US shipyards up to three years behind schedule on submarines as concerns grow for Aukus pact

Greens senator David Shoebridge says review of shipbuilding program ‘adds to the growing list of reasons why Aukus is likely to fall over’

US shipyards are running up to three years late in building new Virginia-class submarines, despite suggestions from a senior US diplomat that the Aukus pact with Australia will help deter Beijing from seizing Taiwan.

Australia is relying on a US promise to sell it at least three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines in the 2030s, prior to Australian-made boats starting to enter into service in the 2040s.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

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

This blog is now closed.

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.

Continue reading...

‘Poison portal’: US and UK could send nuclear waste to Australia under Aukus, inquiry told

Labor describes claims as ‘fear-mongering’ and says government would not accept waste from other nations

Australia could become a “poison portal” for international radioactive waste under the Aukus deal, a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear safety legislation has heard.

New laws to establish a safety framework for Australia’s planned nuclear-powered submarines could also allow the US and UK to send waste here, while both of those countries are struggling to deal with their own waste, as no long-term, high-level waste facilities have been created.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

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

Follow the day’s news live

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

Continue reading...

UK defence secretary given a ride from Canberra to Adelaide in Australian military fighter jet

In demonstration of Australia’s air combat capability, Grant Shapps travels in RAAF Super Hornet after meeting with Anthony Albanese

The UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has caught a ride in the back seat of an Australian air force fighter jet after meeting with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese.

The visiting dignitary met with Albanese in Canberra on Thursday before being flown to Adelaide in a FA-18 Super Hornet, according to a report by the ABC.

Continue reading...

David Cameron says Aukus and Nato must be in ‘best possible shape’ ahead of potential Trump win

UK’s foreign secretary is in Australia alongside defence secretary Grant Shapps for high-level talks with Richard Marles and Penny Wong

The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has suggested the Aukus pact and Nato alliance must get into “the best possible shape” to increase their chances of surviving Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House.

Speaking after high-level talks in Australia, Cameron was careful to avoid criticising the former US president and presumptive Republican nominee for 2024, saying it was “up to America who they choose as their president”.

Continue reading...

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

This blog is now closed

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.

Continue reading...

David Shoebridge says Julian Assange ‘may not survive’ trial and extradition – as it happened

This blog is now closed.

Expect to hear a lot more on this today:

Southern Australia could face gas shortages during “extreme peak demand days” from 2025 as Bass Strait supplies dwindle, the Australian Energy Market Operator has said.

Continue reading...

Australia news live: prosecutors begin withdrawing visa breach charges; asbestos detected at two central Queensland facilities

Follow the day’s news live

More from AAP on this:

The New South Wales government says it is working on reducing wait times and improving access to care.

We are throwing everything in our ruck sack at improving access and reducing wait times in our hospitals.

This includes boosting staff and infrastructure; but also rolling out urgent care and providing those alternate pathways to care, to treat people outside the hospital; and establishing an ED taskforce to drive improvements in wait times and access to care.

Continue reading...

New Zealand steps up interest in Aukus as Pacific security concerns grow

Australia to send delegation to NZ ‘very shortly’ to brief on second pillar of Aukus alliance after ministers meet in Melbourne

New Zealand has stepped up its interest in joining the non-nuclear pillar of Aukus, amid China’s growing presence in the Pacific and broader concerns over a “reshaped world”.

New Zealand’s foreign minister Winston Peters – also a deputy prime minister – and the defence minister, Judith Collins, travelled to Melbourne to meet with their Australian counterparts, Penny Wong and Richard Marles, for the inaugural “2+2” Australia and New Zealand foreign and defence ministers’ meeting on Thursday.

Continue reading...

New Zealand to be briefed on Aukus – as it happened

This blog is now closed.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking to ABC RN, and says news that the inflation rate has plunged to a two-year low of 4.1% is “welcoming, encouraging progress”.

… We know that people are still under pressure and we need to not be complacent about it. We need to continue to work as we have with our three point plan, having the surplus, making sure we deal with cost of living pressures without putting pressure on inflation, and dealing with … supply-chain issues as well.

With parliament resuming next week, this is a wake-up call that 2024 is the last chance for meaningful democratic reform ahead of the 2025 election …

Australians should go to the next election with strict political donation disclosure laws, truth in political advertising laws in force and information about who’s meeting ministers made public as a matter of course.

Continue reading...

Prominent Australians urge Albanese government to adopt activist middle power role to head off war between US and China

Statement signed by former foreign ministers, a Nobel laureate and academics outlines anxieties about possibility of conflict in Indo-Pacific region

Australia must step up diplomatic efforts to “avert the horror of great power conflict” and reduce the risk of being dragged into a war between the US and China, according to 50 prominent Australians.

The group, who include the former foreign ministers Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, is urging the Albanese government to play an “activist middle power” role to reduce tensions between Australia’s top security ally and its biggest trading partner.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Red Sea crisis: why the Albanese government said no to the United States’ warship request

The reason Anthony Albanese cited for declining sounds very familiar. Almost like the Coalition said the much the same thing

The Australian government’s decision to rebuff a US request to send a warship to the Red Sea has been greeted in some quarters as a seismic event, but it’s not really a bolt from the blue.

Australia is facing “an increasingly challenging strategic environment which is placing greater demand on ADF resources closer to home”, a senior Australian political figure said.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australian news live: major Victorian road project blows out by more than $10bn; backing UN Gaza ceasefire vote the ‘right call’, PM says

PM says: ‘Hamas can have no role in the future governance of of Gaza, and we need to work towards a political solution.’ Follow the day’s news live

Focus on mental health

The government will be injecting $456m into digital mental health services – including Lifeline and Beyond Blue – to give people to with anxiety and depression better access to mental health services.

Some people go through situational distress through a relationship breakdown or a job loss or bereavement, and they need relatively short periods of support. They might not have a diagnosable mental illness, but they’re certainly distressed and they need support and that really is what the digital investment we’re looking at today is particularly targeted that there are people who go through periods of anxiety and depression and better access.

There’s definitely a gap there for people with more complex needs, but better access which is the scheme that provides Medicare rebates for psychological therapy, the one that we’re talking about, that is not designed to pick up those people and really we need to find alternative systems of support for them.

That is really the concerning growing area of need in the country, not just here in Australia and other countries as well.

They’re now close to $100 a session on average, but there’s many that are higher than that as you indicate. So affordability is a driver of inequity as well and so we’re looking at ways in which we can put out different systems for people who just don’t have the capacity to pay those sorts of gap fees.

We’ve made clear that we will always make the ADF available to states and territories when it’s needed. But we do need to have some other options in place.

We’re a lot better prepared as a country than we were heading into black summer four years ago.

At the federal level, things have significantly changed. We’ve now got one coordinated Emergency Management Agency rather than responsibilities being split between different agencies. We’ve started building a national emergency management stockpile for the very first time, we’ve got the largest fleet of firefighting aircraft that Australia’s ever seen.

Continue reading...

US Congress passes bill allowing sale of Aukus nuclear submarines to Australia

Legislation covering a wide range of military issues clears the way for Virginia class vessels to bolster Pacific defence

The US Congress has passed legislation allowing the country to sell Virginia class submarines to Australia under the Aukus security pact.

Sweeping legislation covering a wide range of military priorities including Aukus passed the US House of Representatives on Thursday Washington time, a day after it cleared the Senate.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australia says AI will be used to help track Chinese submarines under new Aukus plan

Defence minister Richard Marles and counterparts from the UK and US say new technologies will be deployed by militaries

Artificial intelligence, drones, and deep space radar are among the technologies that will be used by Australia and its Aukus allies to counter China’s aggression in the Pacific.

Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, met with his counterparts from the United States and United Kingdom – Lloyd J Austin and Grant Shapps – in California on Saturday to announce the second “pillar” of the Aukus deal.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australia politics live: Albanese says Israel-Hamas war protest at Melbourne hotel ‘beyond contempt’

Follow the day’s news live

Chalmers: ‘We are making some welcome progress in the fight against inflation’

Is Jim Chalmers confident that interest rates could fall from next year?

My job is to focus on this fight against inflation. And we saw overnight from the OECD, we saw from Deloitte Access Economics, we saw in the Bureau of Statistics data which came out yesterday, that we are making some welcome progress in the fight against inflation and that will determine the future directory trajectory of interest rates

Continue reading...

Politics live: cyber chief takes leave as defence department announces recall over ‘workplace matter’

Follow the day’s news live

And here is the standard of some of the “debate” among senior parliamentarians.

Meanwhile, Australia’s sense of social cohesion is at its lowest recorded ebb.

Continue reading...

Pacific Islands Forum chair says region must revisit its anti-nuclear treaty

Australia’s Aukus submarine deal and Japan’s discharge of Fukushima waste makes the issue a priority as leaders gather in Cook Islands

The host of this week’s Pacific Islands Forum summit says the region must “revisit” a landmark anti-nuclear treaty, citing Australia’s Aukus submarine deal and Japan’s discharge of treated Fukushima wastewater.

Mark Brown, the prime minister of the Cook Islands and chair of the region’s most important annual political talks, raised concerns about nuclear-related issues on the eve of the arrival of the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese.

Continue reading...

Almost 40% think Australia should dump US alliance if Donald Trump returns as president, poll finds

Survey finds 47% believe Aukus locks Australia in to supporting the US in an armed conflict, while concern about conflict with China has fallen

A significant minority of Australians think the country should withdraw from the overall Anzus security alliance with the US if Donald Trump returns to the White House, while just under half of the respondents in a new poll believe the Aukus pact locks Australia in to supporting the US in any armed conflict.

The findings, to be released on Wednesday, are part of an opinion survey undertaken annually by the United States Studies Centre. YouGov surveyed 1,019 adults in Australia, 1,055 in the US and 1,015 in Japan about a range of foreign policy and security questions related to the Indo-Pacific.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...