Keating: government ‘flogging a dead seahorse’ with Aukus dealDaniel HurstThe former prime minister Paul Keating has accused the government of “flogging a dead seahorse” with its nuclear-powered submarine plan and has argued the Labor party’s rank-and-file membership “abhors Aukus”.Keating has never been a fan of the Aukus security partnership with the US and the UK, and has said so repeatedly. The former Labor PM has argued that it will constrain Australia’s room to make independent military deployment decisions for decades to come.His latest statement follows the meeting of the Aukus defence ministers and secretaries in London last night.At the joint press conference, a journalist asked the ministers and secretaries about Keating’s views. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the submarine plan would “provide a generational capability to Australia that will provide benefits for many, many years to come” and was “well worth the investment”.Austin added:
We are committed to making sure that, you know, Australia has what it needs to have … and it will make its own sovereign decisions about what it will do in the future. We fully expect that.
In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, Keating said the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, “has his US friend propping him up in London to throw a 10,000-mile punch at me – and as usual, failing to materially respond to legitimate and particular criticisms made of the Aukus arrangement”.Keating said Austin’s claim about Australian sovereign control “would only be true until the prime minister and Marles got their phone call from the President, seeking to mobilise Australian military assets – wherein, both would click their heels in alacrity and agreement”. Keating said:
The rest of us would read about it in some self-serving media statement afterwards.
(Continued in next blog post)Former prime minister Paul Keating. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPShareUpdated at 07.23 CESTKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureFive weather warnings are in place in New South Wales, including for hazardous surf and marine wind, with the Bureau of Meteorology projecting “large, powerful waves” as wet weather moves north.An initial flood watch is in place for parts of the northern rivers and mid north coast, while a minor to moderate flood warning is also in place for the Bellinger River.
A low pressure system has developed off the Byron Bay coast causing strong to gale force winds and large waves for parts of mid and northern New South Wales coasts. The low is expected to remain slow moving on Saturday before weakening on Sunday morning with conditions easing.
A Hazardous Surf Warning is in place for Byron, Coffs and Macquarie Coasts for today, and for Byron and Coffs Coasts for Saturday.
Beach conditions in these areas could be dangerous and people should stay well away from the surf and surf exposed areas.
SharePolitical gags about cost of Dutton’s nuclear power plan keep rolling inMeanwhile, the minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, is celebrating his 100th birthday with what appears to be a store-bought chocolate cake.It’s been 100 days now, Peter Dutton. It’s time to come clean with the Australian people on how much your risky nuclear scheme would cost taxpayers and how much damage it would mean for our grid’s reliability. pic.twitter.com/wwPkNDWc2o— Chris Bowen (@Bowenchris) September 27, 2024Wait – no, it’s just another prop based political gag calling on the opposition leader to release the costing for his nuclear power proposal (see also: Bob Katter and Andrew Wilkie’s bizarre pig suit protest).It’s been 100 days since Peter Dutton announced the seven sites for the Coalition’s proposed nuclear reactors, with no further details provided.ShareUpdated at 09.01 CESTAlbanese serves up some hits at Epping Tennis Club for a smashing good timeHave you been spending this Friday afternoon, at your desk or on your couch, musing, ‘I wonder what Anthony Albanese is up to right now?’Well, boy, do I have an answer for you, dear reader!Sporting clubs are at the heart of communities across Australia.We’re proud to back them.Great to have a hit with some rising hot shots at Epping Tennis Club. pic.twitter.com/gOIuDhn2Ut— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) September 27, 2024He’s having a hit with some “rising hot shots” at Epping Tennis Club!Tennis-heads, or Albo-heads, would know the PM has quite a penchant for a hit at his former local, the Marrickville Tennis Club – so this may not be just another photo op.ShareUpdated at 08.52 CESTFour children hospitalised with serious injuries after Brisbane car crashIn Queensland, four children have been transported to hospital – two with life threatening injuries – after a car crashed into a power pole in Brisbane.Queensland’s ambulance service confirmed the single-vehicle crash occurred on Vincents Street in Auchenflower, Brisbane, at about 1.15pm.
Paramedics have transported four male children to Queensland Children’s Hospital … two were transported with life-threatening injuries, one patient with abdominal and seatbelt injuries, the other with head and seatbelt injuries.
Another two patients were transported in a stable condition with minor injuries. An adult male patient was also assessed but has declined transport.
ShareUpdated at 08.29 CESTTeachers Federation: Urgent action need to support public school students with disabilitiesThe NSW Teachers Federation is calling for urgent action to address issues raised in a new auditor-general’s report on support for students with disability in public schools, which highlighted large gaps in planning and provision of vital support.The report notes that since 2018, the number of students with disability has grown from one-fifth to one-quarter, finding the Department of Education “does not have a clear and accurate picture of demand compared to supply, or the time taken for targeted supports to be provided to students”.Federation senior vice-president, Natasha Watt, said the report confirmed what teachers had been saying “for years”.
We have a crisis in support for students with disability.
It’s astounding that 18 years after a 2006 audit recommended monitoring wait times for support, the Department still cannot tell how long students are waiting. This is a fundamental failure of planning.
Without accurate data on demand, the Department cannot properly plan or resource disability support. This is leading directly to growing inequality in learning outcomes.
ShareUpdated at 08.22 CESTTelcos need greater tech safeguards, public accountability, Senate inquiry concludesTelecommunications companies need greater technological safeguards and public accountability, a Senate inquiry report into the 8 November 2023 Optus outage has recommended.Inquiry chair and Greens spokesperson for communications, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, says the report requires Optus and other telcos to work towards better network safeguards and a higher standard of public accountability in the future.
These recommendations mean telcos need to work with the Australian government and cooperate with one another to deliver large-scale network roaming and mutual assistance arrangements in the event of future outages.
In 2024 people expect to be able to call triple 0 in an emergency, to be able to access internet banking for their small business, or to contact their kids or grandparents via their mobile phone. It’s therefore appropriate that telecommunications carriers are included as critical infrastructure providers via amendments to the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018.
ShareUpdated at 07.58 CESTSevere weather heading for north-east NSW, south-east QueenslandThe Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather update for parts of north-east New South Wales and south-east Queensland as wet and windy weather continues to batter the east coast.The wild wintry weather that hit Sydney and parts of NSW this week is moving north. Photograph: Richard Milnes/REX/ShutterstockThe BoM said bad weather around Sydney and Newcastle would move northwards today to the mid-north coast, northern rivers and parts of south Queensland.More than 120mm of rain has fallen in the past 24 hours, with widespread falls of up to 70mm.That’s expected to continue with a low pressure area developing over the water, in line with the NSW and Queensland border.
It will continue to feed moisture, rain, strong winds … on to the coastline for the next few days, particularly on Saturday.
The wet conditions will slowly weaken and move away on Sunday.ShareUpdated at 08.25 CESTGreens: Plibersek must use water trigger to stop Beetaloo Basin fracking projectThe Greens have renewed calls on the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek to call in Tamboran Resources’ fracking project in the Beetaloo Basin under the water trigger, following an Environment Centre NT filing an urgent application to stop the gas company from drilling without an environmental water assessment.There is longstanding opposition from environmental and First Nations activists to fracking plans in the Beetaloo Basin. Photograph: Loren Elliott/ReutersGreens spokesperson for the environment and water, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, says it is “shocking that gas fracking cowboys have started drilling with zero environmental water assessments”.
It is disgraceful that the minister is leaving it to communities on the frontline of environmental destruction to do the government’s job and make sure all assessments are completed before any work starts.
The minister’s request for scientific advice from IESC isn’t good enough. A recent presentation to IESC made it clear aquifers in the Beetaloo are ‘highly susceptible to contamination or drawdown from activities that support shale gas extraction’.
I urge the minister to do the right thing, right now – call this dangerous fracking project in, look at the science, and listen to the communities and traditional owners who have been pleading with you to protect their water – the lifeblood of the NT.
ShareUpdated at 07.59 CESTPedestrian reportedly hit by a car in Penrith diesA pedestrian has died after he was hit by a vehicle in Penrith, in Sydney’s west on Friday.About 12.45pm, emergency services were called after reports that a man on a mobility scooter was struck by a car, which failed to stop after the crash.The pedestrian – believed to be a man aged in his 80s – was treated by NSW Ambulance paramedics; however, he died at the scene. He is yet to be identified.Officers attached to Nepean Police Area command established a crime scene, which will be examined by specialist police from the Crash Investigation Unit.Following inquiries, police arrested a man at a shopping centre on Jane Street, Penrith, about 1.45pm. He has been taken to Nepean hospital for mandatory testing.ShareUpdated at 07.35 CESTDaniel HurstMarles says Keating’s Aukus criticism ‘nothing new’The former prime minister Paul Keating also took aim at the defence minister, Richard Marles, for his comments in London last night.Marles had played down the latest Aukus-related criticism from Keating, saying it wasn’t a new line of attack.
Mr Keating, to give him credit, has been consistent in his position over a long period of time. What Mr Keating is saying now is what Mr Keating was saying in March of last year. So there’s really nothing new in his comments. And obviously he is perfectly entitled to the view that he holds.
But what’s also not new is the strategic imperative for Australia to walk down the path of acquiring a nuclear-powered submarine capability.
Marles also said Aukus was “utterly essential for Australia’s future and the strategic imperative of that remains unchanged, irrespective of what Mr Keating says”. Marles noted Aukus had bipartisan support from the major Australian political parties, and from the Labor party’s national conference in Brisbane in August last year.Keating countered with this comment:
This may be true at some factionally, highly managed national conference – like the last one – but it is utterly untrue of the Labor party’s membership at large – which he knows.
The membership abhors Aukus and everything that smacks of national sublimation. It does not expect these policies from a Labor government.
ShareUpdated at 07.23 CESTKeating: government ‘flogging a dead seahorse’ with Aukus dealDaniel HurstThe former prime minister Paul Keating has accused the government of “flogging a dead seahorse” with its nuclear-powered submarine plan and has argued the Labor party’s rank-and-file membership “abhors Aukus”.Keating has never been a fan of the Aukus security partnership with the US and the UK, and has said so repeatedly. The former Labor PM has argued that it will constrain Australia’s room to make independent military deployment decisions for decades to come.His latest statement follows the meeting of the Aukus defence ministers and secretaries in London last night.At the joint press conference, a journalist asked the ministers and secretaries about Keating’s views. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the submarine plan would “provide a generational capability to Australia that will provide benefits for many, many years to come” and was “well worth the investment”.Austin added:
We are committed to making sure that, you know, Australia has what it needs to have … and it will make its own sovereign decisions about what it will do in the future. We fully expect that.
In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, Keating said the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, “has his US friend propping him up in London to throw a 10,000-mile punch at me – and as usual, failing to materially respond to legitimate and particular criticisms made of the Aukus arrangement”.Keating said Austin’s claim about Australian sovereign control “would only be true until the prime minister and Marles got their phone call from the President, seeking to mobilise Australian military assets – wherein, both would click their heels in alacrity and agreement”. Keating said:
The rest of us would read about it in some self-serving media statement afterwards.
(Continued in next blog post)Former prime minister Paul Keating. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPShareUpdated at 07.23 CESTThanks so much to Kate Lyons and Rafqa Touma for steering the blog ship today. It’s Caitlin Cassidy, I’ll be with you until stumps.ShareKelly BurkeMona’s Ladies Lounge wins appeal in bid to continue barring men from entryTasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) has won an appeal in the state’s supreme court in a bid to continue barring men from entering an installation known as the Ladies Lounge.The exhibit was closed in April after Tasmania’s civil and administrative tribunal ordered the museum to admit men to the female-only space, upholding a Sydney man’s complaint that the museum had discriminated against him on the basis of gender.But on Friday, the supreme court found the Ladies Lounge qualified for an exemption from the state’s anti-discrimination act under a section that allows discrimination if the intention behind the action is to promote equal opportunity for a group of people who are disadvantaged or have a special need.Kirsha Kaechele, curator of a ladies’ lounge at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art, with supporters, at Tasmania’s supreme court on Friday. Photograph: Ethan James/AAP“The Ladies Lounge can be seen as an arrangement to promote equal opportunity by highlighting the lack of equal opportunity, which generally prevails in society, by providing women with a rare glimpse of what it is like to be advantaged rather than disadvantaged by the refusal of entry to the Ladies Lounge by men,” justice Shane Marshall said in Friday’s decision.Full story hereShareUpdated at 07.09 CESTSelf confessed human encyclopedia Bill Shorten serves up all you need to know about praying mantisesIf you need a little bit of fun to get you through the end of Friday, our political reporter Josh Butler has you covered.Is Labor the praying mantis of Australian politics? Photograph: Jeffrey Arguedas/EPAHe’s spotted this interesting nugget from Bill Shorten’s interview this morning on the Today Show in which the former Labor leader reveals his extensive knowledge of praying mantises.didn’t expect Bill Shorten to have such immediate encyclopaedic knowledge about insects, but you learn something new every day(via Today Show this morn) pic.twitter.com/fNfer45LGs— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) September 26, 2024ShareUpdated at 07.02 CESTAndrew MessengerQueensland ALP, unions rally in support of women’s reproductive rightsQueensland Labor and the state’s union movement have rallied in the Brisbane CBD, claiming a conservative government would roll back abortion access in the state.The LNP have repeatedly denied the allegation.But Queensland Council of Unions head Jacqueline King said “it’s an absolute concern for the union movement, and it should be a concern for all Queenslanders”.Rally attendees hold placards supporting reproductive rights in Brisbane. Photograph: Fraser Barton/AAP“Queensland will go backwards. Queensland women’s rights will go backwards. We have a whole range of initiatives that the LNP has opposed progressively, even in this last term of government, up until the last sitting, when they opposed respect at work, reforms which were about preventing further sexual harassment, sex based harassment against women in the workplace, but also requiring people to take some positive actions to try to prevent those things,” she said.“We have the most arch conservative LNP, opposition and members of parliament in Queensland, out of any state in Australia. They are opposed, you know, to any progressive reform.”Opposition leader David Crisafulli committed this week to implement the government’s Women and Girls’ Health Strategy, although the party voted against legislation earlier this year to permit part of the plan.Senior Labor minister Grace Grace and several Greens figures attended the rally – plus not-for-profit Children by Choice. It was held before the international safe abortion day, on Saturday.ShareUpdated at 06.44 CESTRafqa ToumaThat’s all from me on the blog today. Handing over to Kate Lyons who will take you through the afternoon’s updates.ShareDFAT tells tourists to PNG to exercise ‘high degree of caution’; Kokoda Track still closedSmartTraveller advises travellers to Papua New Guinea to “exercise a high degree of caution”. The Kokoda Track is closed because of “blockades” on the track, according to the government site. It says:
We continue to advise exercise a high degree of caution in Papua New Guinea due to high levels of crime, tribal violence and civil unrest. Higher levels apply in some areas.
The Kokoda Track is closed while local authorities negotiate with landowners to remove blockades on the Kokoda Track. The blockades and closure are disrupting current and planned treks. Check with your trekking company for the latest information (see ‘Travel’).
The 96km Kokoda track in Papua New Guinea is popular with Australian trekkers. Photograph: Newscom/AlamyThe travel advice for PNG was updated on 19 September 2024 to advise that blockades and closure would disrupt current and planned treks.Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is not aware of any tour groups remaining on the Kokoda Track.A DFAT spokesperson says reopening of the track “is a matter for the PNG government”.“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is encouraging an early resolution.”ShareUpdated at 06.06 CESTCEO of drinks retailer Endeavour to step down from underperforming groupAustralia’s biggest alcohol retailer is on the hunt for a new CEO as 30-year veteran Steve Donohue said it’s “the right time” to leave the underperforming Dan Murphy’s and parent company BWS.Endeavour Group is facing a dwindling stock value and its 2023/24 financial year results showed that although sales has increased, profits had been slashed to service its $1.9bn debt.Donohue, who will remain in the role until a replacement is found, said:
It has been an immense privilege to lead this company and to have been a part of this business for three decades.
Six years after we created Endeavour Group and with the strategy and culture well established as an independent company, now is the right time for me to pass the baton on to the next leader.
– Australian Associated PressShareUpdated at 05.31 CESTBronze statue of ex-Victorian premier Daniel Andrews in worksA statue of former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is in the works one year after he resigned from the state’s top job.Bronze statues of state premiers who spent more than 3,000 days in office are immortalised outside government offices near Treasury Gardens in central Melbourne, under a rule introduced by former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett to honour premiers for their longevity.The process of installing one of Andrews is under way. It is unclear how much it will cost or its possible location.The former Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, is to be immortalised in a bronze statue. Photograph: James Ross/AAPA government spokesperson confirmed the Department of Premier and Cabinet has provided a brief to government over the statue but did not reveal further information.Opposition finance spokesperson Jess Wilson hit back at the decision to immortalise Andrews in a statue.“As Victoria buckles under a cost-of-living crisis, a failing health system and surging crime, Premier Allan’s priority is to erect a statue for Daniel Andrews instead of delivering relief for Victorian taxpayers,” she said.– Australian Associated PressShareUpdated at 06.23 CEST