1 day ago
Paul Keating says US Aukus review could 'save Australia from itself'
Tom McIlroy
Former prime minister Paul Keating says the Aukus review by the US “might very well be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself.”
In a strongly worded statement, Keating says the review should save Australia “from the most poorly conceived defence procurement program ever adopted by an Australian government”. Keating said:
The Albanese government had the chance to undertake a review in its own terms when first elected to office in May 2022, but denied itself the opportunity for fear of being seen as dodgy on the alliance. Now President Trump’s Pentagon, as it is entitled to do, is subjecting the deal to the kind of scrutiny that should have been applied to AUKUS in the first instance.
The review makes clear that America keeps its national interests uppermost. But the concomitant question is: why has Australia failed to do the same?
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Bob Carr says Australia and US should agree to ‘slide out’ of Aukus
Tom McIlroy
Former foreign minister Bob Carr says Australia and the US should agree to “slide out” of the Aukus submarine deal. Carr told Guardian Australia the US won’t be able to meet its commitments, given the huge shortfall in submarine production there.
Carr said:
What’s needed now is a mutual agreement that Aukus serves neither the US interest nor the Australian one and both sides are allowed to slide out of the deal.
The Trump Administration has picked a notable sceptic of Aukus to conduct the review for one reason: they know they won’t be able to supply the boats to Australia because their own shipbuilding lags so significantly.
It is best for us that we don’t linger over this because America’s got the option of increasing the cost to us and forcing us to accept the basing of a sizeable submarine fleet in our ports, every vessel being a nuclear target should there be war between the US and China.
NSW Health urges people to book in flu shots
NSW Health said cases of the flu are rising across the state, urging people to book in for vaccinations now with numbers on the rise and school holidays around the corner.
Latest surveillance figures show more than 3,100 people in NSW testing positive for influenza last week, a 10.6% increase from the previous seven-day period. Most people with the flu don’t test, so the figures are just a small proportion of all people have had the flu recently.
The vaccine is free for:
Children aged six months to under five years
Pregnant women
Aboriginal people aged six months and over
Anyone aged 65 and over
People with serious health conditions
Dr Jeremy McAnulty, the head of Health Protection NSW, said:
Getting the flu vaccine is quick, easy and recommended for everyone aged six months and over. Vaccination is the best protection against infection and severe disease.
Influenza is a serious illness that can cause pneumonia, make chronic underlying medical conditions like diabetes, lung and heart disease much worse requiring hospital admission, and cause death.
With all this sub talk: What could we buy for the approximate price of one nuclear submarine?
With all the chatter about the Aukus deal, let’s take a step back and look at the money behind the nuclear submarines. Each sub could cost about $46bn. The Guardian published a breakdown in March to see how what that money could buy instead:
'We want them to come back': Queensland premier on police and paramedics sacked over vaccine mandates
Andrew Messenger
Queensland’s premier says the state needs all the police and paramedics it can get, in response to a question about whether he has reappointed those sacked for violating vaccine mandates.
The Katter’s Australian party MP Shane Knuth asked the premier if “all Queensland government employees who were sacked, stood down or penalised during this shameful period have been fully reinstated with full pay?”.
Premier David Crisafulli responded by thanking Knuth “for the way he’s taken the cause forward”, and by confirming that there are no longer any mandates in effect for Covid vaccines.
He said:
A Queenslander who calls triple o in their hour of need; they’ve just gone through a horrendous time and something’s happened, someone’s broken into their home. They just want to know there’s a blue uniform to come and help them ...
What we need to do is remove every barrier to get them to come back, and it’s important that we do that, and it’s important that police, wherever they’re able to serve, are given that opportunity.
Crisafulli said it was time to “move on” from a time of “division”.
“There’s been some good people who haven’t been given the opportunity to serve, and we want them to come back.”
Nurses and other health workers are still subject to a range of vaccine mandates, as they have for decades.
Queensland’s Covid vaccine mandates were overturned by the state Supreme Court because of errors in the process of declaring them.
Tory Shepherd
More on the resignation of Monash IVF’s CEO
The Monash IVF chief executive, Michael Knaap, has resigned in the wake of the reproductive healthcare company’s second embryo transplant bungle.
Experts are now calling for national regulation of the sector, something that the health minister, Mark Butler, said would be discussed on Friday when health ministers meet in Melbourne.
Currently, IVF is regulated by state and territory laws, but a more consistent, federal approach is being urged.
Read more here:
Angus Taylor: ‘If Aukus falls over, we will all pay a heavy price’
Shadow defence minister Angus Taylor said the US review of the Aukus deal “came out of the blue”, despite claims from others – including former prime minister Scott Morrison, who said it was a standard process that should not be “over-interpreted”.
Taylor said:
If Aukus falls over, we will all pay a heavy price. The Coalition stands ready to work with the Labor to make sure Aukus is a success. It needs to be strong and effective, but bipartisanship will not be a shield for inaction.
Taylor was also asked if there should be a review of Aukus in Australia, saying:
It needs to succeed and the government needs to do … I am not into bureaucratic processes, I am into outcomes. And I want to see the outcome and this is the problem with this government, all rhetoric and no readiness.
More from Paul Keating on Aukus
In any case, the calling of the Pentagon review should be the catalyst for the government to get on with the job of forging a relevant, distinctly Australian path for the country’s national security, rather than being dragged along on the coat tails of a fading Atlantic empire.
Paul Keating says US Aukus review could 'save Australia from itself'
Tom McIlroy
Former prime minister Paul Keating says the Aukus review by the US “might very well be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself.”
In a strongly worded statement, Keating says the review should save Australia “from the most poorly conceived defence procurement program ever adopted by an Australian government”. Keating said:
The Albanese government had the chance to undertake a review in its own terms when first elected to office in May 2022, but denied itself the opportunity for fear of being seen as dodgy on the alliance. Now President Trump’s Pentagon, as it is entitled to do, is subjecting the deal to the kind of scrutiny that should have been applied to AUKUS in the first instance.
The review makes clear that America keeps its national interests uppermost. But the concomitant question is: why has Australia failed to do the same?
Andrew Messenger
Queensland to honour first female MP Irene Longman with statue
Queensland parliament is set to honour its first female MP with a statue. Meanwhile, it has sat for a condolence motion for the state’s first female cabinet minister, who passed away last year. White Queensland women have been allowed to stand for office since 1915, but Irene Longman was first to win a seat in 1929. She was the third woman to win a seat in any Australian parliament.
Speaker Pat Weir announced on Thursday that he had approved a lifesize bronze sculpture of Longman eating at a table, saying:
It will represent the fact that, being a woman, she was never allowed to use the parliamentary dining room and was required to take her meals on the veranda.
It was 37 years before Queenslanders elected the state’s second female MP, Vi Jordan, in 1966. The sixth, Yvonne Chapman, elected in 1983, became the state’s first female cabinet minister in 1986 under then premier Joh Bjelkie-Petersen. She died on 27 October last year.
MPs spoke of Chapman as a trailblazer who used her platform to protect and advocate for all Queenslanders. The state’s minister for women, Fiona Simpson, said:
Yvonne carried these responsibilities, both as a minister and as a trailblazer, with grit and grace and a sense of duty, only matched by her sharp wit and profound passion for community service.
Yvonne was enthusiastic about supporting women from all walks of life, those who pursued careers, Those who chose to take on carer roles at home and those who strove to do both.
110 women have been elected to Queensland parliament including two premiers. Six women are now serving in cabinet and 5 in the outer ministry.
NACC finds no ‘corruption issue’ in $2.4m settlement paid to Brittany Higgins
Sarah Basford Canales
The Anti-Corruption Commission (Nacc) has found there was “no corruption issue” regarding the $2.4m settlement paid to Brittany Higgins following her alleged rape within Parliament House.
On Thursday morning, the Nacc released the findings of its preliminary investigation into the matter, concluding there was “no inappropriate intervention” by the Labor government.
In December 2022, Higgins signed a deed of settlement with the commonwealth of Australia while Mark Dreyfus was the attorney general. The former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds later accused Dreyfus of “seeking to silence” her for not allowing her to defend against Higgins’s claims.
The Nacc found there was “no material difference” in legal advice received by the former Coalition government before the May 2022 election and that of advice received by the then newly elected Albanese government.
The Nacc also concluded:
There was no inappropriate intervention in the process by or on behalf of any minister. The then-attorney general approved the settlement in accordance with the departmental advice.
The statement continued:
There is no evidence that the settlement process, including the legal advice provided, who was present at the mediation, or the amount, was subject to any improper influence by any Commonwealth public official. To the contrary, the evidence obtained reflected a process that was based on independent external legal advice, without any inappropriate intervention by any minister of either government. There is therefore no corruption issue.
The Nacc’s finding comes as the WA supreme court prepares its judgment on Reynolds’ defamation case against Higgins over a series of social media posts, published in July 2023, which she claims have damaged her reputation.
Reynolds is also separately suing the commonwealth over Higgins’ settlement for taking over her defence in the mediation, which she publicly claimed amounted to “egregious conduct”.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland expands law allowing police to detain and search people at random
Queensland parliament has voted to expand a law permitting police to detain and search people at random. Jack’s Law – which permits police to carry out wanding operations for knives – was first implemented in 2021, on a trial basis. It was only limited to specific areas like supermarkets, train stations and nightclub districts.
Police are now permitted to use the powers under the laws in any public place in the state. The law is also now permanent. The Queensland police minister, Dan Purdie, said:
The bill will improve public safety by allowing our frontline police to proactively use handheld scanners to detect knives and weapons.
It will provide a strong deterrent for those who wish to carry dangerous weapons in our community. It will provide efficiencies by streamlining the underlying framework. The bill will remove the onerous authorisation environment in prescribed relevant places within the current framework and remove the requirement to notify a manager or occupier of a premises prior to exercising Jack’s Law. The bill will also expand the framework to other public places with an authorisation from a senior officer.
Purdie said the law includes a number of safeguards including a requirement that officers must exercise the power in the least invasive way, and a requirement that the police department report the number of detentions in a year.
The legislation is named for 17-year-old murder victim Jack Beasley, who was stabbed to death on the Gold Coast in 2019. All states have now adopted a version of the Queensland-first legislation.
In a separate surprise late-night move, the Crisafulli government amended its own legislation to make it easier to modify tolls on two main roads.
Scott Morrison says Aukus review should ‘not be over-interpreted’
Former prime minister Scott Morrison said the US review of Aukus is “well within its remit” and should “not be over-interpreted”.
In a statement, Morrison said:
As the Pentagon leads this review, the depth of US-Australia engagement, the professionalism of our collaboration, and the consistent backing from Secretary Hegseth, as reaffirmed in his discussions with Minister Marles, remain reasons for continued confidence.
Now is the time for Australia to make the case again. We have a good case to make in both our own interests and those of our AUKUS partners, especially in the US.
Morrison added the focus of the review was “not new” and centred on the “known and genuine challenge” on US submarine production rates.
The US AUKUS review is Departmental and akin to the UK’s post-election assessment by Starmer Govt. It deals with the known issue of boosting US sub production, a challenge Australia is already helping to solve under AUKUS. Full statement: https://t.co/nVvGXoAznD pic.twitter.com/Ut3yxB5hiZ
— Scott Morrison (@ScoMo30) June 12, 2025More on two bodies found in Sydney granny flat
New South Wales police just held a press conference on the two bodies found at a northern beaches granny flat. Det Supt John Duncan said police forcibly entered the building last night after the pair hadn’t been seen since last weekend amid concerns about the two and their pets.
The occupants have not been formally identified, but Duncan said they were believed to be known to police for “minor matters”. The bodies had lacerations, but there were no further details about the cause of death or level of injuries. Duncan said:
At this point of time all lines of inquiry are being looked at. I can’t tell you what the scene looks like, crime scenes are still processing it.
Officials appealed for any information about suspicious activity in the area over the last four days.
Angus Taylor says Australia can’t ‘afford to be seen as a fair-weather friend’
Augus Taylor, the shadow minister for defence, said he is “deeply concerned” by the Trump administration’s Aukus review, saying it adds to a “growing list of issues in Australia’s relationship with the United States”. He said in a statement:
You don’t project strength by undermining alliances. Australia must show it’s serious, consistent, and committed.
If this review has been triggered by the Albanese Government’s refusal to commit to increased defence spending and its sanctioning of two Israeli ministers, then the government has very serious questions to answer about how it is managing our most critical allies.
Taylor went on to say the Coalition supports the Aukus deal, but any deal relies on “trust”, adding he believes the Albanese government had sent “mixed messages” to its allies.
You can’t claim to be a reliable partner abroad while picking and choosing your principles at home. Australia cannot afford to be seen as a fair-weather friend. This government has sent mixed messages to our allies, and we’re now seeing the consequences.
CEO of Monash IVF Group resigns after second embryo mistake
Michael Knaap, the CEO and managing director of Monash IVF Group, has resigned just days after the company said it mistakenly implanted the wrong embryo in a woman in Victoria. It was the second mix-up in months – a woman in April gave birth to a stranger’s baby after another person’s embryo was implanted in her.
Monash IVF said in a statement:
The Board acknowledges and respects his decision.
Since his appointment in 2019, Michael has led the organisation through a period of significant growth and transformation, and we thank him for his years of dedicated service.
The company appointed CFO Malik Jainudeen as acting CEO.
Read more here:
Tom McIlroy
Turnbull doesn’t think Australia will get any US-made submarines from Aukus
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says he doesn’t believe Australia will receive any US-manufactured submarines, and has called for federal parliament to launch its own review of the Aukus deal.
Speaking on ABC radio after the surprise announcement of a review by the Pentagon, Turnbull says the shortfall for the US’s own submarine manufacturing means Donald Trump is unlikely to approve any vessels being transferred to Australia. Turnbull said:
There is literally a denial of reality in Canberra. I have sat with senior officials in our defence establishment and said to them: ‘What is your plan if we don’t get any Virginia class submarines from the US?’ … They have looked back at me and said: ‘We will get the submarines.’
This is like saying, ‘I’m going to have a party in the garden on Sunday’, and you say to me, ‘what will you do if it rains?’, and I look back at you and say, ‘it won’t rain.’
Turnbull says Australia’s problem is Trump can choose not to continue with the agreement, a decision which is conditional on the US having sufficient submarines for its own use.
He says the Australian government is the “least curious” of the three parties to the deal, after both the UK and US launched reviews.
If we do not get Virginia class submarines from the Americans, it is not the Americans reneging on the deal or breaking on the deal, they are complying with the deal.
Tom McIlroy
Former Labor senator says PM should launch own Aukus review, and consider leaving agreement
Former Labor senator Doug Cameron says the Albanese government should launch its own review of the Aukus program, and consider exiting the agreement with the US and UK. Cameron, part of the ALP members group opposed to the nuclear submarine deal called Labor Against War, says the deal needs more scrutiny in Canberra.
He said:
Australians spend more time and due diligence reviewing the purchase of a television or a car than the Labor frontbench spent kicking the tyres on Aukus.
With Donald Trump’s Pentagon announcing a review, it’s high time the Labor government had the courage to initiate an independent review to ensure the Australian people aren’t being taken to the cleaners while dragged into US war planning.
Two bodies found in Sydney granny flat, police say
NSW police are investigating after two bodies were found in a granny flat behind a property in Sydney’s northern beaches overnight.
Police responded to calls for a welfare check in the suburb of Forestville around 9.30pm last night. Upon arrival, authorities found the bodies of a man believed to be in his 40s and a woman thought to be in her 50s. The bodies have not been formally identified.
A crime scene has been established, with an investigation opened alongside the homicide squad.
A map of Sydney, with a red dot on the suburb of Forestville.
