7m agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 10:57pm

Tax fossil fuel exports or risk losing revenue to other nations, says Zali Steggall

Climate change has been left on the sidelines of the government’s upcoming productivity roundtable, Zali Steggall warns, as she pitches a proposal to ensure Australia collects on fossil fuel exports rather than foreign nations.

The federal government is hosting the event in search of new solutions to overcome Australia’s falling productivity, which risks limiting incomes and the overall quality of life for Australians.

Steggall said climate change was already hurting the economy and weighing on the federal budget, pointing to record-breaking floods in NSW and Queensland earlier this year and the ongoing algal bloom in South Australia, killing marine life in the thousands.

“I have been discussing with a number of ministers the need for climate resilience to be at that roundtable, there is no productivity without resilience,” Steggall said.

25m agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 10:39pm

Coalition opposes recognising Palestinian state in near future

The federal opposition won’t offer bipartisan support to the government if Australia moves with the UK, Canada and France to recognise Palestinian statehood at a UN meeting in September.

After Canada announced its intention, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it was a matter of “when not if” Australia would also recognise the state of Palestine — although he wouldn’t put a timeframe on the decision.

Other countries have put conditions on their intentions to recognise Palestine.

But the Coalition’s finance spokesman James Paterson said he wouldn’t back Australia doing the same.

“Absolutely not — we will be completely opposed to a premature recognition of a Palestinian state unless there has been the release of hostages, the dismantling of Hamas and a recognition between the Palestinians and Israelis that each of them have a right to live securely and in peace in two states,” he said.

Paterson said the Coalition still supported a two-state solution, but did not want to recognise a state that was “governed in part by a listed terror organisation”.

“It is extraordinary that the Australian government would contemplate recognising such a state,” he said.

(ABC News: Ian Cutmore)

34m agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 10:31pm

Lidia Thorpe to move deaths in custody motion

Independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe is hoping to pass a motion in the Senate today (and via another MP in the house) noting the 17 First Nations Australians who’ve died in custody this year.

As part of the motion, she’ll also extend the parliament’s deepest sympathies to the family of 24-year-old Warlpiri-Luritja man Kumanjayi White, who died under police restraint at an Alice Springs supermarket in May.

Thorpe will also call on all parliamentarians to work together to address the high levels of incarceration of First Nations people.

Official data shows there have been 602 Indigenous deaths in custody since the 1987 royal commission.

A new report by the Productivity Commission out today also shows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults are being incarcerated at an increasing rate.

45m agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 10:20pm

Palestinian recognition ‘premature’: Hogan

Nationals deputy Kevin Hogan says while he understands the intention behind Palestinian recognition, he believes Canada’s move is “premature”.

“If we’re going to recognise a Palestinian state at the moment, who does that involve? Like who do we speak to? … Who do we recognise and what leadership do we recognise?” he told ABC News Breakfast. 

“Our concern about that issue at the moment is Hamas is still, as a terrorist organisation, is still in control of Gaza. So it’s very difficult to recognise … we wouldn’t recognise a terrorist organisation.

“So who are we going to talk to? I mean, there’s a lot of logistics around this that we think make this impractical at the moment.”

54m agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 10:10pm

More details about the PM’s chat with Keir Starmer

We’ve just received a readout of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s phone call his UK counterpart Keir Starmer yesterday.

Starmer laid out the UK’s framework for taking forward recognition of a Palestinian state as a driver for peace.

The two leaders agreed on the importance of using the international momentum to secure a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the delivery of aid, as well as ensuring Hamas did not play a role in a future state.

The pair also discussed the AUKUS agreement. The readout says the leaders “looked forward to speaking again soon at the earliest opportunity”.

Yesterday, Albanese said he would speak to Starmer in the coming days.

1h agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 10:04pm

McCarthy ‘pleased’ some Closing the Gap targets turning in ‘positive way’(ABC News: Matt Roberts)

Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy says she’s pleased to see some of the Closing the Gap targets are “turning in a really positive way”.

The latest data from the Productivity Commission shows mixed progress, with just four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track to be met, while rates of adult imprisonment, children in out-of-home care, suicide, and childhood development are continuing to worsen.

The remaining six targets on life expectancy, healthy birthweights, year 12 or equivalent qualifications, tertiary qualifications, youth engagement, and appropriately sized housing are improving, but also not on track to be met.

McCarthy says she’ll be joining a meeting of the country’s attorneys-general next month to discuss the rates of imprisonment for Indigenous Australians.

She has told ABC’s Radio National Breakfast it’s hard when there are some states focused on the incarceration of youth.

“We have to have a look at the statistics to show, to ask why is it, that we see so many young people before these courts, who are in watch houses, who are in overcrowding … these are really worrying trends,” she says.

McCarthy says there are some prisons in Alice Springs where nearly 50 per cent of prisoners are on remand.

1h agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 9:48pmLatest data shows how ‘leaning in’ can lift outcomes but more needs to be done to Close Gap

Just four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track to be met, according to the latest data from the Productivity Commission.

The latest data shows rates of adult imprisonment rates, children in out-of-home care, suicide and childhood development are continuing to worsen.

Catherine Liddle, the chief executive of SNAICC and member of the Coalition of Peaks, told ABC’s Radio National Breakfast the data makes it clear that when the government “leans in” the results are better.

“It shows us that those are the targets the government are truly committed to. So it tells us that when government’s commits, we get a very, very different outcome,” she said.

“It means that the priority reforms in the national agreement are incredibly effective. But they are the areas that the government has really, really leaned into.

“It really does say for, you know, every single time we see one of these reports, it says where it works. It works really well. But lean in and try harder because without that genuine effort, we’re never going to be able to close that gap.”

1h agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 9:46pm

Government will ‘take stock’ of Canada’s move towards Palestinian recognition

Labor frontbencher Malarndirri McCarthy dialed into ABC’s Radio National Breakfast, where she was also asked about Canada’s step towards recognising Palestinian statehood.

“The government has made clear we no longer see recognition as being only at the end of the peace process,” she says.

“Obviously, the news coming out of Canada this morning will be an important one for our government to take stock. And I will leave the rest for the foreign minister and the prime minister.”

1h agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 9:33pmChalmers says recognition of Palestinian state ‘a matter of when, not if’Loading…

Jim Chalmers says it’s a matter of “when, not if” Australia moves to recognise Palestine, but he has stopped short of putting a timeframe on it.

“I think it’s a matter of when, not if, Australia recognises a Palestinian state,” he said.

The treasurer made the remarks on ABC’s News Breakfast moments before Canada’s PM Mark Carney stood up to confirm his country’s intention to recognise a Palestinian state at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

It follows similar moves from the UK and France in recent days and is predicated on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to much-needed reforms, including commitments to fundamentally reform its governance and to hold general elections in 2026, in which Hamas can play no part.

Chalmers was asked if Australia could recognise a Palestine state by September.

“I don’t want to put a time frame on it. It’s been a longstanding bipartisan policy that we see a two-state solution in that part of the Middle East,” he said.

“[The] momentum that we are seeing in the
international community is welcome but it’s also conditional.

“There are a number of obstacles still in the way to recognition of a Palestinian state. For example, the treatment, the release, of the hostages, making sure that there’s absolutely no role for Hamas. These are the sorts of things that the international community is working through.”

1h agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 9:20pm’We need to do more and do better’: Chalmers on Closing the Gap(ABC News: Ian Cutmore)

Jim Chalmers was also asked about the Closing the Gap data, released by the Productivity Commission today.

Just four of the 19 targets are on track to be met, and rates of adult imprisonment, children in out-of-home care, suicide and childhood development are continuing to worsen.

The treasurer says Australia needs to do better and, while there has been a “little bit of progress”, some of the outcomes have gone backwards in “worrying ways”.

“[Indigenous Australians Minister] Malarndirri McCarthy is working in her characteristically diligent way with all of the stakeholders, all of the communities, to try to turn these numbers around,” he told ABC News Breakfast. 

“There has been progress in 10 of the 15. There has been some worrying outcomes in the rest but, overall, we need to do more and we need to do better.”

1h agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 9:14pm

Chalmers would ‘welcome’ rate relief after ‘remarkable’ inflation data

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is doing the media rounds this morning after figures released yesterday confirmed inflation had hit a four-year low of 2.1 per cent.

The latest data paves the way for the Reserve Bank to cut rates when the board meets next month.

Speaking with ABC News Breakfast, Chalmers wasn’t keen to weigh in on any decisions the central bank board might take. But he did say he’d think rate relief would be welcome.

“I think rate relief is welcome, certainly when interest rates were cut twice already this year. That provided some very, very welcome rate relief for millions of Australians with a mortgage,” he says.

“So that’s how we see it. But I don’t want to make predictions or pre-empt the decisions that the Reserve Bank will take.”

While he described yesterday’s inflation numbers as “remarkable” he stressed it was never “mission accomplished”.

2h agoWed 30 Jul 2025 at 8:58pm

👋 Good morning

Hi friends, welcome to our politics live blog.

I’m Courtney Gould, logging in from the ABC’s Parliament House bureau in Canberra, ready to bring you all the news as it comes in.

Congratulations on making it to the last day of the sitting fortnight. We don’t have another sitting week until the last week of August, so the government will be hoping legislation to cut HECS debts and improve safety at childcare centres passes the final hurdles.

Let’s get blogging.

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