Australia news live: Chinese surveillance ‘won’t be unexpected’ as Talisman Sabre war games begin, Conroy says; Queensland premier announces CFMEU inquiry | Australian politics
Key events
Tom McIlroy
Lemahieu added that while India was recognised an “anchor” for strategic balance, Australia’s academic community was playing catch up on the rapid evolution of the bilateral relationship.
He said India was often understood through the prism of the Quad security partnership, which also includes Japan and the United States.
But India sits at the crossroads of a lot of the chop and change in the global order and I think the understanding of that is what can be underdone sometimes in Australia.
For more, read on this story, read Daniel Filton’s analysis on the Australian-Indian relationship:
Tom McIlroy
Foreign minister, Penny Wong said Labor would fund a global search for the new chair through the Maitri Grants program, administered by the Centre for Australia-India Relations.
We are deepening cooperation across priority sectors that are vital to both nations’ futures, including in defence, trade, education, and technology.
In an increasingly complex Indo-Pacific, our countries’ alignment on regional priorities continues to grow, while our cooperation is essential to ensuring lasting peace and stability for the region.
The establishment of the Lowy Institute’s first India chair reflects this importance; it will be an asset to Australia’s foreign policy landscape, developing research, informing policy, and strengthening debate within the sector.
Lowy’s director of research, Herve Lemahieu, told Guardian Australia the appointment was a significant investment in the organisation’s global reach.
It elevates India, and South Asia more broadly, in terms of our research agenda and brings in new talent, more depth and a deeper bench on a vital piece of the puzzle in terms of understanding the future of the regional order.
It also elevates our understanding of the role India will play globally in coming years.
Tom McIlroy
Australia funding new Lowy Institute expert position on India
The federal government will boost Australia’s foreign policy and academic ties with India, helping fund a new thinktank position to lead research on the global power.
The Lowy Institute will name its first India chair in coming months, appointing a distinguished scholar to study the country’s growing influence, focusing on relations with Australia, China and the United States, and changing dynamics in the Indian Ocean region.
The government’s strategy for economic engagement with India, released earlier this year, said the country was adding the equivalent of the New Zealand economy to its national GDP each year.
India’s economy is on track to be the world’s third largest by 2030. With a population of more than 1.4 billion people, it is among Australia’s top five trading partners and is the country’s largest source of skilled migrants.
Nearly 1 million Australians have Indian ancestry, and more than 15,000 Australians live in India.
But despite its size and influence, India has long been considered a missing piece of Australia’s foreign policy academic landscape, and support for the new appointment will assist creation of a new program of work to progress Australia’s national interests.
Second person dies after Melbourne playground car crash
A second person has died after a car struck three people when it crashed through a playground in Melbourne’s east on Thursday.
Victoria police confirmed a 60-year-old man died in hospital on Saturday. He had been critically injured in a stable condition.
A 59-year-old woman died at the scene. A two-year-old boy was also struck and received non-life-threatening injuries.
It is believed the 91-year-old driver of a Toyota Yaris lost control at about 12.20pm, striking three people before driving through a fence, with the car stopped against a park bench.
Police have opened an investigation into the incident.
Nats leader supports alcohol labelling overhaul to highlight cancer risk
Littleproud said he would be supportive of a proposal by the Cancer Council to overhaul alcohol packaging to highlight the link between alcohol and cancer. The Nationals leader said he didn’t link alcohol consumption with cancer risk at all.
With so many youngsters now drinking a little bit earlier than perhaps people did in the past, I think they’ve got to understand the dangers, rather than just the feeling they’re going to get when they have a few beers or they start something, to actually realise that it’s damaging their body and it’s poison going in, and you need to make sure you do these things in the right manner.
So the best way is to educate. It is to chuck it on the label and then obviously have these conversations at home with Mum and Dad talking about it with their kids.
Rates of alcohol consumption by young people have fallen sharply over the last decade.
In 2001, more than two-thirds – 70% – of young people in Australia aged between 14 and 17 had consumed alcohol in the past year, according to the 2022-2023 National Drug Strategy Household Survey.
This figure has been dropping in recent years, with only about a third of young people consuming alcohol within the last year, a trend that has been replicated internationally.
Littleproud disappointed PM is in China but ‘hasn’t been to see Trump’
Littleproud said it was “disappointing” that Anthony Albanese had secured a meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, but “hasn’t been to see President Trump”.
Australian officials have been lobbying to secure a meeting with the US president, with the prime minister previously having locked in a meeting with Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Canada.
That meeting was abruptly cancelled when Trump left early to respond to an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, a situation that culminated with US strikes on an Iranian nuclear facility.
I think it’s not just China that he needs to visit. It’s President Trump that he needs to be sitting down with as well, but an important visit nonetheless, one he should do. We’re not begrudging him that. We hope there’s progressive trade talks.
Littleproud said Albanese needed to have “the tough conversations” with China over its human rights record and the security situation in our region.
China is Australia’s biggest trading partner.
‘Has to be a real penalty’ for machetes – Littleproud
The alleged shooting of an armed Mount Druitt man in the car park of a shopping centre by police on Saturday is a sign of “the degradation of society”, the federal National party leader, David Littleproud, has said.
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Littleproud said it was the sixth incident of violence at a shopping centre, suggesting there needed to be a Victorian-style ban on machetes.
Littleproud said “there has to be a real penalty for it” and that “we need to have a deterrent, have a consequence for doing the wrong thing”.
I think this starts at home, and it starts with respect, respect to the institutions. And I think as parents, we’ve got to instil that and where, sadly, there’s homes that don’t have the stability, that’s where the state needs to step in.
But we can’t abrogate all our responsibility to the states as parents. We’ve got to do the right thing in building that respect to the institutions, from teachers right through to police. And I think that makes us a stronger society, and believing in those institutions will protect us, serve us and make sure that it keeps us safe into the future.
The Nationals leader appeared to suggest the incident involved an attack with a machete on shoppers at the shopping centre, saying that he, personally, thought about the risk of an attack when going to a shopping centre.
Littleproud was speaking before a New South Wales police press conference this morning that clarified that police were responding to a separate brawl between two groups of women in Mount Druitt.
A 29-year-old man, the partner of a woman involved in the fight, arrived at the scene where he interacted with police, before returning to his car to retrieve a machete and advancing on a group of women who had been involved in the fight. Police officers placed themselves between the man and the women when they allegedly shot him.
Queensland premier announces inquiry into state’s CFMEU
Joe Hinchliffe
The Queensland premier is announcing a commission of inquiry into the state branch of the CFMEU this morning on the back of an investigation that found the embattled union “embraced a culture which encouraged and celebrated the use of threats of violence, intimidation, misogyny and bullying”.
David Crisafulli is fronting the press after dropping news of the “royal commission-style inquiry” into the Queensland Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) to the Courier Mail on Sunday, which he said would have the power to compel union officials to give evidence and provide witness protection.
The Centre for Public Integrity senior counsel Geoffrey Watson’s report into the Queensland CFMEU was released on Wednesday night and immediately referred to the Queensland police by the state’s governing Liberal National party.
Is Australia’s bloated property market destroying the middle class?
Ross Hamilton spends his work days in a laboratory developing treatments for fibrosis. At home, he sets aside as much time as possible to be with his partner, their four-year-old daughter and their baby boy, who was born just a few weeks ago.
The 43-year-old is well educated, works in a cutting-edge industry and is part of a dual-income household. But despite this, the couple cannot afford a family home anywhere near his Sydney workplace or prospective schools as property prices increase at a faster pace than the family can save for a deposit.
“It’s just capitalism gone crazy. A house is no longer a domicile. It’s an investment, and it’s pushed people out who just happened to be born later. That’s all it is,” says Hamilton.
There’s a huge population now that had a bit of wealth years ago, and they bought property, and then it’s gone up dramatically since then.
I don’t blame the players. I blame the game.
For more on this story, read the full feature by the Guardian Australia’s Jonathan Barrett:
Conroy: ‘Our view is a two-state solution’
To close the interview, Conroy is asked about the report by the antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, and specifically what would qualify as anti-Semitism under these proposals.
Karvelas: Do you consider a view, which is that Israel shouldn’t exist, it should be one state, for instance, with equal rights? That’s a lot of the protest movement’s call for instance. Is that antisemitic, that view?
Conroy: Well, like all Australians, I’ve been appalled about the rise of antisemitism since 7 October, and that’s why we’ve taken a huge range of actions that you know about regarding the Segal report. We’ve welcomed it and we’ll consider it and come back with our response.
Karvelas: But on the question specifically that I put to you, do you consider the view that Israel shouldn’t exist to be antisemitic?
Conroy: Well, we support the international Holocaust memorial’s definition of antisemitism. Our position on Israel is there should be a two-state solution with both states …
Karvelas: That’s your view but protesters might say something different. Do you think it’s their right and that’s not antisemitic?
Conroy: Well, we’ve made the point that you can have views about the Middle East without resorting to racist language and our view is a two-state solution with two states, with civilians’ rights being protected.
Karvelas: Is it racist to call for one state?
Conroy: I’m not a lawyer. I won’t get into that. Our position is there should be two states. We support the international Holocaust memorial’s definition of antisemitism and people can have a view about the Middle East conflict without resorting to racist language.
Conroy appears to be referring to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. This is a non-legally binding definition that includes several examples intended to illustrate how it should be applied. This definition has been criticised by some for being vague, poorly drafted and geared towards suppressing criticism of the Israeli government. A number of examples suggest criticism of the state of Israel is antisemitism.
Australia, under the Morrison government, adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in October 2021.
Australia won’t make changes to PBS over US tariffs, Conroy reiterates
Asked whether he has been briefed on the Pentagon’s report “yet”, Conroy says “there’s lots of speculation” about its publication and that “we’re engaging at senior levels, as you would expect us to do, and we’ll continue to do that”.
Conroy says the Australian government has increased defence spending to $57bn “above the previous trajectory”, and that may be open to further spending “if a case is made for more capability”.
Asked whether there has been any clarity on US tariffs being imposed on pharmaceuticals, Conroy says the government will “keep engaging” with the US, as “there are questions about timelines”.
We’ve been clear that we won’t be sacrificing or making changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme or other policies. We’ll always act in our national interest and always argue that these tariffs are not a friendly act and they’re an act of economic self-harm to the United States.
Asked whether it is “not a friendly act to get an answer back when you ask for it”, Conroy says:
We’ll keep pushing for that information.
Conroy ‘confident’ Pentagon review will ‘support Aukus’
Asked about Aukus and what the US may be looking for out of Australia to “demonstrate our own readiness”, Conroy says that “work is under way”, with the Australian government having “invested billions of dollars” to upgrade the facility where Australia’s submarine fleet is based and where US submarines are likely to visit. A second facility, the Henderson maritime precinct, is a facility that would provide maintenance on submarines when they are received.
Work is going well at HMAS Stirling. We had a US submarine dock there last week and received some maintenance. We’ve had successful maintenance activities of US submarines and, importantly, that facility at HMAS Stirling will contribute 1,800 maintenance days over the five years of service, which is 1,800 maintenance days that the US won’t be needed to give in their own maintenance spaces.
Henderson is going through a consolidation process but, again, that is not required until the 2030s and late into the 2030s, when we need to maintain our Virginia-class submarines. HMAS Stirling is the immediate activity and that’s where we’re investing billions of dollars right now.
Asked about a Pentagon report examining the Aukus deal that is expect to be released this week and the possibility the US may seek to impose additional costs on Australia, Conroy declines to comment.
I’m not going to speculate about hypotheticals.
Asked about the government’s comments that “there is no plan B” to Aukus, and whether Australia is prepared to spend more, Conroy says:
Let’s see what the review finds. I’m confident it will support Aukus just as our review of Aukus found that, just as the UK review of Aukus found that. It’s in the national interest of all three countries. It will contribute to deterrence as well as grow 20,000 jobs in Australia.
Let’s see what the US review comes forward with and then we’ll react accordingly but we are investing in the US industrial base to release submarines, just as we’re investing $30bn in our own base to build nuclear-powered but conventionally armed submarines and grow 20,000 jobs.
China spying on Talisman Sabre war games ‘won’t be unexpected’
Conroy says it “won’t be unexpected” if the Chinese military surveils Australia’s Talisman Sabre military exercises, saying that “we’re always cognisant that they’re being observed by people who want to collect information about how we work with our allies”. But he added that there is no indication that China has been observing preparations that begin today.
It would be unusual for them not to observe it and we will adjust accordingly.
Asked what that meant, Conroy says:
Well, it means that we’ll obviously observe their activities and monitor their presence around Australia but we’ll also adjust how we conduct thousands [of] exercises. People observe these exercises to collect intelligence around procedures, around the electronic spectrum and the use of communications, and we’ll adjust accordingly so that we manage that leakage.
Talisman Sabre is a joint military exercise with the US that involves 30,000 personnel from 19 countries.
The Chinese military have observed these exercises since 2017 and it would be very unusual if they didn’t do that this time.
