‘Shocking and horrific': Gaza conflict continues to claim lives
Australia has joined 24 other nations - including the UK and France - in condemning Israel over the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians seeking aid.
The statement accuses Israel of an 'unacceptable denial of humanitarian aid', adding the Israeli government's aid delivery model is 'dangerous and deprives Gazans of human dignity'.
'I am very concerned about the civilian deaths occurring in Gaza,' Mr Canavan told Sky News Australia.
'I struggle to see why and how this conflict needs to go on like this.'
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ABC News
9 hours ago
- ABC News
Australia conveniently aligns with Donald Trump on beef exports
Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Brett Worthington gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House. Trade Minister Don Farrell did well to keep a straight face. "We don't link biosecurity issues with trade issues," he told Sky News Australia on Thursday morning. His comments came as it emerged Australia would lift the final biosecurity restrictions on beef from the United States, once President Donald Trump's biggest trade grievances with Australia. According to the government, it's merely a departmental decision taken after a decade of review. The US, meanwhile, insists it is "yet another example" of Trump's negotiating prowess. If it's all a coincidence, it's the kind that would even make Deidre Chambers blush. Trump has long had a bee in his bonnet over beef, having claimed that Australia banned US imports, all while his country imports billions worth from Down Under, even if the facts suggest otherwise. The US has been able to export its beef since 2019 but certain products were banned amid concerns over mad cow disease in beef originally sourced from Canada and Mexico. After repeatedly arguing it wouldn't trade away biosecurity standards to assuage Trump, the government now argues it is satisfied with improvements in US cattle traceability. Few expect the decision will see a flood of US beef to Australia, thanks in part to record low American herd numbers. If anything, some in the domestic cattle industry hope it might see the US offer a more sympathetic ear for Australian exports. But Nationals leader David Littleproud is demanding an independent inquiry. He went as far as to suggest that the decision was "traded away to appease Donald Trump". Beef is Australia's top export to the United States, something that has only increased since Trump imposed a 10 per cent tariff on imports earlier this year, making more expensive the cheeseburgers he famously loves. Andrew Leigh is experiencing an unusual sight for a Labor frontbencher — the prime minister's face. Such was the scale of Labor's landslide victory in May that its 94 Lower House MPs are unable to fit on just the government benches. It leaves Leigh, an assistant minister, sitting in the seat once occupied by Adam Bandt, the former Greens leader who lost his seat to Labor at the election. Gone are the days of Leigh having to look at the back of the PM's head, he now has a crystal clear view across to Labor's frontbench, aided by the lack of any Coalition frontbenchers in front of him. A Labor MP faces expulsion for crossing the floor on a vote, a lesson senator Fatima Payman learned last year. In Leigh's case, he's got no option but to cross the floor to vote. The return of the parliament brought with it all the usual pomp and circumstance. Re-elected Speaker Milton Dick was ceremonially dragged to the chair with so little resistance that the prime minister noted: "I've never seen you run as fast as you did towards that high office." Not even father of the house Bob Katter's attempts to assert his own allegiance — to the Australian people, not the King — could derail the proceedings inside the parliament. Outside though, it was a different matter, with protesters calling for the government to impose sanctions on Israel for attacks on Gaza, preventing a 19-gun salute marking the official opening. The return of Question Time brought with it nervous ministers getting their first outings at answering (or rather not answering) questions. Behind them, nervous backbenchers closely studied the scripted questions they were slated to ask. Sussan Ley too got her chance to ask her first questions as the newly installed opposition leader. The first woman to hold that role, she rolled into the chamber flanked with three women from her shadow cabinet. Together, they represented two-thirds of Liberal women in the House, levels that leave them comfortably able to fit into a Tarago should they ever want to travel together. Speculation had been building about how Albanese would navigate Ley sitting opposite him. In the end, there was little interaction between the two, with their respective treasurers instead left to spar over taxation. By Thursday they shared what looked like terser words as Defence Minister Richard Marles defended Labor's national security credentials, but it was a far cry from the heated interactions some of her predecessors had with Albanese. The government, meanwhile, was eager to yell from the rooftops about the first bills it was introducing into the parliament — from cutting student debt, to bolstering childcare safety and protecting penalty rates — as symbols of its agenda. Claims that these are the first bills are a bit of a farce, when you consider the actual first bill introduced was an amendment to the Therapeutic Goods Act (TGA), introduced by Albanese on Tuesday. The government defends it rhetoric about the student debt bill being its first, arguing the TGA amendment is ceremonial to assert its control of the chamber. Don't expect to hear Labor championing its actual first bill anytime soon. Across in the red room, Green Mehreen Faruqi found herself grounded from taking part in any overseas Senate delegations for the duration of the parliament. Faruqi's sin was holding a sign that called for sanctions on Israel while all parliamentarians were in the Senate for Governor-General Sam Mostyn's address on Tuesday. She later asked Albanese as he was leaving the chamber: "Prime minister, Gaza is starving, will you sanction Israel?" On Wednesday, Labor's Senate leader Penny Wong moved a motion that sanctioned Faruqi for using a prop, accused her of being an attention seeker who had drawn the governor general and High Court chief justice into a political debate and banned her from any overseas travel representing the Senate. "I can tell you this: the Greens will not be silent as this genocide unfolds," Faruqi told the chamber. "You will not be able to intimidate me or any of my colleagues. "We will never stop fighting for freedom for Palestine and all those oppressed people. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." For new MPs and senators, getting your head around the arcane rules of the parliament can be a confusing task. But as this week showed, tenure doesn't necessarily come with a grasp of how the place works. On Tuesday, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson nominated relative newcomer David Pocock to be Senate president. The surprised ACT independent declined the nomination and the Senate re-elected Labor's Sue Lines for the top job. Called to please explain her decision, Hanson (who is no fan of Lines) said it wasn't intended as a reward for her fellow crossbencher. "In the last term of parliament, 220 bills were actually guillotined from debate," she told ABC Radio Canberra. "David Pocock assisted the government in allowing that to happen with the majority of those bills ... it's wrong. After almost a decade in the Senate, it seems Hanson hasn't realised that the president gets a vote in every division. So not only was she offering Pocock a pay rise and promotion, but he still would have been able to vote however he wanted.
Sky News AU
12 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Trump administration contradicts Labor by claiming lifting of beef import restrictions a 'major trade breakthrough'
The Trump administration has claimed victory over the decision to end a de facto ban on US beef imports, contradicting Australian government claims. The Albanese government has claimed its surprise decision to scrap biosecurity restrictions on US beef imports has nothing to do with trade negotiations, with Trade Minister Don Farrell telling Sky News Australia they were 'separate issues". But US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins put out a statement on Thursday describing it as a 'major trade breakthrough'. Headlined 'Make Agriculture Great Again Trade Wins: President Trump Secures Greater Ag Market Access to Australia for American Beef,' Secretary Rollins' statement congratulates the US President for his successful negotiation strategy. 'American farmers and ranchers produce the safest, healthiest beef in the world. It's absurd that non-scientific trade barriers prevented our beef from being sold to consumers in Australia for the last 20 years,' Secretary Rollins said. 'This is yet another example of the kind of market access the President negotiates to bring America into a new golden age of prosperity, with American agriculture leading the way. 'Gone are the days of putting American farmers on the sidelines.' Australia imposed a blanket ban on US beef imports in 2003 following an outbreak of mad cow disease. While this was repealed in 2019, biosecurity rules remained in place to ensure beef from third-party countries was not imported to Australia via the US. But speaking on Thursday morning, Trade Minister Farrell said the government had decided to remove the restrictions on the advice of scientific experts. 'A process that's been going now for about 10 years ... has taken place. It's been a very lengthy review, and the review has found that it is now appropriate for Australia to receive American beef,' Senator Farrell said. 'We apply a very strict test in terms of whether the product is safe to be brought into Australia and that there is no risk to the Australian beef or cattle industry … and all of those tests have now been satisfied by the Department of Agriculture." 'We've got some of the top scientists in the world. We've kept out disease for a very long period of time in Australia. We want to continue keeping it out. But if the Americans are able to satisfy those tests, and that's what they've done, then we're prepared to allow them to import their beef.' Challenged on the timing of the decision, Mr Farrell insisted it had nothing to do with US trade negotiations or the imposition of tariffs by President Trump. 'This is not a process that's started since the election of President Trump. It goes back a very, very long period of time,' he said 'We don't link biosecurity issues with trade issues. They're separate issues.' "There's nothing suspicious about this at all'. National Senate leader Bridget McKenzie expressed scepticism about the timing and called for an independent review of the science. 'The timing is exquisite, that this ongoing process to just arrive with science and a protocol that can lift the ban just in time to meet President Trump's demands,' Senator McKenzie said. 'That's why we want to see an independent review.' 'For us to have peace of mind, we would like an independent review of the science that's being applied with respect to these export protocols that says that beef is safe to come in.
West Australian
12 hours ago
- West Australian
More than 100 aid groups warn of starvation in Gaza
More than 100 charity and human rights groups say Israel's blockade and ongoing military offensive are pushing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip toward starvation, as Israeli strikes killed another 29 people overnight, according to local health officials. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, was set to meet with a senior Israeli official about ceasefire talks, a sign that lower-level negotiations that have dragged on for weeks could be approaching a breakthrough. The head of the World Health Organisation said Gaza is "witnessing a deadly surge" in malnutrition and related diseases, and that a "large proportion" of its roughly 2 million people are starving, as a result of Israel's response to the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas Israel says it allows enough aid into the territory and faults delivery efforts by UN agencies, which in turn say they are hindered by Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of security. Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 50 hostages it holds, around 20 of them believed to be alive, in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel has vowed to recover all the captives and continue the war until Hamas has been defeated or disarmed. In an open letter, 115 organisations, including major international aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders, Mercy Corps and Save the Children, said they were watching their own colleagues, as well as the Palestinians they serve, "waste away." The letter blamed Israeli restrictions and "massacres" at aid-distribution points. Witnesses, health officials and the UN human rights office say Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on crowds seeking aid, killing more than 1,000 people. Israel says its forces have only fired warning shots and that the death toll is exaggerated. The Israeli government's "restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death," the letter said. WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said rates of acute malnutrition exceed 10 per cent and that among pregnant and breastfeeding women, more than 20 per cent are malnourished, often severely. The UN health agency's representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said there were more than 30,000 children under 5 with acute malnutrition in Gaza and that the WHO had reports that at least 21 children under 5 have died so far this year. The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the criticism in the open letter and accused the groups of "echoing Hamas' propaganda." It said it has allowed around 4,500 aid trucks into Gaza since lifting a complete blockade in May, and that more than 700 trucks are waiting to be picked up and distributed by the UN. That's an average of around 70 trucks a day, the lowest rate of the war and far below the 500 to 600 trucks a day the UN says are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Witkoff was headed to Europe to meet with key leaders from the Middle East to discuss the latest ceasefire proposal and release of hostages. The evolving deal is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up, and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce. Israel has continued to carry out waves of daily airstrikes against what it says are militant targets but which often kill women and children. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas. Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people in the October 7 attack and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children.
