Month: December 2024

The Australian and Papua New Guinea (PNG) Governments are partnering with the Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) to deepen our connections through rugby league.

Australia will support a PNG team to enter the National Rugby League (NRL) competition no later than 2028.

As PNG prepares to mark its 50th anniversary of independence in 2025, this partnership celebrates our countries’ shared history and future, reflects our strategic trust and opens new people-to-people and economic opportunities.

The establishment of a PNG team in the NRL is an important symbol of our contemporary partnership.

It will deliver significant economic benefits to both countries through investment in new infrastructure and by boosting PNG and Australia’s sports and tourism sectors.

The Australian Government will also partner with the ARLC on a Pacific Rugby League Partnership for girls and boys, and women and men to play rugby league from the grassroots to the elite level across PNG, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

This Partnership will use rugby league to help increase school retention, promote positive health and nutrition, build gender equality and foster youth leadership.

It will invest in girls’ and women’s rugby league across the region, cultivating pathways and new opportunities, and work toward including a PNG Women’s team in one of Australia’s premier state competitions.

This will build on Australia’s existing investments in sports development across the Pacific – which include programs for netball, rugby union, Aussie rules and cricket – and complement Australia’s broader development partnerships in the region.

Australia and PNG are vital to each other’s future. Australia is proud to be PNG’s primary security and development partner.

This new partnership will be underpinned by shared strategic trust and strong people-to-people links and reflects our commitment to delivering peace, prosperity and opportunity for our people and our region.

Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese:

“A Papua New Guinea NRL team is a game-changer for Australia’s relationship with PNG and a unifying force – no two countries have a greater passion for rugby league.

“Australia’s relationship with the Pacific is profoundly important and our sporting ties are unique.

“Partnering on rugby league is a genuine and powerful way of building lasting ties between our peoples, and ensuring long-term development, social and economic outcomes for PNG and the Pacific.

“Our partnership will create new opportunities for girls’ and women’s rugby league across PNG and the Pacific, recognising the power of sports programs in championing inclusion and improving gender equality.”

Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape:

“This one team will be for one people, one country, one nation, a national unifier.

“We deeply appreciate our relationship with Australia. While government-to-government ties are important, at the heart and soul of this relationship must be people-to-people connections. Sport has the unique power to unite our two peoples, who share an ancient history and even the same DNA, as seen in the bond between Papua New Guineans and Torres Strait Islanders.

“An NRL team for PNG is more than just sports – it is a national unification strategy. With our diverse cultures and people, rugby league can bring us together as one nation. At the same time, it strengthens the shared history and people-to-people links between PNG and Australia. 

“For us, this partnership is not only about rugby league but also about anchoring the deep connection between our two countries. Sport is a powerful tool to solidify and celebrate this relationship, creating a bridge that connects our communities on a personal and cultural level.

“As we look to our 50th anniversary of independence, we envision a future where a PNG NRL team represents not just sporting excellence but the enduring partnership and shared destiny between PNG and Australia. This is more than a game – it is a symbol of unity and mutual respect.” 

A new report from Canines for Wildlife has revealed the critical importance of maintaining habitat connectivity for Koala populations. The report, provided to Jaliigirr Biodiversity Alliance, examined the Koala population in the Bellingen-Coffs Harbour area and demonstrated the genetic health of the Koalas was reliant on a wide geographic range with healthy habitat connections through public and private land, and across barriers created by human infrastructure.

Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson said “Koalas need a landscape approach to habitat protection that provides healthy pathways between population hubs. This means that a piecemeal approach to protecting forests cannot protect healthy Koala populations from threats like logging and infrastructure,”

“Acoustic monitoring research relied on by the Forestry Corporation and the logging industry to guess Koala numbers has been debunked. This new report goes further and shows just how important it is for the Government to protect habitat across land tenures, and in a way that connects forests across the landscape,”

“The community have been waiting for 18 months for the Minns Labor Government to act on their promise to create a Great Koala National Park in the Bellingen-Coffs Harbour area, while seeing an increase in industrial logging across critical areas of Koala habitat. This new report shows just how dangerous this approach is to the Koala population in the area,”

“The logging lobbyists are working overtime to push the Government to create a Koala Park that is a fraction of what was promised, and want logging to continue in areas within the park. If the Minns Labor Government caves to the logging industry, so much more habitat connectivity will be destroyed, putting this significant Koala population at greater risk of extinction,”

“Rather than walking backwards on their promise to protect Koalas, NSW Labor should be heeding the calls from experts and communities to go further and faster in protecting more habitat at a landscape level. Without a scientific approach to conservation, Koalas will remain as political footballs that will be driven to extinction by compromise and political failure,” Ms Higginson said.

Dr Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Greens Leader and Senator for New South Wales, is excited to announce the preselection of Omar Sakr as the Greens candidate for the federal seat of Blaxland currently held by Labor Education Minister Jason Clare.

An award-winning Arab Australian poet who was born and raised in western Sydney to Arab and Turkish Muslim migrants, Sakr will bring a desperately-needed, authentic community voice in parliament.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi:

“I’m so proud and excited to see Omar running for the Greens in Blaxland. Omar will bring the authenticity of western Sydney and its rich multicultural community into the halls of parliament. And that’s exactly what we need.

“It’s never been clearer that the two major parties have lost touch with the community as they prioritise corporate interests while millions struggle to make ends meet in this cost of living crisis. That’s why it’s so important that voices like Omar are in parliament – voices from the community that fight for the community.

“Western Sydney has been taken for granted for far too long. Mortgage and rental stress is high, it’s getting harder to see a GP for free, and public schools are underfunded. 

“The Greens have a plan to make corporations pay their fair share of tax to fund things we all need like affordable homes, fully funded public schools and making sure people can see their GP for free.

“Labor does not care about western Sydney. Labor’s inaction on Israel’s genocide in Gaza has traumatised Arab and Muslim communities in western Sydney, and they teamed up with the Liberals to pass horrific anti-migrant laws. 

“With people like Omar alongside me, we can keep fighting even more strongly for marginalised communities who have been left behind.

“We can’t keep voting for the same two parties and expect different results. There is a better way. If you want change, vote Greens.”

Omar Sakr:

“I’m running for election as a Greens candidate in the seat of Blaxland, where I live with my family, because I’m disgusted and horrified by the Labor government’s refusal to sanction Israel in accordance with international law, as it carries out a genocide in Palestine. This “friend” of the government has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, to say nothing of the indiscriminate bombing that killed 4,000 in Lebanon, where my mother was born and where some of our relatives still remain.

“Labor and the Liberals are united in their disregard for the rights and lives of Arab and Muslim people, they are united in attaching Australia to the US’s doomed and ruinous forever wars in the Middle East, which we don’t need to have any part in, nor should we. 

“It’s harder and harder to distinguish between Labor and the Liberals these days, but there is a clear difference in the Greens, who have stood on their principles, and who continually champion justice, which is why I’m honoured to have been preselected by my local Greens group and to represent this party. 

“I want a better, fairer society for my children to grow up in, one with a sustainable future, quality education, accessible housing and healthcare that encompasses all of the mind and body, not just the parts deemed cheapest to cover.

“Blaxland has the highest mortgage stress rate in the country and I’m one of the people experiencing that. Most of my family are struggling under extreme rental stress as well. And this is why I’m getting involved, we need serious change and we need it now. 

“Blaxland deserves a federal MP who actually represents them. They won’t get that in a Labor or Liberal MP, but they will get that in me.”

The Reserve Bank’s decision not to reduce interest rates will needlessly hurt mortgage holders and put more Australians out of work, the Greens say

“The RBA’s decision today increases pressure on Treasurer Jim Chalmers to step in and provide relief,” Australian Greens Economic Justice spokesperson Nick McKim said.

“Australian mortgage holders have done nothing to cause inflation yet they are being smashed by high interest rates.”

“There are any number of things Treasurer Jim Chalmers could do, but he is again just wringing his hands and doing his ashen-faced theatrical performance.”

“Labor could put in place a excessive profits tax on corporations, freeze rents and  make price gouging illegal. All of these things would actually put downward pressure on inflation.”

“But Labor’s refusal to act means that the RBA feels compelled to leave interest rates higher for longer.” 

“The Greens saved section 11 in the Reserve Bank Act precisely so the Treasurer of the day could override the RBA when necessary. Now is the time.”

“High interest rates have no impact on international supply chains, climate change or wars on the other side of the world. What they do is harm people who have no responsibility for current rates of inflation.”

While in Cairns and Townsville Greens Senator for Queensland Larissa Waters demonstrated how the Greens plan to require the big banks to offer a discount mortgage could benefit all Far North and North Queensland homeowners, 

The ‘HomeKeeper’ low rate mortgage would be mandated via legislating requiring the big banks to offer a mortgage rate option of just 1% above the cash rate, protected to save the average mortgage holder $90 each week.  The big banks could still offer other products and there would be no compulsion on anyone to switch to a HomeKeeper mortgage.

Greens Senate leader Larissa Waters, Senator for Queensland

“We’re in a housing crisis everywhere, but Cairns and Townsville are the hardest hit outside of Southeast Queensland, with the worst levels of housing stress.

“In Townsville, rents have skyrocketed by 35%, and house prices have increased 61% in the last five years.

“Meanwhile, bank profits are also skyrocketing—they raked in $17.6 billion last year alone off people’s home loans. For decades they have been massively profiteering while people are really hurting.

“That’s why the Greens are taking on the big banks. We’ve announced ‘HomeKeeper,’ a plan to legislate low-rate mortgages—just 1% above the cash rate.

“We’ve seen policies like this work in Portugal, France and Chile.

“This could save the average mortgage holder in northern Queensland about $90 a week or $4,000 a year. It’s time to stop big corporations and banks from ripping us off and making the housing crisis worse.

“It is immoral that people are being forced out of their homes to protect the profits of big corporations. In a wealthy country like ours, everyone should have a secure home.

“Big banks pocket an estimated $176 a week—or $200,880 over 30 years—from profits on the average home loan, according to The Australia Institute.

“The Greens are here to fight for you, to take on the big banks, and to deliver a cheaper mortgage.