Wong to visit DMZ while in South Korea
In the Republic of Korea, Penny Wong will visit the UN Command Buildings in the Joint Security Area within the Demilitarised Zone – “an enduring symbol of international cooperation in addressing North Korea’s challenges to security and stability,” she said in a statement.
Wong will also meet with South Korean foreign minister Cho Tae-yul in Seoul “to progress implementation of the outcomes from our May 2+2 meeting in Melbourne”.
She said in a statement:
Australia and the ROK are building on our strategic alignment with expanded bilateral and regional cooperation, including on the energy transition and economic security.
Key events
Two dead after trucks collide on Newell Highway
Two drivers have died and the Newell Highway in northern NSW remains closed after two trucks collided, according to a police statement.
Emergency services were called to the scene about 10pm last night and found two B-doubles – medium-sized articulated trucks that tow two semi-trailers – had collided.
Both male drivers, aged 25 and 63, died at the scene. A report will be prepared for the the coroner.
The Newell Highway is closed north of Moree at Boggabilla Road, and south from Boggabilla at the Bruxner Highway intersection, police said. It’s expected the highway will be closed while the scene is examined and cleared until late today.
Benita Kolovos
Allan accuses Pesutto of opposing new homes in his own inner Melbourne seat
Allan questioned why Pesutto wanted to overhaul cultural heritage to encourage more homes in the outer suburbs, while rejecting new developments in his inner Melbourne seat of Hawthorn.
The premier said:
We’ve seen John Pesutto in his own electorate campaign against the houses that are being built right now in Bills Street, Hawthorn. That’s not how you build more homes.
How you build more homes is … to address some of those planning backlogs, look at how we can release more government land, which we’ve done today, look at working with local councils as to how they can also bring developments on more quickly.
The Liberal party aren’t focused on any of that. They’re just focused on nasty racial divisions.
Benita Kolovos
Cultural heritage management just one part of planning process to be improved, Allan says
Back to Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan.
Allan acknowledged that the government needed to streamline the entire planning process and said the work had been under way since the release of the housing statement in September 2023.
She said:
All elements of the planning process need to be examined as to how we can improve those processes to make good decisions faster … The cultural heritage management approvals process is just one part of all the third-party approval processes that need to be improved so that we can get on and build more homes.
That’s what the focus should be on. Not on nasty racial division that’s being driven by true blue Liberal John Pesutto. We need to focus on building more homes as quickly as we can.
And also too, when it comes to the Liberal party, at least we have a target. At least we have a plan and at least we have a program as to how we’re going to build more homes.
The Liberal party don’t even have an ambition to build more homes. They stand on the back of utes in their own electorates opposing the construction of more homes in our state.
PM: ‘We are engaging as a government’ with Rex Airlines
Asked whether the government is “prepared to bail [Rex Airlines] out,” after the carrier requested a trading halt, Albanese said:
We are concerned about Rex. It’s an important regional airline. What we will do, though, is examine any proposals.
Rex receives substantial government support with no conditions attached. One of the things that I expressed concern about was that no conditions so that Rex, for example, moved [away] from their traditional role of being a regional airline into flights, for example, from Sydney to Melbourne. Sydney to Melbourne has been, always, in the top 10 routes in the world …
Rex, as a regional airline, of course, provides important links with regional communities – and particularly between capital cities and regional communities – it is important for those local economies.
So we want to see the aviation industry in Australia continue to be one that provides those services and that access. But we know, with Rex, we are engaging as a government, through the department and through minister [Catherine] King – who I’ve spoken with again this morning and I met with yesterday afternoon about these issues – that certainly we will continue to work these issues through.
PM questioned on potential rate rise and what it could mean for Labor’s election chances
Asked whether tomorrow’s inflation will “make or break the federal government’s re-election chances if it causes rates to rise,” Albanese said:
Well, we’re dealing with cost-of-living pressures. We know that inflation peaked at 2.1% in the March 2022 quarter, in just one quarter. That was prior to us coming to office. The response of the former government was to produce a stimulatory budget in March in which they splashed money around trying to win an election in May 2022.
What my government’s response has been stands in stark contrast. Instead of the mass Liberal deficits, we have had consecutive Labor surpluses. We have done that whilst achieving cost-of-living support. Tax cuts for all 13.6 million Australian taxpayers. $300 energy price bill relief. Cheaper childcare, fee-free Tafe and as well supporting, importantly, wages increasing. Real wage increases, more so in our two years in office than occurred under the almost decade in office of the previous Coalition government.
We want Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn. We want that so that pressure can be taken off cost of living, so all of our cost of living measures, importantly, designed in a way that put that downward pressure on inflation.
‘This is a troubling area’: PM urges Australians leave Lebanon
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is now live.
Answering a question from a reporter about travel advice to Lebanon, he urges Australians already visiting the country to “take advantage of the commercial flights that are available out of Lebanon at this time”:
The travel advice very clearly is don’t go to Lebanon. That is the travel advice, and also that people who are there, who are Australian citizens, should ensure that they take advantage of the commercial flights that are available out of Lebanon at this time.
This is a troubling area. We have been issuing these travel warnings for many months now, and it is important that people are cognisant of those warnings.
‘We will continue to look at ways in which we can deepen our defence cooperation’: Wong in DMZ
Pivoting to foreign minister Penny Wong, who is speaking live from a joint security area in the Korean Demilitarised Zone.
“We want to cooperate with Korea in those areas they wish us to cooperate with them,” she says in answer to a question from a reporter.
Ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific requires the engagement of many countries. Peace is never a given, and it is also something that must be worked for.
We see Korea as being a very important part of enabling the strategic balance in the region. And we see our relationship with Korea – which has been an economic relationship, a very important economic relationship, a very important energy relationship – but we see that as part of a bigger relationship, a relationship which will go to increasingly greater economic cooperation, cooperation on climate but also cooperation in the strategic area.
We already have military exercises where we participate together and we will continue to look at ways in which we can deepen our defence cooperation.
Benita Kolovos
Victoria premier accuses Liberal leader of stoking ‘racial division’ over cultural heritage management
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has accused the opposition leader, John Pesutto, of stoking “nasty racial division” over his plan to tighten the rules around Indigenous community involvement in planning decisions.
Pesutto on Sunday announced a plan to overhaul the state’s cultural heritage scheme. He claimed the legally required cultural heritage management plans were stalling development and creating uncertainty for developers on Melbourne’s fast-growing fringe.
He did not consult First Nations groups before announcing the policy.
Speaking outside parliament on Tuesday, the premier said the Coalition had shown its “true blue colours at their absolute worst”:
Let’s be clear. Less than 1% of all applications are required to go through a cultural heritage management plan … It’s a very small number and the vast majority of those applications go through the process in the required statutory timeframes of 30 days.
This is being used by this true blue Liberal outfit, that John Pesutto leads, to drive nasty racial division at precisely the time that we should be focused on two things, looking doing everything we can to build more homes and everything we can to build that pathway towards treaty, because it provides for better outcomes for all Victorians.
More to come in the next few blog posts.
Melbourne Airport is having “some residual delays from the fog this morning,” a media spokesperson said.
International flight MF803 has diverted to Adelaide.
The fog has now lifted.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian government struggling to stay on top of road maintenance, minister admits
The Victorian minister for roads, Melissa Horne, has admitted the government has been struggling to keep up with pothole maintenance after wild storms and wetter than average conditions.
Horne on Tuesday responded to the latest RACV My Country Road survey, which identified the 20 worst roads across the state and found potholes and poor road conditions were the biggest road safety concern of two-thirds of the 7,000 drivers surveyed.
Horne said:
I’d really like to thank the RACV for the work that they’ve done in this survey. As you can appreciate, the last time that they did a survey was in 2021 – now, that was pre-all the floods that we saw in 2022 and then the subsequent floods in 2023 and also this year. In October 2022, right at the start of when we were going to get out there and do road maintenance, those catastrophic floods hit so much of Victoria. In fact, we had 63 local government areas that were absolutely inundated by those floods out of 79 local government areas. That had a massive impact on our roads.
She said following the floods, hundreds of thousands of potholes were filled but maintenance was difficult due to wet weather.
Horne explained:
In fact, just last year, I was out in Ballarat talking to a road crew that was saying, even in the height of summer, because the water table was so high, they’d be putting down asphalt at the same time that there would be water then bubbling back up out of the holes that they were filling in.
The challenges for our road crews has been immense, but that’s why this work that the RACV has done, and coupled with the amount of respondents that we’ve had from the community, allows us when October comes this year, when it is warmer and it is drier and to get our road crews back out, doing that important rehabilitation work.
The RACV report identified the 65km stretch of the Melba Highway between Coldstream and Yea as Victoria’s worst regional list.
Peter Hannam
Inflation chatter nearing its crescendo with RBA among those watching closest
Ever since inflation started ramping up around the start of 2022, prompting the Reserve Bank to start hiking its key interest rate from May of that year, the quarterly inflation data from the ABS has reliably drawn a lot of attention. Borrowers know the drill only too well.
Tomorrow’s release of the June quarter consumer price index figures are arguably the most important in the past couple of years because of the signs seen earlier this year – and reinforced in the incomplete monthly results for April and May – that inflation wasn’t being brought to heel as the RBA had hoped.
We look more closely here at what the RBA had forecast in May for the quarter just past, and how that stacks up with the punditry (who have had a couple of months more data to tweak their view:
We do know the RBA has given itself a lot of flexibility – and it would rather not hike rates again if it doesn’t have to. They’ve gone five board meetings since the last increase, back in November, and – prior to tomorrow’s CPI release – markets reckon there’s only about a one in five chance the central bank will use its 5-6 August meeting to lift rates again.
The RBA watches not only the actual inflation numbers but also where people think inflation will go. The latest ANZ/Roy Morgan weekly survey points to expectations remaining pretty “anchored” as the central bank would want them to be.
Anyway, we’ll find out tomorrow at 11.30 AEST whether inflation is stickier than we want.
Abolish Incoming Passenger Card, Australian travel report recommends
A new report wants to abolish the Incoming Passenger Card, in a call to modernise Australian air and seaports’ passenger processing.
The Future Traveller Strategy report by Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tourism, says Australia risks losing its reputation as a desirable destination if it doesn’t improve the passenger experience.
On top of binning the Incoming Passenger Card (which requires you declare food, plant material and animal products on a form on your way out of the airport), recommendations include making multiple-entry visas available for key markets, replacing the SmartGate system with “passenger on the move” technology and ensuring appropriate air capacity setting to increase competition and lower air fare costs.
Chair John Hart says:
Whilst Australia ranks fifth in the world for travel and tourism competitiveness, we are 53rd for ground and port infrastructure and 112th for price competitiveness out 119 countries.
The government needs to embrace technology and streamline systems such as abolishing the outdated Incoming Passenger Card, when the passenger information can be provided by travel providers and travel agents.
Caitlin Cassidy
New commonwealth-funded short courses for teachers to tackle disruptive classrooms
Teachers will be able to tackle poor classroom behaviour from today with a free short course unveiled to help teachers manage disruptive classrooms.
Some $3m in commonwealth funding has been delivered to the University of Adelaide to design the microcredential classroom management course, which offers strategies to create safe classrooms, address frequent interruptions to learning, build “inclusive practices” and manage escalations in behaviour.
One in three teachers have reported losing teaching time due to disruptive behaviour in Australian classrooms, which are among the world’s most disorderly, affecting teacher safety and work satisfaction and school-leaving results, OECD findings suggest.
A Senate inquiry’s interim report on increasing disruption in Australian school classrooms last year found the issue was contributing to poor literacy and numeracy results for young people – recommending strengthening initial teacher education (ITE) programs, including investing in professional development and explicit teaching methods. The findings were critiqued by some experts and the Greens.
The minister for education, Jason Clare, said the new 48-hour course would help “support new and experienced teachers and help to improve student learning outcomes”.
Microcredential courses funded by the commonwealth in explicit teaching and teaching phonics will also be accessible in coming months.
Nine-year-old boy missing in Logan, Queensland since last Tuesday
Queensland police are appealing for public assistance to find a nine-year-old boy who has been missing since last Tuesday.
The boy was last seen at school along Arthur Street, Woodridge, around 2.30pm on 23 July, and has not been seen or heard from since. He is approximately 130cm tall, is described as caucasian with light red hair and green eyes, and was last seen wearing a dark green school uniform.
Police are concerned for the boy’s welfare as he has a condition that requires medication.
They believe the boy may still be in the Woodridge area and are appealing to him, or anyone with information about his whereabouts, to come forward.
Increase in human trafficking and slavery reports to AFP
There has been a 12% increase in reports of human trafficking and slavery to the Australian federal police in the 2023-2024 financial year, according to data released as part of the United Nations’ World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.
In the 2023-24 financial year, the AFP received 382 reports of modern slavery and human trafficking offences – including 91 reports of forced marriage, 69 reports of forced labour, 59 reports of sexual exploitation and 21 reports of domestic servitude.
This is up from 340 reports in the previous financial year.
AFP human exploitation commander Helen Schneider said:
They represent innocent lives in the community. By raising awareness of the laws in Australia and supporting victims, we can make strides in eradicating this crime.
This increase is likely attributed to increased awareness of these crimes in the Australian community.
The theme for World Day Against Trafficking in Persons 2024 is “Leave no child behind in the fight against human trafficking”. Globally, data from the United Nations shows one in three victims of human trafficking is a child.
Wong to visit DMZ while in South Korea
In the Republic of Korea, Penny Wong will visit the UN Command Buildings in the Joint Security Area within the Demilitarised Zone – “an enduring symbol of international cooperation in addressing North Korea’s challenges to security and stability,” she said in a statement.
Wong will also meet with South Korean foreign minister Cho Tae-yul in Seoul “to progress implementation of the outcomes from our May 2+2 meeting in Melbourne”.
She said in a statement:
Australia and the ROK are building on our strategic alignment with expanded bilateral and regional cooperation, including on the energy transition and economic security.
Penny Wong visiting South Korea
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, is travelling to the Republic of Korea for a bilateral visit today.
Wong departed Australia on Friday, visiting Laos for meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Japan for the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting over the weekend.
She said in a statement:
This visit to Laos, Japan and the Republic of Korea is an opportunity to promote Australia’s interests and deepen collaboration with key partners and regional architecture in pursuit of a peaceful, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.
