Category Archives: Australian foreign policy

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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Coles and Woolworths face class actions over claims misleading promotions deceived customers – as it happened

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Watt says issue of reconciliation not closed in Australia despite voice referendum

Wrapping up the interview, Murray Watt was also asked about the haka performed in New Zealand parliament yesterday over a controversial bill that proposes to radically alter the way New Zealand’s treaty between Māori and the crown is interpreted.

I think there are many Australians who care very deeply about the rights of our First Peoples. Of course, Australians had their say on the voice to parliament in the recent referendum but I don’t think that means the issue of reconciliation is closed in Australia. That is something that our government remains committed to working on with our First Peoples and I think a lot of Australians support that as well.

I probably won’t comment on what’s happening in New Zealand because it’s their own affairs, but it shows these issues still really matter to people.

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Australia backs UN resolution recognising ‘permanent sovereignty’ of Palestinians in major departure

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Vote cast with 158 other countries to recognise ‘permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’

Australia has backed in a United Nations resolution to recognise the “permanent sovereignty” of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, marking a major departure from its previous position.

At a UN committee vote on Thursday, Australia voted with 158 other countries, including the UK and New Zealand, on a resolution to recognise the “permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources”.

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Senior Trump adviser suggests Rudd’s time as US ambassador could be up with hourglass gif

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Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott defend suitability of former PM after Dan Scavino social media post, despite Rudd’s past criticism of president-elect

A senior adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump has fuelled speculation about the future of Australia’s ambassador to Washington, former prime minister Kevin Rudd, by reposting Rudd’s congratulatory statement to Trump on social media with a gif of an hourglass.

The provocative time-is-running-out post by former Trump deputy chief of staff for communications Dan Scavino reignited suggestions that the incoming president may prefer another Australian representative in Washington when he takes office in January.

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Australia ‘not immune from trade tensions’, Chalmers says of incoming Trump presidency

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Treasurer says he spoke about tariffs to a ‘key member’ of Republican’s economic team before the US election

Australia’s economy will not be immune from escalating trade tensions, Jim Chalmers has warned, as the Albanese government prepares itself for an incoming Donald Trump administration.

In a speech to be delivered on Monday , the treasurer will outline the risks of an “uncertain world characterised by economic vulnerability and volatility” but will say the Australian government is “well-placed and well-prepared”.

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Trump’s tariff threats a ‘clear and present danger’ to Australia, Arthur Sinodinos warns

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Former ambassador to US says president-elect’s vow to slap up to 60% tariffs on imports from China would have knock-on effects on Australian economy

Donald Trump’s threats of hefty tariffs on imports – especially from China – pose a “clear and present danger” to Australia that must be taken seriously, according to a former Australian ambassador to Washington, Arthur Sinodinos.

Speaking to Guardian Australia’s Australian Politics podcast, the former Liberal senator and adviser to prime minister John Howard, who was ambassador through Trump’s final year in the White House, warned that the US president-elect’s talk of slapping tariffs of 10-20% on foreign goods and as much as 60% on goods from China cannot be dismissed as bluff.

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Sydney homes flooded after water pipeline bursts – as it happened

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Racism, colonialism ‘driving Indigenous self-harm’

Australia’s dark colonial past and ongoing racism are driving self-harm in Indigenous communities, according to a respected Aboriginal psychologist.

That whole process has left communities suffering from intergenerational trauma, disadvantage and ongoing racism, as well as the exclusion from the benefits of society and a lack of acknowledgment and respect for their different cultural values.

We still want clinical approaches but we want to see culture at the centre of that.

In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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‘We don’t want them in Australia at all’: Labor wants more powers to re-detain and remove non-citizens to third countries

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Tony Burke introduces bill to facilitate removal of unlawful non-citizens and regulations to reimpose ankle bracelets and curfews on those released after high court’s NZYQ decision

The Albanese government has introduced a bill to facilitate removal of non-citizens from Australia, including paying third countries to accept people released from immigration detention, triggering cancellation of their bridging visas and possible re-detention.

The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, introduced the bill to “strengthen the government’s power to remove people who have had their visas cancelled to third countries” on Thursday.

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Shrinkflation a ‘difficult decision’ for manufacturers, inquiry told – as it happened

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Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who had some colourful moments in his relationship with Donald Trump in his first presidency, is up now being colourful on the ABC. He says the Australian prime minister “has to stand up for Australia and not follow the conventional approach, which is being urged on everyone, which is to suck up to Trump and be utterly deferential:

I had a very successful relationship with Trump because I stood up to him, stood my ground, incurred his wrath, won his respect, and then got very good outcomes for Australia.

He did sort of encourage a mob to try to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power in 2021, on January 6.

The deal that Morrison instigated and Albanese signed up to is a very, very asymmetrical deal. All of the risk was on Australia. We have no agency and no leverage over this, and that’s why I think the most likely outcome is we’ll end up with no submarines, and that will be entirely our own fault because we signed up to a dud deal.

We have been clear, in terms of the Liberal party leadership, that Peter Dutton and the Liberal party have no plans, no intentions, to see any changes to abortion laws, that we respect the states’ rights in that regard, and I am very clear in terms of my respect for women’s reproductive rights.

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Albanese says Trump call ‘very constructive’ as Dutton calls US president-elect ‘not somebody to be scared of’

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PM fully briefed on ‘potential outcomes’ of US election and says Australia is prepared for Trump’s policies on security, economic and other issues

Australia will advocate for free trade and climate action – despite Donald Trump’s agenda against both – and persist with the Aukus alliance including nuclear submarine acquisition, the Albanese government has indicated.

Under fire from conservative media about his comments in 2017 that Trump “scares the shit” out of him, the prime minster, Anthony Albanese, was asked if he owed an apology to the president-elect.

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Chris Hemsworth criticised over tourism ad promoting Abu Dhabi despite ‘notorious’ human rights violations

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Actor and wife filmed promotional ad in UAE, a country which strives to present itself as tolerant ‘while carrying out repression against dissent’

Australian movie star Chris Hemsworth has been criticised for starring in a slick advertisement promoting Abu Dhabi as a tourism destination in partnership with the United Arab Emirates government, the latest celebrity to use their influence to promote the gulf state.

Hemsworth features in the minute-long ad with his actor and model wife, Elsa Pataky, which they posted on their Instagram accounts on Wednesday. The ad was also shared by the Experience Abu Dhabi Instagram account.

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Australia’s conservatives praise Trump’s ‘self-belief’ as PM welcomes likely US counterpart

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Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison offer congratulations as Adam Bandt criticises ‘dangerous demagogue’ and calls on PM to cancel Aukus

The Australian government is bracing for foreign policy turbulence with Donald Trump’s likely election as US president throwing the defence of Ukraine, Taiwan and combatting the climate crisis into doubt.

Although Kamala Harris is yet to concede defeat in the election, several networks have called the key swing state of Pennsylvania for Trump, and world leaders have moved to acknowledge their new counterpart. The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, released a statement on Wednesday evening local time to congratulate him “on his election victory”.

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How will the outcome of the US election affect Australia, Aukus and our region?

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Australia’s future is closely tied to the future occupant of the White House. What impacts could a Kamala Harris or Donald Trump presidency have?

More people have gone to a ballot box in 2024 than in any other year in human history. Billions have cast votes across scores of countries, including some of the largest, most powerful democracies on Earth.

But America’s remains the world’s global election, the most forensically examined, the most consequential all over the world. America matters.

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Bill Shorten urges Israel to look after Palestinian civilians after Unrwa banned in Gaza

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Coalition meanwhile says Australia should divert aid funding away from the UN humanitarian assistance body

Bill Shorten has said Palestinians in Gaza should be “prioritised” and urged Israel to look after civilians at risk after Israel’s parliament voted to ban the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) from Israel and the areas of Gaza, the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem within 90 days.

Meanwhile, the opposition said the Albanese government should divert the millions of dollars in funding to Unrwa to other more “trusted” humanitarian organisations.

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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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WiseTech shares surge after CEO stands down – as it happened

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Dutton and Shorten weigh in on Queensland state election

The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, both spoke with the Today show earlier from Queensland, before the election.

He’s focused on the issues which affect Queenslanders: housing, health, cheaper transport and of course tackling youth crime. So we’ll find out soon enough who’s going to win.

The fact is that it’s time for a change in Queensland and law and order is out of control.

Well, yes, he did. He did three days ago and, despite that, the government’s scare campaign continues.

The scare campaign on a sensitive issue that has been run, quite frankly, crosses the line, and we’re better than that as Queenslanders … There won’t be changes to abortion laws and Queenslanders need to know that.

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Albanese dismisses Beijing’s claim Australia plagued by ‘systemic racism’ and ‘hate crimes’

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China’s foreign ministry spokesperson accuses Canberra of double standards after Australia’s top diplomat raises human rights concerns

Anthony Albanese has dismissed criticisms by China’s foreign ministry that Australia is plagued by “systemic racism” and “hate crimes” after Australia’s top diplomat raised concerns about rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The ministry’s spokesperson, Lin Jian, accused Australia and other nations who joined the statement of double standards, saying it was “political manipulation under the pretext of human rights”.

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Albanese rejects China’s claim that Australia plagued by ‘systemic racism’ – as it happened

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The Rail, Tram and Bus Union of NSW (RTBU) conducted a five-minute work stoppage early this morning, which is leading to delays across the network.

Sydney Trains says this has led to minor delays and “larger than normal gaps in services may be experienced”, according to an alert:

Trains stops and platforms may change at short notice and some trains may be cancelled. Extra travel time may be experienced in some cases and you may need to change to continue your trip.

The action was set to happen in select locations across the network to ensure we could ramp up stoppages whenever needed.

The rail agencies continue to bargain in good faith with the Combined Rail Unions for a new enterprise bargaining agreement. Sydney Trains are working to minimise the disruption to commuters as much as possible.

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Thorpe rebuffs Indigenous leaders’ criticism of protest – as it happened

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More on news media bargaining code and funding of media publishers

One of the committee’s key recommendations was a digital platform levy on companies like Meta and Google, which some have described as a tech tax to fund public interest journalism.

So in parts of Europe, for example, there’s a 2% digital services tax. You could look at a public interest journalism levy.

The issue that we have fundamentally here is the … offshoring of the digital platform’s profits, where currently they pay very little tax because they argue that they don’t operate in Australia, even though they’re getting this enormous profit yield of the advertising on their platforms. So that’s another thing that has to be resolved within legislation in order to impose a tax.

But simply imposing a tax and feeding [it] into media organisations … won’t fix the issue if Meta continues to deprecate news content – that is, reduce the exposure of news content to its consumers.

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Australia to review all 66 military export permits to Israel approved before Gaza conflict

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Department of Defence considering international commitments on exports amid ongoing war in Middle East

Australia is carrying out a review of all 66 defence-related export permits for Israel that were approved prior to the Gaza conflict.

Guardian Australia understands the review is being done in a similar manner to the UK government’s recent reassessment of arms licences to Israel, with the outcome to be announced “in coming months”.

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