Category Archives: Aukus

Coles and Woolworths ordered to dump more than 5,200 tonnes of soft plastic into landfill – as it happened

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The government has been accused of deliberately withholding detail on its push to enshrine an Indigenous voice in the constitution for political reasons.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton and shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser were briefed by the referendum working group after calling for more information on the proposed voice’s make-up and function.

Like all Australians, we want to see a better outcome for the Indigenous people of our country.

We are willing to look at any measure to do that. There are lots of questions around the voice and lots of detail that hasn’t yet been provided.

It’s not the airlines that do the turn backs that you should be worried about. It’s the airlines that keep on going to the destination and don’t make that turn back.

This is what happens with aviation across the world. And it’s an important part of the safety management system. I would rather there be not, but again I encourage our pilots to do this. I applaud them when they do it.

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James Cleverly rebuffs Australian minister over UK colonialism remarks

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Foreign secretary rejects suggestion by Penny Wong that Britain needs to do more to confront its colonial past

James Cleverly has rejected suggestions Britain needs to do more to confront its colonial past, pointing out that he is “the black foreign secretary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain”.

He was responding to questions after a speech by the Australian foreign minister, Penny Wong, while on a visit to London this week in which she said Britain needed to reflect on its past.

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Australia news live: voice working group says Dutton committed to ‘further talks’; Alice Springs report may not be made public until next week

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Australian batter Usman Khawaja has been cleared to join his teammates in India after his visa issues were sorted, AAP reports.

Pakistan-born Khawaja will fly out of Melbourne today, more than a day later than planned, after an anxious wait for his visa to be approved.

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Anthony Albanese says he would have likely signed up to Aukus if he had been PM at the time

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Exclusive: The prime minister’s assessment pits him against Paul Keating, who has urged Labor to walk away from the controversial pact

Anthony Albanese says it is likely he would have pursued the Aukus agreement had Labor been in power during the Morrison era because the bonds between the three nations are enduring, and defence officials would have supplied the same advice.

The upbeat assessment during an interview with the Guardian’s Australian Politics podcast pits Albanese against Paul Keating, who has urged Labor to walk away from the controversial agreement with the US and Britain. Keating argues the plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines will see Australia’s strategic sovereignty “outsourced to another state” – a critique echoed by the former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

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Australia news live updates: ClubsNSW chief says he ‘misspoke’ in linking Perrottet’s faith to pokies policy

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Independent MP Alex Greenwich calls on Josh Landis to step down following comments about NSW premier. Follow the latest updates live

Alice Springs’ convention centre was packed last night for a meeting where business owners alleged they’ve suffered losses due to government inaction.

The ABC is reporting that organiser and business owner Garth Thompson told the crowd that the Northern Territory government had neglected Alice Springs and residents “deserve to be compensated for what the government has put us through”.

I’m more than proud to stand here and say we, as a community of Alice Springs, are about to sue our government for $1.5 billion in compensation.

Those of us who came here for a community meeting ended up listening to 20 to 30 minutes of a local business owner essentially stir up a very emotive narrative centred around the protection of private property.

I think it’s fair to say that the premier has very little understanding of this issue and has acted from his conservative Catholic gut rather than based on evidence.

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Australia and France agree arms deal for Ukraine as talks seek to bury Aukus debacle

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The countries will jointly supply thousands of artillery shells to Kyiv to kickstart ‘new cooperation between defence industries’

Australia and France have agreed a deal to jointly manufacture and supply thousands of artillery shells to the Ukrainian army, the defence and foreign ministers of the two countries announced on Monday.

The agreement, “worth several million (Australian) dollars”, was announced after bilateral talks in Paris aimed at resetting the relationship between the two countries seriously damaged by the 2021 Aukus affair.

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‘We don’t have limitless resources’: Australian government prepared to scale back defence projects

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Exclusive: While committed to an increase in defence spending, Labor’s Richard Marles refuses to rule out building first nuclear-powered submarines offshore

Richard Marles has signalled the Australian government is prepared to scale back some defence projects to fund others in a major shake-up, declaring “we don’t have limitless resources”.

The deputy prime minister said the government would weigh up “how best we can use the resources that we have to make sure that we have a defence force which maximises Australia’s capability”.

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ADF airlifts food to Western Australia areas hit by floods – as it happened

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Australian Defence Force planes now able to use the airstrip at Fitzroy Crossing as weather improves. This blog is now closed

“Bonza the bogan airline” sounds like a crap children’s book, but it’s an interesting story about another moving part in Australia’s turbulent air transport industry. Also, Elias Visontay managed to get budgie smugglers into it, making the skimpy swimwear somewhat of a sub theme on the blog today:

Waters at Menindee expected to peak

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Anthony Albanese ‘confident’ about Aukus deal despite US submarine scepticism

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Defence minister Richard Marles says Australia will need to make its own industrial contribution for the US and UK deal

Australia is on track to announce plans to buy new nuclear-powered submarines from the US and UK, despite scepticism in Washington, the Albanese government says.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the defence minister, Richard Marles, said Australia’s relationship with the US remained strong after revelations two US senators raised concerns to the president, Joe Biden, the Aukus deal between the three countries could kill off America’s submarine-building industry.

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US senators urge Joe Biden not to sell ‘scarce’ nuclear submarines to Australia

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Democrat and Republican lawmakers reportedly warned president that Aukus security pact could stress US submarine industrial base ‘to breaking point’

Two top US senators have urged president Joe Biden not to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, warning it would diminish US national security given the vessels are “scarce”.

The intervention confirms the US is under pressure not to sell its submarines before Australia is able to build its own as part of the Aukus alliance – meaning it could be decades before Australia gains nuclear submarines.

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Kevin Rudd will be ‘well received in Washington’ as Australia’s ambassador to the US, experts say

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Former PM praised as ‘the best China analyst by far’ by leading US national security council figure

Experts have predicted Kevin Rudd will be “well received by Washington and highly active in policy circles” as Australia’s ambassador to the US, though the nomination has triggered criticism from some Coalition MPs.

Andrew Wallace, a Liberal party MP said the appointment could go down in history as “a foreign policy disaster for Australia with its most important ally” if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, as Rudd called him “the most destructive president in history”.

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Senior public servant under scrutiny at robodebt inquiry appointed head of Aukus project office

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Former head of Department of Human Services Kathryn Campbell has come under extensive questioning at the royal commission into robodebt

Kathryn Campbell, one of the senior public servants being questioned at the robodebt royal commission, has been appointed head of the Aukus joint project office at the Department of Defence.

Labor put its stamp on the public service when it won the election, moving Campbell out of the role of head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

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Penny Wong issues emphatic plea to US and China to ‘prevent catastrophe’ of war

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Australia’s foreign affairs minister to give speech in hope ‘nationalistic domestic posturing won’t sink efforts to build safeguards’

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has urged China to take up a US offer to put in place “guardrails” to prevent growing tensions from spiralling into war.

Wong will use a speech in Washington DC on Thursday to hit back at claims that Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under Aukus is driving a regional arms race.

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Australia’s first nuclear submarines should be built in the US, Andrew Hastie says

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‘There’s too much risk in doing it on our own’, says shadow defence minister citing an immediate need for ‘hard power’

Australia should strike a deal with the US to have the first of its nuclear-powered submarines built in Connecticut as “there’s too much risk in doing it on our own”, the shadow defence minister, Andrew Hastie, has declared.

Speaking before senior Australian ministers meet their counterparts in the US this week, Hastie said Australia should seek one or two Virginia-class submarines off the US production line by the end of 2030.

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Albanese and Biden discuss climate action and Aukus pact ahead of G20 summit

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In a 40-minute meeting, the prime minister also invited the US president to address federal parliament next year during meeting of the Quad

Anthony Albanese has compared notes with the US president ahead of Joe Biden’s landmark meeting with Xi Jinping on Monday at the G20, and discussed Aukus and climate cooperation in a warm catch-up spanning 40 minutes.

Australia’s prime minister met Biden on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit on Sunday in Phnom Penh. That catch-up followed Albanese speaking on Saturday night with the Chinese premier Li Keqiang – which is the first leader-level contact between Australia and China in three years.

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Two former defence leaders paid almost $800,000 to review Australia’s military capabilities

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Review by Sir Angus Houston and Stephen Smith will respond to increasing challenges in the Pacific and make recommendations ‘for the next decade and beyond’

Two former defence leaders are being paid close to $800,000 combined to carry out a major review for the Albanese government, including a confidential update delivered this week.

Contract records show the former chief of the Australian defence force Sir Angus Houston is being paid $470,000 for his work on the defence strategic review, while the former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith will receive $306,496.

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Indonesian ambassador warns Australia Aukus pact must not fuel a hypersonic arms race

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Siswo Pramono says the two countries remain in close talks on ensuring the safety of Australia’s plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines

Indonesia’s ambassador to Australia has raised new concerns about the sharing of advanced weapons technology under the Aukus security agreement, warning that it must not fuel a hypersonic arms race in the region.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, Siswo Pramono said the two countries were “not in quarrel” and remained in close talks about how to ensure the safety of Australia’s plans to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines.

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US deployment of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Australia’s north likely to fuel China tensions

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US-funded upgrade of Tindal airbase in Northern Territory will allow it to house up to six B-52s, as minister says Australia must remain ‘vigilant’

An expanded Royal Australian Air Force base in the Northern Territory will have space for up to six American nuclear-capable B-52 aircraft as part of a US-funded project that is likely to fuel tensions with China.

Officials in Canberra confirmed that the US-funded aircraft parking apron at RAAF Base Tindal, 320km south-east of Darwin, would be capable of accommodating up to six B-52 aircraft, but said it could also house other aircraft types.

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Current cybersecurity laws ‘absolutely useless’, Clare O’Neil says – as it happened

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On Optus, Dreyfus describes the incident as a “wake-up call for corporate Australia” and flags changes to the Privacy Act.

Keeping the very personal data of customers who had ceased to be customers years ago. I have yet to hear a reason why that was going on. And Optus failed to keep the information safe.

Companies throughout Australia should stop regarding all of this personal data of Australians as an asset to them, they should think of it as a liability. This is a wake-up call for corporate Australia.

We will look very hard at the settings in the Privacy Act. I may be bringing reforms to the Privacy Act before the end of the year, to try to both toughen penalties and make companies think harder about why they are storing the personal data of Australians.

That report this morning is simply, in in one of newspapers is wrong. Union officials are not excluded. Any third party seeking to adversely affect public decisions making in corrupt way will be subject to investigation by the commission.

The activities set up under this bill for this commission are directed at the public sector in Australia. It’s not directed at private activity. It’s directed at the public sector and is interaction third parties have with public officials, adversely affecting the way they go about their duties in a formal, honest manner.

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Labor MP claims rate decisions based on ‘outdated and outmoded data’ – as it happened

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NSW roads impacted by rainfall

Man falls to his death while hiking near Gold Coast waterfall

Emergency services were initially called to Tanninaba Falls around 12.15pm following reports a man falling several metres down a cliff face.

Crews located the man at the bottom of the cliff and was declared deceased a short time later.

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