Australia politics live: lawyers urge Australia to review economic ties with Israel; Senate motion pushes back at Chinese claim to Taiwan | Australia news

The superannuation changes to ensure it is paid as part of paid parental leave has been introduced into the house.

It is not immediate though – subject to the passage of legislation, eligible parents with babies born or adopted on or after 1 July 2025 will receive an additional payment, based on the Superannuation Guarantee (12 per cent of their Paid Parental Leave payment), as a contribution to their nominated superannuation fund.

At a doorstop to announce the domestic violence law reforms he will be introducing today, Mark Dreyfus was asked about the Coalition’s attacks on the security checks for Palestinian visas.

He said:

Let’s be clear about this. No one has left Gaza since May. The border of Gaza is closed, it’s controlled by Egyptian and Israeli authorities. Our government has relied on the advice of security agencies. The arrangements, the vetting, under our government has been exactly the same, conducted by the same security agencies, the same security personnel, as under the former government. And I think that some of the questions that Mr Dutton and the opposition have put forward have been ludicrous. As the prime minister said yesterday, we’ve got here in Mr Dutton and the opposition, an opposition that’s more concerned with the Middle East than with middle Australia.

Q: What’s your response to Abul Rizvi’s comments today? He suggested that the decision to grant visitor visas over an alternative pathway would have likely been against departmental advice.

Dreyfus:

What Mr Rizvi actually said, and I’d invite everyone to look at his story, is that Australia should be a country which shows compassion for people fleeing violence, for people fleeing war zones.

Q: He’s also questioned the choice of visitor visas, so again –

Dreyfus:

I’m not going to engage in speculation, I’m going to point to what Mr Rizvi actually said. And I’d say again, that the arrangements, the security vetting, the security agencies, the personnel in the security agencies that are in use now under our government are the same as were in use under the previous government. Unlike, it appears, Mr Dutton and the opposition, our government has complete confidence in our security agencies. If Mr Dutton and the opposition are doubting our security agencies, let them come out and say so.

Karen Middleton

(continued from previous post)

Ahead of her retirement from politics at the next federal election, Linda Burney reflected on decades in public life, including serving in the New South Wales state parliament from 2003 before becoming the first Indigenous woman elected to federal parliament in 2016.

I am humbled by the trust and the ownership of me shown by First Nations Australians, many of whom are still paying a heavy price for dispossession and exclusion from our nation’s foundation and, too often, exclusion from the institutions which exist to serve us all.

Burney paid tribute to her great-aunt, Nina, and great-uncle, Billy, who raised her in the Riverina, in New South Wales.

They were two very old people who sacrificed so much to raise me and instilled in me the values of compassion, integrity, resilience, truth and love.

I never dreamt I could grow up to be a member of parliament, let alone a minister in the federal government. Nina and Billy, I hope I made you proud.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, paid tribute to his friend, whose Sydney electorate of Barton neighbours his own.

I would much rather be on the side of hope than on the side of fear, and Linda Burney has always been on the side of hope … She has engaged with grace, with kindness and, importantly, with remarkable courage. That’s why she leaves this place with the admiration of anyone who has dealt with her and with the respect of everyone.”

The Riverina MP and former Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, also hailed Burney, saying he had nothing but “yindyamarra” for her – “respect” in the Wiradjuri language of the lands on which she was raised, which are in his electorate.

Karen Middleton

Linda Burney says progress ‘doesn’t always move in a straight line’

Linda Burney gave her valedictory speech late yesterday afternoon in the House and said Australians struggle with identity because they have not wrestled properly with their nation’s history

I think Australia sometimes struggles with its identity because we never came to terms with our own story, never embraced the breadth and depth of it, and certainly not its truth.

Burney predicted that last year’s voice referendum would prove a catalyst for positive change.

Friends, progress doesn’t always move in a straight line … The road is rocky. There are obstacles in the path. We have our stumbles and our setbacks, but our overall direction is towards progress and, with each passing generation, we bend the moral arc of the universe closer to justice.

Burney called for “community-led truth-telling” to correct the historical record. She said the generosity in which Australians take pride is often not extended to its own First Nations people and that, in embracing history, Australians “must take the whole, not just the bits that suit you”.

Labor to spend up to $850m to manufacture and service missiles

The official announcement on the strike missiles has landed:

The Albanese government will contribute up to $850m in partnership with Kongsberg Defence Australia to manufacture and service missiles at Williamtown near Newcastle.

​The project, which involves construction of a factory in the Newcastle airport precinct, is expected to generate more than 500 jobs in the construction phase and almost $100m in economic benefits to the local area. Once complete, the factory is expected to employ approximately 100 people.

​The factory will manufacture and service naval strike missiles (NSM) and joint strike missiles (JSM) to be used by the Australian Defence Force (ADF). It will be one of only two facilities in the world capable of producing NSM and JSM with the other site in Kongsberg, Norway.

Pat Conroy announces missile factory to be built in Newcastle

The Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery, Pat Conroy, has announced a boost to capabilities for the Australian Defence Force (more weapons).

A new advanced missile factory will be built in Newcastle, by Norwegian defence company Kongsberg.

The parliament will sit at 9am and, shortly after, the social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, will introduce the legislation to have super paid on paid parental leave.

Advocacy group the Parenthood had been calling for the measure for some time and say it could mean up to an additional 30,000 in retirement savings for families.

The government commitment, which would come into place on 1 July 2025, applies to the government-funded paid parental leave scheme, accessed by about 180,000 families each year.

On the funding for community legal centres, Mark Dreyfus says:

I am working right now on the new five-year agreement that will start on 1 July next year to try and make sure that we have got, as the treasurer said earlier this year, in parliament, a new agreement with increased funding for legal assistance services because they are part of this frontline response.

Another part of the frontline response is what police do.

Another part of the frontline response is what counselling and other assistance services do. We have got to look at it all. It is a whole of government response that is needed and not only in my portfolio but many of my ministerial colleagues and the prime minister himself are working on how we should be responding to this national crisis.

Dreyfus says next national cabinet will include further measures on domestic, family and sexual violence

Asked about the comments from the domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner Micaela Cronin on the need to do more in identifying men who may carry out acts of violence, Mark Dreyfus says:

She is right. This is a crisis. We have to take it seriously and that is why, for example, the prime minister convened a national cabinet meeting back in May to look at what can be done and we are about to have a second national cabinet meeting in September as a follow-up to that meeting.

In the meantime, as chair of the police minister’s council and as chair of the Standing Council of Attorneys General I was asked by national cabinet to work with state and territory ministers on what other things we can do urgent measures, action now to do something about this crisis of domestic and family violence.

I am confident that at that next national cabinet meeting that’s coming in September, people will see further measures that are able to be attended to.

As to Commissioner Cronin’s point, I think everyone will have seen reporting over the last year or two of the increasing seriousness with which state and territory police take accusations or family and domestic violence. We are seeing arrests and orders being enforced and that is what needs to happen.

Mark Dreyfus says legislation will help stamp out sharing of sexually explicit deepfakes

The attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, is speaking with ABC TV Breakfast about the passage of the deepfake legislation that was passed in the Senate yesterday. It criminalises the sharing of it:

The deepfake sexually explicit material that is shared without consent is deeply distressing. Overwhelmingly it affects women and girls. We are determined to do whatever we can to stamp out this practice and that is why we have criminalised it. Sharing of deepfake, sexualised material without consent will now carry criminal penalties, potentially jail up to seven years.

Albanese attacked over live export joke

We are now on day two of the confected outrage around prime minister Anthony Albanese’s lame joke at a rural women’s awards dinner in Canberra.

Yesterday, Michaelia Cash and other Liberal senators tried to make it a thing in the Senate and today we have the shadow trade minister, Kevin Hogan, deciding to put out a release on it.

It is one of the lead stories on Sky News, so there is an audience there for it, but to step you through what happened:

On Tuesday night, Albanese addressed the rural women’s award’s night dinner in Canberra and opened by speaking about his earlier dinner with the Indonesian presiden-elect, Prabowo Subianto.

Albanese said; “We had dinner, beautiful Australian beef – not the live export, we made sure it was dead.”

This has created two days of “outrage” because the Coalition says it is the Albanese government going after the live beef export industry. During the debate to phase-in an end to the live sheep export industry in Western Australia (the only state which still participated) there were concerns raised that the live cattle export industry would be next.

The minister at the time, Murray Watt, repeatedly ruled that out. There has been no suggestion Labor will move to phase-out live cattle exports.

But here we are.

Hogan:

I have previously said the Albanese government should be ashamed of their decision to ban live sheep exports.

Instead, we have the leader of our country attempting to make a joke about the decision at none other than a night that is to celebrate our agricultural industry. That really takes the cake.

It is nothing short of shameful.

Social services minister quizzed about community legal centre funding

Over on ABC radio RN Breakfast, the social services minister Amanda Rishworth is asked about one of the solutions which have been raised – funding community legal centres. A new campaign launched by community legal centres points out that more than 1,000 people a day are turned away for help. The campaign calls for immediate funding injections to help their work.

Rishworth says:

Firstly, I would say that the attorney general has been focused very much on this. That’s why there was an over $50m immediate boost in the most recent budget. But these were five-year agreements by the previous government with states and territories.

This is a joint responsibility, and I think it’s important to remind your listeners that states and territories on the national plan all signed up to it.

So I know that the attorney is working very hard about what we do next in terms of that legal partnerships agreement with states and territories, and I know he’ll keep working very hard on that, and we’ve always recognised that where we can invest more, we will look to do that.

Michaela Cronin said the government had put through some important reforms, but there also needed other areas to pick up that reform:

I think the attorney general has been leading some absolutely groundbreaking and incredibly important reform. I think we’ve got a really significant reform agenda across the country looking at how we address the fact we know the family court has caused significant harm to women and particularly children. The attorney general is leading some very important work.

What I want to see is an emphasis on how we implement those reforms well. So the law changes are absolutely critical. But we need them to be enacted. We need all of the actors in the justice space to be educated and to be moving fast on implementing those changes.

Asked whether that would mean tracking violent offenders like terrorists, Micaela Cronin says:

Track people like terrorists. We also – I mean, the thing about looking – you need to identify where the flags are. Where the points of contact are.

We know that relationship breakdowns are a key risk time, when women leave violent relationships. They’re at much greater risk of homicide than when they stay, actually.

Given we know that, what are we doing about wrapping support around those families when those separations happen? If men are going to their GPs and saying, ‘I’m feeling really depressed, my relationship is breaking down’, their GPs need to be alerted to thinking about, is there violence in the relationship? Is there a risk? And what can they do to intervene?

So, it’s all – we wouldn’t have previously thought about, you know, Bunnings keeping an eye on the sale of, you know, products that go into making bombs, but we do now. We know there’s points you can keep an eye on for where risk and harm is and intervene.

Micaela Cronin says Australia should treat ending violence against women as seriously as it treats terrorism

Australia’s domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner, Micaela Cronin, has given her first update on the national plan to end violence against women and children to the government (it will be tabled later today and then released publicly tomorrow – when there is no parliament)

Continuing on from what she said yesterday, Cronin said Australia should treat ending violence as seriously as it treats terrorism. She told the ABC this morning:

We take terrorism around the country – and around the world – very seriously. We put a great deal of targeted resources into thinking about how to prevent terrorist acts.

What we need to do more of is translating those tools to situations where women are being murdered.

When we look at – when we look at the death reviews, processes, when we look at coroner’s inquests about when women have been murdered, when children have been murdered, they are – there’s many intervention points when we could have prevented those deaths. That’s what we’re talking about. What can we do to be keeping eyes on men so we’re preventing homicides, the level of harm that’s occurring.

Andrew Wilkie, Rebekha Sharkie and church leaders to push for gambling ad conscience vote

Independent MPs Andrew Wilkie and Rebekha Sharkie are not backing away from their campaign to have federal Labor MPs given a conscience vote on the gambling ad reforms.

Labor is yet to introduce its proposed legislation, but reports (and the wind) is pointing to caps, rather than a blanket ban. Wilkie and Sharkie think if that is the case then government MPs should be able to decide to support it or not with a conscience vote.

Later this morning, Wilkie and Sharkie will be joined by “prominent church leaders” to discuss their push.