Protest at Mardi Gras ‘probably pretty standard’, NSW premier says
Chris Minns, said it is “a bit strange” that he was the first NSW premier to march in the Mardi Gras parade at the weekend, “given that it [has been] a fixture on the calendar for decades”.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Minns said a pro-Palestine protest that took place during the march on Saturday “wasn’t too much of a big deal on the night”.
He said:
Look, a lot has been made of it, but to be honest, it wasn’t too much of a big deal on the night. I mean, there was some coloured flares that went off, and I said yesterday, I thought that that was actually part of Mardi Gras. So I don’t think that it disrupted me or the march too much. A little bit of protest at Mardi Gras is probably pretty standard, so not the end of the world.
Key events
King Charles should attend NRL grand final, NSW premier suggests
Chris Minns is already making the case for King Charles to visit Sydney, if he visits Australia later this year.
Overnight, Anthony Albanese said his government was in talks with the states and territories “on options for a possible royal visit” later this year. You can read more from Daniel Hurst earlier in the blog here.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Minns said:
I think he would be warmly welcomed in New South Wales and Sydney and it is the most beautiful city on earth. I’d let the beautiful town do the talking for me. Also we have the grand final coming in October, so maybe he could turn up to the rugby league grand final – I doubt he has been to a game in New South Wales. That could be a big opportunity for us as well.
Minns also told Sunrise: “I mean, this is one of the greatest cities on earth and if you don’t come to Sydney then no one will believe that you came to Australia.”
And thus, the state spruiking begins.
‘Change needs to be made’ on NSW police policies and procedures, Minns says
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has been making the breakfast TV rounds this morning and commented on the independent inquiry into NSW police policies and procedures, following the killing of Luke Davies and Jesse Baird allegedly by a serving police officer.
He told Nine’s Today Show:
… we know change needs to be made. I feel so desperately sorry for the family and friends of Luke and Jesse.
Asked if he would back calls for police-issued weapons to be installed with GPS trackers, Minns said he would consider all recommendations from the review.
He told Seven’s Sunrise:
I have to examine how ubiquitous those GPS trackers are on police equipment, whether they’re available in every police car or on every police officer.
We will look at [the recommendations] really closely.
– with AAP
People on low incomes becoming severely ill due to heatwaves, new survey finds
80% of people on low incomes report becoming severely unwell because of heatwaves, including more than 90% of First Nations communities, according to new research from the Australian Council of Social Service.
Acoss CEO Cassandra Goldie told ABC News Breakfast around 15% of those people are seeking medical attention and dealing with severe health impacts.
Overall, heatwaves are actually 80% of extreme weather hospitalisations, not floods … It’s very serious, and it’s particularly affecting people on lower incomes.
Many people on lower incomes live in areas that are hotter already – sometimes up to 2% hotter than more wealthy areas where you live – and then if you’re a renter, you don’t have the same control over your property, and so we really need now these minimum energy efficiency standards brought in across rental properties, so that they are of good standard and the low-cost financing for landlords to do the retrofitting – that energy efficiency, solar panels, and electrification.
We’re nowhere near where we should be at this time.
The research involved a survey of 1,007 people across Australia, conducted by Acoss in partnership with First Nations Clean Energy Network.
Australia must reinstate funding to UNRWA as ‘bare minimum’, Save the Children says
Save the Children Australia is calling on the federal government to immediately reinstate suspended funding to UNRWA, or it would “risk allowing the collapse of a critical lifeline to more than a million children in Gaza who are deeply traumatised and at imminent risk of starvation”.
In a statement, Save the Children said it and other NGOs are doing “everything they can to support children and families in Gaza” but “it would be impossible for any other organisation or UN agency to replace UNRWA”.
Save the Children Australia’s CEO, Mat Tinkler, said that by continuing to withhold funding from UNRWA, Australia and other donors “have effectively removed the crumbs that Gaza’s children are surviving on”.
Allowing the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza by refusing to restore funding to UNRWA during one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history risks the deaths of many more children in this horrific war.
The Foreign Minister [Penny Wong] has publicly acknowledged that the only way to stop children from starving to death in Gaza is to resume funding to UNRWA. Yet the Australian Government has not articulated a clear pathway forward that would allow funding to be restored, despite UNRWA warning it will soon have to cease its lifesaving work.
Reinstating the suspended funding is the bare minimum Australia should be doing. The magnitude of this crisis requires Australia to take urgent action to help prevent further widespread suffering and death, by increasing its funding to organisations working in Gaza to save lives, including UNRWA and International NGOs. The clock is ticking, and fast.
Marles confident Aukus will ‘enjoy the support of any future American government’
Moving to international matters, Richard Marles was asked whether Aukus is still possible if Donald Trump wins the next US election.
He answered with a clear “yes” and said:
And the reason I say that is because when you look at the support across the political spectrum in the United States, for Australia [and for Aukus specifically], it is there and we saw that on display at the end of last year when legislation passed through the United States Congress with the support of the full spectrum of American politics.
Host Patricia Karvelas noted there was some pushback. Marles continued:
I actually think when you sit back and have a look at it, it was fulsome support across the political spectrum … when it came to the crunch, there was support for Australia but support for the Aukus arrangements across the spectrum, and that does give us a sense of confidence that no matter what the result is in the presidential election at the end of this year, Aukus is going to enjoy the support of any future American government.
Government’s cost of living policies ‘received well’ in Dunkley, Marles says
Making the rounds this morning, the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, also spoke to ABC RN and commented on the Dunkley byelection result.
The Liberal candidate, Nathan Conroy, received a swing of more than 3% but fell short of the 6.3% required, leaving the Labor candidate, Jodie Belyea, as the newest federal MP.
Asked what lessons the government needed to take from Dunkley, Marles said:
We’ll go through these results in a lot of detail to really understand what is being said here, and we want to learn everything we can from this result.
I mean, it is a matter of historical fact that there tends to be swings against governments in byelections, but that said, we do want to understand exactly all that’s happened here. In the same breath, the fact that our primary vote held up given how popular Peta Murphy had been as a local member, I think says a lot about the campaign Jodie Belyea ran …
It is clear the policies we put in place around cost of living, particularly Labor’s tax cuts, were well received, but we will continue to work hard on our cost of living issues right through until the next election.
‘Context has changed’ since NSW lit up Opera House to support Israel, Minns says
ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland:
You ordered the lighting up of the Sydney Opera House sails in support of Israel after 1,200 Israelis were murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Since then, 30,000 Palestinians have died. Will you consider lighting up the Sydney Opera House in support of Palestine?
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said “the context has changed”.
This is an international conflict now and I don’t want to further exacerbate or pull apart Sydney’s already quite volatile mix. I would make the point that much of what will be said in New South Wales will [not] affect the peace situation in the Middle East, but a lot of what could be said can affect peace right here in this state. So we need to be careful with our commentary, we need to focus on not exacerbating community tensions or divisions, and that’s going to be the NSW government’s approach over the coming months.
‘Difficult to bring the community together right now’ after iftar cancellation, Minns says
Chris Minns said he can understand the concerns of Muslim and Arab communities in New South Wales about what’s happening in Gaza.
This comes as Muslim groups decided to boycott the state iftar dinner, before it was ultimately cancelled:
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast Minns said:
I don’t pretend … that there’s complete unanimity on these matters. This is a very complicated international [matter] in the Middle East. We’ve got large expat communities on either side of that conflict in New South Wales. It’s very difficult to bring the community together right now. What I would say is that my focus has got to be peace and security on the streets of Sydney in particular, and we’ll do our best to promote harmony in NSW but that’s going to take a bit of time.
Protest at Mardi Gras ‘probably pretty standard’, NSW premier says
Chris Minns, said it is “a bit strange” that he was the first NSW premier to march in the Mardi Gras parade at the weekend, “given that it [has been] a fixture on the calendar for decades”.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Minns said a pro-Palestine protest that took place during the march on Saturday “wasn’t too much of a big deal on the night”.
He said:
Look, a lot has been made of it, but to be honest, it wasn’t too much of a big deal on the night. I mean, there was some coloured flares that went off, and I said yesterday, I thought that that was actually part of Mardi Gras. So I don’t think that it disrupted me or the march too much. A little bit of protest at Mardi Gras is probably pretty standard, so not the end of the world.
No tsunami threat after 6.8 magnitude earthquake off Macquarie Island
A 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit near Macquarie Island overnight. The Bureau of Meteorology said there is no tsunami threat to Australia:
Macquarie Island is uninhabited, located around 1,500km south-east of Tasmania.
Royal visit this year would be ‘really tremendous and popular event’: Marles
Richard Marles was also asked about a potential visit from King Charles, following news the prime minister Anthony Albanese is going ahead with plans for a potential visit later this year.
Q: Do you reckon people care? Will there be that much excitement about a visit if it happens later on this year?
Marles told ABC News Breakfast:
I think people care. And you’re right – we are very much thinking about King Charles at the moment in terms of his battle with cancer. But King Charles has a long connection with this country. Obviously, he went to school in his youth here in Australia, and this would be his first visit to Australia as the King …
I think that a royal visit by King Charles and Queen Camilla later in the year would be a really, really tremendous and popular event, and I do think that Australians would very much welcome seeing King Charles in our country later this year.
Asean ‘completely central’ for Australia’s economic and security future, defence minister says
The defence minister, Richard Marles, says with the exception of Myanmar, every Asean leader is in Melbourne ready for the summit kicking off today.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast just earlier, Marles was asked how much the rise of China would be front and centre of discussion among leaders there.
He said leaders would discuss China “in the sense that they are part of the global landscape” but the meeting itself is not about China.
Marles, who is also deputy prime minister, said Asean is not only “completely central” in terms of Australia’s economic future, but also central in terms of Australia’s security future.
The defence of Australia doesn’t mean that much unless we have a stable and peaceful and secure south-east Asia. And so, we feel deeply connected both in an economic and a security sense with Asean, and I think that those countries feel the same in relation to Australia, which is why there is such a significant turnout of Asean.
The host noted that diaspora communities from countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are urging the government to raise human rights concerns in those countries. Marles said he wouldn’t “go into the details of what will be said in every meeting”, but said:
Australia is always an advocate of human rights and we do that in the meetings that we have around the world. And so, you can be assured that we will carve out our business in the way that we normally would in the course of these meetings.
Firefighters battle blazes in Tasmania and Western Australia overnight
A caravan park has been evacuated and residents warned to leave as a bushfire rages in Tasmania’s north-west, AAP reports.
Fire crews were actively responding to the blaze at Port Latta on Sunday, with authorities evacuating the Crayfish Creek caravan park and setting up an evacuee centre at the Rocky Cape community hall.
The fire was within containment lines on Sunday night but crews would remain on site overnight due to the risk of spot fires, Tasmania Fire Service said in a statement.
Meanwhile, lives and homes were threatened after a bushfire in mid-west Western Australia jumped containment lines.
A bushfire emergency warning was issued on Sunday for people in an area bounded by Brand Highway to the west, Skipper Road to the south and Correy Road to the east in parts of Arrowsmith and Arrowsmith East in WA’s Irwin and Three Springs shires.
The alert level was downgraded to watch and act last night after a change in wind direction.
Emergency WA said the blaze had been sparked by lightning.
Three-day Asean summit kicks off today
Daniel Hurst
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is due to meet the Malaysian prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, in Melbourne today on the first day of a three-day special Asean summit.
Australia is not a member of Asean – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – but the special summit marks 50 years since Australia became the regional grouping’s first dialogue partner. Timor-Leste, which wants to become an Asean member, will also attend the summit.
There are a range of bilateral meetings planned while leaders are in Australia. Albanese has previously said Anwar would be honoured as a guest of government today.
Albanese said in a statement issued in advance of the three-day summit:
Australia sees Asean at the centre of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous region. Strengthening our relationship ensures our shared future prosperity and security.
Australia still planning for King Charles visit later this year
Daniel Hurst
The Australian government is pressing ahead with planning for a possible visit by King Charles later this year.
The idea doesn’t come out of the blue: it was previously reported that King Charles might visit Australia and New Zealand in October 2024. But those plans were placed in doubt last month when Buckingham Palace revealed Charles had begun regular treatment for cancer.
In a statement issued overnight, Anthony Albanese said his government was in talks with the states and territories “on options for a possible royal visit”. The prime minister said:
Australia is preparing for a possible visit from His Majesty The King to Australia later this year.
The King has shown his compassion for Australians affected by recent natural disasters, just as Australians have shown compassion and support for the King following his cancer diagnosis.
The King, Queen and members of the Royal Family are always welcome in Australia.
Charles last visited Australia in 2018, when he was the Prince of Wales, to open the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Good morning
Emily Wind
And happy Monday – welcome to a new week on the Australia news liveblog. I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll be taking you through our rolling coverage today.
But first, here are some of the biggest stories from overnight: the Australian government is moving ahead with plans for a potential visit by King Charles later this year, despite the King’s cancer diagnosis. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said his government was in talks with the states and territories “on options for a possible royal visit”.
Meanwhile, Albanese is due to meet the Malaysian prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, in Melbourne today on the first day of a three-day special Asean summit. We will have more on both these stories from Daniel Hurst in a moment.
Firefighters are battling two separate blazes – one at Port Latta in Tasmania’s north-west, and one at Arrowsmith in midwest Western Australia. The fire at Port Latta was within containment lines but crews remained on site overnight due to the risk of spot fires, and in WA, an emergency warning was downgraded to a watch and act last night after a change in wind direction. More on these from AAP shortly.
See something that needs attention? You can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.
Let’s get started.