Australia politics live: PM announces engagement; Wong warns Israel against ‘unjustifiable’ plan for Rafah ground offensive | Australia news

Penny Wong denounces Israel’s planned ground offensive in Rafah

Daniel Hurst

Government ad campaign joins ‘long list’ of ways to waste taxpayer money, Angus Taylor says

Angus Taylor is a happy man this morning. He got to speak to Sydney radio 2GB about the $40m Labor will spend advertising the stage-three tax changes.

The tax changes the Coalition is voting for; which they now apparently have a problem with in terms of how they are being funded. Which was not a problem when the tax cuts benefited people earning more than $180,000. But is now a problem, apparently.

Our problem isn’t with delivering lower taxes. We want to deliver lower taxes to Australians. It’s the way it’s being funded. And it’s being funded by Australians. It’ll be 4 million over the coming years who’ve got to pay for Albo’s broken promise. And he knows people hate broken promises. So he’s going to spend $40m trying to explain it to people.

Well, this is now becoming a long list of initiatives they’ve taken that are wasting money, Ben, wasting taxpayers’ money, hard-earned money. And I know how hard small businesses and employees out there are working to earn their income and pay their taxes.

We’ve seen $450m on a failed referendum. We’ve seen $209bn of extra spending. That’s $20,000 for every household since Labor came to power. We’ve seen grants going to the CFMEU, we’re seeing environmental activists getting funded at the EDO. You know, the list goes on.

And frankly, it’s time, in a cost-of-living crisis, that this government started to use taxpayers’ money with far more caution, because it is truly hard earned.

PM announces engagement

Concerns raised about Australia’s Tuvalu climate deal after island nation’s election

Also worth keeping an eye on is this issue Daniel Hurst has covered:

A senior Australian intelligence chief has acknowledged a landmark climate and security deal with Tuvalu may be at risk after the Pacific nation’s election.

Andrew Shearer, who leads the government’s Office of National Intelligence (ONI), said his agency was “obviously aware of recent political change and turbulence in Tuvalu”.

But he cautioned that he could not yet predict the fate of the deal because ONI was not part of the negotiations between the two countries.

Foreign affairs department to appear before estimates

The department of foreign affairs is in front of estimates today where the Unrwa funding suspension will no doubt be examined from all sides of the political divide.

Also on the list of hearings, economics, education and community affairs, which will focus on aged care and the government’s urgent care clinic roll out.

Husic keen for Unrwa funding to resume as soon as possible

Ed Husic then used what has been the most pointed language to date from an Albanese cabinet minister when it comes to Australia’s suspension of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa).

Australia has paused an additional contribution of $6m it had committed to Unrwa after Israel made allegations Unrwa staff had been involved in the 7 October Hamas attack. Last week, foreign minister Penny Wong admitted Australia did not have “all the facts” about the allegations.

Asked when Australia would restore the funding, Husic said:

I’m very keen and I think you’ve seen the foreign minister express a keenness, for this to happen as quickly as possible. In terms of Unrwa, they are the principal mechanism by which humanitarian aid is delivered into this part of the world and they have had their funds suspended.

So that means there is no one else that is able credibly, to extend humanitarian assistance in an area, as I’ve said, where there’s no sanitation, food, water medicine, and we need to get that moving as quickly as possible.

Husic stuck to the line and said that he understood “the concerns are legitimate and real that there may have been workers in that agency that assisted Hamas undertake its brutal activities on 7 October. And so that is a very serious allegation” and he would want anyone found to have done that to be held to account.

And as soon as those [investigations] are done the better because we do need to have that humanitarian assistance flowing and … while Israel has been very successful, obviously, in getting countries to take that issue seriously and you’ve seen that defunding occur, I think the Israeli government’s got a responsibility to, in that case, to step in and provide humanitarian assistance or allow that assistance, I should say, to flow in there while these other matters are being resolved.

And I think there is a focus and determination, particularly within our government to get this resolved as quickly as we can, and I’m certainly one of those voices expressing the need for that to occur.

Israel appears to be ignoring international opinion, Husic says

Does Ed Husic believe Israel is ignoring international opinion and advice from allies such as the US and UK?

Husic:

It appears to be.

I mean, let’s be frank.

I think if you’ve now got a US president that has expressed the view that the action that has been taken is over the top, but that is very serious language for a US president to express.

It’s not my role to interpret the underpinnings or the assumptions driving the expression of that statement, but I think there is a degree of concern that the Israeli government is not listening.

And people are very conscious, as I said, of the statistics that I just mentioned to you before and the fact that you know, 70% of the people who’ve lost their lives, who’ve been killed as a result of this military action in Gaza have been women and children.

People are just very conscious that it cannot continue. We now have 30,000 people who’ve been killed as a result of this military action in Gaza.

Israel ‘can’t ignore’ US, international opinion about a Rafah offensive, Husic says

Ed Husic says he can’t see a credible way for Israel to plan a ground assault on Rafah while protecting civilians:

It’s hard to see how you can, as I said this is an area the size of Heathrow Airport where 1.5 million people have been crammed in. How do you undertake military exercise in there?

I think about 80% of the Gazan population. 1.7 5 million people. They’ve got nowhere to live. And there are a lot of them that have now moved into Rafah … we can’t look away … your ABC Global Affairs editor has pointed every 15 minutes, a Palestinian child dies.

One in 10 of the children that have died, they didn’t make their first birthday.

These statistics, these are not numbers, yhese are people and these are people whose futures have been ended and there are life and death decisions that are potentially being made by the Israeli government in an area where people are vulnerable and I just cannot see how you do a credible plan to protect civilians undertaking military action in that area where civilians are crammed in in that way.

I think the Israeli government cannot ignore international opinion and particularly from some of its closest allies and friends like the US for instance.

Israel’s plans for Rafah ground offensive ‘unfathomable’, Ed Husic says

Government ad campaign won’t let us forget who to thank for our tax cuts

The government will spend $40m on an advertising campaign explaining the stage-three tax changes.

It’s an easy win for the government – dressing it up as ‘education’ and therefore creating a need for the ads – but it’s mostly about making sure every one of those 13m working Australians who will receive a tax cut (the vast majority receiving a lot more than they would have under the Morrison stage-three cuts) know who they can thank.

Former deputy prime minister Michael McCormack (the one who doesn’t currently have a Google maps pointer to a planter box) had a few things to say about that in the parliament late yesterday:

The decision by this government to fund Foodbank to the tune of $14m today and the decision to fund an advertising campaign for its stage-three tax cuts to the tune of $40m says just about everything about this government and its priorities. What a disgrace! How shameful that is! That is $14m for those hardworking charities who do so much, particularly in our regional communities. People are going to Foodbank and people going to St Vincent de Paul and other charitable organisations — people who’ve never had to present themselves before but have to because of the cost-of-living crisis — and here we have a government spending $40m on advertising, on spin doctors, on marketing. What a disgrace! Those Labor members who were in that caucus who made that decision should take a good long hard look at themselves tonight. The public know. They will remember, and they will vote accordingly at the next election.