National news live: Latham denies abuse allegations, Albanese's China visit, Trump gives Putin 50-day deadline
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6.59am
Court to decide today about our duty to future climate refugees
A court will decide whether the federal government has a duty of care to protect First Nations people whose homes and communities are being threatened by the impacts of climate change.
At risk of becoming Australia's first climate refugees, Uncle Paul Kabai and Uncle Pabai Pabai filed the landmark case against the government in the Federal Court in 2021.
They claim it failed to protect their homelands among the Torres Strait Islands from climate change.
The uncles are seeking orders from the court that would require the government to take steps to prevent harm to their communities, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the best available science.
The court, which is due to hand down its decision on Tuesday, heard evidence communities on Boigu and Saibai could have less than 30 years left before their islands become uninhabitable.
The Commonwealth has argued it is not legally required to consider the best available science or the impacts of climate change when setting emissions reduction targets.
6.59am
Albanese to meet with China's Premier today
By Paul Sakkal
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to use a meeting with China's Premier Li Qiang today to spruik the benefits of Australia's stabilised relationship with its largest trading partner after vowing not to back down on security issues, including taking back the Port of Darwin.
As chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal reported, mining magnate Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest warned that an overemphasis on security risks was hurting trade.
The prime minister used his remarks after the roundtable, which included industry leaders from both nations, to paint Australia as a stable, open trading nation against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump's stop-start trade wars.
'I think that Australia's support for free and fair trade does provide potential opportunities for Australia in this region as well, not just with China, but with ASEAN nations,' Albanese said.
6.59am
Good morning and here are the top stories
By Christopher Harris
Hello and good morning to our coverage of everything that's making headlines around the country today.
These are the top stories:
Liberal candidate for Bradfield Gisele Kapterian has ended weeks of speculation and will today appeal against the election outcome in the once blue-ribbon North Sydney seat. Kapterian fell short in Bradfield by 26 votes to teal candidate Nicolette Boele in a recount, leaving Bradfield the most marginal seat in the country. Kapterian won the initial count by eight votes.
Rogue independent NSW MP Mark Latham has denied shocking domestic abuse claims made by his former long-term partner and Liberal Party member Nathalie Matthews, which included accusations he forced her into degrading sexual acts. First reported on Monday night by The Australian, the allegations in documents filed with the NSW Local Court, detail Matthews' claims that Latham engaged in a 'sustained pattern' of abuse, including emotional, psychological and financial manipulation. Latham has denied the allegations.
Donald Trump has threatened to place severe tariffs on Russia's allies if Vladimir Putin does not make a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days, marking the first time the US president has set a deadline on action from his counterpart in Moscow.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has slammed conservative campaigning group Advance and its donors after it emerged that antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal's husband's family trust gave $50,000 to the controversial organisation. But Burke has defended Segal, saying that claims she should be held responsible for her husband's actions were outdated and misogynistic.
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Sydney Morning Herald
12 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Alan Jones' former conservative home still waiting for Newsmax relaunch
Loading To us, that is a sad moment for Australian media. ADH TV provided a welcome home for so many of the right's has-beens: former Australian Christian Lobby boss Lyle Shelton, arch-monarchist David Flint, twice-rehabilitated News Corp broadcaster Chris Smith and Jacinta Price's husband, for some reason. Where would we be without them? Red scare Brace yourselves. The Russians are coming for the High Court of Australia. Last week, the country's top court heard an appeal by the Russian Federation against laws to effectively cancel a lease on its new Canberra embassy on national security grounds. Russia claimed the lease cancellation by the Albanese government was 'Russophobic hysteria', and quickly retained the $25,000-a-day services of Australia's foremost High Court winner Bret Walker SC, who led a challenge to the laws' constitutional validity. The day after that hearing, the court announced it would consider another high-profile case, this time brought by billionaire Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. An industrialist with a stake in an alumina refinery in Gladstone and ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Deripaska was sanctioned by the Morrison government following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The designation stopped him from travelling to Australia or profiting from his company's share in the Gladstone refinery. Loading Deripaska has been fighting those sanctions since, arguing they are constitutionally invalid because they stop him travelling to Australia to challenge them. Last week, the High Court granted Deripaska special leave to appeal a March decision of the Full Federal Court rejecting his argument. The sanctions against Deripaska, which aligns with similar decisions made by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union following the Ukraine invasion, were implemented by former foreign minister Marise Payne. At the centre of the oligarch's legal challenge is one of Payne's old cabinet comrades, former attorney-general Christian Porter, who quit parliament in 2022 after using anonymous donors to fund an aborted defamation case against the ABC after the public broadcaster reported a historic rape allegation against him (which the ex-minister has always denied). Porter, as CBD regulars would recall, has returned to the Perth bar with gusto, where he's acted in a series of high-profile cases. His reinvention has brought him into the orbit of Deripaska, who he is now representing, and paved the way for a dramatic return to Canberra.
Sky News AU
12 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Electric vehicle road user charge 'almost inevitable', Infrastructure Partnerships Australia CEO Adrian Dwyer declares
A road-user charge that will force electric vehicle drivers to 'pay their fair share' is now 'almost inevitable', an industry leader has declared as the government mulls changes to how drivers are taxed. According to The Australian, Treasurer Jim Chalmers is considering "accelerating work on a modest road-user charge for electric vehicle drivers" as part of major tax reforms. This could mean EV drivers would contribute to road and construction repair. Funds currently mostly come from the fuel excise which accounts for 51.6 cents per litre of petrol or diesel sold in Australia - costing the average household more than $1200 per year. A discussion of the charge was organised by think tank Infrastructure Partnerships Australia where leaders across public policy and industry gathered ahead of next week's productivity roundtable. Infrastructure Partnership Australia's chief executive Adrian Dwyer spoke with Business Now on Monday where he warned a 'terminal decline' in fuel excise meant the government had to widen its scope on vehicle levies. 'It's a good thing that those electric vehicles are coming in for emissions reduction, but they still use roads,' Mr Dwyer said on Business Now. 'Roads have to be paid for and everybody should pay their fair share for making sure that they're built and maintained.' He stressed a road-user charge was an 'update' to the tax system which was 'outdated' and should not be considered a 'new tax'. It comes as New Zealand has already unveiled plans to scrap the fuel excise and instead have all light vehicles, including petrol, diesel, electric and hybrid, pay a levy based on distance travelled and the weight of the vehicle after it implement a trial of the policy. Mr Dwyer pointed to Australia's trans-Tasman neighbours as an example of how a charge could be implemented. 'The sky didn't fall in,' he said. '(The New Zealand government) announced earlier this week that they're extending their program and putting a more user-friendly approach in. 'Many US states are trialling this. This is not novel or unique anymore, it's actually almost inevitable now that this has to be the way we go to update our road system and it can be a way of accelerating uptake of electric vehicles as well.' A road user charge would force wealthy Australians with deep pockets to contribute towards the quality of the nation's roads. Some of the cheapest new Tesla models cost shoppers almost $60,000, while Audi EVs start from about $100,000 and cheap BMWs are about $80,000. The cheapest new EVs in Australia are about $32,000, however, most vehicles start from at least $60,000. Mr Chalmers said in June that the Albanese government was looking to work with various state and territories 'on the future of road user charging'. 'Now all of this represents a big agenda on the supply side of our economy. And none of these reforms are simple,' Mr Chalmers told the National Press Club at the time. 'All of them require sustained collective effort and they'll take time to show up in the data.' The Productivity Commission's report issued last week also called for a national road user charge that would force EV drivers to contribute to road maintenance.
Sky News AU
12 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Anthony Albanese's Palestine stand the latest low in US-Australia relationship after Labor's repeated attacks on Donald Trump
The state of the relationship between President Donald J. Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is not only strained - it is nearly non-existent. The diplomatic coldness that now exists between the leaders of two long-standing allied nations is largely the result of political miscalculation on Mr Albanese's part. Now that Trump is in his second term, with control of the White House and a renewed mandate from the American people, Mr Albanese finds himself in the awkward position of needing a meeting with a man he publicly insulted and who, to this point, has declined even to meet him once. In 2017, Mr Albanese admitted that Trump 'scares me', while in 2020 Australia's now-ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd called Trump 'the most destructive American president in history'. These lines may have played well in left-wing media circles, but they were short-sighted. At the time, Mr Albanese likely assumed Trump's political relevance would fade after the 2020 election. Like many global progressives, he misunderstood Trump not just as a person but as a political force. He failed to grasp that Trump's movement had roots in widespread discontent with globalism, political elitism, and unchecked bureaucracy - forces that would return Trump to the White House in 2024 with even stronger resolve than before. The diplomatic cost of that miscalculation is now concrete. In April 2025, the US imposed a 10 per cent baseline 'reciprocal tariff' on most Australian goods, effectively overriding the near-zero-rate access Australia enjoyed under the AUSFTA. By early June, Australian steel and aluminum exports faced a 50 per cent tariff, up from the exemption status under Trump's first term. Trump's tariffs have the potential to wreak havoc on Australia's economy. The US is the fifth largest partner destination for Australian goods exports, which totalled almost $24 billion in 2024. Compounding the pressure, the US has floated tariffs as high as 200 per cent on pharmaceuticals, raising alarm because Australia's pharmaceutical exports alone were worth $2.1 billionlast year. The Albanese government had hoped its longstanding alliance and trade surplus with the US would earn it favourable consideration, but those hopes have been dashed. The White House refused to exempt Australia from the steel and aluminum tariffs, even rejecting a proposal that offered Australia's critical minerals as leverage. Australia wants concessions. But Mr Albanese is approaching a president who neither forgets slights nor sees value in rewarding a leader who went out of his way to insult him. Now the Australian Prime Minister has defied the US and Israel to recognise Palestine, a declaration that will only deepen the tensions between Canberra and Washington DC. In the transactional world of Trump diplomacy, respect is currency and Mr Albanese has none to spend. In contrast, other world leaders, even those with differing ideological views than Trump, have managed to navigate the President's second term with pragmatism. They've sought personal rapport and ensured that lines of communication remained open. Leaders like India's Narendra Modi and France's Emmanuel Macron may not agree with Trump politically, but both have a strong relationship with the US President because they understand that he responds best to those who treat him as an equal instead of an adversary. There is also a broader issue at play: Mr Albanese continues to act as though Trump's presidency is an aberration, rather than a reflection of a lasting shift in American political identity. In February, when asked to respond to Trump's statements that outlined a different vision of America's role in the world, Mr Albanese said disparagingly: 'I'm not going to provide a running commentary on statements by the President of the United States.' Mr Albanese's attitude seems to assume that Trump's term is simply another blip, or unfortunate temporary phase, rather than the continuation of a durable political realignment in the US. Trump represents a populist-nationalist current that is reshaping not just the US, but the Western alliance system as a whole. Leaders who ignore this, or who denigrate it, do so at their own peril. At the same time, Mr Albanese rejected the Trump Administration's request to increase Australia's defense spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Mr Albanese dismissed the idea, calling the requested benchmark an arbitrary 'magic number'. With global tensions rising in the Indo-Pacific, it is more important than ever that Australia remain in lockstep with its primary strategic partner. That becomes increasingly difficult when the US President views the Australian Prime Minister as irrelevant, or worse, hostile. There is still a narrow window for course correction. If Mr Albanese wants to secure tariff relief and avoid being shut out of defense cooperation upgrades, he must first earn Trump's respect. That may involve a public acknowledgment that past rhetoric was inappropriate, or at least a strong, unequivocal signal that Australia is ready to deal on equal terms. It will also require outreach to Trump-aligned US lawmakers and key administration officials, who can serve as intermediaries in building a strong relationship between the two leaders. But more than anything, it will require humility - something in short supply among leaders who have spent years publicly criticising Trump. Ultimately, repairing the diplomatic freeze between Trump and Mr Albanese will come down to respect and readiness to act in the national interest. Mr Albanese failed to understand President Trump and dismissed the political movement he represents. The PM now finds himself asking for favours from a man who has no reason to grant them. It's a cautionary tale of ideology blinding leadership, and a lesson that others in the international community would do well to learn. Kristin Tate is a US-based writer. She pens a weekly column for The Messenger focused on federal spending and has written three books, the most recent of which is titled 'The Liberal Invasion of Red State America'. She is a contributor for Sky News and appears weekly to discuss US politics
