Australia politics live: ‘jobs for mates a real problem’ in parliament, Pocock says; activists paint ‘Tax Me’ on Newcastle coal ship

‘Jobs for mates is a real problem in this place’: Pocock

Independent senator David Pocock has the government on the back foot, pushing Labor to release a report it commissioned to look at “jobs for mates” appointments by politicians.

Yesterday, Pocock – with the Coalition and the Greens – passed a vote to add five non-government questions to Senate question time until minister Katy Gallagher tables the report.

And now – as we brought you a moment ago – the government is threatening to pull Coalition MPs from senior positions on House committees.

This morning, the independent ACT senator was still extremely unimpressed with the government’s behaviour, telling journos:

We’ve seen a flat-out refusal to release a document that they said would be released, that I think is really important and in the public interest.

You know, jobs for mates is a real problem in this place, and we’ve even seen that over the last couple of years … we’re ratcheting up the pressure until they release it.

Updated at 00.29 CET

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Albanese confident of Trump’s word on Aukus

Asked whether Albanese is concerned about commentary that the US won’t be able to deliver submarines to Australia under the Aukus partnership, the PM refers us to Trump’s comments last week.

I think President Trump’s comments cannot have been clearer and they were very clear last week in the White House. They have been clear ever since President Trump has made very explicit his – not just support for AUKUS – but indeed the bringing forward of the timetable if that is possible.

Albanese tight lipped on COP30 attendance

It’s not called summit season for nothing, because rolling around in just over a week is the COP30 event in Brazil.

Asked whether he’ll be attending – while Australia continues to bid to host next years’ climate summit – Albanese remains coy.

I am sometimes amused about the contradictory messages from Australian media saying I should do more international travel but when I do say I should do less. So, look, we will work out our itinerary. Australia will be represented there. Parliament is sitting next week, this is the first full week of parliament I have missed in 30 years – almost – of representation.

He reassured reporters the government does take COP “seriously”. When pushed on whether that answer was actually a “no”, he said “No, I clearly did not say that. We will work through those issues. We will make announcements at the appropriate time.”

Updated at 02.09 CET

Albanese says Xi and Trump meeting “positive development”

Speaking from South Korea at the Apec leaders’ summit, Anthony Albanese says in an era of global strategic tensions, the meeting of Donald Trump with Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the summit is “welcome”.

It comes just a couple of weeks after Albanese had a one-on-one with Trump at the White House, and met with Chinese premier, Li Qiang, in Malaysia.

More broadly, Albanese told reporters Australia wants to see “less tension in trade” and a “reduction in tension around the world”, which he said the US and China have an important role in.

We welcome the meeting of the world’s two largest most powerful countries and economies. We are optimistic about a positive outcome. I have had the opportunity now to have a discussion with President Trump, as well as with Premier Lee of China in just the last few days, and it has been an opportunity for me to engage with them.

We obviously also want to see a reduction in tension around the world, and the United States and China have an important role as the two major economies and the two major powers that exist in our region and right around the globe.

We live in an era of strategic competition but what we are seeing is really positive developments. It is a good thing that President Trump and President Xi are meeting today.

Updated at 02.10 CET

DV-related suicide to be probed in urgent inquiry

The social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, has announced a parliamentary inquiry into suicide stemming from domestic violence, following a report which called for a united approach to end the scourge.

Plibersek said the inquiry was vital to understanding the full picture of domestic violence.

She told parliament:

Experts have told us that suicide risk for victims can be amplified through feelings of entrapment, fear of the perpetrator, and the cumulative effects of violence – both during and after a relationship.

The Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission report had 31 recommendations. It recommended developing a national response to the rise of online misogyny and radicalisation, while also speeding up the establishment of standards for the National Men’s Behaviour Change Program.

In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org.

Updated at 01.57 CET

Josh Taylor

Optus awarded best network availability and reliability in network experience report

Ahead of an expected grilling by senators over last month’s triple zero outage, Optus will be buoyed up by news it has won the most awards for its mobile network coverage in the latest Opensignal mobile network experience report, including a shared win for network availability and reliability.

The Optus company sign is displayed in a store window in Sydney’s CBD. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

The telco’s executives will appear before a Senate inquiry into the outage on Monday morning, but can take heart in Opensignal awarding Optus joint winner for network availability and reliability with Vodafone, as well as overall winner in six categories covering experience of video streaming and gaming on the mobile network on both 4G and 5G.

The reliability experience measures the ability of users to connect to and complete basic tasks on the operators’ networks. Availability is not a measure of the geographic extent of a network – which Telstra would have won – but what proportion of time people have a network connection in the places they most commonly frequent.

Vodafone picked up four categories on its own, including 4G and 5G upload speeds, 5G availability and consistent quality.

Telstra won best coverage experience, and best 5G coverage experience.

Updated at 01.30 CET

Dan Jervis-Bardy

Conservationist groups speak out against ‘half arsed’ federal nature laws

Conservationist groups fear the federal government’s nature laws contain too many loopholes to properly protect the environment, with one warning there is “no point doing this half-arsed”.

The heads of Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) held a press conference in parliament house before laws to re-write the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act were introduced on Thursday morning.

The green groups are concerned the legislation does not address exemptions for native forest logging and agriculture and won’t create new requirements for the minister to consider climate change when assessing projects.

The acting chair of the ACF, Paul Sinclair, said:

These laws need to be strengthened to end deforestation. As they stand, these laws have too many loopholes. They risk more bush being put under the bulldozer. This is the biggest test the Albanese government has faced. We call on the Prime Minister to pass that test, to work with the parliament to strengthen these laws and end deforestation.”

The chief executive of Greenpeace, David Ritter, said:

There is no point doing this half-arsed. The protection of our national environment requires that the loopholes that enable the bulldozers and the chainsaws to destroy our forests are closed, and requires climate considerations to be embedded.”

Updated at 01.20 CET

Labor accused of ‘playing games’ in Senate

The government is being accused of “playing games” in the Senate this morning, as the opposition tried to debate a private senator’s bill to increase oversight over the government’s housing programs.

While speaking, Liberal senator Jane Hume was interrupted three times by government calls for quorum (ensuring that a minimum number of senators are present in the chamber). Hume claimed Labor senators were leaving the chamber to force that quorum call.

It all feeds into issues of transparency and accountability, said Hume, linking the interruptions to yesterday’s move by David Pocock, the crossbench and Coalition to put pressure on the government to release a report handed to Labor on “jobs for mates” appointments to government boards (which Labor are still refusing to do). Hume said:

Not only are they hiding, they are playing games in the chamber …

Unfortunately I keep getting disrupted, and the reason I keep getting disrupted, can I be very clear, because Labor are refusing to produce a document that we’ve requested to see for two years, they’re refusing to produce a document which ironically is a review into jobs for mates.

Updated at 01.05 CET

Environmental group paints ‘Tax Me’ on coal ship in Newcastle named Climate Justice

Nick Visser

The environmental group Rising Tide painted a large message on the side of a coal ship in Newcastle, NSW this morning: “TAX ME”.

Rising Tide said the chalk-based missive is meant to be a call on the federal government to introduce a 78% fossil fuel export profits tax, with the funds generated used to back the community and industrial transition away from fuels such as coal.

The coal ship targeted by the group is named Climate Justice. Alexa Stuart, a spokesperson for Rising Tide, said in a statement:

It is laughable that a coal ship is called “Climate Justice” …

Real climate justice is about heeding the dire scientific warnings, and committing to an urgent and just transition for coal workers and communities. We’re demanding a 78% tax on coal export profits to do exactly that.

This morning in Muloobinba/Newcastle, members of Rising Tide painted ‘TAX ME’ on a coal ship named Climate Justice. Photograph: Rising Tide

Despite major profits, coal companies regularly pay low rates of tax.

Crossbench MPs also recently revived calls for a mining rent tax amid the country’s potential critical minerals boom. Independent MP David Pocock recently said Australia’s natural resources belong “to all of us, and if they’re going to be exploited, then we need to get a fair cut of that”.

Updated at 00.50 CET

Tony Burke introduces Labor’s nature bill

Tony Burke is introducing Labor’s bill for the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) in the House now.

The leader of the house starts by saying, “Labor is the party of the environment.”

Why isn’t the environment minister, Murray Watt, introducing the bill? He’s a senator – and the bill is being introduced in the House – but Watt is sitting in the House while it’s introduced. Burke is a former environment minister himself.

Our environment laws are broken. They’re not working for the environment, for business, for the economy or for the community. That was a clear assessment delivered by Prof Graeme Samuel when he handed down his independent review [EPBC] Act, a review that was delivered five years ago today.

This package of bills remains faithful to our commitment to follow the spirit of the Samuel review. In reforming this legislation, in crafting these reforms, we’ve looked into three pillars, firstly, stronger environmental protection and restoration … Secondly, more efficient and robust project assessments and approvals … and finally, greater accountability and transparency in decision making.

Labor still hasn’t secured itself a path to pass this through the Senate.

Tony Burke in the House of Representatives at parliament house on Tuesday. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare

Updated at 01.22 CET

Shadow finance minister warns Australia could face ‘stagflation’

Looping back to James Paterson on Sky News a little earlier, the shadow finance minister warned that if current inflation trends persist, and unemployment keeps ticking up, Australia could face “stagflation”.

We’re not there yet, he said, but he’s “not convince” the government can turn it around.

Yesterday’s figures showed inflation jumped to 3.2% in the year to September, from 2.1% in June – just over the Reserve Bank’s target inflation range of 2-3%.

The treasurer said yesterday that underlying inflation is still within that range, but Paterson was sceptical.

“Still within the target range” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. It’s at the top of the target range. It is at 3%. The RBA wants it to be at 2.5% …

And if these trends continue, then the annual rate of inflation will be closer to 4% than 3%. And we’ll have a really disastrous situation on our books … we also have increasing unemployment in this country. Unemployment is ticking up, and inflation is ticking up. Now, the last time that happened in a sustained way was in the 1970s. It created a phenomenon called stagflation, and that was utter economic misery for Australians. Now we’re not there yet, and I hope we don’t get there, but I’m not convinced that this government has a plan to turn that around.

Updated at 00.30 CET

Caitlin Cassidy

Australia and China at start of ‘exciting new education chapter’, Universities Australia chair says

Universities Australia chair, Prof. Carolyn Evans, says China and Australia are at the start of an “exciting new education chapter” as she concludes a trip to the Asian superpower.

Delivering a keynote speech at the 2025 China Annual Conference and Expo for International Education, Evans pressed that Australia and China must expand their partnership on research and student flows:

Our countries, China and Australia, have much to gain by expanding cross-sector partnerships in areas from food security to global health to the transition to net zero.

We must encourage the flow of students between our countries, including short-term exchanges and internships … We must expand joint research … And we must share innovation ecosystems when appropriate, bringing together universities, start-ups and industry across both nations to create shared hubs of creativity and entrepreneurship.

A delegation of vice chancellors, senior university leaders and Universities Australia representatives have been in China this week to strengthen ties amid improved diplomatic relations as part of the inaugural Australia-China University Leaders Dialogue.

Also on Wednesday, Universities Australia and the China Education Association for International Exchange renewed a longstanding memorandum of understanding for shared policy objectives and increased engagement.

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