16 News

The Australian Government has raised the travel advice level for Bahrain and Kuwait due to the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East.

Travel advice for both countries has been raised to Level 4, ‘Do not travel’. Bahrain and Kuwait now join Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen as ‘Do not travel’ destinations.

The situation in the Middle East remains unpredictable. Military strikes are intensifying in a number of locations in the region. There is a risk of further escalation.

Australians in ‘Do not travel’ countries should consider leaving if safe to do so and while commercial flights remain available.

Travel advice for the remaining countries in the Middle East region is set at Level 3, ‘Reconsider your need to travel’. This includes Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Jordan.

We understand many Australians continue to travel through major transit hubs in the region in order to get to other destinations.

We urge Australians with travel plans through Level 3 countries to strongly consider whether their plans are essential.

Airspace may close at short notice. Flights can be cancelled with little warning. Borders can close. Phone and internet access may be disrupted. You could become stranded for extended periods.

Smartraveller keeps all travel advice under constant review and levels could change at short notice.

Australians in the region and those looking to travel should subscribe to Smartraveller.gov.au to keep up to date.

Australians in need of emergency consular assistance should contact DFAT’s 24-hour Consular Emergency Centre on 1300 555 135, or +61 2 6261 3305 (if calling from overseas).

The independent Net Zero Commission’s Annual Report released today warns NSW is further away from meeting its legislated emissions reductions targets than it was last year as new coal extensions and data centres put net zero further out of reach.

The Net Zero Commission is calling for stronger planning controls to account for emissions reductions targets in assessment of developments, and has warned that any new coal expansions are incompatible with the state’s binding emissions reductions targets.

Greens MP and Environment Spokesperson Sue Higginson said,“The Net Zero Commission’s striking report reveals that New South Wales is not on track to meet our legislated emissions reductions targets, and that dangerously we are actually getting further away year-on-year,

“Labor Premier Chris Minns went to the last election promising strong action on climate, but instead his Government has approved 11 new coal projects, in contradiction of the climate science and of his own climate legal framework,

“The Net Zero Commission has been unequivocal in its denunciation of the Minns Labor Government’s reckless NSW Coal Industry Strategy, the idea we can approve new coal extensions and expansions whilst reducing coal emissions is a dangerous fiction,

“People are losing trust in our planning system which is allowing so much harm and driving climate pollution emissions up rather than down. It’s clear that the system is structured to deliver for corporate lobbyists, whether it’s the Premier’s mentor Morris Iemma, his Minerals Council friend Stephen Galilee, and the proponents of data centres,

“The Net Zero Commission has been clear that climate impacts must be accounted for as the paramount concern in planning decisions, whether it is coal, gas, data centres or any other kind of development,

“Former Supreme Court Justice Basten has warned that our planning system’s approach to new coal is legally erroneous and contrary to our international obligations, it is time for the Premier to see the writing on the wall and announce an end to new coal and a moratorium on data centres and change the settings,” Ms Higginson said.

The Prime Minister has been quick to reassure his gas industry mates that Labor’s draft platform commitment to a “fair return on natural resources” won’t actually mean multinational gas corporations paying their fair share via an export tax, said Greens resources spokesperson Senator Steph Hodgins-May: 

“Albanese has wasted no time rushing to appease his gas industry mates and calm them down over even the most watered-down commitment to a fair return on our resources in his party’s platform.

“The fact he has to run cover ahead of time for such a piss-weak commitment shows just how anxious the gas industry is, and just how in bed with them Labor is.

“Albanese has once again decided that the voices of a majority of Australians and even their own members matter less to them than the gas lobby.

“The Prime Minister has claimed that ‘a fair return on our resources’ doesn’t have anything to do with a tax on gas exports, which raises the question of what exactly he thinks it does mean – because what we’re seeing now under Labor is far from fair.

“‘Now isn’t the right time,’ is straight from the gas lobby’s playbook. It’s funny how it’s never the right time for multinational gas corporations to pay their fair share. 

“Labor is all talk and no action. Words by themselves do not lower power bills or provide cost-of-living relief to families doing it tough.

“Until a gas export tax is legislated and multinational gas corporations are actually paying their fair share, this groundswell will only grow larger and stronger. 

“The Greens will keep fighting alongside the majority of Australians until we see a minimum 25 per cent tax on gas exports all the way to the next election”

Have you looked at your social media feeds lately? It is absolutely wild out there.

We are being completely inundated by an onslaught of foreign-backed AI slop, deepfakes, and automated bots.

It’s a digital tsunami of trash intentionally designed to do two things: (1) artificially boost One Nation, and (2) flood our comment threads with racism, hate and division.

Let’s be clear: this stuff is not from real people with genuine concerns about their future, their children’s future, and the status quo in this country.

It is a highly orchestrated, billionaire-funded campaign designed to crowd out our voices: Green voices. Progressive voices. Your voices.

It is a mass propaganda campaign to stop people from looking at the real crisis: extreme wealth inequality caused by the billionaires and big corporations who make up the 1% – and who continue to get richer and richer from it.

You don’t need me to tell you how dangerous this playbook has been globally.

Pauline Hanson recently jetted off to Europe: seen holidaying in Italy with Gina Rinehart, attending a Dolce & Gabbana fashion show, and travelling on to the UK on a “fact-finding” mission.

The experts she chose to meet with? 

A billionaire ex-pop star, a multi-millionaire MP whose party welcomes fascists and white supremacists as members, and a far-right activist even Nigel Farage won’t speak to. 

This is more of the same for Pauline Hanson. She wants a monoculture, mass deportations, and thinks everything started to go wrong in Australia when the White Australia Policy ended; we know, she’s been telling us for 30 years.

All that’s changed is that she’s found some billionaires to help her spread her hate.  

One Nation is running a coordinated campaign to turn people’s legitimate economic pain into cultural warfare.

But we know the truth: blaming immigration, attacking workers’ rights, and fueling racism and Islamophobia will not make big corporations pay their fair share of tax. It will not lift people out of poverty. And it will not make housing more affordable.

Labor and the Liberals are compromised, doing the bidding of the exact same billionaires and big corporations who fund their political parties. One Nation is the same, completely bought off by the wealthiest donors who profit from keeping us divided.

At best, they tinker around the edges. At worst, they tip the scales even further away from everyday people. They will not change this broken system because they are entirely dependent on it – and yet wonder why voters abandon them or look elsewhere.

This is where we must face the reality of the job ahead.

We are not here to change the minds of failing politicians. As Bob Brown once said: our job is not to keep the bastards honest, it’s to replace them. Only then will we be able to break the corporate grip on Canberra once and for all.

I know that saying this out loud opens us up to ridicule from the media and attacks from fringe groups and trolls. Well, you know what? Bring it on.

If we’re being attacked, it’s for a reason: they know the impact a strong progressive movement can have.

By ourselves, it can feel like there is little we can do, but we are not by ourselves. We have each other.

This grassroots solidarity – our grassroots solidarity – is exactly how we challenge the racist and divisive politics of the far-right and the corporate greed of the 1%.

If you’re not already a member of the Greens, that’s the most powerful step you can take on this journey.

We have the power to replace the establishment, bring essential services back into public hands, and build a movement that welcomes everyone. Better is possible, friends, and it is a future we can absolutely shape together.

Woodside’s attempt to develop the Browse gas field on top of Scott Reef off Western Australia’s Kimberley Coast represents a climate and environmental disaster for our entire country and beyond.

It’s a project that will only exist for one reason: Woodside’s profit.

Woodside is absolutely gunning to get Browse approved, which if successful would be the largest new gas field in the Southern Hemisphere and would result in 1.6 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2070.¹

Worse still, the fossil fuel giant wants to drill directly under the pristine Scott Reef and right in the middle of an important feeding ground for migratory marine life and endangered species, including the pygmy blue whale. Sandy Islet, located within Scott Reef, is also an important breeding ground for a genetically distinct population of green sea turtles.² 

Under Woodside’s proposed plan, they would build a 900km pipeline through the ocean to their gas processing plant in Karratha, WA, risking a devastating oil spill across several marine parks. 

The Karratha gas plant is also literally right next to the at least 40,000-year-old Murujuga First Nations ancient rock art, which includes the oldest known depiction of the human face. Browse will further damage the sacred petroglyphs, which are already being corroded by emissions.³
 
Last year, my state colleague Brad Pettitt and I visited Murujuga with Greens leader Larissa Waters and Victorian Senator Steph Hodgins-May to witness firsthand the proximity of this precious rock art to the constant destructive emissions from the Karratha gas plant.

It’s a stunning, sacred place and we simply cannot let this rock art be exposed to further emissions from Woodside’s Browse project.

Fortunately, thanks to the work of our friends at the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), we have just had the first opportunity in eight years to submit a public comment to the Federal Environment Minister, Murray Watt. This was triggered by ACF providing new evidence that showed that the climate pollution from this project would have unacceptable impacts on places of national significance like the Great Barrier Reef. 

Research from IPCC lead author, Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, found that emissions from Browse would result in the death of an additional 29.35 million individual coral colonies in every future mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef.⁴

Huge thanks to the thousands of you who either wrote your own submission, or added your name to the Greens’ submission. This was a really important opportunity for us to collectively influence the government’s imminent decision on this project.

There is a growing movement of people across the country who care about preserving our precious places and understand the absolute rort that the gas industry is pulling on the Australian public.

After decades of governments that have refused to act in our interests and the interest of the environment, people are increasingly fed up.

It couldn’t be more obvious that we are being taken for a ride by the fossil fuel industry. Daily life gets harder, but the profits that these companies rake in from climate-destroying projects skyrocket.

With both WA state and federal government approvals on the horizon, this is an incredibly important time to get active and support the campaign against this horrific gas project. This is a project that will have irreversible impacts across the entire country for many decades.

Our only opportunity to stop it is right now.

We need a huge, vocal movement of people across the country calling on the federal and WA governments to reject this project. We know that one of the only things that impact political decisions is the risk that these decisions pose to political careers. 

The gas lobby is already embedded in the halls of parliament and the only reason this project will go ahead is because of the profits that Woodside can wring out of it by getting the gas for free.⁵ These are the same companies that lobbied against the national gas tax.

They only care about lining their own pockets – not providing a benefit to the community, and definitely not protecting our precious environment.

There is so much at stake – please, tell your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues to join us in this important battle.

The Coalition supports a workplace relations system that is simple, fair and is easy to comply with. It should deliver timely justice for workers and employers.

Workers deserve to be paid every dollar they are owed, and employers have a responsibility to provide fair wages and conditions. Everyone must comply with the law.

But Labor’s answer to a complex industrial relations system appears to be creating another layer of legal process. Labor’s announcement of a proposed ‘Fair Work Court’ raises more questions than it answers. 

If even the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations can’t comply with Australia’s workplace laws, how will adding more lawyers, more litigation and another court fix the system?

Will the court be able to overturn decisions of the Fair Work Commission, or be subject to it? When should workers or employees seek resolution in this court or with the Commission? Can a business be taken to the Commission and the court for breaches of employment law? Or only one? Will the court prioritise claims made by certain groups over others?

Labor has announced more complexity, not how another judicial body will reduce complexity or make it easier for employers to comply with workplace laws.

Rather than creating another institution, the Government should be focused on making workplace laws simpler, clearer and easier to comply with.

It is up to the Albanese Government to explain why they have designed an adversarial workplace relations system which creates conflict between employers and employers, and to empower their union donors. 

This announcement further emphasises the Albanese Government’s desire to increase disputes in the workplace. 

We share the concerns of workers and employers about lengthy delays in resolving workplace disputes. But simply creating another court does not guarantee faster outcomes or a fair system.

The Coalition will carefully scrutinise any details once they are released. But Labor must explain why creating another legal process for employers and workers will reduce delays, improve compliance and deliver better outcomes than reforming the workplace relations system itself.

Justice delayed is justice denied, but it just got more complex for both workers and employers under Labor.