Nationals call for support for Australian wine industry
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has told AAP that Australia’s wine industry is in desperate need of financial support to even if China decides to drop tariffs.
Littleproud said the government needs to step in to stop foreclosures and help a struggling industry after years of blockages to the lucrative China market put the industry on a knife’s edge.
The government needs to act now to give some financial support to get them through this phase and hope that China will at least remove these tariffs.
But even if the tariffs are removed, it’s still going to take time to move product, and for these producers to be able to financially survive this is critical.
Littleproud said he has heard of wine producers in South Australia’s Riverland region about to go under “because they simply don’t have a market to sell to”.
The head of the Australian Grape and Wine group, Lee McLean, supported calls for growers to receive additional support:
It’s not something that we can solve as an industry ourselves quickly, we need some additional coordinated government support.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi wears a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh in the senate chamber of Parliament House in Canberra. The scraf has become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
National cabinet to meet to discuss future skills and training needs
As forewarned during question time, national cabinet will meet virtually at 6.30pm this evening to discuss the country’s future skills and training needs.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the meeting with state and territory leaders will look to “progress the next stage” of the national skills agreements.
The five-year skills agreement will start from January 2024 and will focus on removing workplace entry barriers, lifting First Nations and women’s participation and improving completion rates in critical skill areas.
The commonwealth will commit $3.7bn over the five years with an extra $400m directed to support 300,000 Tafe and vocational education and training (VET) fee-free places.
The skills minister, Brendan O’Connor, told question time it would benefit students, workers, businesses and the economy:
If we’re going transform the energy sector, we need skills, if we’re going to enliven manufacturing through the national reconstruction fund; we need skills. If we are going to supply the labour and skills for our care economy, we have to have the right investment advised by jobs and skills Australia.
Zali Stegall calls for truth in political advertising laws
Independent MP Zali Steggall is again mounting the case for truth in political advertising laws after the voice referendum. About 58% of her electorate of Warringah voted yes, with about 80% of votes counted. Similar results have been recorded in many teal seats across the country.
Steggall, like many politicians who campaigned for yes, have criticised high levels of misinformation about the voice proposal. Here’s what she told the ABC a few moments ago:
We have consumer law that protect advertising in relation to products. So advertising cannot mislead the consumer parting with their money [for products] that do not do what is said to be done. We do not protect democratic rights in the same way. I think that creates a really incredible imbalance.
There is broad support for truth in political advertising in relation to misleading and deceptive advertising that is paid for and authorised. We’re not talking about opinions, we’re talking paid advertising.
NSW RFS issues warnings over fire near Moparrabah as BoM warns of fire risk across the country
Stepping away from politics for a moment, there’s a couple of fires now at emergency alert level across the country.
The NSW Rural Fire Service says a fire burning in Willi Willi National Park and Boonanghi Nature Reserve near the town of Moparrabah, west of Kempsey, is moving in multiple directions due to erratic fire behaviour:
If you are in the area of Toorumbee Rd you are at risk. Seek shelter to protect yourself from the fire. It is too late to leave.
EMERGENCY WARNING: Willi Willi Rd Fire, Moparrabah (Kemspey LGA) Leave Now - Willawarrin If you are in Willawarrin and your plan is to leave or you are unprepared, leave now along Armidale Rd heading south towards Kempsey. For more information: https://t.co/30HSwOH5Lgpic.twitter.com/hQ3N3OD9Uv
I am going to hand over the blog to Henry Belot, who will take you through the afternoon. Parliament and party room meetings will be held tomorrow – expect to hear another victory lap from the opposition leader.
Thank you so very much to everyone who joined us today, and followed us through another grim day of Australian politics. We will be back tomorrow morning – and please, more than ever, take care of you.
On these points – and I’m very grateful to have been able to express a few remarks in this very important debate we are having – not all Israelis are Jewish and not all Palestinians are Muslim, but everyone is feeling a dread at the moment.
Regardless of your faith or ethnicity, all Israelis and Palestinians are absolutely entitled to the right to a future, free from the weight of fear. They should be able to build better lives for themselves and do what everyone of us who are parents want: to build a better life for the ones that follow.
They should be able to do it within the state of Israel, and they should be able to do it in [the] state of Palestine
I also think deeply about what will happen in Gaza, where two million people are crammed in. There’ll be a lot of innocent Palestinians who will pay a price for the actions of Hamas.
I restate this: Hamas must absolutely be held to account. Innocent Palestinians should be protected. They should be given passage. They should be able to get out of harm’s way. They should be preserved as well, in the sense of not being targeted.
I think about what we can do in regard to something that is so far away. A simple and powerful proposition is to always be conscious of the humanity of others.
I recognise – I think any student of history recognises – that there have been moments in time where the violent refusal to recognise the humanity of others has written the worst chapters of humanity.
Specifically, in those moments when I think of my friends in the Jewish community and the intergenerational trauma created by the Holocaust, I remember what has driven that.
I think of many shared meals, from Shabbat to iftar, and I think of the bonds that are being created through those moments. I know it’s very hard. Those warm memories will be pressed to the deepest recesses of minds. They will be moved out by the memories that are being created or may be made in the coming weeks. But being conscious of humanity will be an important way in which we preserve what we value most in this country. It should be at the frontline of our fight against antisemitism and Islamophobia.
It has been at the heart of the work of people like the member for Cowan [Anne Aly] who sits behind me. I thank her deeply for what she has done in taking up the fight against extremism and the way in which it tears communities apart.
Like many people the world over, we’ve been aghast at what we saw in Israel on 7 October. It was an absolute abomination. Hamas must be, and is rightly being, condemned. The way in which they targeted infants, women and the elderly was on the basis of their faith, and so many Jewish people lost their lives in a way that was completely and utterly unacceptable.
We feel deeply for them and we grieve with Israelis the world over who are feeling this deeply.
All the hostages must absolutely be released without condition.
I also acknowledge that any government that is confronted with these acts within its own borders will respond. They have to respond.
They have to hold Hamas to account, and that will happen.
Too many Israelis and Palestinians have, since 7 October, paid an utterly horrific price, and I’m deeply concerned about what will happen from here.
