Category: Australian News

Environment Minister Joshua Burgoyne’s Buffel Grass Weed Management Plan allows the continued planting and spread of declared weed buffel grass on pastoral leases, in direct contradiction to strong community feedback.

Buffel grass is a highly invasive species causing significant ecological, cultural and economic harm across vast areas of Central Australia. It was declared a weed by the NT Government in 2024.

The government’s own consultation summary revealed that 75% of submissions to the Draft Buffel Grass Weed Management Plan expressed strong concern about the carve out that would allow pastoralists to continue to spread and cultivate buffel on pastoral leases.

Despite this, the final plan retains sweeping exemptions for the pastoral industry, with only minimal changes from the draft.

This decision demonstrates the capture of the CLP government by the pastoral industry and shows that Josh Burgoyne is prioritising the cattle lobby’s priorities over environmental protection, public health, cultural heritage, tourism, and community safety.

Jonathan Parry, Convenor of the NT Greens:

“The plan is a disaster for the environment, culture, and the long-term economy of Central Australia. It’s frankly unthinkable that the CLP could allow pastoralists to buy and spread buffel seed.”

“The Minister said he wants to find the right balance – well, this is not the right balance.”

“This plan puts pastoral interests over the environment, over connection to country, over health and safety, and over industries like tourism. And, it completely ignores the feedback from the community that overwhelmingly rejected this plan.”

“It is not fair that Indigenous land managers, councils and households are cleaning up the cattle industry’s mess and doing their bit to manage the spread of buffel, while pastoralists continue to spread this weed.”

“If the Territory government doesn’t have the willpower to properly address this matter, we must look for other options. We urge the Federal Government to declare buffel grass a Weed of National Significance so we can get the resourcing and coordination needed to address this crisis.”

Australia will provide an additional $5 million for lifesaving assistance to civilians impacted by the ongoing conflict in Lebanon, with a focus on the most vulnerable, particularly women and children.

The recent escalation in the conflict has led to a significant deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Lebanon.

We are seeing increasing and widespread displacement, with families in desperate need of essential food and medical care. More than one million people have already fled their homes, including over 200,000 children.

Australia’s assistance will be delivered by trusted partners:

• $3 million to the World Food Programme (WFP) to provide emergency food assistance 
• $2 million to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for nutrition assistance, access to water and health services

This latest funding brings Australia’s humanitarian assistance for civilians affected by the conflict in Gaza and Lebanon to over $135 million since October 2023.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong:

“We know this is a distressing time for Australians in Lebanon and for the Australian-Lebanese community here at home thinking of their family members and loved ones.

“We are gravely concerned by the expansion of the conflict into Lebanon, the loss of life and the displacement of more than one million civilians.

“Australia condemns Hizballah for its ongoing strikes on Israel and for dragging Lebanon into conflict.

“Australia calls for all parties to adhere to international humanitarian law and for the protection of civilians and aid workers. A major Israeli ground offensive into Lebanon will only exacerbate the worsening humanitarian situation in the country.”

International Development Minister Anne Aly:

“The escalating conflict in Lebanon is exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation. Australia’s humanitarian support will provide emergency food, water and health assistance for displaced civilians across Lebanon.

“At this time of crisis, Australia is working closely with the international community and our humanitarian partners to support the people of Lebanon through the provision of lifesaving aid.

“Humanitarian personnel must also be protected, consistent with international humanitarian law. Aid workers save lives. Their dedication to improving the lives of others should not cost them their own lives.”

NT Greens today have called for fossil fuel corporations to contribute to the projected $100M cleanup costs of the NT’s ongoing flood crisis.

Addressing negotiations between NT and federal governments over the mounting repair bill, Jonathan Parry from the NT Greens warned that gas production fuels climate disruption, and polluters should pay for their impacts.

“The unfolding compounding weather systems challenging Territorians this month are precisely the chaotic impact experts warn will become more frequent and intense as carbon pollution mounts,” said Mr Parry.

The CLP Finocchiaro government has this week announced the establishment of a $100 million fund for flood recovery, to be funded entirely from the NT budget.

“It’s essential that we invest in climate resistance and disaster repair but ordinary Territorian households and small businesses shouldn’t be footing the bill.” 

“Big gas producers like Inpex and SANTOS are profiting massively from exploitation of resources that literally fuel climate chaos. Territorians know these international fossil fuel companies don’t pay their way, and now we find ourselves with a growing damage bill from climate impacts.”

“That’s why we’re calling on the Finocchiaro CLP government to fund disaster recovery by making the gas industry pay their fair share.”

Last week in the Commonwealth Parliament, the Australian Greens forced a vote in the Senate on a bill to introduce a 25% export tax on gas. But Labor, the Coalition, and One Nation all voted against the measure.

“The Greens are the only party in Australia willing to take on the big fossil fuel giants. Labor, the Coalition and One Nation have shown again and again that they’re more worried about their big corporate donors and the cushy jobs they promise than the interests of everyday Australians.”

“The Greens oppose plans for massive new fossil-fuel industrialisation at Middle Arm, and the expansion of onshore and offshore fracking production.”

“Those already in operation should be made to come to the table and contribute to recovery costs.”

Labor’s so-called crackdown on petrol corporations will do nothing to rein in petrol prices, and won’t stop corporations using the cover of war to price gouge, the Greens say.

“Labor’s proposal won’t stop petrol companies price gouging,” Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said.

“It will only increase penalties for lying about why prices are rising, while doing nothing to actually stop prices rising.”

“Australians are being slugged at the bowser, and the Government’s response is simply fiddling at the margins.”

“Corporations are using the war as cover for price rises across the economy, so the government’s response needs to be economy wide.”

“The Greens pressured Labor into cracking down on supermarket price gouging, but Labor is now sitting back and allowing price gouging without consequence.”

“If price gouging laws are good enough for supermarkets, they should apply across the entire economy.”

“Labor’s piecemeal response means that Australians will pay higher prices than they should right across the economy.”

“The coming inflation spike won’t stop at petrol. We already know that fertiliser costs are going up, which will flow through to farmers and food prices.”

“We need economy-wide anti price gouging laws so corporations can’t use the war as cover to boost profits. The Greens have already drafted a Bill that would do this.”

The Albanese Government has put community safety at risk by granting a visa to a convicted murderer who had been rejected four times under the former Coalition Government, before going on to succeed in the High Court this week and strip away key monitoring safeguards for the dangerous NZYQ cohort.

Within months of the Albanese Government’s election in 2022, this individual was granted a visa despite repeated refusals under the former Coalition Government.

The contrast is stark – where the Coalition acted to keep a dangerous individual out of Australia, Labor overruled those decisions and gave this murderer a visa.

Shadow Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration Senator Jonno Duniam said the case exposed a serious failure of judgment by the Albanese Government.

“Labor is handing out visas to murderers who should never have been granted one in the first place – showing a complete disregard for community safety,” Senator Duniam said.

Senator Duniam said this failure sits alongside a pattern of legal incompetence, with the Government losing three major High Court cases – NZYQ (2023), YBFZ (2024) and EGH19 (2026).

“Three times Labor claimed its laws were sound. Three times the High Court has disagreed. Each failure has weakened safeguards and left Australians less safe.”

Reports confirm the individual went on to reoffend after being granted a visa.

“This is exactly what happens when a Government ignores warnings and lowers standards – Australians are put at risk.”

“Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke needs to explain to Australians what safeguards are now in place and assure communities that they are being protected. Because at the moment, we have heard nothing from the Government about what they will do next.”

The Minns Labor Government is proposing wholesale change to the annual GST carve-up that continues to rip off the people of New South Wales.

The urgent need for reform has been highlighted by the Commonwealth Grants Commission’s decision to hand NSW its lowest GST relativity share on record.

Last week’s decision will see NSW, Australia’s largest state, receive $1.4 billion less GST revenue than Victoria, despite having 1.5 million more residents.

The NSW share of the GST pool has now fallen to 82 cents in the dollar in 2026-27, down from 86 cents in 2025-26, and 92.4 cents in 2023-24.

This decreasing rate of relativity is estimated to have cost NSW $8.6 billion over the past four years. That could have funded:

• Around 13,500 more registered nurses in the NSW public hospital system, or
• Around 14,500 more teachers over four years.

The current distribution calculation is complex and opaque. This not only leads to unpredictable variations for state budgets but also produces unreasonable distributions.

The Minns Labor Government is proposing a fairer way forward.

The NSW submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry proposes an equal per capita distribution of GST grants, with top-ups funded by the Australian Government from outside the GST pool.

An equal per capita distribution would remove complexity, result in a higher level of transparency and eliminate any possible drag from the current system on the productive capacity of the Australian economy.

If GST was shared on an equal per capita basis, it’s estimated NSW would receive an additional $3.2 billion next financial year.

If broad consensus cannot be reached on equal per capita distribution, NSW also proposes an alternate model that returns to the pre-2018 equalisation arrangements from 2030-31, with several modifications:

• The introduction of a relativities safety net floor of 0.50 funded by the Australian Government. This is a reduction from the current 0.75 floor. This would ensure there is a fair distribution to all states of any windfall revenue flowing to only one state.
• Early notification of likely distribution changes through the Commonwealth Grants Commission issuing four-year relativity forecasts.

These modifications will address factors that drove the changes to GST in 2018 and will reduce the negative impact of horizontal fiscal equalisation on the productivity of the Australian economy.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said:

“The current system for carving up the GST is busted. NSW carries the Federation all by itself.

“Some of the richest and wealthiest states aren’t doing their bit to help smaller states and territories like the ACT, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

“Even worse, NSW taxpayers have seen more of their money put to work fixing the budgets of Western Australia and Victoria, than their own.

“The whole of the Federation would be better off if we allocated the GST by population share, with the Federal Government using their balance sheet to prop up the smaller jurisdictions.

“That is what we are arguing for. But we are also presenting a compromise proposal to push for change.

“Change like this won’t be quick. But I’m glad that since we launched this campaign every state and territory, except Western Australia, has slammed this broken system. “

There’s nothing more humiliating than the Australian Prime Minister seated on the floor taking foreign policy advice from a cleric.
 
So-called “moderate Muslims” at Lakemba mosque violently accusing the Australian government of supporting “genocide” should be a wake-up call that dangerous Islamic radicalism is hiding in plain sight, according to Family First.

 
“The truth is that no genocide has occurred in Gaza, but thousands of Gazans tried to commit one on October 7, 2023,” Family First National Director and New South Wales Legislative Council candidate Lyle Shelton said in response to the wild scenes at today Australia’s biggest mosque.
 
“Women were raped, 1200 innocent people brutally murdered and hundreds taken into terror tunnels as hostages.
 
“It is alarming that Muslim leaders do not have the moral compass to see this and that they continue their victim blaming.
 
“Israel has waged a war of self-defence and continues to do so against Islamic extremists in Lebanon and Iran.
 
“The only attempted genocide has been via calls to kill Jews ‘from the river to the sea’ and to ‘globalise the intifada’,” Mr Shelton said.
 
“Australian politicians have lacked the courage to forcefully and respectfully tell the truth to Muslim leaders and their partners in the radical left. That truth is that Israel has committed no genocide.
 
“By all means critique Israel’s battle tactics but even that must be in the context of the existential threat Israel faces from Islamists who are trying to destroy it.
 
 “It’s time the lies about ‘genocide’ stop because lies are fuelling hatred and violence in Australia, as we saw with Bondi and now with today’s violent scuffles in a mosque in the Prime Minister’s presence.
 
“We do not want foreign hatreds playing out in our nation and pressuring our government to take unconscionable policy positions against an ally like Israel.
 
“What is more humiliating than the Australian Prime Minister sitting on the floor taking foreign policy advice from a cleric?
 
“Australia’s Muslim leaders need to realise that the Islamists of Hamas and Iran were the aggressors on October 7 and it is their on-going bloodlust for Jews that has destabilised the Middle East.
 
“There would be no civilian casualties if Gazans had not tried to invade Israel and commit genocide after decades of using international aid money to build military terror tunnels.
 
“Political courage to confront Australian Muslim leaders with this truth is what is needed for social cohesion in our nation,” Mr Shelton said.
 
“I’m sure the majority of Muslim people just want to get on with their lives and enjoy being Australian. Ancient hatreds should be left behind.”
 

Today people relying on poverty-level Centrelink payments will receive an insulting “increase” due to legislated indexation, a mechanism used to calculate new payment rates based on past CPI changes.

As the government celebrates its generosity for delivering on legislated requirements, the cold reality is that the maximum that will land in our bank accounts is a pittance that leaves us further behind*:

• the JobSeeker payment will change by $7.55 to $408.75 a week
• Parenting Payment will change by $9.80 to $533.15 a week
• the Disability Support Pension will change by $11.10 to $600.45 a week
• Commonwealth Rent Assistance will change by $2 to $109.70 a week for people who live alone. CRA for people in share houses will change by $1.34 to $73.14 a week.

Poor people are utterly exhausted by 4 years of Albanese government “no-one left behind” rhetoric and boasting about so-called “increases” to Centrelink payments. In reality, legislated indexation lags behind inflation and does not reflect the real increase in living costs for many people in poverty.

Over the same period, we have suffered relentless price hikes across every essential item, from housing costs to energy bills, transport to groceries. For example, energy bills increased 22 per cent in the past 2 years, while the Albanese government handed over $5 billion in subsidies to price gouging energy companies whose profits soared. In the past two years, indexation has seen the JobSeeker payment change from $385 to $409 a week – or about 6 per cent.

Indexation is not an increase.

As the flow on effect of war bleeds through the economy and the RBA continues to punish people for reasons beyond our control, action must be taken to stop companies profiteering from crisis at the community’s expense.

The Antipoverty Centre is calling on the government to:

• Increase all Centrelink payments to at least the Henderson poverty line and work with welfare recipients to understand what payment rates should be for us to live a decent life.
• Directly invest in buying and building high quality public homes, and upgrades for neglected housing stock.
• Abolish negative gearing for property investors and capital gains tax discounts.

Tax breaks for the wealthy should be dealt with at this budget, but more must be done to reverse out-of-control inequality and fund essential supports that address high living costs and benefit us all such as public healthcare, housing, education and welfare.

Antipoverty Centre spokesperson Jay Coonan said:

Time and again this prime minister has failed to rise to the occasion. What does he want to be remembered for?

People are hurting a lot right now and what we need is to have some faith restored.

We need the government to stop hiding behind powerful lobby groups and muttering about consensus, while concentrating all the power and decision making in the hands of a tiny few who choose timidity over ambition.

If the prime minister doesn’t have the courage to help people out in our time of need he will only fuel more division and resentment.

The community is crying out for bold changes that will reduce inequality and the damage done by high living costs. No more corporate subsidies, no more tightly targeted policies, no more kicking the can down the road.

The things we are asking for are not as complicated as politicians want us to believe: increase Centrelink payments to ensure we can all live a decent life, invest in public housing to bring down housing costs for everyone, and abolish the tax breaks that go to people who profit from the rest of us suffering.

Crisis support and counselling services

If you need support you can seek guidance, counselling or crisis help from the below organisations or talk to someone you trust.

• Suicide Call Back Service – general: 1300 659 467
• Roses in the Ocean – peer support: 1800 777 337
• SANE Australia – general: 1800 187 263
• 13YARN – for First Nations people: 13 92 76
• National Counselling and Referral Service – for disabled people: 1800 421 468
• Headspace – for young people: 1800 650 890
• QLife – fo LGBTQIA+ people: 1800 184 527
• Full Stop – for people who have experienced sexual harassment and assault: 1800 385 578
• Embrace Mental Health – multilingual service: embracementalhealth.org.au
• MensLine – for men: 1300 789 978
• Brother to Brother – for First Nations men: 1800 435 799
• National Debt Helpline – assistance with negotiating reductions for overdue bills and debt: 1800 007 007

Today we will host New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters MP and Defence Minister Judith Collins KC MP for our annual Australia-New Zealand Foreign and Defence Ministerial Consultations (ANZMIN 2+2) in Canberra.

These dialogues are an opportunity to shape our cooperation to respond to the demands of our region, including how we strengthen our Alliance.

Australia and New Zealand have a uniquely close bond and are working together across a range of foreign affairs, defence, economic and cultural interests.

In the face of growing strategic challenges, working in partnership with New Zealand to strengthen regional stability and energy security has never been more important. 

In addition to the 2+2 meeting, the Australia-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting and Foreign Ministers’ Consultations will also be held in Canberra.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Collins will also visit the Australian War Memorial in recognition of our enduring ANZAC spirit.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles:

“Australia and New Zealand are fundamentally aligned across the challenges we face and are working together to advance our shared interests and those of our region.

“We are strengthening our defence partnership to become an increasingly integrated Anzac force in support of our shared interests and our common values.

“I look forward to discussing how we can further strengthen our defence and security Alliance.”

Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong:

“Australia and New Zealand’s relationship is built upon generations of deep friendship, democratic values and a common outlook as Pacific countries.

“The trans-Tasman relationship is more important than ever as we work with our Pacific neighbours to respond to global developments and create a more peaceful, stable and prosperous region.

“We extend a warm welcome to our Kiwi counterparts – I look forward to discussing how we can deepen our cooperation to advance our shared interests and those of our region.”
 

Greens MLA Laura Nuttall will today move a motion calling for a $20 million annual funding increase and greater funding security to community organisations that provide essential services to the Canberra community.  

 “Everyone knows that we’re in a cost of living crisis, but right now the government is failing to support the organisations who help those most in need”, said Miss Nuttall. 

“So many Canberrans are struggling and need help, and the government leaves it to the community sector to provide this support. But right now this sector simply doesn’t get the funding or funding security they need. 

“Organisations which provide things like food relief, mental health and homelessness support, family, domestic and sexual violence crisis services and services run by and for women, LGBTIQA+ folks, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people with a disability are supporting more Canberrans who are increasingly dealing with more complex issues.

“But right now, they’re forced to do so with insufficient funding, meaning they often have to choose which key services to cut.

“Too often, community groups are also held back by a lack of funding security. We’ve heard genuine fear from community organisations who don’t know if their contracts will be renewed until the last possible minute. 

“Systemic underfunding also has a brutal impact on the workers, who pour their heart and soul into helping people at the toughest point in their lives, and do so without the pay and protections of their peers in the public sector.

“That’s why my motion calls on the government to seriously consider providing a $20 million funding boost to the sector every year over the forward estimates. It calls on the government to account for the real costs of delivering these services, to ensure decisions on funding renewal are made at least 6 months in advance, to seek parity between community and public sector workers’ protections  and to make sure the community sectors’ buildings are climate-resilient and disaster-proof. 

“While many see Canberra as a wealthy city, the reality is that many are only one missed paycheck or rent or interest hike away from needing to rely on the community sector for help.”