What we learned; Tuesday 19 November
Thanks for reading. Here are the main stories of the day:
Sydney train network to grind to a halt amid pay dispute;
Australia mistakenly added to list of countries signed up to US-UK civil nuclear deal, British government says;
Coalition set to help Labor pass a controversial migration bill allowing Australia to pay third countries to accept unlawful non-citizens, subject to a one-week inquiry;
Former radio host Alan Jones charged with two further offences against a ninth alleged victim, meaning he now faces 26 charges including indecent assault and sexual touching;
A police officer who tasered an elderly woman offered “malleable” explanations about what happened in the lead-up to the deadly incident and spurred him to act, a jury has heard;
Australian dual national Gordon Ng is among 45 pro-democracy activists sentenced to prison by a Hong Kong court for conspiracy to commit subversion, in the city’s biggest national security case since the law was introduced in 2020; and
Two Melbourne teenagers fighting for life after feared methanol poisoning in Laos.
We will see you back here again for more news tomorrow.
Updated
NSW opposition criticises government over Sydney rail strike
The New South Wales opposition has criticised the Minns Labor government after news that Sydney’s train network will grind to a halt for four days due to rail worker strikes.
The NSW government and the state branch of the Rail, Tram and Bus union have been locked in a dispute for months, but it escalated on Tuesday when the transport minister, Jo Haylen, announced no train services would run from Thursday until Sunday.
The rail union has been increasing work bans, with threats to strike if 24-hour services were not available four days a week. But transport officials said running services around the clock from Thursday to Sunday was not sustainable.
Mark Speakman, the NSW opposition leader, said strikes across different public sector workforces were happening weekly under Labor, and that premier Chris Minns and Haylen had let “chaos reign”.
“The Minns Labor Government’s failure to control their union mates will leave commuters stranded and the city in chaos, yet again,” Speakman said.
The four day stoppage of all trains in the network – which is used by more than one million people on a typical day – coincides with the A-League Unite Round football event. The three day series secured by the NSW government sees every A-League team from across the country travel to Sydney where 12 matches will be played across two stadiums, with the train outage set to affect the games.
Extra bus and other services will be rolled out, but the train shutdown would strain the capacity of replacement transport options.
Updated
Ticketek site back up after possible cyber threat
Ticketing giant Ticketek is back up after it was forced to close its site on Monday to avert a possible cyber threat.
The site was down for about 20 to 24 hours, one promoter told Guardian Australia.
TEG, the live entertainment behemoth that owns the company, did not respond to the Guardian’s questions, saying only in a statement posted on its Ticketek X account earlier this afternoon that its systems were now back online, and thanking its customers and partners for their patience.
“We took this action as a precautionary measure in response to system monitoring indicating a heightened threat level,” the post said.
In June, Ticketek was hit by a major cyber incident, with personal information of Australian customers including names, dates of birth and email addresses stolen from a third-party global cloud-based platform.
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UK government concedes error on nuclear deal
The UK government has conceded it made a mistake in including Australia in a list of countries that has signed up to a US-UK civil nuclear deal.
A senior British government spokesperson told Guardian Australia that Australia had “not signed up to this agreement as part of the Generation IV international forum[on nuclear] “.
They said that the UK “has a proud partnership with Australia on renewable energy and will continue to cooperate with the secure clean energy for families and businesses”.
The inclusion of Australia on the nuclear list made political waves today after first being reported by the ABC, and was seized on by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton.
The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, told question time Australia wasn’t signing up to the deal.
The Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, and his UK counterpart, Ed Miliband, met today at the Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan to sign an agreement to boost renewable energy.
Updated
Human Rights Watch say Hong Kong sentences show ‘nosedive’ of civil liberties and judicial independence
Human Rights Watch have just issued the following statement about the news we brought you earlier regarding the sentencing of 45 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists to jail terms.
Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch, said the sentencing of the activists, including Australian man Gordon Ng, showed that:
Running in an election and trying to win it is now a crime that can lead to a decade in prison in Hong Kong.
Today’s harsh sentences against dozens of prominent democracy activists reflect just how fast Hong Kong’s civil liberties and judicial independence have nosedived in the past four years since the Chinese government imposed the draconian National Security Law on the city.But while the Chinese and Hong Kong governments have now significantly raised the costs for promoting democracy in Hong Kong, they will not be able to extinguish Hong Kong people’s decades-long struggle for freedoms.
Sydney train network to grind to a halt amid pay dispute
A train network used daily by more than one million people could be out of action for days because of industrial action, throwing the transport system in Australia’s most populous state into chaos, AAP reports.
The NSW government and the state branch of the Rail, Tram and Bus union have been locked in a dispute for months, but it escalated on Tuesday when the transport minister, Jo Haylen, announced no train services would run from Thursday until Sunday.
The rail union has been increasing work bans, with threats to strike if 24-hour services were not available four days a week.
But transport officials said running services around the clock from Thursday to Sunday was not sustainable.
“As a result of the union not withdrawing their bans, I need to inform the travelling public that there will not be train services between Thursday and Sunday this week,” Haylen told reporters.
More than one million people use Sydney trains on a typical day, while the ban is also expected to affect inter-city services in the state.
Extra bus and other services will be rolled out, but the train shutdown would strain the capacity of replacement transport options.
Updated
Many thanks for joining me on the politics blog today, Nino Bucci will be here to take you through the rest of today’s action. Take care.
Electoral reforms will ‘entrench the duopoly’ of major parties: Bandt
Moving to the government’s proposed electoral reforms, Adam Bandt argued it was going to “prop up the major parties and entrench the duopoly”:
[W]e have seen over many, many years now, we have less than a third of the country voting for the government, a bit more than a third voting for the opposition and about a third are voting for someone else – Greens and Independents and other parties …
Our real concern is this is something that is being cooked up by the two parties together … and they’re refusing to have an inquiry into it. If it’s as good as they say it is, surely they should be up for an inquiry.
And on the dis- and misinformation bill, he said the Greens were waiting to see the results of the Senate inquiry.
Updated
‘When people come here, they become builders’: Bandt on immigraton
Adam Bandt said he was worried the election campaign was “turning into a debate on Peter Dutton’s terms, which is about saying we’re gonna blame migrants for everything”.
We have seen that get really toxic under Donald Trump in the United States, and what we’re saying is we’re not going to buy into that … We know what the real causes are [for the housing crisis]. Let’s not blame people who are coming here to seek an education or coming here to seek a better life for problems we know we can fix. In many instances we know when people come here, they become builders.
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Bandt says he doesn’t want to see competition on migration with Dutton in lead up to election
Leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt, was just up on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing. He asked about the Greens’ decision to side with the Coalition and oppose the caps on international students – and said the bill was “roundly opposed by the education sector”.
It would have devastated our universities and parts of the education sector more broadly … this was a migration policy dressed up as an education policy.
Bandt went on to say that he doesn’t want to see “a competition on migration with Peter Dutton” in the lead up to the election.
I just really don’t. We’ve been there before. The Coalition will do whatever it does for its own purposes but for us, we’re very clear, universities need support, not cuts and we’re not prepared to blame international students for problems like housing that they didn’t cause.
In parliament earlier this afternoon, the deputy opposition leader and shadow skills and training minister Sussan Ley spoke during debate on the fee-free Tafe bill.
Ley said she herself undertook vocational training in aviation and is not anti-Tafe, but criticised the bill, saying “we have to be really careful” of every dollar spent during a cost of living crisis.
And remember this – and it’s a key principle and tenet of the Liberal Party – if you don’t pay for something, you don’t value it. So if you’re told your Tafe is free, all you have to do is turn up and [pauses and gestures arms] well then, you actually have to do some work, and then you have to get a qualification at the end.
If that’s all that it is, but you haven’t paid for it, you don’t see it as something that makes a difference to you in your life. You don’t see it as something valuable. And your idea of your pathway into a job might be completely different than this one that has been articulated for you by fee-free Tafe.
Ley added that “we value the fact that we have private providers who do an incredible job and who have much higher pass rates than the ones that we’ve been able to find from the government – their pass rates, their failure rates and their dropout rates”.
Rowland discusses mis- and disinformation bill
Michelle Rowland, the communications minister, has been speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing about the government’s dis- and misinformation bill.
Asked how the bill does not count as censorship, she said “we have protections from harms in Australian law and they are balanced against individual freedoms all the time”.
[W]ith this bill we are striking a balance between both freedom of expression and protection from harm, and the harms are real. The harms include threats to our democracy, they include serious threats to people’s health and safety and they can also be perpetuated by enemies of Australia …
This bill has been very carefully crafted … [and] this is fully aligned with our international obligations and imposes nothing more than transparency on the systems and processes of digital platforms.
The independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, said she is “desperately worried” about two Australian teenagers reportedly fighting for their lives in Thailand – amid fears they suffered methanol poisoning while drinking alcohol in neighbouring Laos.
Daniel wrote in a post to X:
I am desperately worried by the news out of Laos and Thailand regarding the poisoning of Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones, both much loved members of our bayside community.
Like everyone I am desperately hoping they recover and my thoughts are with their families amid this nightmare.
I have been in touch with the foreign minister’s office to ensure that consular assistance is being provided and I am here to assist in whatever way I can. Sending every strength to Holly and Bianca.
Sydney trains teetering on brink of shutdown as government resists union action
Sydney train lines will shut down on Thursday unless rail workers and the New South Wales government can reach an agreement over union demands for 24-hour services.
The state’s Rail, Tram and Bus Union has threatened to stop work completely unless the government runs additional services overnight from Thursday to Sunday. The state transport minister, Jo Haylen, resisted that demand and warned that could see services stop running over the four days.
The government had agreed to run 24-hour trains and avoided a shutdown after the union made the same demand last week but Haylen said the extended timetable combined with the union’s other industrial actions made repairs difficult and stretched the network beyond its limit:
We don’t have enough fleet and trains, we don’t have enough staff to run that kind of operation. It’s also a completely different way of operating our network.
The RTBU dismissed the government’s threat and claimed maintenance could be completed overnight from Sunday to Thursday in an email to members yesterday.
The union has taken hundreds of industrial actions since September and more are scheduled to come into force tomorrow. Separate work bans could force the cancellation of intercity trains between Sydney and regional centres later in the week, according to Matt Longland, chief executive of Sydney Trains.
The government and rail unions are negotiating over pay and conditions for about 14,000 train workers, with the RTBU demanding a 32% pay rise over four years.
The RTBU said it was in meetings with the government to resolve the standoff. Longland said the government had offered a compromise of running 24-hour services on part of one of the city’s train lines.
Greens response to government’s migration amendment bill
Earlier, Senator David Shoebridge, the Greens spokesperson for immigration, responded to the government’s migration amendment bill:
The Albanese Dutton fix is in with a backroom deal to pass this toxic bill, and we will all be worse off for it. Under this bill, thousands of people, many of whom have been here for years as an important part of the community, can be forcibly removed to a third country or sent to detention indefinitely.
This bill is a mess. It will impact thousands more people than the government claims, and it is so riddled with legal holes that, it will find its way straight back to the high court and then the whole circus will start again.
The high court was crystal clear, the law must be applied equally to everyone, no matter where you come from. The government should listen to that and start coming up with solutions that respect the rule of law and migrants. Instead, we get a Liberal Labor stitch-up to bribe other countries to abuse people’s human rights for us.
There is a progressive majority right now in the government. We want to work with Labor to protect multicultural Australia, to stop the fear and division around migrants and refugees and defeat Dutton’s Trump-lite agenda.
Updated
ASRC responds to migration amendment bill
The deputy CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Jana Favero, has issued a statement responding to the migration amendment bill:
Any party that supports this bill is sending a clear message to some people in our community that they are not equal. This bill tells them that politicians in this country will introduce and support laws that punish people based simply on where they were born. We all know and care about people in our community that aren’t citizens, and this is just continuing to punish people who call Australia home.
Make no mistake, rushing things through both houses of Parliament and only allowing time for an abbreviated inquiry will lead to bad law-making that has bad outcomes for people.
Australian government ‘gravely concerned’ over NSL47 sentence: Wong
As AAP reports, the foreign minister Penny Wong has issued a statement after a Hong Kong court sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to jail terms.
Wong said the Australian government is “gravely concerned”:
The Australian government is gravely concerned by the sentence handed down in Hong Kong for Australian citizen Mr Gordon Ng and other members of the NSL47.
This is a deeply difficult time for Mr Ng, his family and supporters. Our thoughts are with them following the sentencing.
Updated
Australian dual national sentenced to seven years' jail in Hong Kong
Australian dual national Gordon Ng is among 45 pro-democracy activists sentenced to years-long jail terms by a Hong Kong court today, for conspiracy to commit subversion, in the city’s biggest national security case since the law was introduced in 2020.
Most have spent more than three years in jail already, but none were released today. Those who pleaded not guilty were given harsher sentences.
Benny Tai, a legal academic and activist, was sentenced to 10 years in jail as a primary organiser of pre-election primaries which the court found was an attempt to cause a constitutional crisis.
Australian-Hong Kong dual national Ng was sentenced to more than seven years. Ng was among 16 of the 47 defendants to plead not guilty but was convicted in May. Those who pleaded guilty received reduced sentences.
The judges said Ng was “an active participant” and had put pressure on others to support a plan for the pro-democracy camp to win a majority in the election and use it to block bills and force a dissolution and eventual resignation of the city’s chief executive. He did this by placing advertisements in media, the judgment said.
His sentence was reduced by three months for “the possibility that [he] might have been misled” by Tai about the plan’s lawfulness.
Updated
Greens respond to claims they are ‘in bed’ with Liberals on immigration
As question time wraps up, the Greens have responded to repeated claims from the education minister that they are “in bed” with the Coalition by opposing the international student cap. As Jason Clare said earlier:
Never in my life did I expect to see this opposition leader get into bed with the Greens on immigration. But that is exactly what is happening.
Greens deputy leader and spokesperson for higher education, Mehreen Faruqi, said the party had opposed caps “from day one” because they were “never about education”.
They were going to throttle the sector and scapegoat international students in Labor’s bid to look strong on migration. Let’s be clear, Dutton’s Coalition doesn’t care about international students or universities, they are opposing this bill so they can be even worse than Labor on migration.
Faruqi said decades of funding cuts by both major parties had resulted in an over-reliance on international students who were being used as “cash cows” to cross-subsidise research.
Labor needs to go back to the drawing board and come back with a plan to fully fund universities for learning, teaching and research.
Updated
Question time ends
And with that, question time has wrapped up in the House of Representatives.
Updated
Health minister questioned on regional doctors shortage
Independent MP for Calare, Andrew Gee, has asked a question about the state of healthcare in central western NSW with a noticeable doctors shortage he describes as “appalling”.
Would the health minister visit the region and meet with local doctors and concerned residents to see the shocking effects this crisis is having, he asked?
Mark Butler responded that “we’ve had a couple of discussions about this already” and listed some government responses to this matter more broadly, arguing “the last two years have seen the biggest increase to doctor numbers in a decade”.
Now we know there is more to do … We will address the sort of challenges the member has talked about directly with the member … I’m more than happy to sit down with him, and I’ll reach out soon.
MPs spotted clock-watching during question time in PM’s absence
While this edition of question time is undeniably thrilling – with the major parties accusing each other of wanting to throw open the floodgates on migration and muscling up to portray themselves as the tougher side on cutting student visas – there are some people in the chamber who are busying themselves with other tasks.
From our vantage point up in the press gallery, we’ve see more than a few MPs working on their Christmas card list, quietly signing papers, and tapping away at laptops or tablets.
QT is always a bit muted and a bit looser when the prime minister is out of town, but this is a bit more so than usual. Everybody seems to be checking their watch or watching the clock.
Updated
Chalmers says opposition ‘just throwing rocks’ on inflation
Back at question time, the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, has asked about comments from the RBA governor that aggregate demand in the economy is still too high.
He argued that population growth is causing this, and asked if the government’s approach is putting upward pressure on inflation?
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has responded, saying Taylor and his colleagues “need to decide, do they want immigration to be lower or higher?”
Because they say they want it to be lower, but then they say they’ll vote for it to be higher …
The two most important things the governor [Michele] Bullock has said is reasonable public demand is not the main game when it comes to the outlook for inflation, and the government has the right attitude when it comes to inflation. She could not be clearer.
He accused Taylor of “vacat[ing] the field and … not providing any direction [but] just throwing rocks, because he has no credible and costed alternatives”.
Updated
NSW lawyers urge reform on child sexual abuse after high court decision
Lawyers representing survivors of child sexual abuse have written to the New South Wales attorney general, Michael Daley, calling for law reform, after a high court decision that significantly limited the liability of the Catholic church for paedophile clergy.
The high court last week ruled that the Ballarat diocese was not vicariously liable for the abuse of a child by an assistant priest because he was not directly employed by the church. That overturned a Victorian court of appeal decision that found the diocese was liable because the priest, despite not being a formal church employee, was a “servant of the church” whose position gave him access and power over children.
The decision prompted widespread concern, including from former prime minister Julia Gillard, about barriers to justice for survivors.
The NSW government has already introduced laws to address the issue, but they are only for abuse that has occurred since 2018.
Peter Karp, partner at Karp O’Neill Lawyers, this week wrote to Daley urging for the laws to be made retrospective. Karp said failure to do so “creates two classes of individuals and therefore an inequity for survivors“.
Updated
What Katter says in private and how he votes is the same: Marles
Bob Katter is now up to ask a pretty broad question on Queensland, which Tony Burke has answered – somehow again bringing it back to the Liberals and Greens not supporting government legislation.
Marles said that what Katter says in the house, privately and how he votes inside the house are “always the same thing”:
And whether you agree or disagree with the views of the member for Kennedy, he is always fearlessly in support of his electorate, and he always has conviction in how he votes in this chamber.
I can compare and contrast that behaviour, because it would not be consistent with the rogue point of order that the leader of the opposition gave today, and for the opposition to then be voting with the Greens on – of all things – housing, the environment, and immigration – and yet they had a unity ticket now on all three of those. The member for Kennedy would never do anything like that.
Updated
Burke criticises Coalition’s ‘reckless arrogance’ on immigration
Nationals MP Kevin Hogan asked a question around population numbers, and Tony Burke pointed to the Coalition’s decision not to back the international student cap – arguing that “you have to make a decision as to whether you want to take action to contain, start to put downward pressure on the number of people who are arriving in Australia or not”:
And that doesn’t involve media conferences, it involves decisions … If you are not willing to vote for measures that will put downward pressure on that overseas migration, just acknowledge you’re going to let it rip … if that’s the actual approach.
But if you do, as the opposition has decided to do today, which is to think they can run their rhetoric in one direction and their actions in the other, that sort of reckless arrogance gets found out, and this leader of the opposition was found out.
Because today, despite all the rhetoric, he had a decision as to whether or not to act on net overseas migration, and he has made an active decision.
Updated
Burke points finger at Dutton on immigration
Dan Tehan, the shadow immigration minister, has asked if net overseas migration is currently higher or lower than under the Kevin Rudd “big Australia policy”?
Tony Burke responded that Tehan asked the question “on the exact day that those opposite commit[ed] publicly that they are going to vote to push net migration higher”.
Do you think we should put a restriction on Australian citizens coming home? Because that affects overseas migration, but apparently you don’t know that. Do you think we should put limits on whether Australian citizens are able to work overseas? Because that is part of overseas net migration.
Burke responded that net overseas migration has gone up, and continued:
If you take that 2010 benchmark, what year was the highest? When did we hit a record number of visas issued? When did we hit 9.6m visas issued? The biggest upward pressure could get a net overseas migration? 2017 to 2018.
And who do you was in charge issuing each of those 9.6 million visas granted? The leader of the opposition now … Any immigration minister in the future will have a hell of a time trying to catch up with the number of visas issued by that man.
Updated
Question on nuclear submarine capacity
Andrew Hastie, the shadow defence minister, has asked why the government signed up for the Aukus submarine program when Australia has no existing nuclear submarine industry?
The acting PM and defence minister, Richard Marles, accused him of not knowing “submarines 101” and said the opposition gave the government a 10-year capability gap:
The answer to the shadow minister’s question goes directly to the question of our nation’s submarine capability. We know that in order to have an enduring, long-range submarine capability into the 2030s and 2040s … we have to move from a diesel, electric-powered submarine to a nuclear-powered submarine. And we make no apology for that.
He likened the comparison to the “similarity between a coal-fired power station and a lawnmower”.
Updated
Question on student debt
Greens MP Stephen Bates has asked the acting PM about student debt – asking why the government can introduce a bill for fee-free Tafe this week but not a bill to wipe 20% off student debt?
The Greens have been calling for the government to implement its policy to reduce student debt now, rather than wait until after the next federal election.
Richard Marles said that if Bates is talking about parliamentary productivity, “that could be improved if the Greens actually supported government legislation [instead of] teaming up with their partners here, the Liberals, to make sure that they ultimately oppose everything”.
On the policy, Marles continued:
[20% off student debt] is a step that has been taken, which is being opposed by those opposite, to [not only] improve the cost of living but improve the lives of those who study and make university and study in this country much more accessible.
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Australia will not sign US-UK civil nuclear deal: Marles
The deputy leader of the opposition, Sussan Ley, has asked another question about the US-UK civil nuclear deal.
She asked whether Australia made any representations to the UK for the inclusion of Australia in its press release to be removed (as we reported earlier).
The acting PM, Richard Marles, reiterated earlier comments that Australia is not signing the agreement:
The Australian government is not signing this agreement, because it is an agreement which goes to civil nuclear energy. That means nuclear reactors, which provide energy to cities and to electricity grids, and we do not have that in this country. And so as a result, this agreement is not relevant to Australia.
Updated
Quiet please, MPs
Only a few questions in, and the speaker has asked MPs to quieten down:
You simply can’t have people jumping up. If that was the case, there’s no point of having question time … Standing orders are put in place so that we can run this effectively and efficiently, and if people are going to just take advantage or take the mickey, we’re doing the people of Australia a disservice.
Updated
Back in Canberra …
Back at question time, the acting prime minister, Richard Marles, took a dixer on cost-of-living measures and ended with a dig at the Liberals and Greens over immigration:
The Liberals and the Greens are working together on immigration. These two, they have completely abandoned everything they believe in, and they are cooperating simply to maximise the political damage to our country.
So every Australian should be clear that if you go blue, or if you go green, here in Canberra, it’s just the one team and all those parties over there are utterly committed to their own self interest.
Updated
Question time begins
Peter Dutton has opened with a question to the acting prime minister, Richard Marles, as to whether Australia will sign on to a civil nuclear deal between the UK and the US.
Sarah Basford Canales had more detail about this earlier in the blog, here.
Marles has told the parliament Australia will not sign on to the deal:
Pursuing a path of nuclear energy would represent pursuing the single most expensive electricity option for Australia … For Australia, pursuing nuclear energy would be pursuing a path which wouldn’t see any new electricity into our grid in 20 years … Because we do not have a civil nuclear industry, [this deal] does not apply to us, pure and simple.
Updated
Peter Dutton has wrapped up his presser. Question time is about to begin in the House of Representatives, so stay tuned for that.
Updated
Peter Dutton is angling this as a key election point, arguing:
This problem can be solved with a change of government at the next election … We’ll make the announcement in due course, there will be deeper cuts because I want housing for Australians. I’ve been very clear about that.
We said we will reduce the permanent program by 25% … that’s because I want to create housing for Australians, [and] at the moment you cannot afford housing.
Is is the Coalition’s intention to amend this bill?
Peter Dutton responded no, because “I don’t think you can make such a bad bill”.
We will announce our caps and our reductions in due course as I have said. We announced a 25% reduction in the migration intake … and a reduction in the humanitarian program.
We believe that the number of international students is too high, we think the government has created an onshore disaster in terms of the number of people who are applying for protection. People are doing that, we are told, because it is a low application fee and it means that people will not have their matters resolved for about seven years.
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Labor’s international student caps bill ‘a dog’s breakfast’: Peter Dutton
Peter Dutton has described the government’s policy as “a dog’s breakfast” and told reporters:
I’m either too soft or too hard or too much in the middle, I don’t know, what’s Labor’s line here? All they do at the moment is drawing up personal attacks and I think what the last two years, 18 months has demonstrated is that the more the Labor Party attacks me personally, the higher the numbers go.
I’m happy for that to continue because … what we are dealing with here is a policy that is before us in the Senate at the moment. It is a dogs breakfast, let’s be honest about it.
Updated
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is speaking to the media in Canberra before question time in about 10 minutes’ time.
He is outlining the Coalition’s stance on international student caps, after it said it would not support the government’s bill:
We are in favour of a reduction in the number of international students given the housing crisis at the moment. We’ll make further announcements in relation to what that looks like.
What we have in this bill at the moment, let’s be very clear about this, I encourage you to go back and have a look at the numbers instead of the government spin.
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Raby says Chinese maritime invasion of Taiwan ‘not feasible’
At the National Press Club, another reporter asked Geoff Raby about a comment he made in his speech, that one of China’s central principles for its foreign policy are respect for borders.
The reporter said that a couple of countries may disagree with this, particularly around the South China Sea:
There has been a lot of comparison in Russia’s attitude towards western Europe, particularly Ukraine, and China’s attitude towards Taiwan and the South China Sea. Why are those not analogous and why don’t those show a similar attitude in terms of feeling your territorial rights are being thwarted and need to be expanded?
Raby replied that “there are overlapping claims [and] that’s the situation,” and that “no one’s been able to figure out how to resolve that”.
He went on, and said China sees Taiwan as an integral party of Chinese territory:
You may disagree with that, other people may have a different view, but that’s how China sees it. It’s not analogous, I don’t think, with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But I think – I digress a little bit, if you don’t mind – one of the really interesting things about the invasion of Ukraine is that it’s probably shown Beijing something I’ve said for a very long time, which maybe it hasn’t really wanted to acknowledge. That is, Beijing does not, in my view, have a military option in Taiwan.
Nothing can demonstrate that more powerfully than watching the mess that Putin’s made invading a contingent land country. It’s just not feasible for China to have a massive maritime invasion of Taiwan. And, in any case, the way the west came together with such powerful sanctions – both trade and financial – would be devastating for China.
He said that China and Russia are integrated in the international system in “vastly different ways”, with China deeply integrated in global supply chains and “far more vulnerable to global sanctions than Russia”.
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Social media users won't have to upload ID under minimum age plan
Earlier in the government party room, the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, assured Labor MPs that social media users would not be required to upload proof of identity direct to those platforms, when the government implements a minimum age for users.
The opposition is the only party arguing that people should upload 100 points of ID and give it to TikTok.
Rowland also said the minimum social media user age would apply, regardless of whether parents had given consent for their children to sign up.
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Former Chinese ambassador says Albanese-Xi meeting ‘high-water mark’ in relationship over past six years
Back at the National Press Club, former ambassador to China Dr Geoff Raby has been taking questions from reporters.
One reporter has asked how the PM and Australian officials should engage with their Chinese counterparts, and what Australia should do to “shore up our interests in the face of what’s happening in the region”.
He said the meeting between Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping overnight as marks “the high-water mark in the relationship over the past half-dozen years or more”.
We need to engage in order to advance our interests with the great power of the region. It’s very good to see that re-engagement with the Albanese government. Four years ago when I stood here, I probably had a slightly larger audience, because the Australia-China relationship was in the toilet, and it was so contentious and so politicised, and I think in four years we’ve travelled a long way back. And I think the meeting in Rio with Albanese and Xi Jinping marks the high-water mark in the relationship over the past half-dozen years or more.
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Some MPs shared reservations about electoral reforms at Coalition party room meeting
The Coalition party room had a “far-reaching conversation” on the Albanese government’s proposed electoral reforms, with some MPs sharing reservations about the system overhaul.
The Liberals and Nationals’ party room meeting this morning was packed with bills and topics of the day as parliamentarians enter their final sitting fortnight.
Chief among them were sweeping electoral changes Labor is proposing to cap spending and electoral donations, which the opposition supports in principle.
There is hesitance among party members to adopt the big changes with the increased compliance burden and the centralisation of party finances and administration the main focus.
But, as my colleague Paul Karp mentioned earlier, it’s likely to sail through the lower house with the Coalition’s support but the opposition will reserve its final position in the Senate.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, also praised his colleagues for their discipline after warning them at the last party room meeting during parliamentary sitting weeks not to be drawn into abortion discussions by Labor.
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Continuing on from our last post: the Tasmanian independent MP for Clark, Andrew Wilkie, has weighed in on the state government’s decision to walk away from cashless pre-commitment cards.
He didn’t hold back in this post to X:
Ditching the cashless pre-commitment card for poker machines shows the [Tasmanian government] doesn’t give a toss about gambling addiction or the harm it causes the community. Frankly they are the most incompetent, cold-hearted and self-serving administration in Australia.
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Tasmanian parliament to debate motion of no-confidence in premier
The Hobart Mercury is reporting that Tasmanian parliament will debate a motion of no-confidence in the premier, Jeremy Rockliff, after the government failed to vote it down.
The motion was moved by the Greens over Rockliff’s handling of the state government’s poker machine reforms. Party leader Rosalie Woodruff reportedly moved the motion after the government said it was walking back plans for a mandatory pre-commitment card.
According to the report, a premier who was the subject of a successful no-confidence motion from parliament would be expected to resign, by longstanding convention.
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Former ambassador to China addressing National Press Club
Dr Geoff Raby, Australia’s former ambassador to China from 2007-2011, has been addressing the National Press Club in Canberra today, speaking about the China-Russia relationship.
He said that since Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin “announced their friendship without limits in February 2022 on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”, it has become “conventional wisdom to view the emerging order in terms of Russia and China aligned in a struggle against the west”.
But he argues that “more divides them than unites them”. Raby said that much draws the two powers together, including “their shared, sour attitude to the US-led western order, which both leaders view – correctly, as it happens – as an existential threat to their authoritarian rule”.
But he questioned “how stable, and how enduring, is the relatively recent closeness in relations”.
He said the timing of the “no-limits partnership” just before Russia’s invasion “made China look complicit in the breach of one of the most fundamental principles of international law and the cornerstone of China’s foreign policy – sanctity of national borders.”
There is, in fact, no evidence that China was in on it, or that Putin had given Xi any advanced warning … I argue that, in fact, Russia and China’s newly minted ‘friendship without limits’ has feet of clay. The phrase has not appeared in official media or propaganda since soon after it was uttered. It seems, really, to have disappeared from sight.
Raby said they have never entered into a formal military alliance, and China’s trade and investment has remained limited.
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Coalition to support Labor’s migration amendment bill, subject to inquiry
Just circling back to Labor’s migration amendment bill – I’m now told that the Coalition position is to support, subject to the inquiry, so there is the potential for amendments after all.
Coalition to support Labor's migration amendment bill
The Coalition will support Labor’s migration amendment bill, which allows the Australian government to pay countries to take unlawful non-citizens off the country’s hands.
This is despite the fact it’s going to a quick one-week inquiry.
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Coalition to pass electoral donation and spending cap bill in lower house
The Coalition will pass the electoral donation and spending cap bill in the lower house, but reserve its final position.
There will be no inquiry, and negotiations are happening at different levels – ie between Peter Dutton and the PM, not just the minister and shadow minister.
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Government withdraws student debt reduction bill to avoid Greens amendments
The government has pulled its student debt reduction legislation off the Senate debate schedule today to head off a Greens bid to have its planned 20% debt reduction start immediately, not after the next federal election.
The Universities Accord (Student Support and Other Measures) Bill was withdrawn this morning after the government tried and failed to persuade the Senate to refer unseen Greens amendments to a Senate inquiry that would not report back until 25 March next year.
Last night, the government tried to refer any future Greens amendments that related to the reduction of Higher Education Loan Program (Help) loans and changes to income threshold for Help repayments.
This was despite not yet having seen the proposed amendments to wipe 20% off the debt, raise the minimum income repayment threshold after which students must start repaying the loans to $67,000 and change the marginal repayment rate.
But the Senate could not vote on the surprise move because it came after the 6.30pm cut-off for votes. It will now be voted on whenever the bill comes back for debate.
Withdrawing the bill means the government avoids being forced to either vote in favour of bringing forward its debt reduction plan, or voting against it.
The Greens say it is highly unusual for a government to try to establish a Senate inquiry into the impact of amendments that have not yet been tabled with a blanket referral aimed at capturing any future Greens amendments on the bill.
In case you missed it earlier, here is what the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had to say about their meeting overnight at the G20 summit:
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More from the Reserve Bank’s board meeting minutes
Also on the RBA, assistant governor Christopher Kent gave an interesting (literally) speech yesterday evening.
Kent kicked off by the slightly surprising point that “there is no evidence that monetary policy is stronger in Australia than in other advanced economies”.
That observation was despite many households being up to their gills in debt (our paraphrase) and the fact variable interest rate mortgages average about 80% of the total and the fixed-rate ones were typically for short terms. Kent said:
[This] apparent conflict can be reconciled when one considers the various ways that interest rate risk is managed in Australia, as well as the effects of the other important channels of the transmission of monetary policy.
Those under the repayment pump might disagree. Still, there is some modest good news – the share of income going on debt repayments appears to have peaked:
Even before the RBA starts cutting interest rates it sees some modest reduction in the share of household disposable income going on mortgage payments. pic.twitter.com/tXB5SfpaYN
— @phannam.bsky.social (@p_hannam) November 19, 2024
Kent continued:
Despite the substantial increase in mortgage payments, there has been little increase in acute financial distress among borrowers. Mortgage arrears rates have risen, but they remain low and at similar levels in Australia and the United States.
Those savings buffers built up during the Covid era were helping as were the “benign labour market conditions”, he said.
Those conditions, including an unemployment rate at 4.1% for four out of the past five months, might be “benign”. But that’s in spite of the RBA’s interest rate stance rather than thanks to it.
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RBA wants at least two ‘good quarterly inflation’ results before it will cut interest rates
The Reserve Bank has released the minutes from its board meeting earlier this month where – to nobody’s surprise – it decided to leave its key interest rate where it’s sat for the past year.
Having the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, hold a media conference after each meeting means many of the questions about the central bank’s thinking are already known. For instance, the board only considered leaving the cash rate at 4.35%, rather than mulling a rate cut or hike.
Still, the minutes add a few notable points, such as what the RBA wants to see before the first cut will come. The welcomed drop in the September quarter inflation (to 2.8%, for headline CPI) was not enough to bring the axe down on the cash rate.
The board “would need to observe more than one good quarterly inflation outcome to be confident that such a decline in inflation was sustainable”, it said.
The next quarterly inflation data release won’t come from the ABS until 29 January with the RBA’s first board meeting of 2025 coming three weeks later, on 17-18 February.
That gives hope for economists from ANZ, CBA and Westpac (and independent ones like Saul Eslake), who have a February rate cut pencilled in.
The minutes comment, though, suggests the RBA’s final meeting of 2024, on 9-10 December, might be a dull affair.
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Payman says Labor has ‘odd fascination’ with internet restrictions
Former Labor turned independent senator Fatima Payman has said Labor has “an odd fascination” with “restricting the internet” in arguing against the government’s plans to ban under-16s from social media.
Payman was speaking in the Senate yesterday on a One Nation motion criticising the proposal, and said the government was “trying to regulate an internet they don’t understand”.
Payman took aim at an apparent error in a speech from the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, last week where she said: “In 1985, Bill Gates brought us the Microsoft operating system.” Payman responded:
For the benefit of those not as learned as Minister Rowland, Microsoft is the company; Windows is the operating system. The government’s proposal to outlaw social media for kids under 16 is the legislative equivalent of this ill-considered speech.
Payman warned the plan may force use of ID to verify age for every Australian and could lead to data breaches. She said children would use virtual private networks to bypass the ban. She then harked back to the former Rudd government’s proposal to introduce an internet filter:
It is an odd fascination for Labor, restricting the internet …. The idea would have had the government dictate what you could and could not see but was abandoned in 2012.
She said the ban would likely follow the same path. Payman, was one of only seven senators to vote in favour of the motion, including independent senators Lidia Thorpe, Gerard Rennick, Tammy Tyrrel, UAP senator Ralph Babet, and the two One Nation senators.
Thirty Coalition, Greens and Labor senators voted against the motion. The Greens, however, yesterday said the ban was not a solution to the issues on social media.
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Albanese government denies joining nuclear deal
The Australian government has flatly denied media reports it is expected to join an agreement with the UK and the US to share advanced nuclear technology.
The UK and the US announced overnight they had teamed up to speed up work on “cutting-edge nuclear technology”, including small modular reactors, after inking a deal at Cop29 in Azerbaijan’s Baku (we flagged this earlier in the blog, here).
In the UK government’s original media release, it noted Australia was one of 10 countries “expected” to sign on to the agreement. But within a few hours, Australia’s mention was removed from the live site.
When Guardian Australia asked for a “please explain”, an Australian government spokesperson responded:
No. Australia is not signing this agreement as we do not have a nuclear energy industry. Nuclear power is outlawed in Australia … We will remain as observers to this agreement to continue to support our scientists in other nuclear research fields.
The United Kingdom has invited Australia to sign. As Australia does not have a nuclear energy industry, and nuclear power [remains] illegal domestically, we will not be signing up to this agreement.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation is an observer to the Gen IV Forum negotiations at Cop29. We will remain an observer. Our observer membership allows our scientists to collaborate with international research efforts in areas such as high temperature material, advanced manufacturing and nuclear safety.
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Pride group condemns abuse directed at Sam Kerr after baby announcement
Chelsea Pride has condemned the homophobic abuse directed at the club’s striker Sam Kerr after she announced she was having a baby with her fiancee, Kristie Mewis.
The 31-year-old Australia captain revealed the news on her Instagram account yesterday with a post which read: “Mewis-Kerr baby coming 2025!”
Her announcement came with a picture of the couple kissing and showing off Mewis’s baby bump. However, Chelsea Pride has denounced social media comments directed at Kerr and the West Ham midfielder Mewis.
You can read more on that story here:
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Donation and spending bill can pass House
To clarify our earlier post, there is no final decision from the Coalition on the spending and donation cap bill – but it is expected they will not oppose it in the House of Representatives, and there will be further negotiation while it is in the Senate.
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Clare continues to criticise Coalition stance against international student cap
The education minister is continuing on his media circuit of railing against the Coalition for opposing an international student cap. Speaking to the press gallery earlier, Jason Clare said their decision was “just bizarre”.
I think Australians who are waking up this morning thinking what the hell is going on in the Liberal party? What’s going on in Peter Dutton’s brain? … If he’s going to make a bad decision like this, that’s all about politics, not about controlling migration, then he needs to front the cameras here and answer the tough questions.
While the opposition leader indicated he would impose an international student cap if elected in his budget reply speech, the Coalition has changed its rhetoric this week to viewing migration and the visa system holistically, rather than singling out one specific sector, while also expressing concerns about a lack of consultation.
Asked if the Coalition had approached him with alternatives to the cap, Clare replied: “zero”.
Their criticisms are ‘the cap doesn’t do this, the cap doesn’t do that’. The legislation provides the power for the Australian government to put a cap on international students, full stop … and if that’s what Peter Dutton thinks should happen, then he should vote for this legislation.
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No decision in Coalition party room on spending and donation caps
The Coalition joint party room has met discussing, among other things, Labor’s proposed donation and spending caps.
We understand that the Liberal federal director, Andrew Hirst, gave a presentation on how the system would operate and fielded questions about the proposed reforms.
There were about a dozen questions, from Liberals and Nationals, raising concerns about the level of the $20,000 cap on receipt of gifts, the $1,000 disclosure threshold and the advantages given to unions.
Under the reforms unions’ affiliation fees to Labor are not counted as gifts and third-party campaigners such as unions can each spend $11m on a federal campaign, less than the cap for parties ($90m) but still, arguably, a great advantage to Labor.
One participant in the debate quipped that the Liberal National party of Queensland should split so that there would be more entities for donors to give to.
We understand there was no final decision on the legislation, which was only introduced to parliament on Monday. It’s possible the shadow finance minister, Jane Hume, may go back to special minister of state, Don Farrell, and seek a better deal.
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Here’s our full story from Graham Readfearn about the “substantial losses” of coral cover across the north of the Great Barrier Reef, after a summer of extreme heat:
Just following on from our previous post: the NSW government is expecting the puppy farming laws to be assented to by the governor this week.
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NSW passes legislation to outlaw puppy farming
New South Wales parliament has passed legislation to outlaw puppy farming, becoming one of the last mainland states to do so.
Animal Justice Party MP Emma Hurst said the outcome was “a fantastic day for dogs in NSW”.
Until now it has been legal to set up a breeding facility with hundreds of dogs and force mother dogs to pump out litter after litter. Legislation has just passed that will stop this cruel practice. Australians love animals and they do not support this cruel industry which treats female dogs as ‘breeding machines’.
The Minns government amendments updates the state’s animal welfare laws with measures to ban puppy farming and regulate dog breeders. Minister Tara Moriarty said the laws delivered on an election commitment, in a post on Facebook:
The Minns Labor government is committed to better animal welfare in NSW and today we’ve delivered better protection for dogs.
The new laws, many of which come into effect from 1 December 2025, will mandate minimum standards that apply to all dog breeders. These include mandatory breeder identification, a maximum of 20 female adult dogs per premises (with a limited exemption to current breeders), lifetime breeding limits, staff-to-dog carer ratios, a mandatory code of practice, advertising rules and penalties.
The laws followed similar protections introduced in Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland. South Australia has also introduced a bill with stricter laws for dog breeders this year.
Animal welfare organisation, the RSPCA NSW, supported the intent of the new laws but had called for the protections to be extended to cats and kitten breeders.
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Government’s media reforms will be unveiled this year: Stephen Jones
The assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, says the government’s media reforms will be unveiled this year, hinting there could be some major changes to the current framework of the news media bargaining code.
He told a press conference in Parliament House today:
I said a few months ago, the news media bargaining code, that it was a perfectly acceptable tool to deal with the problems and the situation in 2021, but just replaying the reel on 2021 won’t get the same result in 2024.
Jones and the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, have been working on reforms to the bargaining code, after Meta – publisher of Facebook and Instagram – signalled it wouldn’t renew its deals with Australian media publishers.
The government has been consulting widely on what to do next, in order to see media outlets fairly compensated for the value they bring to social media organisations – funding which many outlets have relied on to grow in recent years.
Jones continued:
We’ve been working collaboratively, in a lot of detail with industry, publishers and inside the government, to ensure that we will have the tools in 2024, and we are very near to the position. We’ll be able to explain those to you, you’re keenly interested in that in the press gallery, but more importantly, to Australia.
When we asked if the public would see those proposed reforms this year, Jones replied: “Yes.”
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Wong marks one thousand days since Russia’s invasion into Ukraine
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has posted a statement to X to mark one thousand days since Russia’s invasion into Ukraine began:
Today marks 1,000 days since Russia began its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine – a breach of the UN Charter by a UN Security Council member.
1,000 days of pain and tragedy. 1,000 days of courage and determination by Ukrainians as they fight for freedom. Slava Ukraini.
As we flagged earlier, Ukrainian rallies are taking place across the country today.
Today marks 1,000 days since Russia began its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine - a breach of the UN Charter by a UN Security Council member.
— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) November 18, 2024
1,000 days of pain and tragedy.
1,000 days of courage and determination by Ukrainians as they fight for freedom.
Slava Ukraini. pic.twitter.com/4E4zirIvY3
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Husic seeks to assure funding through NRF won’t be pork-barrelled into marginal electorates
The industry minister, Ed Husic, has sought to assure taxpayers funding arranged through the $15bn National Reconstruction Fund will not be pork-barrelled into marginal electorates at the next federal election.
It comes as the Labor frontbencher announced the fund’s first investment this morning – $40m into a Toowoomba-based mining technology company, Russell Mineral Equipment.
At a press conference in Parliament House this morning, Husic was asked whether future announcements in the coming months leading up to the federal election will be in key seats and whether it could be seen as pork-barrelling.
The issue came to the fore in 2020 when the Australian National Audit Office released a damning report into the former Coalition government’s sports grants program, which handed $100m into marginal and priority seats that were at odds with the sports agency’s merit-based recommendations.
Today, Husic replied:
We are not about politically colour-coded spreadsheets, making decisions on the basis of political interest over national interests. We deliberately set up the board of the National Reconstruction Fund to be independent ... this first investment is not in a government-held seat. It didn’t come into it. What came into it was retaining and building capability in Toowoomba.
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Coral cover declines in regions hit by bleaching, cyclones and flooding
In some environment news, coral cover has declined in 12 of the 19 reefs being surveyed by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, following an extensive mass bleaching event, two cyclones and flooding between last December and March this year.
In-water surveys during August and October found substantial losses of coral cover on 12 reefs ranging from 11% to 72% of pre-summer levels, as a result of the summer disturbance events.
More than one third of hard coral cover was lost across the Cooktown-Lizard island sector, which marks the largest annual decline for this sector in the 39 years’ of AIMS’s monitoring.
Lead of the long-term monitoring program, Dr Mike Emslie, said:
From what we have seen so far, the impact from these events is significant coral mortality in those areas hardest hit, although the level of mortality has been variable, and a few reefs escaped significant loss.
We still have a lot of Reef to monitor and a full assessment of the impact on coral cover across the Marine Park will be available in mid-2025.
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Data released on nature and outcomes of reports into modern slavery
The Australian Institute of Criminology has, for the first time, released information on the nature and outcomes of reports into modern slavery in the country.
It collected data from four key agencies – the Australian federal police, Department of Social Services, Department of Home Affairs and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions – in a six-month pilot period from 1 July 2022 to 31 December 2022.
The data found that the AFP received 150 reports into alleged human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices during this time:
Reports most commonly related to allegations of forced marriage (31%), followed by sexual servitude (25%), trafficking of persons out of Australia (21%) and forced labour (18%).
Thirty-six victim-survivors were referred to the support for trafficked people program – 94% were women and 44% were under 18. At 31 December 2022, 20 of the 24 defendants had been charged with a total of 55 human trafficking and modern slavery offences.
AIC deputy director Dr Rick Brown said this dataset highlights the importance of comprehensive data to respond to modern slavery in Australia:
There is no place for human trafficking or modern slavery in our communities. This data will help government and policy agencies, as well as community support initiatives, to better understand the problem in Australia, including the attrition of cases through the criminal justice system.
Following this pilot, the AIC said it would continue an ongoing, annual statistical monitoring program.
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More Coalition response to government’s proposed international student cap
In a statement, the shadow education minister, Sarah Henderson, joined by fellow Liberals James Paterson and Dan Tehan, has said Labor’s proposal was a “piecemeal approach” and did “nothing to address the structural issues it has created”.
We cannot support measures which will only serve to compound this crisis of the government’s making. Based on [Labor’s] record so far we have absolutely no confidence the government is capable of fixing its immigration mess.
Birmingham weighs in on trade matters amid G20 leaders summit
The shadow foreign affairs minister, Simon Birmingham, just spoke with Sky News amid the G20 leaders summit. On trade, Birmingham said Australia should “absolutely aspire” to keep the region “remaining as economically open as possible”.
He pointed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as giving Australia “the most powerful network of free trade agreements, encompassing so many of our partners across all of the Asean nations”.
But the host noted that incoming president Donald Trump doesn’t necessarily like these groups and may take America in it’s own direction – what impact would this have for Australia?
Birmingham said we “have to accept” Trump’s election and noted his policy on tariffs, and said:
Now from an Australian perspective, as well as preserving our regional openness, the other thing the Albanese government should be doing is responding to those Trump policies by seeking to ensure Australia is mounting the strongest possible case about trade surplus … [as well as getting] exemptions from the proposed Trump administration [to] trade tariffs.
He again argued that Anthony Albanese should have organised to meet with Trump on his way back to Australia from Brazil. Karen Middleton previously outlined why this is not necessarily something the PM can or should do:
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Jason Clare accuses Peter Dutton of getting ‘into bed’ with Greens on immigration
The education minister, Jason Clare, has accused Peter Dutton of getting “into bed” with the Greens on immigration following revelations the Coalition would team with the Greens to block Labor’s proposed international student cap in the Senate.
Speaking on 2GB, Clare said their decision had “taken most of the country by surprise”.
I don’t think anyone ever thought in their life they would see Peter Dutton get into bed with the Greens on immigration, but that’s what’s happened here. Peter Dutton in … the budget reply speech this year, said that if he became prime minister he’d put a cap on the number of international students that come into the country, and well, there’s legislation to do just that in the Senate right now and they’re going to vote against it.
Asked whether Clare had sought the Coalition’s support before yesterday, he replied “all of that’s been happening”, with four Senate hearings into the bill. The final Senate report recommended it pass, with a dissenting report from the Coalition.
We’ve got an election coming up in the next couple of months. Every time he wanders around the country and talks about immigration, pretends to be the tough guy in immigration, I’ll just point back to this week where he voted against legislation to cap migration and that will show that he’s a fraud.
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Group of Eight says international student cap would have been disastrous for sector
The chief executive of Group of Eight, Vicki Thomson, which represents Australia’s largest universities, has said the caps on international students would have been disastrous for the sector.
As AAP reports, she told ABC Radio earlier this morning that “from the get go, this legislation has just been chaotic and wrapped up in a discussion around migration”.
For us, what we see now is a level of certainty going into 2025.
Thomson said there would not be a surge of international students coming into Australia following the cap not being likely to pass parliament:
It takes 12 or 18 months for students from the time you actually begin your recruitment process till the time they come, so we don’t expect a massive influx.
What we do want to do, though, is have a good discussion with government and opposition as we lead into 2025 around what the shape is of our international education sector.
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Unsolicited flight upgrades, Coldplay tickets and trucker hats: latest parliamentary register of interests
We love keeping an eye on updates to the parliamentary register of interests to see what freebies and perks our federal politicians are claiming – and a couple of interesting updates have caught our eye lately.
Following the recent scrutiny on flight upgrades and the exclusive plush airline lounges that pollies get access to, a number of recent disclosures go to air travel.
Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel declared three “unsolicited” flight upgrades from Qantas – one in November 2023, one in July 2024 and another in August 2024, all between Canberra and Melbourne. She also declared a “personally paid” membership to the Qantas Club.
Daniel however also said she’d given up membership to the Qantas chairman’s lounge and Virgin’s Beyond club.
Indi independent Helen Haines also removed those two airline lounges from her interests, as did Mackellar’s Sophie Scamps.
Labor MP Meryl Swanson declared beverages company Lion had “gifted two free Cold Play tickets”, in “private suites” at Accor Stadium in Sydney.
But Barnaby Joyce has given us one of the more interesting additions to the register in recent times, declaring a gift of “50 Made to Order Trucker Hats (Country Trucker Hats) approx value $750.00”.
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Road deaths climb for 27th consecutive month
Road fatalities are continuing to climb across most states, with the latest data marking the 27th consecutive month in which national road deaths have increased.
Australian road deaths rose by 4.9% in the year to 31 October, to 1,291, fresh statistics from the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics show.
The figures mean that last month was the deadliest October since 2016.
Fatalities surged in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, with increases of 200% and 89.3% respectively. All states recorded increases in deaths except South Australia and Tasmania, where there were 11.2% and 5.9% decreases respectively.
Michael Bradley, the managing director of the Australian Automobile Association, noted that even the states with decreased fatalities are significantly off track from long-term reduction targets.
These figures and their continued climb again show that Australia’s current approach to road safety is not working.
Australia’s vehicle fleet has never been safer, enormous effort is being dedicated to driver training, and tens of billions of dollars are spent annually on our road network – yet our road trauma figures continue to worsen.
Australia desperately needs an evidence-based approach to a crisis that’s now killing more than 100 Australians every month and hospitalising 100 Australians every day.
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Ukrainian rallies across Australia to mark 1,000 days of Russia’s invasion and war
Ukrainian communities are rallying across Australia today to mark one thousand days of Russia’s invasion and war. Rallies will take place in the following locations:
Sydney: 5pm, Customs House
Canberra: 1pm, Griffith, outside the Russian Embassy
Melbourne: 6.30pm, Federation Square
Perth: 8pm, outside Wesley Church in the CBD.
The rallies will feature blue and yellow flags, Ukrainian embroidered vyshyvanka (embroidered shirts) plus banners and signs, according to a statement from the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations.
It will commemorate the Ukrainian lives lost over the last one thousand days and demand Russia “take responsibility for its unprovoked invasion – the largest act of aggression in Europe since the Second World War – which has targeted civilians, residential areas, hospitals, schools and essential infrastructure”.
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Reconstruction fund backs Queensland mining equipment manufacturer
Looping back to this morning’s announcement from the government’s National Reconstruction Fund: the $15bn fund has revealed its first investment, putting $40m into Queensland-based minerals production company Russell Mineral Equipment.
In a statement, the NRF Corporation said the deal was part of a $100m partnership with private equity company Resource Capital Funds, which backs efficiency and environmental innovation in the mining industry.
The NRFC said its direct investment in Russell Mineral Equipment would support growth of the company’s domestic manufacturing capabilities at its facility in Toowoomba.
RME is a global leader in grinding mill relining machinery technology. Its development of revolutionary technology enables the resources industry to boost speed, efficiency and safety of an essential maintenance activity.
The industry minister, Ed Husic, said the fund’s investment would ensure RME stays “in Aussie hands”.
In key areas of sovereign capability, our country’s got to be able to stand on its own two feet. We’ve got the talented workers in Australian firms, now they need the investment to grow.
Opposition industry spokesperson, Sussan Ley, said in the time it had taken the NRF to make its first investment, 1,272 manufacturers had become insolvent. Ley said the fund had failed to deliver what it promised.
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Extra $110m for schools ups pressure on holdout states
Public schools in Canberra will receive extra commonwealth cash, putting pressure on bigger states holding out for a better funding deal.
As AAP reports, the federal government will increase its percentage of funding in the ACT to 22.5% in 2026, up from 20%. It equals an extra $110.5m between 2025 and 2029, bringing the commonwealth’s total contribution to more than $1bn across the five years.
Funding will be tied to school performance, including identifying and helping struggling students in their early years, whole-of-school support systems and tackling bullying.
The Australian Education Union has joined some of the other states in pushing for more federal funding so teachers can properly implement the 10-year Better and Fairer Schools agreement that aims to increase education standards.
The education minister, Jason Clare, has struck updated funding agreements with Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory and the ACT, with NSW and Victoria holding out for an increase to 25%.
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Thorpe says government’s proposed electoral reforms are ‘absolutely a stitch-up’
Asked about the government’s proposed electoral reforms, Lidia Thorpe argued that it was “absolutely … a stitch-up”, echoing similar concerns from other members of the crossbench.
She said the major parties “just look after themselves” and “they’re as bad as each other”.
Labor is now the new Liberal party, and the Liberals’ Labor. I can’t tell the difference between the two any more. They’re both destructive, and they’re about feathering their own nests.
They’re not about truth telling, they’re not about accountability, they’re not about transparency. And those electoral reforms need to have transparency and accountability because they’re taking dirty donations from fossil fuel companies, they’re taking dirty donations from corporations that cause harm, and that is allowable.
Well, as far as I’m concerned, that’s buying votes and we’ve got to rid that from this system because that ultimately is corrupt.
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Thorpe draws comparisons with NZ protest
Lidia Thorpe was asked about her decision to rip up the censure motion at a media conference – just like the protest in New Zealand parliament last week led by Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke.
Asked what she makes of what is happening in New Zealand compared with Australia, Thorpe said it was “same-same”.
We’re kneeling to the colony here. Where are our rights? Our brothers and sisters over there have a treaty, and you’ve got a rightwing government that’s trying to wind back that treaty. At least over there, the culture and language is acknowledged, language is through the school and education system. Here, we have nothing. We have nothing and we demand a treaty so that we can have a say.
But, if what you see is going on over there, walking back treaty, then you know, that makes me think why even go down the path of treaty?
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Thorpe reflects on censure motion against her, one day on
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe says she “didn’t lose any sleep” over yesterday’s censure motion against her, for her protest against King Charles.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Thorpe said it was “disrespectful and wrong” that she “wasn’t given the opportunity to respond at that time”.
The government knew that I was on the plane, the Qantas plane. I’m a single mum, I can’t just come up on a Sunday and prepare myself for the week, I have to fly on Monday morning. I have a VCE child that needs me.
So, I get on the plane like every other parliament sitting, I’m usually here on time. However, Qantas was running late and I watched the Senate motion happening on YouTube on the plane, and that wasn’t a nice feeling to see that I was being censured via YouTube after I messaged one of the ministers to say, you know, I want to be there and I want to respond.
My staff had contacted the government, and obviously they didn’t want me there. They had plenty of opportunity to reach out to me prior.
Thorpe said the motion doesn’t change anything for her and she will “continue to protest”.
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Civil liberties council accuses NSW government of acting outside law to stop climate protest
The New South Wales government has been accused by a civil liberties organisation of acting outside the law in a “hell bent” bid to stop what was expected to be one of the biggest climate protests in Australia’s history.
The government on Friday imposed an exclusion zone around Newcastle harbour, making it off-limits to the public for four days during which Rising Tide activists are expected to paddle into the port on kayaks and rafts this weekend to stop coal exports from leaving. Those that defy the exclusion zone could face a maximum penalty of a $1,100 fine.
It came after earlier this month, the NSW police won a legal challenge in their attempt to stop the protest, which intended to block the port for 30 hours. But the protesters vowed to go ahead, despite the challenge meaning they would no longer be protected from being charged with obstruction and unlawful assembly offences.
In a letter sent yesterday to the NSW minister for transport, Jo Haylen, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties wrote that in their view the exclusion zone – which will run from Thursday to Monday – was contrary to the law and a misuse of power.
The president of the organisation, Timothy Roberts, wrote to Haylen that this was the case because the Marine Safety Act does not grant the minister powers to declare an exclusion zone for the purpose of preventing public assemblies. The authority is only given when a special event such as a major vessel race is being held to ensure the safety of navigation.
Roberts called for Haylen to urgently revoke the exclusion zone, saying she should “facilitate, not hinder, Rising Tide’s right to publicly assemble”. In a media release, Roberts said:
The NSW Government is hell bent on ensuring that this protest does not go ahead at whatever the cost to people’s freedoms. Paddling a kayak in the Port of Newcastle is not an offence, let alone doing so in an act of protest.
Now the NSW Government is preventing anyone from swimming or paddling in the Port because they are scared of the potential for disruption to port operations. The cost to civil liberties is too great, this exclusion zone must be abandoned.
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Economy is on a ‘burning platform’, Business Council warns
Australia is standing “on a burning platform” of sluggish economic growth and poor productivity and its living standards will continue to decline unless the government makes it easier to do business, the Business Council of Australia has warned.
In a report on productivity published today, the BCA says annual productivity growth, now at 0.5%, needs to quadruple to 2% each year for the next five years just to return to levels seen in the 2010s. Without that, it says living standards will continue to fall.
Chief executive Bran Black said:
Plain and simple, if we can’t get productivity moving, we won’t see sustained real wages growth and it will be harder to control inflation and enable the Reserve Bank to bring down interest rates.
The report is calling for the reversal of the Albanese government’s changes to workplace laws, simpler regulation, a further boost to skills, lower taxes and greater incentives for technological investment:
Turning around our growth and confidence malaise and delivering increased productivity will not be easy.
At times, it will be complicated and, as always in this country, politically fraught, as recent history shows. But we must take bold steps now to arrest our decline. The policy ‘to-do’ list to achieve faster growth in productivity and enhanced competitiveness is long, but obvious. There will be winners and losers from any changes, which will complicate the politics. But we must get started.
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Did they talk about Trump?
Another reporter asked if Anthony Albanese and Keir Starmer discussed Donald Trump during their meeting?
Albanese responded no, not in the formal meeting, but “informally, I have chats to people all the time”:
At a conference like this, on the sidelines, obviously people mention political issues that there is a focus on, it would be a bit disingenuous to suggest that that hadn’t occurred right across the board.
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How likely is it Yang Hengjun will be set free?
The PM is now taking questions from reporters. One asked about the meeting with Xi Jinping, after Australian academic Yang Hengjun was given a suspended death sentence by a Chinese court earlier this year.
Reporter: You say you mentioned it. How likely is it that he will be let free?
Anthony Albanese said:
We will continue to advocate, as we do, for Australian citizens … What we do is we advocate for Australia’s interests, and there are a range of Australians – not just with China – but with other countries as well, who we will continue to advocate for.
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PM lists meetings at summit so far
Anthony Albanese said he had a formal bilateral meeting with the re-elected president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen:
We discussed Australia’s support for Ukraine … We also talked about the opportunity that’s there for further investment from Europe in the Future Made in Australia agenda, countries such as Germany have expressed a great interest in every day. So issues such as hydrogen, we discussed as well.
Albanese said he had also had informal meetings with a range of counterparts, including President Macron and Spanish leader Sanchez, providing “a chance to engage in a constructive way and to build relationships”.
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Albanese addresses reporters at G20 summit
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking to reporters in Brazil.
On the relationship with China, the PM said dialogue was crucial:
We’ve managed to improve relations without compromising any of Australia’s national interests, which we have continued to pursue, and will continue to pursue this patient, calibrated and deliberate approach.
He has been listing the various leaders he has met, including UK prime minister Keir Starmer:
We reiterated our commitment to progress negotiations on the bilateral Aukus treaty, that’s about the the variation of the subs in both South Australia and Barrow in the UK, and getting that agreement in place.
We also discussed the progress that we announced in job of the climate and energy partnership. It will be signed by our respective ministers, ministers Bowen and Norbert in Cop29 this week.
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Haines calls for scrutiny of electoral reform legislation
The independent MP for Indi, Helen Haines, is the next guest up on ABC RN this morning.
She is asked about the government’s proposed electoral reforms and says while she welcomes some of the measures – like greater transparency for political donations – but “like my crossbench colleagues I have some serious concerns about many details included in this very, very consequential reform of our electoral system”:
I want to see it referred for greater scrutiny. I think that’s an entirely reasonable thing the government can do. The joint standing committee on electoral matters is the obvious place to go, or the government could set up a joint select committee with a range of parliamentarians to scrutinise this bill.
I think it’s entirely reasonable to do that. The public need to know more about it before we launch into one of the biggest reforms seen in this country in decades.
Haines says she isn’t as concerned about herself as an incumbent as she is for new players:
There’s no reason why we can’t scrutinise it, other than the government wanting to ram this through with the support of the opposition. None of these changes are slated to take any impact in the coming election, we’ve got tons of time. I think the government needs to explain why they are so afraid of scoping on this bill.
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Will the Coalition withdraw support for government’s cost-of-living measures?
Jane Hume was asked if the Coalition would maintain Labor’s cost-of-living measures, if elected.
She responded that “certainly we would approach the cost-of-living crisis in a different way”:
Increased public expenditure fuels inflation. Further, it means the inflation crisis is higher for longer, which means interest rates are higher for longer, unless you address that root cause of inflation. Well, you’re just exacerbating the problem, and anything else is a band-aid solution.
Back to the initial question, she said it wasn’t the Coalition’s intention to withdraw any of the programs, adding that “we’ll announce our policies in the lead-up to the election”:
There’s always going to be programs that need to be funded. Essential services will, of course, continue, but there is a lot of unnecessary waste and undisciplined expenditure.
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‘We want to make sure that the relationship is one that is of mutual respect’
Moving to the Australia-Chinese relationship, Jame Hume was asked what the Coalition would do if it got back into government to ensure there isn’t a dip in relations, seen during the Morrison years.
She said the Coalition had been “consistent in saying that we want to see a normalisation of our trading relationship with China”:
But we don’t want to do that at the expense of our national interest. We want to make sure that the relationship is one that is of mutual respect, not simply a respect for one side …
We also understand that there are tensions, and we don’t necessarily have to agree or see eye to eye on every issue, but there does need to be mutual respect for each other’s positions and and that needs to be reflected, I think, in the relationship between the leaders.
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Coalition party room to look at proposed electoral reforms
Jane Hume was also asked about criticism from the crossbench of the government’s proposed electoral reform, that it is a stitch-up between the major parties to rig the system in their favour.
Hume said the reforms were going before the party room today, so “I don’t [know] what the result of that party room would be”:
The government only introduced its legislation yesterday … so I don’t think I can comment any more on electoral reforms. We’ll wait to see what the party group says.
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Rethink visas rather than student caps, Hume says
Jane Hume argued the “root cause” – the visa system – is what needs to be addressed, rather than student caps, and that there wasn’t enough consultation:
Just putting caps on international students rather than addressing the visa system is really not solving the problem …
We don’t feel that there’s been any adequate consultation, particularly with those private providers or regional universities … those providers are telling us that they haven’t had adequate consultation in the setting of these caps.
Asked what evidence the Coalition has that international students are the problem when it comes to housing, rather than housing supply and policy, she responded:
I didn’t say they are the problem, but we certainly know that they are part of the problem, particularly in our inner cities …
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Coalition doesn’t believe international student caps will work, Hume says
The shadow finance minister, Jane Hume, is up on ABC RN to discuss why the Coalition decided to oppose the government’s international student caps. She said the Coalition thinks the legislation “simply won’t work”:
These caps that the government want to place on international students are just part of a very piecemeal approach that really does nothing to address the structural problems that the government has made by itself …
The government’s essentially opened floodgates to record levels of international students, but we know that that’s part of the reason why the housing crisis that we’re facing is being fuelled. It’s also causing unprecedented chaos in the international education sector.
Hume said caps “might be part of the system”, but “the way the government has gone about it is “chaotic, and we don’t think it’s going to solve the problem that they’re trying to address”.
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Lidia Thorpe to vote against government mis- and disinformation bill
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe says she will oppose the government’s mis- and disinformation bill unless there are major changes made.
Thorpe said she was “no stranger to the problems” to this topic and “false information about me is routinely published in mainstream media and spread online”. But this bill is “not the solution”, she said:
The broad and vague definitions in this legislation allow too much scope for suppression of dissenting voices. We have to ensure that political dissent, protest and Truth-Telling are not suppressed or censored.
I have concerns that this bill could stifle First Nations voices that challenge systemic injustice—be it through advocacy for land rights, resistance to oppressive policies, or critique of colonial governments.
The Bill’s reliance on white-dominated institutions to regulate what constitutes ‘truth’ will further erase, suppress and misrepresent First Nations narratives and activism.
Thorpe argued that Acma and overseas tech companies were not “appropriate arbitrators on questions of ‘truth’” and that Acma lacked First Nations expertise or advisory roles:
This legislation gives these companies too much discretion to decide what is and isn’t misinformation, and doesn’t require enough transparency.
She called for a digital rights act and human rights act to be established, and added:
Before we have those rights enshrined, we need to be very careful with any legislation like this.
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Gender pay gap at lowest point yet, ACTU says
According to a new report from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the gender pay gap is now at its lowest point ever at 11.5%.
It said new work rights and higher wages in sectors like aged care were closing the gap at a rate three times faster than under previous Coalition governments. Since 2022, the gender pay gap has been closing at a rate of 1.3% each year, compared with 0.4% under successive Coalition governments.
ACTU president Michele O’Neil said that sectors with a majority of women workers “pay some of the lowest wages despite workers providing some of the most valuable services to our community, such as caring for our loved ones”:
Government policies have a direct effect on the underpayment of women workers and the gender pay gap.
The gender pay gap is closing three times faster under this current government than the previous government, meaning if Peter Dutton’s party was still in power, the average woman working full time would be $1,900 worse off.
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Electoral reform defended
Ed Husic was asked about comments from Clive Palmer overnight on the 7.30 program, that the government’s proposed electoral reforms are a Labor and Liberal stitch-up for the major parties to have the entire game to themselves.
Husic responded:
I’m not surprised people with a lot of money who want to be able to influence elections are upset by what we’re wanting to do. But I think a lot of Australians will back what we are trying to do and want to make sure that we’ve got elections that are fair and that aren’t influenced by big money.
The minister said a number of state governments had started to work on similar reforms.
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Husic accuses Coalition of playing politics on international student cap
Ed Husic was asked about the Coalition’s decision not to back the government’s proposed cap on international students. You can read all the details on this below:
Husic said Peter Dutton had indicated in budget-reply speeches that he also wanted to bring immigration back to pre-pandemic levels, and accused the Coalition of not “back[ing] up what they say they’ll do”:
This is another case of them playing politics, putting their political interests above the interests of the country. We already have some measures in place to help us in this area. But, as stakeholders have observed, the Coalition just opposing this legislation gives no solution, no indication about what they’d do.
So the onus is on them now to say, “Well, if you said this is important to do, why won’t you actually support work to be done in this space?”
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First investment announced as part of National Reconstruction Fund
The science and industry minister, Ed Husic, was on ABC News Breakfast to discuss the government’s first investment via the National Reconstruction Fund – $40m to a Toowoomba mineral processing factory.
The NRF was passed last year and established an off-budget $15bn investment fund to support manufacturing and emerging industries.
Husic said this investment was “the first of many that we’ll start to see being announced by the NRF”. But why has it taken so long for the first investment? He responded:
The difference in terms of what the [NRF] does is it provides loans, equity, and guarantees to firms that are [working across] seven priority areas to expand and grow their operations.
Given the sizes of the investments, it does take more time to be able to go through to shape up what the investment will look like, how big it’ll be, over what term, the rate of return – because the other important thing to stress to viewers is – this is not about handing out grants, and certainly not doing it on the basis of political colour-coded spreadsheets as we saw with the last government.
Getting those investments right takes a bit of time. But when they do, it’s a bigger investment, a bigger stake, a bigger aim, which is to provide long-term growth for the country.
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Australia’s social cohesion at record low but 70% believe migrants make country stronger
The Middle East crisis has tested the strength of Australia’s multicultural society and it has weathered the storm – so far.
At least that’s according to the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute’s annual survey, Mapping Social Cohesion, which is out today.
The survey of 8,000 randomly selected people was carried out in conjunction with the Australian Multicultural Foundation and the Australian National University. It found support for multiculturalism remains mostly positive, with 85% agreeing it has been good for Australia generally and 82% saying it is good for the economy.
The lead author of this year’s survey report, Dr James O’Donnell, said he had expected to find that social media use might be fuelling polarisation of attitudes including towards faith groups. But he said:
In fact, the social media users were less likely to have a negative attitude towards Jewish and Muslim people, irrespective of where they were on the political spectrum.
You can read the full article here:
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Australia expected to sign up to UK-US deal on civil nuclear technology
Britain and the US have signed a new agreement to collaborate on civil nuclear technology at the Cop29 summit, and Australia is expected also to sign up.
The agreement, signed by UK energy secretary Ed Miliband and US deputy secretary of energy David Turk, aims to pool billions in research funds and share information on advanced nuclear technologies.
The goal is to speed up the development of new technologies, such as advanced modular reactors, to help decarbonise industry and boost energy security. The agreement will come into force from 1 March.
Miliband said nuclear would “play a vital role in our clean energy future”:
That is why we are working closely with our allies to unleash the potential of cutting-edge nuclear technology. Advanced nuclear technology will help decarbonise industry by providing low-carbon heat and power, supporting new jobs and investment here in the UK.
The UK government says the agreement builds on a pledge made last year at Cop28 to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050.
It expects this new agreement will also be signed by Australia, as well as Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, China, Euratom and Switzerland.
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Good morning
Emily Wind here, signing on for blogging duties. Thanks to Martin Farrer for kicking things off for us this morning.
It’s shaping up to be another very busy day in Canberra, and we’re only at day two of the final parliamentary sitting fortnight. You’ll have the whole team bringing you the latest today – Karen Middleton, Paul Karp, Josh Butler and Sarah Basford Canales.
And you can always get in touch with any tips or feedback via email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.
Let’s get started.
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Aukus unease
Speaking of Donald Trump, our latest Guardian Essential poll has been canvassing opinions about what his re-election might mean for Australia.
It has found that more people think the new Trump administration will be bad news for the global economy (42% said negative, 38% said positive), “resolving global conflicts and promoting peace” (41% to 37%) and America’s influence on global affairs (44% to 37%).
Read the whole story here:
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‘Authoritarianism and chaos’
In the lead-up to his return to the White House, president-elect Donald Trump has quickly assembled a new team of loyalists including Elon Musk, a Fox News host and a vaccine sceptic. While his cabinet nominees will still need approval from Congress, the controversial list is already raising alarm bells.
For today’s Full Story podcast, Washington DC bureau chief David Smith speaks to Nour Haydar about what these latest announcements tell us about Trump’s plans for his second term as president.
Spending survey
As mentioned, we have a story this morning about a Commonwealth Bank survey showing that Australians aged between 18 to 29 have cut back on their spending due to the cost-of-living crisis more than older people who are shopping more.
The survey also picked up some geographical differences, with Western Australia “really outperforming” the rest of the country in how much residents had spent.
Here’s the full article:
More on that Xi-Albanese meeting
Anthony Albanese, who visited Beijing a year ago, said there had been “further encouraging progress in the stabilisation of our relationship” and that trade was “flowing more freely” between the countries, AAP reports.
China is Australia’s largest trading partner and total two-way trade hit a record $327bn in 2023.
Chinese authorities introduced sanctions – since lifted – on some Australian products in 2020 after Scott Morrison’s government called for an international inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic. Albanese said:
We continue to explore opportunities for practical cooperation in areas of shared interest, including on our energy transition and climate change.
We live in the fastest growing region of the world in human history – and the rise of China has contributed to this while lifting the living standards of hundreds of millions of people through increased economic activity.
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Albanese and Xi Jinping meet on sidelines of G20
Chinese-Australian links are improving after a turnaround in relations, Xi Jinping has told Anthony Albanese while acknowledging “some twists and turns” in the past, AAP reports.
The prime minister met the Chinese president, in their third formal encounter, on the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ summit in Brazil. Before the talks between the two started in Rio de Janeiro overnight, Xi recalled visiting Australia in 2014:
Ten years ago today, I was on a state visit in Australia. And on this very day, during which our two sides agreed to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership.
Stabilising Australia’s relationship with China is in the interests of both our countries.
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) November 18, 2024
Dialogue is critical, and we’ve made encouraging progress.
Trade is flowing more freely.
⁰And that brings benefits to both countries, and to people and businesses on both sides.
Our… pic.twitter.com/o5LlmcwGE8
Xi addressed the parliament in Canberra at the time and was hosted by Tony Abbott. Xi told Albanese:
And over the past decade, we have made some progress in China-Australia relations and also witnessed some twists and turns. That trajectory has many inspirations to offer.
Now, our relations have realised a turnaround and continues to grow, bringing tangible benefits to our two peoples.
So, this is the result of our collective hard work in the same direction, and should be maintained with great care.
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Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live politics blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Emily Wind with the main action.
Anthony Albanese has met China’s president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil overnight with Beijing trying to promote Australia as a model for trading with China in a Trump era. Albanese said there had been “encouraging progress in the stabilisation of our relationship”. We’ll have more details coming up soon.
Our latest Guardian Essential poll taken in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win finds that almost half of voters want the Australian government to review Aukus and the acquisition of nuclear submarines. The poll also finds that most of those asked think his presidency will be bad for the global economy and conflict resolution.
It’s a busy day for surveys. Almost half of Australians (49%) believe immigration is too high but the large majority (71%) still think that migrants make the country stronger and that multiculturalism has benefited the nation (85%). These are perhaps contradictory findings from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute’s annual survey, Mapping Social Cohesion, out today. One of the lead authors said that despite the stresses caused by the Middle East crisis, the findings “speak to the resilience” of Australian society.
The minutes of the Reserve Bank’s last monetary policy meeting will be released this morning and should shed some more light on the thinking behind keeping rates on hold. We’ll be across the news when it breaks at 11.30 but we also have some more context with a study showing that the cost-of-living crisis is affecting young people much more than older cohorts.
