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Wong says legality of strikes on Iran ‘for the US and Israel to explain’
Wong is dodging questions on the legality of the strikes on Iran, again saying its up to Israel and the US to legally justify the action.
The government has said multiple times over the last 72 hours that it’s not party to the actions, and say it’s up to the two countries to justify them (even though the government has said it supports action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons).
The press conference gets a little combative as journalists try and press Wong to say whether the strikes were legal or not.
The legal basis for this is a matter for the United States and for Israel to explain. And as the prime minister made clear … let me finish. Please let me finish … As the prime minister has said, and we’re not party to all the intelligence that is being referenced.
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Over to the crossbench, Sophie Scamps is asking about government board appointments. She says a review found the current appointments process “is not fit for purpose and often looks like patronage and nepotism”.
So why, she asks, did the government not accept the review’s recommendation to legislate an independent appointment process.
Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says the government’s response has actually gone further than the review, and makes appointments “more about merit and the national interest”.
He says that while ministers will continue to have responsibility for board appointments, all decisions will be “underpinned by mandatory transparency reporting requirements”.
We’re extending it beyond government boards to cover departmental secretaries, agency heads, statutory office holders across the commonwealth.
We think that the best model is to have ministers responsible and accountable in this way to the Australian people for the appointments that we make.
Liberal MP Simon Kennedy ejected from chamber as question time gets under way
The economy is the theme today, and shadow treasurer Tim Wilson (fresh after his song to the House), asks the prime minister when the prime minister will “finally accept the buck stops with him” after four years of Australians “going backwards”.
Anthony Albanese thanks Wilson for not singing the question to him, and says:
They must have missed the recession that took place in countries. Just look across the ditch at New Zealand, for example, as well as the UK and other countries as well. They must have missed the fact that 1.2m jobs have been created.
He also attacks Wilson for not supporting paid parental leave – it’s an issue that’s somewhat dogged the MP since he said on a Q&A panel that it’s not “my choice that women have children”.
Albanese then runs through the government’s cost of living measures to round out his answer.
At the end, we get our first booting of question time – it’s Liberal MP Simon Kennedy for talking too much.
Tim Wilson stuns colleagues with attempted Billy Joel rendition in parliament
Tom McIlroy
Moments before question time began today, the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, channelled piano man Billy Joel in the House of Representatives , accusing the government of fueling inflation through reckless spending … in song.
Wilson stunned colleagues when he sang a satirical version of Joel’s 1989 hit We Didn’t Start the Fire. It is safe to say that Labor MPs were surprised by Wilson’s musical turn too.
The lyrics, such as they are, were:
The treasurer did start the inflation fire;
The inflation’s burning
While the treasurer’s squirming;
The treasurer did start the inflation fire;
Yes, he poured debt petrol on it
And cash to organised crime fuelled it.
Anthony Albanese called the song – delivered in a 90-second statement before question time – “a human rights issue for all those who had to listen to it”.
Liberal MPs laughed at Wilson’s singing, while Flinders MP Zoe McKenzie appeared to say “oh, God” as the rendition began.
It’s question time!
When will the buck stop with the prime minister on the economy, as Australians go backwards, asks Angus Taylor.
The PM has a field day with this question, saying it’s only taken two days for the opposition to ask a question about the economy.
Anthony Albanese says:
They’ve gone two days without a question on the economy and cost of living. We’ve had the clown who’s the shadow treasurer singing at the dispatch box…
(More on the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, singing in a moment!)
Albanese tries to quote Jane Hume, which gets manager of opposition business Dan Tehan up, telling the speaker “it’s question time not quotation time”.
Albanese says the opposition always “try and talk Australia down”. That’s met with some loud jeers from the opposition.
Wong says legality of strikes on Iran ‘for the US and Israel to explain’
Wong is dodging questions on the legality of the strikes on Iran, again saying its up to Israel and the US to legally justify the action.
The government has said multiple times over the last 72 hours that it’s not party to the actions, and say it’s up to the two countries to justify them (even though the government has said it supports action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons).
The press conference gets a little combative as journalists try and press Wong to say whether the strikes were legal or not.
The legal basis for this is a matter for the United States and for Israel to explain. And as the prime minister made clear … let me finish. Please let me finish … As the prime minister has said, and we’re not party to all the intelligence that is being referenced.
Australia sends six crisis response teams to Middle East
Penny Wong has confirmed 200 Australians were on the flight from Dubai to Sydney which left this morning.
The foreign affairs minister is doing a quick press conference before question time, and announces the government is deploying six crisis response teams into the Middle East to assist with consular support.
She says she can’t reveal where in the Middle East they will be going.
Wong says the government is doing all its can to help more Australians get home.
We are conscious of how distressed many people are. I want to assure you that we will continue to do all that we can to get Australians home and to keep Australians safe.
This is additional consular support to help the people who are still there on the ground. And I thank them all for their work. I’m not in a position, obviously, you’d understand, for security reasons, to be disclosing to you where and how they are travelling. They are deploying into conflict zones, but we are deploying additional consular assistance into the region.
Luca Ittimani
ASX in worst two-day drop since Trump tariffs
The Australian share market is in the grips of its worst back-to-back plunge since Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement nearly a year ago.
The country’s 200 biggest companies have lost a combined $90bn in value as the benchmark S&P/ASX200 falls for the second day in a row, totalling a 3.2% slide since Monday.
The top 10 biggest companies have all lost 1% or more in value, with ANZ Bank and BHP both down more than 3%. Number 11, Woodside, is holding steady, as traders bet the energy giant will benefit from predicted gas price spikes.
Traders worldwide fear war in the Middle East will last longer than the US has claimed, risking an oil and gas supply crunch and global economic slowdown.
The prospect of higher inflation and interest rate hikes is rising, not just in Australia, but also the US. That’s prompted traders to buy into the US dollar and sell down gold, lowering the precious metals’ price and adding to the slide on Australia’s share market: goldminers had been among the only winners in this week’s rout, but no longer.
Wilson laughs off criticism, says Chalmers has had ‘four years of clangers’
A bit of back and fourth between Tim Wilson and treasurer Jim Chalmers today over the fuel excise.
Wilson told Sky News this morning, “When the price of petrol goes up, Jim Chalmers collects more money”, which Chalmers called a “clanger” because the excise is levied on volume not price.
Speaking to reporters, Wilson laughs off the criticism:
We’ve had four years of clangers, inflation clangers, from Jim Chalmers. He’s clearly not across his portfolio.
He clearly has forgotten that the excise is indexed to CPI twice a year. He’s also clearly forgotten that in addition to excise there’s also GST, so petrol prices go up.”
Wilson more broadly accuses Chalmers of not doing enough to grow the economy and fix the budget and says the treasurer does “not take responsibility for his actions”.
‘We’ve got to move on from the apology tour’: Taylor
Angus Taylor says the Liberal party needs to move on from the “apology tour”, and wants to see the federal executive of the party come up with an “action plan”, after the leaking of the Liberal election review.
Anthony Albanese tabled the review – which was meant to be kept secret – in parliament yesterday.
Speaking at a supermarket in Canberra earlier this morning, alongside deputy opposition leader Jane Hume and shadow treasurer Tim Wilson, Taylor said:
What I want from the federal executive is an action plan for how we’re going to address the issues that have been canvassed for some time since the election. We’ve got to move on from the apology tour to the action plan.
‘I trust the decisions of our agencies’: Chalmers
Jumping back to Jim Chalmers’ press conference, he’s asked about the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, meeting with Australia’s spy boss Mike Burgess during his visit to Canberra.
Asio confirmed the secret meeting between the two.
Chalmers says he “wasn’t aware” of the meeting, and did not “pore over every detail” of the Israeli president’s schedule.
I’m sure in their characteristically diligent way our agencies would have made sure in every way that they could that that visit was appropriate, and I trust, the decisions and the judgments made by our agencies.
Jordyn Beazley
Minns government introduced ‘new injustice’ instead of fixing ‘systemic failure’ in prisons, says NSW ombudsman
The Minns government has taken insufficient steps to address a systemic failure in its prisons, the ombudsman has found, in a scathing critique which accused the government of instead introducing a “new injustice” that the watchdog “explicitly” recommended against.
The New South Wales ombudsman found in a 2024 investigation that there had been a “systemic failure” by correctional facilities across the state to adhere to legislation and policies when disciplining inmates.
NSW ombudsman Paul Miller said in an update released on Monday that up until July last year the watchdog had received regular updates from the corrections department about how it was working towards the reports recommendations to address the failures, and that the watchdog was “satisfied” with the progress.
But Miller said that changed soon after, coinciding with the government introducing legislation that was “something we had explicitly recommended should not be done”. The legislation lowered the standard of proof for all correctional centre offences.
“We have not received any further official updates since that time,” Miller said.
The legislation lowered the burden of proof for inmate misconduct from beyond reasonable doubt to on the balance of probabilities, leading to the state’s prisoners now facing among the harshest penalties in the country for trivial infractions such as “looking untidy” or “eating food in a cell”.
The government introduced the legislation after pressure from the union representing prison officers, the Public Services Union. Miller said of the change:
In our view, lowering that standard for serious correctional offences introduces a new injustice.
Findings of guilt for serious offences with serious punishments on anything other than the standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ is, in our view, unjust and unreasonable, and inconsistent with the principles of a fair trial and the presumption of innocence.
The ombudsman pointed out that courts in both Canada and Europe had held that attempts there to make similar changes were “contrary to human rights”.
