we know it must end and I think it’s really clear women can’t be expected to solve violence against women although it is time for men to step up.

I don’t think debating definitions is the way to go … We need to act, we need to educate ourselves, men need to step up, we need to talk to our sons, to our colleagues, to our friends. We need to work together to a solution. And I think going down some kind of almost a wrong path to say let’s redefine – it’s not about definitions. This is about action. We need to shift the way in which we think about this …

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Seven boss departs – as it happened

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Marles continues breakfast rounds to discuss defence spending

The defence minister, Richard Marles, has been making the rounds this morning and has also spoken to ABC RN about yesterday’s defence announcement.

The reason why we make the observation that an invasion of Australia is a very unlikely scenario, no matter what happens, is because any adversary that wished to do us harm could do so much to us before ever setting foot on Australian soil – and disrupting those specific sea lines of communication, which I’ve described, would obviously achieve that. That that is where the risk of coercion lies, as one example.

And in order to protect ourselves in respect of that, we do need the ability to [project], because if you think about it, … the geography of our national security when seen through those lands is not the coastline of our continent. It in fact, lies much further afield.

We’re looking at a substantial increase on what’s already in the Online Safety Act. So not only a large amount – so for example, a $3m fine for an offence and ongoing fines, but a percentage of turnover as well.

We know that the revenues of some of these online platforms exceed those of some nations and so it needs to be a meaningful and substantial penalty system that’s put in place.

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Australia news live: Marles says Labor ‘utterly committed’ to Brereton response but can’t say when work will be completed

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Unemployment ‘might take up a little bit’ when new numbers released later this week

Q: Given the economic conditions we’re seeing, what should households with mortgages expect?

[Inflation] won’t necessarily continue to come off in a perfectly straight line, but [it] is a fraction of what it was a couple of years ago when we came to office. That’s a good thing.

So we’ve got a whole bunch of things going for us in Australia, but enough to concern us as well about the global conditions about the way that people are still under considerable cost of living pressure.

The way that I would describe it to your listeners is we’ve got inflation lingering in parts of the world, we’ve got growth slowing in China and elsewhere, we’ve got tensions rising in the Middle East and the war in Europe. We’ve got supply chains which are straining and we’ve got a global economy which is fragmenting and transforming and so all of these factors are really important to us as we finalise the government’s third budget.

These are going to be these global conditions are going to be a really big influence on our budget, so the trip to DC which will be a pretty quick and make the most of it but it’s a good opportunity to take the temperature of the global economy.

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Australia news live: Bondi Junction killer’s father says he did everything in his power to help ‘very sick boy’ before stabbings

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Albanese on Bondi attacker’s motive: ‘The gender breakdown is of course concerning’

I just wanted to go back to the PM’s appearance on ABC radio earlier, where he was asked what he thought of the motive behind the attack.

NSW police have said they’re looking at that as part of the investigation.

The gender breakdown is of course concerning.

We’re working with Westfield. As I said, we handed back the crime scene last night. But it spread over seven floors at Westfield. It will take some time to prepare the stores for reopening. No doubt there’s some work to be done with stakeholders inside the Westfield, in terms of their own reaction and trauma to what has happened. So, that will be done very carefully, no doubt.

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Police officer who shot Bondi Junction attacker wielding a ‘massive’ knife hailed as a hero

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Anthony Albanese has praised a lone police officer who pursued a man on a stabbing spree through a shopping mall, saying ‘there is no doubt that she saved lives through her action’

A New South Wales police inspector has been hailed as a hero after she shot dead a man who stabbed six people to death in a shopping centre in Bondi Junction.

The senior officer was conducting routine duties nearby when she was directed to head to Westfield shopping centre following reports a man was using a “massive” knife to stab shoppers.

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Many aged care workers may wait until 2026 for full pay increase as Albanese government requests phased implementation

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Commonwealth requests Fair Work Commission phase in full 23% increase over two years to prevent workforce shortages elsewhere

Aged care workers should wait until January 2026 for the full 23% pay rise ordered by the Fair Work Commission, according to the Albanese government.

The commonwealth has requested that the commission phase in the increase over two years, from January 2025 and 2026, to prevent “large one-off wage increases” that would add to workforce shortages elsewhere in the economy.

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Bridget Archer leads criticism after Peter Dutton compares pro-Palestine protest to Port Arthur massacre

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Tasmanian Liberal MP labels comments ‘wholly inappropriate’ after PM says he was ‘taken aback’ by opposition leader’s speech

Peter Dutton has drawn widespread criticism, including from one of his own MPs, for comparing the 1996 mass murder of 35 people at Port Arthur to a pro-Palestine protest at the Sydney Opera House.

The Tasmanian Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer labelled Dutton’s comments “incredibly disrespectful” and “wholly inappropriate”.

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Albanese says Australia needs ‘sharper elbows’ as he signals domestic innovation push

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Prime minister says government needs to be ‘more strategic and more sophisticated’ to compete globally

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is signalling a dramatic shift to unapologetically and directly supporting Australian industry and innovation, saying the country needs “sharper elbows when it comes to marking out our national interest” and competing with the rest of the world.

In a speech to be delivered to the Queensland Press Club on Thursday, Albanese will effectively launch his bid for re-election with a plan for a green interventionist industry policy, one which uses direct government support to speed up the energy transition, provide certainty for business and stem the flow of money and ideas to countries offering investment incentives.

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Christmas hams, candles and a ‘priceless’ 75cm statue: what Australia’s politicians are being gifted

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Disclosures include a custom turntable from Joe Biden and a statue depicting Julian Hill on a gold armchair gifted by a local supporter

The Labor MP Julian Hill’s declaration of a 75-centimetre statue of himself, given by a constituent, has shone a light on the interesting – and sometimes weird – world of political disclosures and gifts.

Gifts ranging from bottles of wine to customised vinyl record turntables, free concert tickets to flight upgrades are accepted and dutifully recorded on the federal politicians’ publicly-available register of interests, as required under parliamentary rules.

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Australia weather live updates: more heavy rain forecast for NSW and Qld as SES issues flood warnings; Sydney downpours cause train delays and airport flight cancellations

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Dozens of flights cancelled at Sydney airport and drivers told to avoid non-essential travel as inland low and coastal trough combine

Helen Reid from the Bureau of Meteorology has just provided us with an update on the Sydney rain and said the city could very well receive a month’s worth of rain in one day.

She pointed to the Observatory Hill gauge and said on average in April, there is around 126.5mm of rainfall during the month. Since 9am yesterday morning, there has been 106mm of rain.

We are expecting rainfall over Sydney to increase during today … I would suggest that if we got more than the April average, that wouldn’t be too beyond too far beyond this stretch of imagination.

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Australia news live: PM says it ‘isn’t good enough’ to say Gaza strike on aid workers ‘just a product of war’

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Prime minister reiterates that has ‘demanded full accountability for what has occurred’ from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Follow the day’s news live

After a number of comments about the state of famine in Gaza, which Hyman appears to be disputing – it’s quite difficult to keep up with his comments, though they seem to include allegations that Hamas is stealing aid – he is asked by host Sally Sara if he’s rejecting UN concerns of hunger and starvation in Gaza. I will come back and check his comments shortly but the upshot seems to be that he is, more or less.

I’ll bring you more direct lines from this interview shortly, bear with me.

I mean, obviously, we know that this isn’t something that the IDF would do or the Israeli Air Force would do on purpose.

There’s a war going on. Wars are awful. Nobody wanted this war, we certainly didn’t want this war, but we’re forced to fight it because it’s a war for our very existence.

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Youth curfew ‘not the long-term solution’, MP says – as it happened

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Anthony Albanese has called a snap press conference in Canberra at 8.30am. We’ll have coverage of this for you soon.

A man has died in Melbourne’s south after being struck by a truck on a major highway near Frankston.

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Ten lawyers tell court Lehrmann may have leaked confidential material to Spotlight program – as it happened

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Aviation firefighters will walk off the job amid revelations many of the nation’s airports are ill-equipped to handle emergencies, AAP reports.

Leaked risk assessments carried out by Airservices Australia reveal travellers at 13 airports including Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide airports, were found to be at extreme risk if there was a fire or aircraft incident because of a lack of firefighting resources.

These leaked documents confirm that Australia’s air travellers face a dire risk every time they set foot on an aircraft in Australia.

Clearly, this significant and ongoing risk to all Australian air travellers is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue.

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Senator Tammy Tyrrell quits Jacqui Lambie’s party to sit as independent – as it happened

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Local MP says government ‘had to do something’ about ‘weeks of unrest’ in Alice Springs

MP for Lingiari, Marion Scrymgour, says the government “had to do something” when asked if a youth curfew, imposed for Alice Springs from last night, was necessary.

That’s culminated in some of the riotous behaviours that we’ve seen played out in the streets of Alice Springs, which over a number of weeks, has gotten increasingly worse. The government had to do something.

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Australia politics live: Shorten to table bill to overhaul NDIS; Black Summer inquiry to deliver findings

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The Labor minister will present the proposed legislation to the lower house this morning. Follow the day’s news live

Ceasefire motion: Birmingham pushed for stronger condemnation of October 7 attacks

Simon Birmingham attempted to amend the motion to include a stronger condemnation of October 7 (the Australian parliament has passed motions condemning Hamas and the events of 7 October in the past).

We acknowledge the government in putting forward a resolution seeking to reflect much of the UN Security Council resolution; however, it is the opposition’s view that that does not say enough. It does not say enough to reflect the totality of the UN Security Council resolution nor does it say enough about the totality of what should be Australia’s clear, unequivocal moral conviction in this conflict.

That is why I present and seek leave to move amendments in this chamber, which would better reflect the UN Security Council resolution—namely, that the call for a ceasefire was for an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, a ceasefire that would secure the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and that that can then lead to a sustainable ceasefire.

I know that this motion may not reflect every aspect of all our positions on these issues, but there is enough here to agree on. I ask senators to look for the points that are in front of them. Whether senators consider themselves a friend of Israelis or Palestinians or both, as I do, we should be able to come together in agreeing on the urgency of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. When hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are starving, we should be able to come together to underline the urgency of an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan leading to a sustainable ceasefire as per the UN Security Council resolution; we should be able to come together to demand Hamas comply with the Security Council’s demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages; and we should be able to come together to demand that the Netanyahu government comply with the Security Council’s demand that all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale are removed.

If the divided United Nations Security Council could come together on these issues then we ought to be able to do likewise. If countries as different as Algeria, Ecuador, France, the United Kingdom and others can agree on these points, then we ought to be able to do likewise. Not a single country voted against this resolution, and we should recognise what it means that not one of the permanent five members of the Security Council stood in the way. Right now we are faced with reports from the United Nations that 650,000 Palestinians in Gaza are starving and well over a million are at risk of starvation. Right now more than 1.7 million people in Gaza are internally displaced.

There are, as I have said, increasingly few safe spaces to go. Right now there are more than 130 hostages still being held by the terror group Hamas, and we condemn Hamas’ actions as we have always done.

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Australia politics live: Toyota boss says fuel efficiency standard ‘not a car tax’ as Labor defends secrecy around bill

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Renewed push to scrap activity level requirements for childcare subsidies

There was a lot of disappointment last budget when the government did not scrap the activity test as a way of making early child education more accessible and universal.

Zoe Daniel MP, Member for Goldstein

Georgie Dent, the CEO of the Parenthood

Sam Page, the CEO of Early Childhood Australia

Kate Carnell, the former Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and former ACT chief minister

Natalie Walker, the deputy chair of Goodstart Early Learning

Sue Morphett, a businesswoman and the former president of Chief Executive Women

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Australia politics live: Catherine King takes aim at Liberals over preselection of women at end of heated question time

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Chalmers: we can have cost-of-living relief and wage growth

Here is how Jim Chalmers was selling the wage submission (at least on ABC TV this morning). The treasurer said it wasn’t a binary choice between cost of living relief and wages growth:

We don’t see cost of living relief as ‘instead of’ decent wages growth. We want to see wages growth on top of the billions of dollars of cost of living relief that the Albanese government is rolling out.

… The tax cuts we’re rolling out for everyone, or cheaper childhood education or cheaper medicines - none of those are a substitute for getting wages growing in the economy once again.

I think if you’ve followed Tasmanian laws, and they’ve worked very well down there and actually your bill is based on that, you might have … a good good bit of airing out there and actually be able to settle this once and for all.

I think there’s a very fine line between having choices … and running … a business or a school or anything else.

People send their kids to faith based schools with expectations and I think we’ve got a walk a very, very fine line with all of that.

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Anthony Albanese among several politicians to declare free Taylor Swift tickets

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The PM was captured on video at Sydney Eras concert with his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, apparently on balcony of corporate box

Anthony Albanese accepted free tickets to Taylor Swift’s sold-out Sydney concert last month, one of several federal politicians who were gifted passes to the hotly anticipated Eras tour.

The prime minister declared “I’m a Swiftie” when the American pop star swept through Australia in February. He has now declared receiving tickets to her performance, disclosing “tickets to Taylor Swift concert in Sydney from Universal Music Group” under the “travel and hospitality” heading on his parliamentary register of interests.

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Israel must allow humanitarian relief to reach Gaza, Australia and UK say in new joint statement – as it happened

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As part of the latest Aukus developments, Australia will send A$4.6bn to the UK to clear bottlenecks at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.

Richard Marles was asked why it costs so much, and why this component needs to be done in the UK. He told ABC News Breakfast:

We made clear a year ago that we wouldn’t be building the nuclear reactors in Australia. They will be built by Rolls Royce at its facility in Derby in the UK and once the sealed reactors are built, they will be taken here to the Osborne Naval ship yard and placed in the submarines which the rest of which will be built here at Osborne.

Building nuclear reactors is difficult to do and in order for this to play out, that facility in Derby, which is building nuclear reactors for Britain’s navy, that needs to be expanded and that is what this contribution is for.

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Australia politics live: Coalition slams Keating for China meeting; RBA tipped to hold rates

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Former PM called ‘reckless’ for accepting talks with foreign minister Wang Yi. Follow the day’s news live

Energy minister Chris Bowen is on a bit of a media blitz this morning.

More renewables are coming on to the grid, which is lowering the default price of energy, but this is Bowen’s main message (he is speaking to ABC radio RN here)

Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy in the world at the moment. There will be a real choice at the next election between the cheapest form of energy and the most expensive.

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