Category Archives: Australian foreign policy

‘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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Australia news live: Bondi beach reopens after tar-ball pollution; tornado warning for Victoria

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Waverley council says no remaining evidence of the debris could be found at Bondi, Bronte and Tamarama beaches. Follow today’s news live

Max Chandler-Mather continued, and told ABC News Breakfast:

I would argue in this instance in the context of one of the worst housing crises we have seen in generations … now is precisely the time where we need more than tinkering around the edges and we need substantial change.

There is a building consensus we need to scrap these tax handouts. Increasingly the biggest barrier is a prime minister [who has just] gone through multiple days of scandal for buying another property and being a property investor.

So I think there’s a real moment here the government should seize to make real substantial change to the lives of hundreds of thousands of renters, and the bottom line is the Greens are ready and willing to work with Labor to do it.

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Australia news live: Queensland LNP candidate alleges he was assaulted; Sydney Harbour Bridge closed after fatal crash

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New polling from the Australia Institute shows that Australians view the supermarkets as “public enemy No 1” in the cost of living crisis.

The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work surveyed 1,014 voters, and 83% said supermarkets deserve some blame – or a great deal of blame – for the soaring cost of living.

Australians are pointing the finger squarely at supermarkets as public enemy No 1 in the cost-of-living crisis … More people blame supermarkets for the cost-of-living crunch than governments or banks.

The public’s appetite for increased supermarket competition is unmistakable. Nearly two-thirds of voters see it as crucial for alleviating cost-of-living pressures … There’s likely to be political rewards for taking actions that increase supermarket competition.

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Rio Tinto praised for ‘breaking ranks’ to back revamp of environment laws – as it happened

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Queensland leaders to lock horns again in election debate

After their deputies traded blows, the Queensland premier and opposition leader are set to face off again ahead of the state election, AAP reports.

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Australia news live: Hanson-Young calls for investigation of live music ticketing allegations; culprit flees botched ram raid with arm on fire

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The federal government has announced targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on five Iranian individuals it says is “contributing to Iran’s missile program.”

A statement from the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said Iran’s missile program “poses a material threat to regional and international security”, with the 1 October attack on Israel a “dangerous escalation that increased the risk of a wider regional war.”

Australia will continue to hold Iran to account for its reckless and destabilising actions.

We’re holding ministers accountable when the premier of Tasmania refused to. This project – for people who don’t know – is $500m over budget, five years delayed.

It’s a completely debacle. Someone needed to take responsibility. The premier [was] saying he wouldn’t do that, the parliament decided it would act and, at the last moment, the deputy premier resigned.

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Alleged Pinochet agent turned Bondi nanny Adriana Rivas launches last-ditch appeal to block extradition to Chile

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Rivas, who is accused by Chile of being a torturer and kidnapper, launches challenge in the federal court

A former Bondi nanny and cleaner accused by Chile of being a torturer and kidnapper for Pinochet’s military dictatorship in the 1970s has launched a last-ditch legal appeal to avoid extradition.

Adriana Rivas, 70, has been in prison in Australia since 2019, when she was arrested on an extradition request from Chile – seeking her for trial on seven counts of aggravated kidnapping relating to the disappearance, and presumed murder, of seven members of Chile’s communist party who disappeared in 1976.

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Ramos-Horta says $74bn Timor Sea gas project could begin within months if Australia signs treaty

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Timor-Leste president’s trip comes amid mounting pressure for Labor to finalise an agreement

The $74bn Greater Sunrise gas project, which has been decades in the making, could be under way by the end of the year, the Timor-Leste president, José Ramos-Horta, said.

But he also said the pipeline and accompanying processing work must go to his nation, not Darwin.

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Australia politics live: Dutton attacks Albanese for including calls for ceasefire and de-escalation in motion reflecting on 7 October

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So what’s that ARC research project on islands actually about, anyway?

A blog watcher has taken the trouble to look up the research project that has Liberal MP James Stevens all hot and bothered, Archipelagic Connections in Australian and Pacific Literature:

Australia is often defined as an isolated island-continent, ‘girt by sea’. This project aims to challenge this protectionist myth by analysing literary and historical connections between different geographical sites that have been represented as enclosed in Australian history.

It expects to offer new interpretations of interconnected narratives of Aboriginal Australian, South Sea Islander and migrant enclosure in Australian literature.

The project also contributes to national strategic initiatives into the ‘truth telling’ on Australia’s past relations to Aboriginal Australians and the study of environmental change in islands and archipelagos.

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