source : the age
Thank you for following our national news live blog for Monday, August 17.
Here’s what is making headlines today.
- 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 liked falling house prices, while concern about the cost of living has fallen to the lowest level since February 2023.
- One Nation has signalled its staunch opposition to the national gun buyback scheme sparked by the Bondi massacre, after NSW became the first state to join the initiative after striking a deal with the federal government on Sunday. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson it was the “people behind the guns” responsible for acts of terror, rather than the “law-abiding Australians who are trying to go about their business”.
- Sam Pang has won the Gold Logie for the most popular person on Australian TV, in a glittering ceremony held in Sydney on Sunday night. Pang was presented the award by a tattered and torn Sharon Strzelecki – Magda Szubanski in her first public appearance since her prolonged cancer battle – dressed in Australia Zoo fatigues, taking inspiration from Logies host Robert Irwin.
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.
NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane has warned the gun buyback scheme adopted by Premier Chris Minns yesterday will not prevent the “next Bondi”, as she lay the foundations for a showdown on the issue at the March state election.
The national buyback scheme will force about 50,000 licence holders to surrender firearms under a deal that will split the costs between the state and federal governments. NSW is the only state to have adopted the initiative, after striking a deal with the Albanese government at the weekend.
Sloane, whose electorate takes in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and was one of the first to Bondi after the attack on a Hanukkah event in December, called the buyback “half-baked” and a “very expensive solution to the wrong problem”.
“We need to be very clear-eyed about who the real enemy is,” she told Seven’s Sunrise moments ago.
A former Albanese government adviser has called for a cap on population growth to generate renewed confidence in Australia’s migration program.
Labor is preparing a far-reaching plan to bring down Australia’s net overseas migration rate from 300,000 to about 220,000 while both the opposition and One Nation are regularly talking about the hot-button issue of migration and its interaction with the cost of living.
Henry Sherrell, who worked for former immigration minister Andrew Giles, used an essay to call for a ceiling of 1 per cent population growth per year, falling below the rate when the economy was in a downturn.
Sherell noted that Australia’s population growth has been higher than seven peer democracies – including the US, Canada and New Zealand – this century. Net overseas migration soared to its highest on record after borders reopened post-pandemic, during which immigration growth was negative.
Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume has called Labor’s national gun buyback scheme a “kneejerk” response adopted by the Albanese government in a “fit of panic” after the Bondi massacre, when legally sourced guns were used to open fire on a Hanukkah event in December.
NSW became the first state to join the buyback scheme yesterday, after striking a cost-sharing deal with the federal government. One Nation staunchly opposes the initiative. Premier Chris Minns signalled he was prepared to fight the March state election over the scheme.
Hume told News24 that the Labor scheme risks “punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty”.
“We were all shocked to find out that the Bondi terrorists were licensed gun owners, but now the government’s response is punishing recreational shooters and sportsmen,” she said moments ago.
The Nationals are expected to table legislation in federal parliament this week amid concerns the scheme could undermine the use of firearms for legitimate purposes by legal owners, such as farmers. Hume signalled her support for the junior Coalition partner’s bill.
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, telling News24 that sexuality should be kept “behind closed doors”.
“You can absolutely bet I would not go to the Mardi Gras. But that’s my business, and we just want you to live your own life, but it’s your life. It’s not so much as something that other people have to stop the traffic for,” Joyce told Seven’s Sunrise moments ago.
It follows Joyce’s claim last week that One Nation was “one of the gayest parties in Australia”. He sidestepped a question probing whether he supported the Mardi Gras event, saying it wasn’t something he was involved in or had an opinion on.
He was joined on-air by Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek, who said Mardi Gras was a “really great opportunity to celebrate what’s fantastic about Sydney”.
Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia overnight, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war.
Kyiv has stepped up its attacks on Russia this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones targeting military industries, energy facilities and retail warehouses. Those attacks have brought the war home to the Russian public nearly 4½ years into Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Some 600 drones were detected heading towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with a third of those destroyed over the Moscow region itself.
Meanwhile, Ukraine came under Russian attack, with drone strikes destroying homes and torching Kyiv’s landmark book market.
A Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih killed two people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on Sunday. He also said that one more person had been killed in the city of Sumy.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had also targeted several sites in Kyiv, including a manufacturing facility for Ukraine’s Flamingo missiles.
The domestically produced missiles are increasingly key to Ukraine’s long-range attacks on Russia.
AP
London: The BBC asked a US court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of President Donald Trump’s family in connection with his $US10 billion ($14 billion) defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed.
Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr have “personal knowledge” and likely have records relevant to elements of Trump’s claims against the broadcaster. The broadcaster has been unable to serve subpoenas because the three have Secret Service protection, the court filing says.
The president filed the lawsuit in December, accusing the BBC of defamation and deceptive and unfair trade practices. The allegations centre on the way a 2024 documentary edited a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington.
The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts” of Trump’s speech to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what [he] said” and that the editing was “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 election.
The BBC apologised to Trump for the misleading edit, but said it had not defamed him.
The latest court filing said that Trump’s family members had knowledge relevant to Trump’s argument “that it would be materially false to imply that he incited violence”. The BBC asked the court to allow the subpoenas to be served by email and certified mail.
Trump’s legal team said “the BBC is seeking to harass [Donald Trump], his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process”. A trial has been provisionally set for February.
AP
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” even as Labor prepares to unveil in the next fortnight tougher rules on visa overstayers and dodgy asylum claims.
But the government will be buoyed by 60 per cent of voters supporting lower house prices, while nearly twice as many people back Labor’s changes to the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing as oppose them, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor.
Concern about the cost of living has fallen significantly, by 9 points to 36 per cent, the lowest level since February 2023, though the issue still remains voters’ No.1 concern by a considerable margin.
Thank you for following our national news live blog for Monday, August 17.
Here’s what is making headlines today.
- 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 liked falling house prices, while concern about the cost of living has fallen to the lowest level since February 2023.
- One Nation has signalled its staunch opposition to the national gun buyback scheme sparked by the Bondi massacre, after NSW became the first state to join the initiative after striking a deal with the federal government on Sunday. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson it was the “people behind the guns” responsible for acts of terror, rather than the “law-abiding Australians who are trying to go about their business”.
- Sam Pang has won the Gold Logie for the most popular person on Australian TV, in a glittering ceremony held in Sydney on Sunday night. Pang was presented the award by a tattered and torn Sharon Strzelecki – Magda Szubanski in her first public appearance since her prolonged cancer battle – dressed in Australia Zoo fatigues, taking inspiration from Logies host Robert Irwin.
