Category: Australian News

Australia condemns Iran’s attacks on Israel this morning.

Iran has ignored our call, and those of many other countries, not to proceed with these reckless attacks.

Anyone who cares for the protection of innocent life must stand against these attacks.

This escalation is a grave threat to the security of Israel and the entire region. It risks greater instability and devastation across the Middle East. Australia continues to support regional security, including that of Israel.

Iran’s ongoing flouting of international law, its egregious human rights abuses and threat to international security is why this Government has imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans, including Magnitsky-style sanctions, on 85 individuals and 97 entities.

Australia will continue to work with the international community to increase pressure on Iran to cease its destabilising actions and to prevent the conflict from spreading.

Australians in the region should monitor local media for public safety updates and follow the advice of local authorities.

Australians in need of emergency consular assistance should contact the Australian Government’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on +61 2 6261 3305 (from overseas) or 1300 555 135 (from within Australia).

The Greens have called on the Education Ministers Meeting to put action on school refusal at the top of its agenda, after Labor squibbed its response to a Senate report into the crisis.

The government has agreed or supported in principle two of the 14 recommendations in the Education and Employment Committee’s report into “The national trend of school refusal and related matters”, which was tabled in August 2023.

A national Lonergan poll commissioned by the Greens found that two in five families experienced what advocates prefer to call “school can’t” in the last 12 months.

Greens spokesperson on Primary & Secondary Education, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Parents, carers and advocates have been crying out for help and action on school can’t for years, but those cries have fallen on deaf ears.

“This is a national issue that requires a national response and Labor has thrown it in the too-hard basket.

“The inquiry’s report recommended a range of very basic measures to begin to address this issue and provide much-needed assistance to families in crisis – including developing a national action plan and providing funding for a peer support group – but Labor’s response will leave those families without much hope.

“School can’t is a crisis of exclusion. Students are being forced out of rigid, commodified and under-resourced educational systems that are not fit to meet their complex needs.

“Families experiencing school can’t aren’t able to access appropriate support for their children or themselves, and their physical health, mental health and financial well-being suffer as a result.

“The next Education Ministers Meeting must put this issue squarely at the top of the agenda.”

The Greens say that Labor must stop approving new coal and gas projects that divert critical skilled workers away from new industries, if regions like Central Queensland are to reap the benefits of the energy transition.

Labor yesterday unveiled its new plan for direct public support to speed up the energy transition. While legislation has not yet been circulated, the Greens have typically been in the Senate balance of power on similar bills before this Parliament.

Gladstone-based Greens spokesperson on Transition & Regional Development Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“When it comes to climate, Labor is speaking out of both sides of its mouth.

“They need to pick a lane. We can have an Australia powered by wind and solar and all the green jobs that creates, or a dirty coal- and gas-powered future that threatens us all.

“Skilled workforce shortages mean that we can’t choose both coal and gas and clean green jobs, and if Labor tries to do both, we’ll miss the green jobs boom and make the climate crisis worse.

“Public investment in renewables is a must. Leaving our energy and industrial future up to unaccountable mega corporations is precisely why we’re facing a global climate crisis.

“Many industrial centres, like my home of Gladstone, bear the scars of multiple boom-and-bust cycles caused by corporations chasing profits with no regard for the shattered communities they leave in their wake.

“That’s why the renewable transition needs to be government-led, with full and transparent community engagement, including the free, prior and informed consent of Traditional Owners, and protections for workers.

“Communities like Gladstone know that coal and gas are on the way out, and thousands of workers stand ready to embrace the opportunities presented by the transition.

“Labor’s support for coal and gas is holding them back.”

Australians already know the Albanese government will fall far short of its promise to build 1.2 million homes over the next five years, and new ABS data released today has cemented this, revealing approvals for the construction of new dwellings dropped to a twelve-year-low in February.

Labor’s housing crisis is just getting worse. With 20,000 homes required per month to meet the 1.2 million homes promise, it’s clear the 12,520 construction approvals confirmed for February just won’t cut it.

There is already so much evidence that Labor will not meet its 1.2 million homes promise by a mile, with an estimated shortfall of more than 400,000 dwellings, yet the Prime Minister continues to blatantly lie to Australians.

With first-home buyers at their lowest levels in over a decade, rents up by 26 per cent since Labor came to office, an extra $2,000 per month on an average mortgage, and now, overseas arrivals running at four times the pace of new home builds – Australians are being locked out of the housing market.

The Prime Minister must now wave the white flag and admit he’s broken another election promise and given up on home ownership.

An independent review into the leak of sensitive data from the Department of Finance has found that Minister Gallagher’s department “appears to have twice breached the same confidentiality provisions that it now asks suppliers to abide by.”

The review, commissioned after two leaks of confidential and commercially sensitive supplier information under Labor within a three month period, found that “the two breaches taken together are also likely to meet the threshold for a significant non-compliance with the Finance law in relation to the general duties of officials under the PGPA Act.”

In relation to the second breach, in which information was sent to 239 suppliers, the Report states that 15 suppliers are yet to execute the Department’s Confidentiality Undertaking Deed Polls. The Report refers to Deed Polls as “a critical part of the containment strategy to ensure that the information contained in the Supplier Matrix was not further disclosed”.

Senator Hume called on Minister Gallagher to explain why a second breach could have occurred so soon after the first, and why her department did not consider whether a broader procedural or policy review was necessary after the first breach.

“Not only should this not have happened in the first place, but there remain 15 businesses that received the commercially sensitive information who have not returned the required paperwork to ensure the information leaked is protected.

“It has been more than a month since the second of two incredibly serious leaks of confidential and commercially sensitive information, and some recipients of this information have yet to provide the appropriate assurances to the Government. What is Katy Gallagher doing about this?

“Labor has been so focused on enforcing standards of behaviour on suppliers of services, but have now fallen short of their own standards twice. Yet again, it’s ‘do as I say’ not ‘do as I do’ from this Labor government,” she said.

“Minister Gallagher should focus on giving government suppliers certainty that confidential information leaked on her watch will not damage them commercially,” Senator Hume concluded.

The Albanese Government must release a key report into the massive Optus outage which saw nearly 2700 calls fail to get through to the triple zero emergency line.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has been sitting on the Bean Review into the national Optus outage since 21 March.

A parliamentary inquiry into the Optus Network Outage has stalled while it waits for the Minister to release the report now on her desk.

As part of its terms of reference, the Senate inquiry is examining the steps taken by the Federal Government to ensure proper access to the triple zero service during the outage.

It was originally supposed to report to Parliament on 28 February, but that date was pushed back to 9 May while they waited for the Bean Review to be released so they could consider that report as part of its investigation.

The Committee is expected to recall Optus and call Telstra, ACMA and the department, particularly given new information about the scale of calls that didn’t get through to the triple zero service.

It is well past time for Minister Rowland to release the Bean Review.

The Greens have responded to Labor’s kite-flying on the subject of recognition of Palestinian statehood – which Labor almost immediately began to walk away from – by saying people are no longer fooled by Labor’s smokescreen strategy of mouthing words while failing to take any practical action.

The Greens have called for Labor to immediately recognise Palestine as well as ending Labor’s support for the invasion and ending all military and weapons exports to Israel, saying there was no barrier to doing these things straight away. 

When parliament resumes, the Greens will also move a motion which challenges Labor to follow through on recognising Palestine.

This is the second time in the space of a week that Labor’s media announcement has lacked a commitment: Labor has not committed to recognising Palestine, just as they did not commit to the mandatory supermarkets code recommended in the interim Food and Grocery Code of Conduct Review 2023–24 on Monday. The Greens argue that on a variety of fronts Labor is seeking to deploy a cynical “smokescreen” to appear to be doing something, while in practice offering no reprieve, no hope and no action.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt MP:

“People see through Labor’s smokescreen and they aren’t falling for it. 

“Talk is cheap while people are getting slaughtered in their tens of thousands and Labor continues to support the invasion of Gaza and military exports to Israel.

“There’s no barrier to acting right now. Labor should immediately recognise Palestine, end their support for the invasion and end all military exports to Israel.

“When parliament resumes the Greens will move a motion for the parliament to recognise Palestine and we call on Labor to act, not just talk.

“Twice this week Labor has ‘announced’ something without actually committing to do it, first on supermarket prices, and now on recognising Palestine. Labor’s false hope smokescreens won’t fly and won’t fool an electorate that wants the government to start using its power to tackle the big issues facing us.”

Labor’s proposed merger reforms are weak and inadequate, and show how much the party is in the thrall of big business, the Greens say.

“This is becoming a well established pattern for Labor – giving themselves a huge pat on the back for doing the bare minimum and caving into big business demands,” Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said.

“Labor is just not doing enough.”

“This is Labor yet again failing to take the necessary steps to tackle the market dominance which is allowing the supermarket duopoly to gouge prices.”

“This reform will not give the ACCC the tools they need – and have asked for – to stop further concentration of market power.”

”This will not reverse the onus of proof for the substantial lessening of competition test, which means the default will remain to approve mergers.”

“The Treasurer has not substantially changed the test for assessing mergers, for example by including consideration of national market share – something which has been revealed to be critical to the misuse of market power by the supermarket duopoly.” 

“This is yet another example of Labor dancing to the tune of big business, instead of doing what is right by consumers.”

On a preliminary analysis, the Greens’ concerns with Labor’s proposal are:

• It has not reversed the onus of proof on ‘substantially lessening of competition’ test. 
• The Treasurer has not set the threshold for mergers that will need approval from the ACCC before proceeding. 
• The ACCC has no call-in power for mergers below the threshold.
• The Treasurer has said the ‘vast majority of mergers’ will be excluded from the threshold.
• The Treasurer has not said whether supermarkets will be captured by the threshold, or how these changes will address the supermarket duopoly’s market power. 
• The Treasurer has not substantially changed the test for assessing mergers.

Today Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has announced her proposed decision to refuse a development in Toondah Harbour’s globally significant Ramsar wetlands.

Greens spokesperson for the Environment, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young:

“This is a huge win for the local community and environment groups that have been fighting for a decade against this development. Building a commercial development on protected wetlands should never have been proposed in the first place.

“This project rejection is an important first step in protecting endangered wildlife from extinction, including the endangered eastern curlew shorebird, dependent on this precious wetland. 

“Australians expect the Environment Minister to protect endangered wildlife, and decisions like this should be the norm, not the exception. To protect our endangered wildlife long term, we need strong new environment laws that stop destruction of critical habitat once and for all.”

Queensland Greens Senator, Larissa Waters:

“Dredging 40 hectares of Ramsar-listed wetlands for a canal estate with luxury high-rise residences no one can actually afford, makes no sense, except to the private profits of mega property developers like Walker Corporation.

“The community have made their voices heard, why keep them waiting with a ‘proposed rejection’?

“We are calling on Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to finally, reject this dodgy project once and for all, and save Toondah Harbour.”

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens Spokesperson on the Arts and Chair of the Senate Inquiry into the National Cultural Policy said:

“The Albanese Government’s own Soundcheck report released today has highlighted that there is a lack of funding, grants and support available for the festivals sector from government.

“Festivals are an important part of the arts and live music ecosystem. Festivals support jobs not only for artists but also in hospitality, tourism and trades as well. 

“It is not a surprise to hear festival organisers say that extreme weather and insurance are among their biggest challenges. 

“We have known for some time that extreme weather events and climate change are making it harder and more unpredictable to put on large scale events. The first thing the Albanese Government could do to support the sector is assist in underwriting insurance for festivals. 

“I have recently written to the Minister for the Arts to ask that the Government commit to a funding and support package for festivals in the May Budget. This is not just about the big name, corporate backed festivals, but more importantly, it’s about supporting local and independent festivals.”

The Senate Inquiry into the National Cultural Policy will investigate the issues surrounding festivals at a hearing on Tuesday 16th April.