Wong condemns Israeli ban on Unrwa operations
Karen Middleton
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has criticised new Israeli laws restricting the UN relief agency Unrwa’s access to Gaza, saying that Unrwa “does life-saving work”.
“Australia opposes the Israeli Knesset’s decision to severely restrict UNRWA’s work,” Wong said in a statement posted to the social media site X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Australia joined Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the UK to urge Israel’s Knesset not to proceed with this legislation.”
Unrwa, the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, is the main provider of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Unrwa of engaging in “terrorist activities” against Israel, which the agency has denied.
Overnight, the Israeli parliament passed legislation designating the agency a terrorist organisation, severing ties with it, stripping staff of diplomatic immunity and banning it from operating on Israeli soil – a move that severely hampers its capacity to deliver aid to Gaza.
Key events
Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi is calling on the Albanese government to sanction Israel, after Israeli parliament voted to ban UN relief agency Unrwa from Israel and declared it a terrorist organisation.
Faruqi said in a statement:
Undermining and stopping UNRWA from providing aid to Palestinians has been a long term goal of Israel and it’s outrageous that now they are even closer to achieving this because the world has refused to take action to stop them.
The Labor government has been ‘urging’ Israel to abide by international law for a year, and all we’ve seen is its war crimes and genocide escalating.
Enough with the weasel words. It’s time for Albanese and Wong to impose sanctions and expel the Israeli ambassador.
Foreign minister Penny Wong condemned Israel’s ban on Unrwa operations earlier today.
Read more here:
Jonathan Barrett
Myer to buy multiple brands including Just Jeans
Department store chain Myer will buy Premier Investment’s apparel brands in Australia and New Zealand, which includes Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Portmans, Dotti and Jacqui E, the companies announced today.
The transaction involves Premier shareholders receiving Myer stock, which will give Premier chairman Solomon Lew control of just under one-third of Myer shares.
Lew said:
Myer and our apparel brands will be stronger together — delivering vertical integration, scale, additional margins and loyalty opportunities.
Premier will retain the Peter Alexander and Smiggle brands along with its stake in Breville Group and various property assets.
The transaction comes at a challenging time for Myer, which recently reported lower profits and sales as customers grappled with rising living costs, prompting the department store operator to discount its fashion brands.
Wong condemns Israeli ban on Unrwa operations
Karen Middleton
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has criticised new Israeli laws restricting the UN relief agency Unrwa’s access to Gaza, saying that Unrwa “does life-saving work”.
“Australia opposes the Israeli Knesset’s decision to severely restrict UNRWA’s work,” Wong said in a statement posted to the social media site X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Australia joined Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the UK to urge Israel’s Knesset not to proceed with this legislation.”
Unrwa, the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, is the main provider of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Unrwa of engaging in “terrorist activities” against Israel, which the agency has denied.
Overnight, the Israeli parliament passed legislation designating the agency a terrorist organisation, severing ties with it, stripping staff of diplomatic immunity and banning it from operating on Israeli soil – a move that severely hampers its capacity to deliver aid to Gaza.
Australian Energy Regulator investigating recent power outages around Broken Hill
The Australian Energy Regulator is investigating “recent power system events” that left 20,000 people without power in Broken Hill and nearby areas, after severe weather hit far west NSW and the region’s only working large-scale emergency generator failed.
The investigation will review whether there has been any potential breaches of the National Electricity Rules, as put in a statement from the regulator. The rules require transmission and distribution networks to “ensure their systems and infrastructure are properly operated and maintained”.
The AER will coordinate with the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal investigation into Transgrid’s compliance with licence conditions and other obligations under state legislation.
You can read up on the incident here:
Rishworth says reaction to PM’s Qantas flight upgrades ‘a complete pile-on’
The minister for social services, Amanda Rishworth, and Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie went back and forth on the Today show this morning, talking reports of Anthony Albanese seeking free Qantas flight upgrades directly from Alan Joyce while serving as transport minister.
Rishworth said the fallout “has been a complete pile-on on the prime minister”.
“I mean, he’s publicly declared very, very clearly what he has been gifted,” she said. “I think there’s something to if you are in a glass house, don’t throw stones.”
Asked if she has ever called in for an upgrade, Rishworth said:
Me personally? No, no, I haven’t rung Alan Joyce, anyone, [for] an upgrade. But, you know, quite frankly. Well, no, that is not something that I’ve done.
Host Karl Stefanovic responded to Rishworth, saying: “It wasn’t your most convincing answer, Amanda, I mean, it was a pretty simple question.”
He then asked McKenzie if she had ever called Qantas management for an upgrade. McKenzie said: “Amanda’s answers aside, this is a serious problem … The problem is that I don’t know of another transport minister who had a hotline to the CEO of Qantas to request freebies for family holidays.”
Pressed to answer the question about calling in for an update, McKenzie said “I’m happy to answer it,” but proceeded to say: “There’s a difference to receive a gift and declare it on your register to actually getting on the blower and saying, ‘Listen, mate, the missus and I are going overseas on a holiday. How about upgrading those economy tickets?’”
Again, McKenzie was asked whether she has ever called Joyce or Qantas management for an upgrade. She said:
I do not have a hotline to request upgrades. I have received an upgrade in 2018 that I declared, but to my knowledge, no transport minister other than Anthony Albanese has done this.
Josh Butler
Jeffrey Pope to be new acting Australian electoral commissioner
Special minister of state Don Farrell has announced Jeffrey Pope as the new acting Australian electoral commissioner, to take on that role from mid-December.
Pope has been the deputy AEC commissioner since 2016, and made “significant contributions” to the 2023 referendum process and recent federal elections, Farrell said.
“This appointment marks the end of a successful 11-year term for the current electoral commissioner, Mr Tom Rogers,” the minister said in a statement.
Farrell thanked Rogers for his work at the 2016, 2019 and 2022 elections, as well as the 2023 referendum, and praised him for overseeing significant reforms in Australia’s electoral process.
“Mr Rogers leaves a legacy of stable leadership and a stronger democracy,” he said.
Farrell appoints Pope as parliament watchers eagerly await the final details of the government’s new electoral reforms, which will propose changes around spending caps and donations at elections. We understand that legislation is now slated to appear in mid-November, just before the parliament finished for the year.
‘I haven’t worked that out’: Robbie Katter asked about his abortion strategy in Queensland
Back to Robbie Katter on ABC RN a short while ago.
Asked whether he would amend Queensland’s abortion legislation or repeal it, Katter said he hasn’t worked it out. He said he was “pulled” into the abortion debate and that it wasn’t meant to be a priority of the campaign:
I was pushed to give a response saying that there’s backbenchers that would say, if they were given the opportunity and they would to turn things around, they would. And they said, ‘Would you entertain that?’ I said, ‘Of course I would, like, that’s what we do.’ And so I responded to a question, and then, you know, blew up from there. And everyone started hitting me up for for details on that. And they said, well, look, I don’t have, I didn’t set out to, this one isn’t one of my priorities for the new government.
But if you ask me, yes, I would try and turn things around, and to what degree, whether that’s, you know, 22 weeks thing, or 16 weeks or 22 weeks, or repeal or new bill and amendment, I haven’t worked that out, Steve, and I’m sorry I can’t give you more detail, but it wasn’t sort of front of centre of my consciousness when I entered the campaign and I got pulled into the debate.
The Katter’s Australia party leader has vowed to introduce a private member’s bill to wind back abortion rights and access that would notionally spark a conscience vote.
One person dead after car crash in Victoria
One person has died in a two-vehicle collision in Nyora around 5:20am this morning, according to a statement from Victoria police.
It is believed a male driver in a Holden sedan was travelling along the South Gippsland Highway when they collided head-on with a silver Mazda hatchback at the intersection of Nyora-St Helier Road, as put in the statement.
The driver of the sedan, yet to be formally identified, died at the scene.
The driver of the hatchback, a Poowong man in his 30s, sustained serious injuries and was airlifted to hospital for treatment.
Investigations are ongoing. The exact cause of the collision is yet to be determined.
Babies deserve representation in parliament, Robbie Katter says
Robbie Katter, the Katter’s Australia party leader, says babies deserve representation in parliament.
In the final weeks of the Queensland state election campaign, Katter vowed to introduce a private member’s bill to wind back abortion rights and access that would notionally spark a conscience vote.
He was asked on ABC RN this morning: “An argument you hear in the US, and it’s an argument you hear in Australia, that it’s always men who seem to want to change laws about women’s reproductive rights. What would you say to them?”
Katter said:
I’d say there’s a lot of babies that are males and females, and there’s 93 members of parliament in Queensland, and looks like [there will] again be four that vote against that vote for pro life. So there’s pretty strong representation for inverted commas, women, those women. And, you know, I think that the babies deserve to have some representation as well. And four is a pretty small number in the Queensland parliament, but I think those babies deserve representation. A lot of those women you speak of, they were babies once too, and I’m sure they would have preferred to have some representation when they were babies as well.
Labor decriminalised abortion in 2018 and has sought to put the issue at the forefront of the campaign, saying there is a “very real risk” that reproductive rights will be wound back if the LNP wins government. Read more from Ben Smee’s report here:
The significance of Thorpe’s royal protest
Independent senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe’s protest before King Charles in the Great Hall of Parliament House last week caught news attention around the globe.
While it prompted a few reactions, it also started a conversation about the British monarchy’s role in the lasting legacy of colonisation for First Nations people.
For today’s Full Story podcast, Reged Ahmad speaks to political editor Karen Middleton about why Australians can’t stop talking about the royal protest and what it means for Thorpe’s role as a senator.
Listen here:
Bowen deflects question about PM’s Qantas flight upgrades
Climate and energy minister Chris Bowens says Anthony Albanese is not focused on political debates “about what conversations he may or may not have had”, after reports of the prime minister seeking free Qantas flight upgrades directly from Alan Joyce while serving as transport minister and opposition leader.
He said on ABC Radio National:
The opposition can focus on the cost of Qantas flights for their life. The Labor party and the prime minister is focused on cost of living for ordinary Australians. Whether it be the cost of housing and a housing package we want to get through cost of energy and our reforms there.
I mean, Anthony Albanese is, I can tell you, as a senior member of his cabinet, focused like the laser on these issues, not on these sort of political debates about what he may conversations he may or may not have had, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. He’s focused on issues today.
