source : the age
Welcome to our live coverage of news from around Australia and the world.
Here’s what you need to know this morning.
- Seven women and children, part of a cohort of so-called “ISIS brides”, have returned to Australia at Sydney and Melbourne airports.
- Independent MP Dai Le has criticised a lack of transparency over the returns and where the families will live, worrying about members of her community who had “fled ISIS”.
- Iran has begun restoring internet access after a months-long shutdown as hopes for a diplomatic end to the war continue.
- Australia’s new ambassador to the United States Greg Moriarty has shared a picture from his recent meeting with US President Donald Trump.
The Commonwealth special investigator into alleged Australian war crimes has referred concerns to the national corruption watchdog over how media appeared to know in advance about Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith’s arrest at Sydney Airport last month.
The Office of the Special Investigator says it has asked the National Anti-Corruption Commission to examine whether operational details were improperly disclosed before Roberts-Smith was taken into custody on April 7 and charged with five counts of war crimes.
The former SAS corporal has rejected the charges, saying “I categorically deny all of these allegations”.
Director-general Chris Moraitis told Senate estimates the referral had been made jointly with the Australian Federal Police.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has hit back at criticism from ABC chair Kim Williams as relations between the public broadcaster and the rising political party continue their souring trajectory.
ABC chair Kim Williams criticised One Nation for barring the broadcaster from events during the Farrer by-election, which the party’s candidate David Farley won.
“[One Nation] think that they anoint who will question them. Perhaps their concern is because they are such a policy-free zone,” Williams said on a podcast this week.
Responding, Joyce told 2GB radio this morning the ABC is biased.
The 2026 Rugby League World Cup will get a $12.4 million investment from Australia, the prime minister has announced.
Anthony Albanese said the tournament was an opportunity for Australia and its Pacific neighbours, who will host teams from 16 nations across nine cities in October.
“It will take the great game of rugby league to an even bigger stage with games held in PNG, New Zealand, but here in Australia – games in Townsville and Newcastle, as well as Sydney and Brisbane, of course,” Albanese told SEN.
“It’s a chance to really promote the game and to also build harmony in our region.”
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil says the government’s recent budget is “not for” people who think “everything’s going perfectly right now”.
O’Neil told Seven’s Sunrise program this morning Australia has a broken housing market, a budget weighed down by an ageing population, an NDIS “that’s not working properly” and additional defence needs, requiring the government to make some “hard calls”.
But she says many people are in favour, despite some who “don’t support what the government is doing”.
“That is what you’d expect to see in a budget that does some tough but necessary things for the country,” O’Neil said.
Kooyong Independent MP Monique Ryan says women and children linked to Islamic State returning to Australia should be treated “sensitively and gently”.
“The last thing they need to be subjected to on their arrival is an aggressive media,” Ryan told Nine’s Today program this morning.
“We’re talking about kids who have grown up in a camp in Syria who haven’t been exposed to Australia at all, and I would suggest that we should treat them sensitively and gently.
“They’re children and they’re women and they don’t need to be approached by aggressive journalists.”
Australia’s system for helping jobseekers into work will be overhauled for the first time in 30 years as the federal government grapples with the best way to assist the country’s growing number of long-term unemployed people.
Three years after a Labor-led committee said that Australia’s employment services system was like “using a nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito”, Workplace Minister Amanda Rishworth will on Wednesday reveal the one-size-fits-all system will split jobseekers into three streams for the first time.
It will separate people who are newly unemployed and already have skills to re-enter the job market, for example, from those who have been unemployed for long periods of time, disconnected from the labour market or face other barriers to employment.
These streams will determine which job-seeking services people can access as well as their mutual obligations – the conditions that jobseekers must meet to keep receiving income support from the government.
Read more: Jobseeker services to get first overhaul in 30 years
Welcome to our live coverage of news from around Australia and the world.
Here’s what you need to know this morning.
- Seven women and children, part of a cohort of so-called “ISIS brides”, have returned to Australia at Sydney and Melbourne airports.
- Independent MP Dai Le has criticised a lack of transparency over the returns and where the families will live, worrying about members of her community who had “fled ISIS”.
- Iran has begun restoring internet access after a months-long shutdown as hopes for a diplomatic end to the war continue.
- Australia’s new ambassador to the United States Greg Moriarty has shared a picture from his recent meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Australia’s new ambassador to the United States has shared an image of his recent meeting with Donald Trump after presenting his credentials to the US president.
Moriarty, who replaced former prime minister Kevin Rudd as ambassador, is a long-time diplomat and public servant who was most recently the secretary of the Defence Department.
He served as ambassador to Iran from 2005 to 2008, and in that capacity briefed then US president George W. Bush on Iranian politics – a rare event for an Australian diplomat. He was later posted to Jakarta, and was also chief of staff to then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Moriarty presented his credentials to Trump at a White House ceremony overnight, along with 11 other new ambassadors to the US.
In a post sharing an image from the meeting this morning, Moriarty said it was an honour to serve Australia in Washington DC.
“I look forward to working with the Administration to strengthen our relationship,” he wrote.
Iran has started restoring access to the internet – a sign that the longest shutdown of its kind in history is easing amid a diplomatic push to end the war with the US.
Monitoring group NetBlocks said there was a “partial restoration” yesterday after 88 days of near-total blackout on the national network, showing connectivity had risen from close to zero to about 35 per cent of typical levels.
“In line with the esteemed President’s mission and in fulfillment of the government’s promise, the first step towards free and regulated access to cyberspace has been taken,” First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, who chairs the government’s special taskforce for the regulation and governance of cyberspace, said on X.
Iran’s civilian officials have repeatedly called for restrictions, which have crippled businesses across the country, to be eased, but have been overruled by the country’s powerful security establishment.
Independent MP for the seat of Fowler in western Sydney Dai Le has criticised a lack of information about the return of so-called “ISIS brides”.
“It really concerns me because – obviously, I don’t have the details – the lack of transparency in itself is a problem,” Le told 2GB radio this morning.
“Communities like mine really deserve to know,” she said.
Many people and communities in her electorate, taking in Liverpool, Cabramatta and parts of Fairfield, had “fled ISIS” after losing family members and homes.
“So I hope that they are aware of it because I don’t know anything at all about where they’re going,” Le said.
Nineteen Australian women and children linked to the Islamic State terror group returned to Sydney and Melbourne airports last night. Unlike previously returning cohorts, none have been charged with criminal offences.
