Federal politics live: United States asks Australia to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Australia to lift its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) "as soon as possible".
In a statement, Mr Hegseth said he conveyed the message to Defence Minister Richard Marles on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
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News.com.au
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China's restaurants replace American beef with Australian beef amid trade war: reports
Restaurants in China are reportedly switching out American beef for Australian beef due to Donald Trump's tariffs. The US President triggered a trade war with Beijing by slapping meaty tariffs on Chinese goods. An ensuing tit-for-tat escalation peaked with the US imposing 145 per cent levies on Chinese products and China imposing 125 per cent duties on American products. Both sides have since backed down, with Washington agreeing to 30 per cent imposts on goods from China and Beijing agreeing to 10 per cent on US imports. But the tariffs have still hiked American beef supply costs for restaurants in the Chinese capital, prompting them to look to tariff-free Australian beef. Chinese state media reported on Tuesday that an American-themed restaurant in Beijing had made the switch because of 'cost pressures and declining supply stability of US imports'. The Global Times reported it spoke with a staff member at a 'branch of a restaurant famous for its American-style barbecue in Beijing'. The staff member said the restaurant 'stopped serving imported beef from the US starting from about one month ago due to the impact of tariffs', the Chinese government mouthpiece reported. The Global Times did not name the chain, but US business news channel CNBC has also reported that restaurants in Beijing are changing to Australian beef, including one eatery's 'The Great American' burger. A beef supplier told the network that American 'beef is fattier and tastier' but the 'high price is just too much to bear'. Australian beef is exported to China without any duties under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
ABC News
36 minutes ago
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Queensland farmers urge home gardeners to be vigilant as tomato virus strategy shifts
Queensland farmers are urging home gardeners planting tomatoes, chillies and capsicums to be vigilant over fears a highly contagious virus will spread. The state is continuing to restrict the movement of seeds, plants and fruit, as well as machinery, equipment and packaging from areas affected by tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV). First detected in South Australia last year, it has since been found on a farm in Victoria, but experts and industry have abandoned eradication efforts and will instead move to a management strategy. Farmers, fearing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, are pleading with industry and home gardeners alike to hold the line. The virus is not harmful to humans, but causes brown or yellow spots to appear on leaves, fruit and stems of tomatoes, capsicums and chillies. The infected fruit can ripen irregularly or be deformed. It can reduce crop yields by 70 per cent, and there is no treatment or commercially available varieties of tomato that are resistant to the disease. Acting Victorian chief plant health officer Stephen Dibley said efforts to rid Australia of the virus had failed. "The biology of the virus makes it very hard to eradicate," Dr Dibley said. Queensland remains free of the virus, but Dr Dibley said there could be undetected cases. "We're still trying to understand where these new detections have come from." As well as tomatoes, Queensland grows 66 per cent of the national capsicum crop and 90 per cent of the chilli crop. Biosecurity Queensland chief plant health manager Michael Reid said the movement control order was extended for three months on March 16. Once it expired, Mr Reid said a team of experts would revisit the order to assess the risk to Queenslanders and production systems. "We will be taking a risk-based approach to our regulation, making sure that we protect our industries," he said. In significant growing areas like Bundaberg, farmers are conducting voluntary in-field testing for peace of mind that their crops are virus-free. Over the past 10 months, farmer group Bundaberg Fruit and Vegetable Growers has held almost weekly biosecurity meetings to monitor where locals are sourcing their seedlings from. Chief executive Bree Watson said the National Management Group's decision would change how farmers managed and monitored the virus. "It shifts the responsibility for monitoring and containing it more onto industry and individual businesses than it does on government departments," Ms Watson said. She urged home gardeners to take part in the biosecurity effort and learn what to look for in their own vegetable patches. "They should be checking their plants regularly for anything that's showing signs of disease." Ms Watson said it was especially important for home gardeners to make sure their seeds and seedlings came from reputable suppliers. Despite being far from the southern border, north Queensland's tomato-growing region around Bowen, south of Townsville, was on high alert. "This tomato virus is a little humdinger," Bowen-Gumlu Growers Association president Carl Walker said. "We've got hundreds of millions of dollars a year just in tomatoes alone in this region … it could seriously destroy the tomato industry across Australia if it's allowed to spread. "It's a wake-up call for all growers to be very vigilant with their biosecurity because it can destroy our industry just, bang, like that. "If we do get it, God help us … it's hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of production and thousands of jobs, which is not what our economy needs." While the state has yet to contend with an outbreak, the virus is already causing losses. New Zealand suspended imports from all Australian states apart from Queensland when the virus was detected in South Australia. Tomato and capsicum seeds from Australia must also be tested before they arrive. In 2023, Australia sent more than 530,000 kilograms of tomatoes to New Zealand. While exports account for only a small portion of sales compared to the $500 million domestic market, Ms Watson said it was a vital avenue for growers who had access to it. In a statement, New Zealand's Ministry for Primary Industries said: "We are closely monitoring the situation in Australia and if there is any significant change in distribution, or which crops it (ToBRFV) is affecting, we will review the current import rules." "Although Australia has announced they will no longer be pursuing eradication, all of the controls that have been in place to limit spread of the virus remain."
ABC News
36 minutes ago
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Respect Victoria challenges men to question masculinity stereotypes in new ad campaign
Alex Mills feels very comfortable with the kind of man he is. But it's taken until the age of 40, a serious run-in with anxiety and depression and plenty of introspection to get there. "I'd just internalised a lot of that, so when I found myself in a really vulnerable space, opening up about that sort of stuff was really hard," he says. "That experience has always really stuck with me." Opening up is hard — for men, in particular — because it's in stark opposition to social pressures and stereotypes that expect toughness and stoicism. These pressures are fleshed out in a new campaign by Respect Victoria that has boiled down 18 months of research and conversations with Victorian men. It found that men who subscribed to macho stereotypes that included aggression, suppressing emotion and hypersexuality were 17 times more likely to commit gendered violence. Research manager Dr Stephanie Lusby says the campaign is about showing men it is possible to buck those expectations. "It's not about calling men perpetrators as a general bloc," she says. "It's about saying we've all got a part to play in finding avenues to change, resetting the social norms that allow violence to happen." Alex Mills is one of the 12 Victorian men featured in the campaign. All of them speak openly and honestly about what kind of man they want to be. Some have been on the receiving end of violence while others, like Alex, have waded through mental health issues. "There's lots of men out there who are really wrestling with this stuff, either in their own lives or maybe working with young people, or other men around them," he says. "A lot of that gets drowned out by the really big, loud, toxic voices. "I mean, you can't kind of talk about masculinity in 2025 without someone like Andrew Tate or a similar online influencer coming up." Respect Victoria drew on surveys of 3,500 men aged 18 to 45 about their attitudes and behaviours around masculinity. Dr Lusby says many men feel pressure to live up to harmful stereotypes, even if they do not personally endorse them. And that throughout the study, it became clear many men wanted to help prevent gendered violence but were not sure how to go about it. "Lots of men in the focus groups we were doing were saying that they wanted to do more, but that they weren't perpetrators … and so what was their role?" Dr Lusby says. "Not wanting to do more harm came out as a theme quite a bit … and so one of the things that we want to show in this campaign is the stories of men who have gone on their own journeys of building relationships that feel safer." The figures around violence against women in Australia are staggering. According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, since the age of 15, more than 1 in 3 women in Australia have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a man. The growing list of murdered women's names feels unrelenting. Names like Jill Meagher, Aiia Maasarwe, Celeste Manno, and Samantha Murphy stoke rage and grief in the community. But there has also been some backlash. A Hosier Lane mural featuring the faces of women who have been killed was recently defaced with graffiti reading "war on men". Dr Lusby hopes this campaign will help engage men who might see themselves reflected in it and encourage them to push back against harmful behaviour and attitudes. "Lots of previous campaigns have been about teaching — do this and don't do that," she say. "This one is about listening and I think that that's a really important shift. Respect Victoria's campaign, called What Kind of Man Do You Want to Be? launches on Wednesday. Alex hopes that sharing his experience prompts other men to open up. "There're so many different ways to be a man," he says. "You can be strong, but you can also be vulnerable. You can be sensitive, you can be caring, compassionate, you can be scared. "I really hope this campaign … gets men thinking about how actually there's a whole bunch of ways that I can be. And they're all OK."
