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Energy ministers meeting to discuss rising power bills
By Broede Carmody
A big theme in federal politics this week has been energy costs and what the federal government isable to do, exactly, to bring down power bills.
The budget says electricity prices are set to increase 20 per cent this financial year alone.
The government has flagged market intervention could be on the cards but is keeping its cards close to its chest for now.
Later today, federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen and his state counterparts will meet to discuss the rising cost of living.
NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean says he will use today’s meeting to demand relief for households. In Victoria, we’ve seen the state government recently flag its willingness to bring back state-owned energy assets as a way to control prices [LINK p5brl3].
Earlier today, Bowen was asked by RN Breakfast’s Patricia Karvelas when voters can expect to see a national mechanism put in place to possibly reduce the price of electricity and gas.
Here was the Labor frontbencher’s response:
Not a day longer than it would take for us to be sure that the policy settings are right and not a day earlier than we need to ensure that the policy settings are up. We’re working on this at a considerable pace. But under this government, you don’t have the sort of knee jerk reactions or 22 energy policies. You have careful consideration.
Coalition reiterates calls for PM to apologise to Coalition MP
By Broede Carmody
Circling back to an interview from earlier this morning, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has reiterated calls for the prime minister to apologise to Michelle Landry.
In case you missed it yesterday, Landry - a federal Nationals MP from Queensland - left question time early after Anthony Albanese fired up over a question about regional roads.
Albanese says he was mocking Dutton after the opposition leader attempted to correct the PM’s pronunciation of Yeppoon when he was in fact talking about the Yeppen floodplain. But the Coalition women in the chamber believe Albanese was criticising Landry.
Here’s what Dutton told Nine’s Today show earlier:
I think it’s evidenced by the fact that Michelle left the chamber essentially in tears and distraught. She’s had a lot of personal attacks against her and her family from the CFMEU and Labor candidates on the ground. [Yesterday’s comments] conveyed what Labor would otherwise refer to, in Tony Abbott’s days, a misogynistic approach. They have a double standard [and] I think an apology is warranted.
But Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles rejected that characterisation.
I don’t accept any of what Peter’s just said. I was in the chamber when this occurred. Anthony was in full flight, making a whole lot of valid points around infrastructure spending and around Rockhampton. I think he was having a bit of fun with Peter. This is a beat up. The prime minister did speak to Michelle Landry and put a call in to make sure she was fine. But politics is a robust business.
Home buybacks in flood-prone NSW will be offered to those who faced ‘risk to life’
By Sarah Keoghan
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has confirmed the buyback scheme for flood-prone homes will operate on a “case-by-case basis” and will be offered to those who have faced “a risk to life” as a result of their living situation.
Speaking in Lismore this morning, he said those that don’t specifically fit into this category but still face “extraordinary circumstances” will also be considered.
“This is not a black-and-white approach, this is going to be flexible,” Perrottet said. “We have to have better planning. We know flood events like we saw this year will likely happen again.”
Australian relatives of Islamic State fighters repatriated from Syria
By Matthew Knott
The Albanese government has begun a highly sensitive mission to repatriate the Australian relatives of Islamic State fighters from Syria.
Sources said four family groups - comprising four women and 13 children - have been removed from the al-Roj refugee camp in northern Syria and taken over the border to Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. From there they will travel to Australia.
Dozens of Australians, who are relatives of former Islamic State fighters, are stranded at al-Roj refugee camp in northern Syria.Credit:Save the Children
All the women and children are expected to be resettled in Sydney.
There are an estimated 20 Australian women and 40 children remaining in the camps, meaning the repatriation mission will be conducted in several stages.
A spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil declined to comment.
Earlier this month, deradicalisation experts backed the Albanese government’s plan to rescue dozens of Australian relatives of former Islamic State fighters.
But opposition home affairs spokeswoman Karen Andrews, who served as home affairs minister until the May election, said she found the prospect of a rescue mission an “unnecessary risk”.
She said she decided against such a mission when in government because she wanted to avoid endangering the lives of Australian officials in Syria and feared introducing people who may harbour radical ideas into the community.
Perrottet to lead national cabinet discussions on floodplain builds
By Sarah Keoghan
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has asked NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet to lead future discussions in national cabinet about floodplain planning.
The pair are in Lismore this morning announcing a joint buyback scheme for Australians living in flood-prone areas.
Anthony Albanese in Lismore on Friday morning. Credit:Nine
The $800 million scheme will see $520 million be made available to people for buybacks which will be offered to up to 2000 home owners living in the most vulnerable areas.
Albanese said the nation needed to do better at “all levels of government” to prevent people building on floodplains in the future.
“I’ve asked the Premier to lead discussion at the national cabinet about how we make sure that planning gets better right around our country,” he said.
“We need to do better on planning but we also need to do better than thinking that we can do just the same thing over and over again, because we’ll get the same results.”
Watch live: Albanese and Perrottet speak on $800m flood buyback scheme
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet are speaking to the media in Lismore, NSW this morning.
You can watch the full press conference live below.
Opposition confirms support for 26 weeks of paid parental leave
By Broede Carmody
Last night, Peter Dutton said the Coalition would support Labor’s plans to deliver more support for flood victims (expect some concrete details on that shortly) as well as higher spending on cheaper medicines, childcare and veterans’ housing.
However, as David Crowe has written, the speech made no mention of a position on the government’s plan to extend its paid parental leave scheme from 20 weeks to 26 weeks.
During his RN Breakfast interview, Dutton was asked about paid parental leave and indicated that he supports an extension.
“I think that’s reasonable,” he said. “[But] we’re just going to be careful about what’s happening in the industrial relations space at the moment. We’re up against other countries that don’t have the industrial relations system that Labor’s about to introduce that’s a throwback to the 1980s.”
Dutton wants ‘intelligent conversation’ about nuclear energy
By Broede Carmody
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has defended his call for Australia to consider small, modular nuclear reactors on the basis that the country needs to “have a discussion” when it comes to how exactly it’ll transition to net zero emissions.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
If you’ve been following the news closely over the past 24 hours, you’d know that Dutton has hit back at Labor’s argument that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. He says it’s not that simple and the technology for appropriate energy storage doesn’t yet exist.
Off the back of this, Radio National presenter Patricia Karvelas asked:
You’re proposing small, modular nuclear reactors as a possible solution to the energy crisis. Can you tell me anywhere in the world that these are in current use at a commercial scale?
Here was Dutton’s reply:
Well, what I’ve said is that we should have an intelligent conversation and that we shouldn’t be banned from having a conversation in terms of what policy we have and what we go to the next election with. And we’ll make that announcement in due course.
“As you look around the world, there are many developed countries - comparable countries to ours - that cannot meet their emissions reductions [without additional technology]. Now, if you don’t like coal, and you don’t like gas, hydro is probably a decade away in our country. You’ve got very little options. I mean, hydro is a very important part of the mix but [has a] limited application in some parts of the country. And I’d love to tell you that the battery in Victoria lasts more than 30 minutes, but it doesn’t it.
“I hope that we’re on the cusp of some technology that can deliver us the firming up that we need [in terms of energy supply], but if you don’t have it then prices will continue to go up. And all I’ve said is we should as a nation have a discussion about the zero emissions, new technology, small modular reactors, which Canada has ordered, France has ordered in the nearly 10 years before these small modular nuclear reactors exist.
David Crowe has more detail about last night’s budget reply speech and what the opposition leader had to say about energy supply here.
Albanese announces flood-prone home buyback scheme as extreme weather becomes ‘more intense’
By Ashleigh McMillan and Alexandra Smith
As reported by this masthead this morning, up to 2000 homeowners devastated by the Northern Rivers floods in NSW earlier this year can now voluntarily opt to have their home bought back at pre-disaster prices under a new $800-million program.
We’re expecting to hear from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet at a press conference just after 8am, but the PM has told Sunrise the program would help rectify “mistakes”, where homes were built in unsuitable locations for natural disasters.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The joint federal and NSW government funding will support residential homeowners hit in the devastating February and March floods across the seven local government areas of Lismore, Ballina, Byron, Clarence Valley, Kyogle, Richmond Valley and Tweed.
Albanese said constructive discussions were occurring with state and territory leaders to “stop development in floodplains, for a start”.
“What we know is that these extreme weather events are more intense and unfortunately, they are more frequent as well. The people of Lismore - where I am now - have been doing it really tough,” he said on Friday morning.
“I think today’s announcement really does provide a way forward and it also means better planning. We don’t want to purchase homes and then have homes built back in the same place.
“There will also be grants of up to $100,000 to lift homes up, but also grants of up to $50,000 for retrofitting areas to provide greater protection.”
More than 10,000 homes in the Northern Rivers were damaged when water reached record flood levels in February and March, leaving 4055 properties deemed uninhabitable.
This community has been hit time and time again. We need to stop development on floodplains. Part of this agreement is we’re not going to fund the purchase of homes and just allow someone back there in the years ahead. It’s a really important breakthrough.
My colleague Sarah Keoghan have more details from the press conference as soon as they come to hand.
Putin blasts West, says world faces most dangerous decade since WWII
By Guy Faulconbridge
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the world faced the most dangerous decade since World War II as Western elites scrambled to prevent the inevitable crumbling of the global dominance of the US and its allies.
In one of his longest public appearances since he sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, Putin signalled he had no regrets about what he calls “a special operation” and accused the West of inciting the war and of playing a “dangerous, bloody and dirty” game that was sowing chaos across the world.
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the plenary session of the 19th annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club outside Moscow, Russia.Credit:Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
“The historical period of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end,” Putin, Russia’s paramount leader, told the Valdai Discussion Club during a session entitled A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone on Thursday (Russia time).
“We are standing at a historical frontier: Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of World War II.”
The 70-year-old former KGB spy was more than an hour late to the meeting of Russia experts where he gave a typically scathing interpretation of what he portrayed as Western decadence and decline in the face of rising Asian powers such as China.
The Russian leader blamed the West for stoking recent nuclear tensions, citing remarks by former British Prime Minister Liz Truss about her readiness to use London’s nuclear deterrent if the circumstances demanded it.
He repeated an assertion that Ukraine could detonate a “dirty bomb” laced with radioactive material to frame Moscow - an allegation dismissed by Kyiv and the West as false and without evidence.
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2022-10-27 22:42:30Z
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