Month: September 2024

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with the President of the United States Joseph R. Biden Jr. ahead of the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Delaware.

Leaders discussed the strength of the Australia-United States alliance and depth of cooperation across defence and security, economic ties and climate and clean energy.

Today’s meeting builds on the progress Australia and the United States have made over the past two years in turning our decades-long alliance to face the future.

Our two nations have long stood together in the cause of peace and stability. We have worked together for eight decades to promote freedom and prosperity around the world.

Now we are modernising our alliance to focus on new challenges and vital interests – including clean energy, critical minerals and addressing climate change.

And of course, the biggest single investment in Australia’s defence capability in our history – the AUKUS agreement.

Today, President Biden and Prime Minister Albanese discussed ongoing bilateral defence and security cooperation, including in the Indo-Pacific. They reaffirmed their commitment to the AUKUS partnership and noted the ongoing and bipartisan support for AUKUS across the alliance. They welcomed the significant progress that has been made this year, including in building Australia’s capabilities to steward and operate its own fleet of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines from the early 2030s.

Leaders discussed the strength of our economic ties, and the importance of working together to act on the global challenge of inflation and to address supply chain resilience.

Leaders noted the close engagement on climate and clean energy, underpinned by the Australia-United States Climate, Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact. Prime Minister Albanese and President Biden also discussed ongoing work—including under the Australia-United States Critical Minerals Taskforce – to support resilient, diverse critical minerals supply chains.

Leaders looked forward to a productive Quad Leaders’ Summit, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, focused on promoting stability and delivering practical outcomes for the Indo-Pacific.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese:

“I thank President Biden for hosting the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Delaware.

“This is the 11th time President Biden and I have met as leaders, and it highlighted how productive and important our partnership has been during a time of unprecedented global economic and security challenges.

“We are facing our decades-long alliance to the future, strengthening our economic ties and investing in the security of our shared region.

“Australia and the United States continue to cooperate closely on climate and clean energy and remain committed to our shared goal of expanding and diversifying critical mineral supply chains.

“I look forward to meeting with my Quad partners to discuss important challenges facing the Indo-Pacific and strengthening the Quad’s cooperation.”

The Leaders of Australia, the United States, India and Japan have together launched the Quad Cancer Moonshot initiative, with the aim of saving lives and preventing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia is on track to be the first country in the world to eliminate cervical cancer, yet women in the Pacific die of the disease at up to 13 times the rate of women in Australia.

The ground-breaking human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to prevent cervical cancer was invented and developed at the University of Queensland by Australian of the Year Professor Ian Frazer.

Australia will contribute to the Quad Cancer Moonshot initiative by expanding our Elimination Partnership in the Indo-Pacific for Cervical Cancer Program.

This program works with our partners in the region to implement a comprehensive cervical cancer elimination strategy. This includes introducing and expanding their HPV vaccine immunisation programs.

The partnership will help more governments get HPV vaccine programs up and running in Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Fiji, Nauru and beyond.

The Australian Government will contribute $16.5 million to this partnership, with Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation providing an additional $13.1 million.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese:

“Australia is proud of the leading role we’ve played preventing cervical cancer worldwide. Today I am pleased to expand Australia’s regional cervical cancer elimination program in the Indo-Pacific.

“This announcement will save the lives of women in our Pacific family.

“The Quad Cancer Moonshot demonstrates that we can achieve more together than on our own.”

Dr Andrew Forrest, Founder of Minderoo Foundation:

“It is a true privilege to stand beside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today and announce Team Australia’s contribution to the Quad Cancer Moonshot.

“Minderoo Foundation envisages an Indo-Pacific – and indeed a world – where cervical cancer is consigned to the history books.

“It is the role of philanthropy and government to work in partnership to take advances in health to scale, democratising access to life saving health innovations.

“I think it is fitting that this announcement was made at the Quad, which is all about making a positive contribution to the Indo-Pacific by delivering practical outcomes that respond to the region’s priorities.”

This week the Federal Government tabled the final report of the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into early childhood education and care (ECEC) Read here

Member for Ballina Ms Tamara Smith MP and NSW Greens Spokesperson for Early education welcomed the report and said that all children deserve the best possible education from early childhood right through to university. For this to happen according to the Report, all governments need to commit to free universal early childhood education and care.

Ms Smith said, “It was reported that one-in-four three-year-olds and one-in-ten four-year-olds are not enrolled in any ECEC partly due to lack of suitable and available options particularly in regional or remote areas.”

“It is heartening to see reflected what early educators have been saying for decades that the biggest change you can make in a child’s life trajectory is invest heavily in years 0-6 years.”

“The inquiry found that in regional and remote Australia, there are many communities with limited or no local early childhood educational services, and I certainly experienced that as a single mum working as a teacher in outback NSW a few decades ago. To think that this is still the case when we know the game changer that early childhood education is not just to a child’s life chances but for broader society is chilling.”  

“As long as these inequities continue, we will see regional and rural Australian communities continue to go backwards in important indicators of health and wellbeing and economic success. Highly educated and happy children make for highly successful and happy communities – it is that simple.”

“I welcome in particular the Report recommendation to ensure that at least 30 hours or three days a week of quality ECEC is available for 48 weeks of the year for all children aged 0–5 years.” said Ms Smith

“Having a high-quality universal early childhood education and care system not only improves outcomes for children in regional and rural communities but can also play a critical role in engaging parents in the labour force.”

“The Greens have consistently called for free, universally accessible childcare for decades, and while we recognise and support the recommendations of this critical report, we need action not words from Federal Labor before another generation of children in regional and rural Australia fall through the cracks.”

The Greens say Labor claiming a win on a tiny JobSeeker indexation and a paltry increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) is an insult to the millions of Australians the government is keeping in poverty and housing insecurity.

Today, the combined “increases” from indexation and tinkering to the CRA come into effect. The indexation to JobSeeker amounts to $1.09 a day; for the CRA it’s only a $1.64 rise. 

Greens spokesperson on Social Services, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“It shows the disdain Labor has for people on income support that they are calling a paltry increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance and automatic JobSeeker indexation help.

“The automatic increase from indexation amounts to just $1.09 a day. This is an automated fig leaf for a Labor government that is leaving people in poverty.  

“The changes coming into effect today don’t bring JobSeeker anywhere close to the poverty line, let alone enough to live on.

“$1.64 a day increase to rent assistance means next to nothing when average national rents have increased by over $115 a week since this Labor government was elected 

“A marginally increased rate of JobSeeker for 4,700 people with an assessed partial capacity of under 14 hours shows how broken this system is. It’s crumbs instead of the real heavy lifting of fixing the Disability Support Pension.

“If Labor is serious about keeping any of their promises instead of paying lip service, the government must raise income support above the poverty line.” 

The Victorian Greens have slammed the Victorian Labor government for claiming in court that they have no documents which back up their plan to demolish and privatise the public housing towers at North Melbourne and Flemington.

The Victorian Labor government has refused requests from the Supreme Court to produce documents backing up their reasoning for demolishing the towers which the judge has labelled as “startling”.

The Victorian Labor government was requested to provide these documents as part of the discovery process for the ongoing class action being led by residents from the North Melbourne and Flemington towers.

It comes just a few months after the Victorian Labor government refused to produce 146 of 158 documents to Parliament related to the demolition and privatisation of all 44 public housing towers, denying access under executive privilege.

The Victorian Greens Acting Spokesperson for Public and Affordable Housing, Gabrielle de Vietri accused the Victorian Labor government of ongoing secrecy and lack of transparency over their plan to demolish and privatise the towers.

She said that it’s unbelievable that Labor would steamroll ahead with this disastrous plan without a shred of evidence to back it up.

Quotes attributable to the Victorian Greens Acting Spokesperson for Public and Affordable Housing, Gabrielle de Vietri:

“Labor is denying documents to courts, parliament and the public – they’re clearly hell bent on concealing the true reason they’re demolishing and privatising all of Victoria’s public housing towers.

“This half-baked plan has never been about the residents. It’s just a way for Labor to hand over prime public land to private developers for massive profits. Any plan that starts with demolishing 7000 public homes in the middle of a housing crisis, is not a housing plan, it’s a housing disaster.

“The Premier owes us an explanation. This plan will displace more than ten thousand public housing residents in the middle of a housing crisis, yet they’re steamrolling ahead without providing a shred of evidence to back it up. Where we see communities, they see dollar signs.

“The plan to demolish and privatise all 44 public housing towers has never stacked up and it’s clear that Labor has something to hide. It’s only a matter of time until their house of cards falls down on them.”

Australia is stepping up efforts to tackle high priority health issues in the Solomon Islands and across the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Through expanded partnerships between governments and civil society, we will provide $15.9 million to the Pacific Community – the region’s principal scientific and technical organisation – to help strengthen the health workforce across the Pacific.

The package also builds partnerships between Pacific and Southeast Asian organisations and their Australian counterparts, encouraging experts from across the region to share their technical skills and to develop exciting new links

Under the package we will:

• invest $9 million to provide technical support to improve immunisation coverage across the region , drawing on the expertise of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance and the Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance.
• support regional collaboration and partnerships through research on issues at the intersection of human, animal and environmental health, such as in food security and nutrition, by jointly funding programs with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
• co-fund two collaborative Centres of Excellence with the National Health and Medical Research Council, that link Australian and regional health research institutions.
• strengthen community preparation and response to epidemic disease threats through a $3 million investment which will support the Australian Red Cross to work with partners in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
• support training for animal health workers across the Pacific and Timor-Leste to enhance regional biosecurity and better protect animal and human health, through a $2.5 million partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

These activities are funded under the Australian Government’s Partnerships for a Healthy Region initiative, which works with governments and civil society organisations in the Pacific and Southeast Asia to build resilient, equitable and inclusive health systems.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong:

“A peaceful, stable and prosperous Pacific rests on the shared wellbeing and health of communities across our region.

“The Albanese Government is responding to Pacific priorities and working with partners to improve immunisation coverage across our region, helping communities better anticipate, prevent, detect, and control communicable diseases and protect the most vulnerable.”

Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy:

“This new package reflects our commitment to the health of our family and neighbours across the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

“Recognising the importance of working in partnership with governments and local civil society organisations, we are committed to addressing high priority health issues in our region.”

The Victorian Greens have slammed the Victorian Labor government for announcing the next public housing towers to be demolished, just days after claiming they had no evidence to back up the demolition of the first towers at North Melbourne and Flemington.

Today the Victorian Labor government announced that they’re targeting the towers and low-rise communities in Richmond as part of the next stage of their disastrous plan to demolish and privatise all 44 public housing towers in Victoria.

It comes just a few days after the Victorian Labor government told the courts they had no documents to back up their decision to demolish and privatise the first towers at North Melbourne and Flemington.

Today also marks the one year anniversary of the Victorian Labor government’s Housing Statement, with the state of housing only worsening since then with rents soaring across Victoria and the list of people on the public housing waitlist ballooning.

The Greens MP for Richmond, Gabrielle de Vietri said that this plan is only going to make the housing crisis worse and that it’s outrageous that Labor is steamrolling ahead without providing a shred of evidence to back it up.

Quotes attributable to Greens MP for Richmond, Gabrielle de Vietri:

“Just days ago Labor admitted that they have no evidence to back up the first demolitions and now they’re steamrolling forward to destroy the next community. This disastrous plan is only going to make the housing crisis worse for everybody.

“Labor is gaslighting us about this plan. It’s never been about providing more homes for Victorians and it’s certainly never been about the residents – all this is about is handing over prime real estate to their property developer mates for massive profits.

“Once again Labor has thrown public housing residents under the bus today. If Labor listened to the residents in Richmond – or any of the towers – for just one second, they’d hear that they don’t want to leave, they don’t want their homes torn down and their communities ripped apart.

“There are over 120,000 people on the public housing waitlist and that number continues to soar. Yet Labor wants to tear down 7000 public homes in the worst housing crisis in living memory and then won’t even show us the receipts.”