source : the age
Hello and welcome to our national news live blog for Friday, August 21. Here’s what is making news today.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has conceded for the first time that his decision to participate in a podcast episode with comedian Nikki Osborne on her show Bush Deep in July was an error. Speaking to ABC’s 7.30 last night, Albanese said: “If I had my time again, which you don’t, then I wouldn’t have done that podcast.”
- Foreign Minister Penny Wong has expressed her “outrage” at Israel’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against the soldiers who launched a fatal strike on Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and six of her colleagues in Gaza. Yesterday, Israeli ambassador Hillel Newman was hauled before Wong to explain how Israel had reached the decision. Albanese vowed that the government would continue to demand justice for Frankcom and her family.
- Labor’s News Bargaining Incentive, which will tax social media giants who do not strike deals with news companies, passed the Senate yesterday. Digital platforms will now have to pay a 2.5 per cent levy on their digital advertising revenue if they do not strike deals with Australian news outlets for their journalism.
- And the woman at the centre of an allegation of sexual violence that occurred while she was inside a Melbourne hotel room with a group of Sydney Swans players has spoken publicly. The woman reportedly told the Herald Sun: “I don’t want money. All I care about is justice.” Swans star Isaac Heeney is the focus of the investigation by Victoria Police’s sexual crimes squad. It involves an allegation of touching beyond what was agreed.
Health Minister Mark Butler has defended Anthony Albanese after the prime minister’s latest apology over a controversial podcast appearance in which he made a suggestive gesture while talking about crown melons gifted by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and nominated Kylie Minogue for “all of the above” in a game of “marry, date, shag”.
Albanese issued the apology on ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday: “If I had my time again, which you don’t, then I wouldn’t have done that podcast,” he said.
“We have a view which is trying to talk to as many people as possible, but clearly, that was an error.”
Butler rushed to the defence of Albanese, who has faced weeks of criticism for the remarks on the Bush Deep podcast.
“Last night what he did was indicate that although he has tried to use all the forms of communication to speak to as many people as possible, he recognises he got that one wrong,” Butler told Seven’s Sunrise moments ago.
“I think that’s what Australians want from their leaders, whether they’re political, business, football leaders. When they get things wrong, admit it, and he did.”
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy says the prime minister made a mistake by agreeing to participate in a widely criticised podcast with comedian Nikki Osborne in July, but that it is not a concern for everyday Australians.
“Well, the prime minister has made it clear that he regrets doing the show, and he’s human like everyone else … ultimately, he said what he said,” Conroy told the Today show this morning.
“The Australian people want to focus on what the Australian government is doing to help them, whether it’s cost of living, investing in healthcare, from the range of services they expect governments to deliver. They’ll judge us on that.”
Conroy’s remarks come after Anthony Albanese told ABC’s 7.30 last night that his decision to appear on Osborne’s show Bush Deep was an “error”.
Russian airstrikes killed 17 people and injured more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region on Thursday (Kyiv time) as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a failure by Ukraine’s allies to replenish its stock of air defence missiles was costing lives.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles, as well as ballistic and hypersonic ones, and 168 drones in a massive overnight attack.
The air force said that nearly 90 per cent of the drones and most of the cruise missiles were downed. It did not specify whether any of the more deadly ballistic missiles were intercepted, having said last week that providing such information was giving Russia cause to celebrate.
Zelensky called the strike one of the most “cynical, calculated and large-scale” of the 4½-year war.
The upper floors of a nine-storey residential block were destroyed in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, where at least eight people were killed, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He declared Friday a day of mourning.
Reuters
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says it was an error to make an appearance on a podcast episode that led to weeks of criticism.
“If I had my time again, which you don’t, then I wouldn’t have done that podcast,” Albanese told ABC’s 7.30 last night.
“We have a view which is trying to talk to as many people as possible, but clearly, that was an error,” Albanese said.
The prime minister’s appearance opposite Nikki Osborne on an episode of the Bush Deep podcast, which aired in early July, spawned some uproars.
Hello and welcome to our national news live blog for Friday, August 21. Here’s what is making news today.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has conceded for the first time that his decision to participate in a podcast episode with comedian Nikki Osborne on her show Bush Deep in July was an error. Speaking to ABC’s 7.30 last night, Albanese said: “If I had my time again, which you don’t, then I wouldn’t have done that podcast.”
- Foreign Minister Penny Wong has expressed her “outrage” at Israel’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against the soldiers who launched a fatal strike on Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and six of her colleagues in Gaza. Yesterday, Israeli ambassador Hillel Newman was hauled before Wong to explain how Israel had reached the decision. Albanese vowed that the government would continue to demand justice for Frankcom and her family.
- Labor’s News Bargaining Incentive, which will tax social media giants who do not strike deals with news companies, passed the Senate yesterday. Digital platforms will now have to pay a 2.5 per cent levy on their digital advertising revenue if they do not strike deals with Australian news outlets for their journalism.
- And the woman at the centre of an allegation of sexual violence that occurred while she was inside a Melbourne hotel room with a group of Sydney Swans players has spoken publicly. The woman reportedly told the Herald Sun: “I don’t want money. All I care about is justice.” Swans star Isaac Heeney is the focus of the investigation by Victoria Police’s sexual crimes squad. It involves an allegation of touching beyond what was agreed.
