Source : the age
Thank you for following our national news live blog on Monday, August 17.
Here’s what is making headlines today.
- The Albanese government’s gun buyback scheme adopted by NSW Premier Chris Minns yesterday won’t stop the “next Bondi”, the state’s opposition leader has warned, joining the swath of Coalition and One Nation MPs raising alarm about the scheme. Kellie Sloane, who represents Sydney’s eastern suburbs and one of the first to Bondi after the December attack, said the “real enemy” was terror and hate, rather than guns. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has also opposed the measure.
- Australian voters have condemned the Albanese government’s handling of immigration policy, with 54 per cent agreeing the government is running the portfolio in an “unplanned and unmanaged way”, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor. However, 60 per cent of voters like falling house prices, while concern about the cost of living has fallen to the lowest level since February 2023.
- One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce says he will “absolutely” not attend Mardi Gras, one day after party leader Pauline Hanson doubled down on decades-old comments in which she said she “didn’t like” the LGBTQIA+ event, saying that sexuality should be kept “behind closed doors”. It follows Joyce’s claim that One Nation was “one of the gayest parties in Australia”. He sidestepped a question on whether he supported the Mardi Gras event more generally.
- Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia overnight in an attack that killed at least six people, marking Kyiv’s latest attack in a ramp-up of efforts against Russia this year. Long-range missiles and drones swarmed military industries, energy facilities and retail warehouses across Russia, bringing the war home to the Russian public nearly 4½ years into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Former public service commissioner Dr Gordon de Brouwer will take on the leadership of the Australian National University after embattled chancellor Julie Bishop stepped down in June.
The institution announced the appointment of de Brouwer, a public servant, economist and ANU alumnus, this morning.
In a statement, de Brouwer said he was committed to “helping ANU build confidence in its future, with strong governance, a compelling shared strategy and a culture in which our people can do their best work”.
“The university has an important role to play at a time of profound social, economic, technological and geopolitical change. ANU should continue to be a trusted national institution and a leading voice on the issues that will shape Australia’s future,” he said.
“I look forward to being active and present across the university, listening to our students and staff and working with Council, the Interim Vice-Chancellor and the broader ANU community to ensure the university delivers on its national mission.”
Bishop’s tenure was defined by controversy, including bullying allegations and accusations of financial mismanagement.
US President Donald Trump has instructed the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” 10 days of joint military exercises with South Korea as they were about to get under way, citing the cost of the drills and Seoul’s refusal to take part in actions against Iran.
Hours before exercises were scheduled to begin, Trump said on his Truth Social site that although it was too late to cancel the drills entirely, he was “not happy” that the US had previously agreed to participate and highlighted his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“These exercises are not only costly … but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Trump wrote.
The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises are scheduled to run from August 17 to 27, with about 18,000 South Korean military personnel participating. The drills are expected to include operations to counter drones, disrupt GPS signals and cyberattacks to adapt to North Korea’s evolving capabilities, officials said last week.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has responded to polling from this masthead finding that 60 per cent of voters have welcomed falling housing prices, saying that Australians understand that “for too long” the tax system has worked against housing affordability rather than supported it.
The Resolve Political Monitor also observed Australian voters marking down the Albanese government for its handling of immigration policy, with 54 per cent agreeing the government is running the portfolio in an “unplanned and unmanaged way”. Concern about the cost of living has fallen to the lowest level since February 2023, according to the poll.
Chalmers was asked this morning about data suggesting that Australians were embracing falling housing prices, following negative gearing and capital gains changes announced in the budget. This was what he said:
We don’t need an opinion poll to tell us that there are very substantial challenges in housing, and that’s why we are taking politically difficult steps to address those challenges, which have locked out too many young Australians for too long. I also believe that when you go beyond the misinformation and disinformation and clickbait and B-grade partisan campaigns being run against the government’s sensible tax reforms, Australians understand there is a huge generational challenge in housing, and the tax system for too long has been part of the problem rather than part of the solution …
So, we don’t need an opinion poll to tell us that there are issues in housing. We’re not targeting a particular price outcome or percentage outcome. Our goal here is to make sure that there are more affordable options for more people, particularly young people and first home buyers, in communities right around Australia. And that’s what we’re seeing.
The Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 2325 people, new government data showed, surpassing the toll from the 2018-2020 outbreak to become the deadliest in the country’s history.
DR Congo’s public health institute said overnight that confirmed cases had risen to 4945, including 101 new cases detected in the previous 24 hours.
The outbreak, the country’s 17th, was already the biggest in terms of number of cases – a milestone reached in late July. The 2018-2020 outbreak resulted in 2299 deaths recorded.
Three months after it was formally announced, the outbreak is now dwarfed only by West Africa’s in 2014-2016 in which 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths were recorded across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organisation.
It took nearly five months from the declaration of that outbreak to hit 1000 deaths, whereas DR Congo’s current outbreak hit 2000 deaths in less than three months.
Reuters
San Francisco: Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed US attorney-general, has refused to say that his Justice Department would always act independently of President Donald Trump’s White House.
“There’s a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigate any case, and act independently of the White House,” Blanche said when pressed to pledge his independence by NBC’s Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker this morning.
“No, I’m not going to pledge that, and no attorney-general should ever pledge that,” he said, adding that he would act with integrity and “prosecute without fear or any sort of favour”.
Blanche also said he backed Washington prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, who was criticised by Trump for the way she handled a case of alleged vandalism at the renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
In a court filing asking for the dismissal of a key case, Pirro blamed the peeling issues on “flawed” work by a contractor.
Blanche said he did not fault Trump for being frustrated, adding that a witness said they observed vandalism.
“That’s different than whether ultimately we have the proof … I think judging her on a single case because of the evidence that we had is not fair,” he said.
The White House has asked the Justice Department to examine potential new charges related to the alleged vandalism.
Reuters
National Australia Bank chief executive Andrew Irvine says higher interest rates, the government’s housing tax changes, and fallout from the war in Iran are creating “challenges and uncertainties” for the bank’s clients, after it reported a $1.9 billion profit for the June quarter.
The bank said today that its unaudited profits of $1.9 billion for the quarter had increased by 32 per cent compared with the average for the March half, when its profits were dragged sharply lower by accounting changes.
Irvine said that excluding the impact of large notable items from the previous half, its profits were up 2 per cent, and this was mainly because of lower charges for bad loans.
Irvine, who runs the country’s biggest business bank, said business lending growth was “robust” but there had been an uptick in “watch loans”, which are loans that are performing but being watched for signs of customer stress.
“The combined impacts of the Middle East conflict, higher domestic interest rates and recent tax changes in the Federal Budget are creating challenges and uncertainties for our customers. While the ratio of non-performing loans declined over [the third quarter], watch loans were higher reflecting current and potential stress impacting performing customers,” Irvine said.
NAB had previously disclosed the rise in watch loans – currently at the same level as last September – in a market update last month.
Like rivals, NAB reported a sharp slowdown in mortgage applications since the government moved to rein in tax concessions for property investors. Last month it said mortgage applications were down 15 per cent in the June quarter compared with the March quarter. Today’s update repeated this.
Ferrari’s first all-electric vehicle defied criticism to sell for $US40 million ($56.5 million), making it the most expensive new car ever sold at auction.
The Sotheby’s charity auction of the Luce “tailor made” at Monterey Car Week in California broke a record posted last year, when Ferrari’s customised Daytona SP3 sold for $US26 million, the carmaker said in a statement.
Ferrari unveiled the Luce, priced at €550,000 ($897,880) in May to a wave of criticism and decline in the company’s share price. The vehicle marks a break from Ferrari’s heritage of combustion-engine sports cars.
“Tailor made” cars are one-of-a-kind vehicles customised to a buyer’s precise specifications.
The model was designed with LoveFrom, the studio founded by Jony Ive, Apple’s former design chief and a key figure behind the iPhone and iMac. The car combines more than 1000 horsepower with four doors.
Bloomberg
Sam Pang is still figuring out where to put his gold Logie after winning Australian TV’s top prize last night.
Reiterating the sentiments in his acceptance speech that he did not expect to win the gong, Pang jokingly told ABC Melbourne Radio this morning that he didn’t even have a mantelpiece on which to place the award.
“I hadn’t thought about winning,” Pang said. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’ll put it on the … I don’t even know if I have [had] a mantelpiece since I was a child’.”
Asked by presenter Richelle Hunt whether hosting the previous three years of the Logies had held him back from winning the top award, Pang laughed, saying it was an “interesting theory”, and gushed about Robert Irwin’s performance as this year’s host.
“I had a ball hosting the last three years. I couldn’t imagine being nominated and hosting like Bob did last night, but he did a wonderful job as host,” he said.
Pang, who is known for his biting humour, said the amount of sincerity in his speech was a little “mortifying” and that he got caught up in the moment. “I watched a lot of television,” he said of his younger years, “but I didn’t think I’d be on telly”.
“I’m very proud to be part of it. I’m very lucky [to be] part of what I do.”
Cairo: Donald Trump’s envoys met with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo overnight, a diplomatic source said, aiming to advance the US president’s Gaza peace plan.
Hamas officials were present at some of the meetings that mediators held with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, the diplomat said.
A senior Israeli official said Kushner and Mladenov were scheduled to meet today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on August 9 said Trump’s latest road map for peace in Gaza was “unacceptable”.
Trump’s peace plan calls for the immediate cessation of military operations in Gaza. It foresees Hamas disarming as Israeli troops withdraw from the enclave while Gaza is rebuilt under a new civilian Palestinian administration.
Hamas said it had agreed to the plan to avoid a resumption of the conflict, but added that it would depend on Israel first meeting its own commitments, including halting attacks. Israel has resumed airstrikes in the past few days after scaling back its attacks in Gaza.
Overnight, five Arab countries and Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia condemned Israel’s rejection of the plan, saying it threatened Trump’s efforts to end the war.
A spokesperson for Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the joint statement. His Likud party, which has been struggling in the polls ahead of an October 27 national election, said in a post on X that the Arab countries wanted to topple Netanyahu so that his political rivals would “give them everything that they want”.
Reuters
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has railed against the NSW gun buyback, which Labor is forging ahead with after the Bondi Beach massacre last year.
“The farmers were not the criminals of Bondi,” Joyce told 2GB Sydney.
“I’m a gun owner, so I declare my interest. We don’t want to be treated like criminals for a crime we never committed, and taking rifles off people and guns off people who’ve done nothing but gone out with their sons or their daughters to go out shooting in the countryside to put their feet on the land. You can’t love your country if you’re not allowed to walk on it, and this is one of our great recreational pursuits in this nation, and we don’t want to be hounded.”
NSW has been the only state to join a planned national scheme that will force about 50,000 licence holders to surrender firearms, as part of a deal that splits the cost of the plan with the federal government.
