Category Archives: Australian foreign policy

Australia news live: Jim Chalmers says he has ‘other priorities’ than a gas tax; Anthony Albanese calls to congratulate Andy Burnham

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Treasurer points to other reforms after Labor members call for ‘fairer return’ from natural resources. Follow today’s news live

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories before your regular blogger takes the reins.

Jim Chalmers has claimed rightwing political parties will “prey on” voter insecurities about a worsening economy while championing “anti-worker” policies. It comes as markets are now expecting another rate hike by the end of the year. He also continues to push back at rank and file Labor members’ calls for a new tax on gas exports, saying the government had “other priorities” for reform. More coming up.

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Australia news live: Brisbane fog causes flight delays; Labor faces seven major challenges, Chalmers says

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Treasurer says ‘parties of the sensible centre and the centre-left parties’ face ‘serious economic challenges’. Follow live

Self-reported domestic violence incidents declining in NSW but deaths and hospitalisations fail to fall

New data shows self-reported domestic violence incidents in New South Wales have declined, but the number of women and children murdered or hospitalised in domestic and family violence incidents over the past eight years has not significantly budged.

The decline in self-reported violence is significant because it reflects underlying levels of violence in the community, not just what is reported to police. It suggests that, despite rising reports of domestic violence to police, domestic violence in the community is not increasing and may be trending down.

There’s a strong perception that violence against women is rising, which is understandable given increases in police-recorded incidents, heightened media attention and greater public awareness.

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Australia to warn China it won’t be bullied by ‘provocative‘ actions as it builds military and nuclear arsenal

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Foreign minister Penny Wong will deliver speech criticising China’s recent launch of a nuclear-capable submarine-launched missile

Penny Wong will warn China that Australia and other neighbouring nations will not be bullied by its “provocative” actions, after its involvement in another “destabilising and dangerous” incident this week.

The foreign affairs minister – who will deliver the address on Thursday in the Philippines, where the 59th Asean foreign minister’s meeting is being held – will also caution world leaders against placing a toll on the strait of Hormuz after both Iran and the US threatened to do amid the protracted conflict.

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Australia news live: Barnaby Joyce dogged by Tommy Robinson questions – and by a dog – in spiky ABC interview

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One Nation MP grilled in 7.30 interview about Pauline Hanson’s podcast interview by far-right activist. Follow today’s news live

Anthony Albanese has congratulated the new UK Prime Minister Anthony Burnham after the latter took over the job yesterday. The Australian PM posted a note to X, emphasising the strategic allyship:

Congratulations Prime Minister Burnham on your appointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Australia and the United Kingdom are longstanding friends, allies and partners, united by shared values and deep ties between our peoples.

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Australia news live: Barnaby Joyce defends Pauline Hanson’s meeting with Tommy Robinson; police make arrest after man dies in Sydney house fire

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One Nation MP says the media should be prepared to interview far-right activist. Follow today’s news live

Michelle Rowland says mandatory minimum standards for datacentres don’t apply to existing developments

The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, told ABC News that mandatory minimum standards for datacentres would apply to new developments, not existing ones.

The scope and the timing of those is something that I think will be properly determined by national cabinet.

This is an issue that not only state governments but local councils have been dealing with as well.

It goes from being this hunched-over ball of fluff at the top of a tree looking down at you, to suddenly spreading out its limbs and flying over your head like a magical flying carpet, or this weird stingray-UFO thing in the sky.

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Australia news live: NT police still seek answers over 25 year-old murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio

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Bradley John Murdoch was convicted of 28-year-old’s murder but remains were never found

Northern Territory Police have opened evidence boxes to uncover several previously unseen photographs from the investigation of the murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio and attempted abduction of his girlfriend Joanne Lees.

Tuesday is the 25th anniversary of the infamous outback disappearance.

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‘Like a father to us’: pride and protest as thousands flock to see Narendra Modi in Melbourne

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Indian prime minister wows crowd of 25,000 at Marvel Stadium as he praises role of diaspora in the India-Australia success story

The throb of the drum beats intensified as the crowd of 25,000 Indian Australians prepared to welcome India’s prime minister back to Melbourne after more than a decade.

As Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese stepped on to the red carpet at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night, twinkling phone lights illuminated the feverish audience as they chanted “Modi, Modi, Modi.”

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Accused double murderer Beau Lamarre-Condon’s mother granted bail – as it happened

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Richard Marles said he doubted China tested the long-range weapon yesterday in response to Anthony Albanese being in the Pacific to sign a new defence alliance with Fiji but said Australia remained deeply concerned by the development. He told ABC News:

At the end of the day, what we’re seeing here is a long-range missile test from China, which China itself has said is nuclear-capable … This is China demonstrating a much greater range in terms of being able to deploy a nuclear weapon.

And ultimately what that is, is deeply destabilising.

Our fundamental issue in relation to China is that we have seen a very dramatic military buildup by China without that strategic reassurance [to our neighbours].

There really isn’t an explanation as to why they are building the capabilities that they are and that is fundamentally destabilising.

I think the system is handling the matter as it should … I think it’s appropriate that the legal process takes its course.

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Australian citizen working as spy for Iran ‘orchestrated’ Bondi firebombing, Asio boss says

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Mike Burgess’s annual threat assessment warns social media is ‘amplifying’ an erosion of trust in institutions, promoting discord and heightening polarisation

An Australian citizen working as a senior intelligence officer for Iran “orchestrated” a firebombing in Bondi, the country’s top spy has revealed, while a former Australian resident in Iraq directed the attack on a Melbourne synagogue.

The homegrown ties to Australia’s “summer of antisemitism” are contained in a wide-ranging speech given by Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation’s (Asio) director general, Mike Burgess, on Wednesday night, in which he said the “hatred of Jews is one thing virtually all the violent extremist cohorts have in common”.

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Australia news live: arrival of H5N1 bird flu a ‘genuine wildlife emergency’, experts say; fuel excise rebate extended for extra month

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Tram passengers in Melbourne will be able to pay for their trip using a bank card, smartphone or smartwatch from today.

The long awaited expansion of tap-and-go payments follows a staged roll out to the city’s train network and main regional routes. Buses are expected to follow.

From today, you can step off a train and straight on to a tram using the same phone, watch or bank card.

Four in five tap and go trips are already being made with a phone or smartwatch – showing more Victorians are leaving the wallet at home.

The potential for this virus to kill wildlife in significant numbers means it could be particularly catastrophic for threatened species.

We are talking about possible extinctions, alongside severe impacts to common birds like our beloved pelicans and black swans.

This is a genuine wildlife emergency and it must be treated as such with emergency funding to increase efforts to protect wildlife populations.

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Penny Wong says she believes Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and abused Australian women after Gaza flotilla

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Foreign affairs minister says her position is to ‘always believe women’ when sexual assault allegations are made

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, says she believes the Australian women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted and beaten by Israeli soldiers after being detained as part of a humanitarian flotilla attempting to bring aid to Gaza.

Appearing at Senate estimates, Wong said the treatment of the Australian women was “unacceptable”, and the allegations they had subsequently made were “distressing”.

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New Aukus drone tech to protect critical undersea cables as Marles warns: ‘seabed is a battlefield’

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Minister at Singapore defence summit also reveals Australia to buy only secondhand Aukus submarines from US

The defence minister, Richard Marles, has said the “seabed is a battlefield” in a combative speech urging Beijing to be more transparent about its maritime operations, and taking aim at weak international controls over so-called “shadow-fleet” vessels.

The warning came as the US, UK and Australia announced a new Aukus project to develop new underwater drone technology to protect undersea cables.

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Australia news live: Albanese congratulates Delta Goodrem on Eurovision fourth-place finish; Queensland Labor set to win Stafford byelection

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Jim Chalmers says the opposition’s policy to index tax brackets would cost the budget a quarter of a trillion dollars over ten years, while claiming that the government is returning bracket creep to taxpayers.

It’s a slightly tricky position, as Angus Taylor argues that Labor is “betraying” itself because the high figure is actually how much the government is keeping and spending through bracket creep ever year.

This is a Government that returns bracket creep when it is responsible to do that.

That [policy] would cost tens of billions of dollars in extra debt interest, because he’s got these uncosted, unfunded, tax announcements that he [Taylor] made in his Budget reply, which was all about trying to stave off One Nation.”

What Angus Taylor is proposing to do is to pump the most money into the economy when inflation is already at its highest.

“This betrays the fact that the government plans to raise income tax rates to the tune of $35 billion This says more about their plan than our plan ...

If Labor’s saying that they plan to raise income taxes to the tune of $250 billion in the next 10 years ... [if] that is their tax hike, that’s their planned income tax increases.”

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Australia news live: Delta Goodrem hits the stage in Eurovision semi; Angus Taylor accused of ‘dog whistle’ budget reply

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Australian pop star performs song Eclipse in second semi-final before Sunday’s final. Follow today’s news live

Advocates for migrants last night accused Angus Taylor of using his budget reply speech to “chase votes with dog whistles, fear and division”.

Taylor claimed that migrants were coming to Australia and claiming benefits before they were becoming citizens, a situation which he said Australians did not accept.

The Coalition’s dangerous decision to return to its harmful, failed refugee policies of the past shows what a mess they are in. They have no new policy ideas. Temporary protection visas have harmed countless people and kept many families apart for over a decade. So many are still trying to recover.

Taylor’s comments tonight are inflammatory and desperate. The fact that he feels the need to dog-whistle about mass deportations of so-called ‘overstayers’, many of whom are actually trapped in a massively blown-out court and tribunal system created through years of Coalition underfunding, shows they are far more interested in stoking fear than delivering serious policy solutions.

The language in tonight’s address misleads the nation by claiming that migrants are arriving and immediately accessing welfare payments, which is a blatant lie. In reality most of the restrictions he’s talking about already exist and there are lengthy wait periods for welfare payments.

The Coalition knows all this and is deliberately misleading Australians about how the welfare system already operates in order to whip up fear and division.

If I may answer - it will be below 200,000. There’s no doubt about that.

And then the right mix will depend on the circumstances of the time. What is clear, what is clear, is that the number of students in this country has been at record levels.

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Prominent Australian academic denies links to powerful Iranian politician

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Prof Abbas Rajabifard of the University of Melbourne says he was listed as a co-author of research with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator in recent peace talks, without his knowledge

A University of Melbourne academic has denied collaborating on research with the speaker of Iran’s parliament – who has been leading Tehran’s peace negotiations with the US – saying he was named as an author on a journal article without his knowledge.

On Monday Guardian Australia revealed that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator, had built extensive ties to Australia over the past decade, including links to a University of Melbourne engineering research centre.

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Australia news live: Canavan says ‘too much talk of diversity’ in address to Canberra anti-immigration rally – as it happened

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The health and NDIS minister, Mark Butler, says Queensland will be “answerable to their community” if they don’t sign on to NDIS reforms, with billions of dollars of hospital funding on the line.

Every state and territory except for the sunshine state has signed a bilateral agreement with the government for the Thriving Kids program, which is designed to take children under nine with developmental delays or low to moderate autism off the NDIS.

Now every state and territory has signed a bilateral agreement with us that details the broad details of the Thriving Kids program … The only state that hasn’t signed yet is Queensland.

I tried to make clear again last week that is part of the deal that sees them get additional hospital funding and, frankly, they are answerable to their community if they don’t put the additional supports.

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Ben Roberts-Smith denies war crimes allegations – As it happened

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Defence Minister Richard Marles says the success of Australia’s alliance with the United States should not be measured against a single president or federal government in Canberra, insisting the longstanding ties will endure.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised Australia for not assisting with the war in Iran, while federal Labor, including Marles and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, say the White House has not made any specific request for assistance.

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Australia news live: refinery fire will not lead to tougher fuel restrictions, PM says, though petrol production down by 40% at plant

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Australia secures extra fertilizer and 100m extra litres of fuel, PM says

Albanese has also provided an update on Australia’s talks with its allies in Asia to shore up imports of fuel and other goods affected by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The advice that we have received today is that 80% of diesel production is continuing, 80% of aviation fuel is continuing, ongoing.

It has been slowed down just slightly because of the circumstances which are there, but 60% of petrol production [is] proceeding today as well.

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Chalmers warns of ‘more polarising politics’ – as it happened

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Seven-year-old girl drowns at swimming spot on Brisbane River

A seven-year-old girl has drowned at a popular swimming spot on the Brisbane River in the south-west of the city, AAP reports.

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Albanese didn’t return with shiploads of diesel. That doesn’t mean his Singapore visit wasn’t a success

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Having received assurances from Singapore over refined fuels, diesel supply will surely be next on the prime minister’s agenda

Anthony Albanese isn’t coming back from Singapore with a shipload of diesel in his checked baggage. That doesn’t mean his whistle-stop visit wasn’t a success, or that it won’t be seen in future as a pivotal moment if fuel stocks continue to be choked by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The government never expected that the quick whip to Singapore, with just one full day on the ground, would elicit a new supply of petrol or diesel. Singapore already supplies 55% of Australia’s unleaded, 22% of jet fuel and 15% of diesel.

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