Australia news as it happened: Telstra to cut up to 2800 jobs; ICC seeks arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders

Thanks for reading the live blog today. That is where we will leave our coverage.

To conclude the blog, here’s a look back at today’s top stories.

• Telstra has announced a 9 per cent cull of its workforce, with chief executive Vicki Brady confirming that up to 2800 jobs would be affected by the telco’s bid to improve productivity.
• A Royal Australian Air Force plane has touched down in New Caledonia after the federal government was given clearance for two flights to repatriate stranded citizens.
• Olympic champion and former Labor senator Nova Peris has resigned as co-chair of the Australian Republican Movement in response to what she described as an “inaccurate and divisive” public intervention made by her fellow leader, Craig Foster.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to comment on the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and defence chief and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, diverging from US President Joe Biden’s attack on The Hague.

• NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is urging concerned premiers and chief ministers to back reform of the scheme, saying people with a disability are impatient for change.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison has weighed in on the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s office bid to seek arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Karim Khan said on Monday that he believed Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders – Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh – were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Khan said in a statement that the charges related to the October 7 attack on Israel by the Hamas militant group, and to Israel’s subsequent military response in Gaza.

In a post on social media platform X, Morrison said the ICC had “surrendered it’s(sic) legitimacy in creating a moral equivalence (sic) between terrorists and a nation, in Israel, acting in self defense against terrorists”.

“The ICC has defined the victim as the perpetrator. That is not justice,” he wrote.

It comes as Morrison’s memoir hit the shelves on Tuesday.

Publisher Harper Collins describes Plans For Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness as “less political memoir and more pastoral encouragement”.

Criss-crossing America to promote his book, Morrison shared his insights into former US president Donald Trump, and why there was more support for Trump from evangelical Christians than ever before.

Morrison resigned from politics in February, nearly two years after he lost the prime ministership at the 2022 federal election.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is urging concerned premiers and chief ministers to back reform of the scheme, saying people with a disability are impatient for change.

Laws before federal parliament aim to contain NDIS budget blowouts by limiting spending growth to 8 per cent, as well requiring those on the scheme to complete needs-based assessments.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten says people with disability don’t have time to wait when it comes to changes to the scheme.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Following a review of the scheme, money allocated to participants would only be spent in accordance with NDIS plans unless needs “significantly change.” A list of services included in funding would also be created.

In a submission to a federal inquiry examining the proposals, state and territory leaders said they were worried those with disabilities might be worse off.

“States and territories share significant concerns with the provision of the (proposed laws) and the potential impacts on people with disability,” it said.

“We are genuinely worried that this bill undermines the vision of the NDIS review.”

But Shorten said people with disabilities could not afford to wait longer for improvements to the NDIS following the review.

“I’d just say to the states, don’t make the good the enemy of the perfect,” he told ABC radio today.

“People with disability don’t have time to sit around and wait for the states to catch up, people with disability are impatient for change.”

Shorten said any suggestion that changes to the NDIS risked worse outcomes for people with disability was “wrong”.

AAP

A second attempt at peace talks in the defamation case between senator Linda Reynolds and former staffer Brittany Higgins and her fiance, David Sharaz, has ended without resolution.

Justice Marcus Solomon adjourned the mediation just after 1pm (Perth time) today, three hours after the parties met at Perth’s David Malcolm Justice Centre.

WA senator Linda Reynolds outside court in Perth today.Credit: Jesinta Burton

Reynolds told waiting media she was happy to continue with mediation, but it looked as though the matter would be proceeding to a six-week trial, which was planned to start on July 24.

“I am disappointed, but the point that I made this morning as I came in is that [Justice Michael Lee] made some very comprehensive findings in his judgment, and it is time for both parties to accept all of his comments, and I think that will help us all move forward,” she said.

Read the story in full here.

The transition to net zero will succeed or fail depending on how well two “global cleavage points” are managed, says Shell’s international vice president for strategy, insights and scenarios, Laszlo Varro.

One is the financial gap between the Western world, which is investing heavily in clean energy technologies – about 90 per cent of the global investment in those technologies is being made by the West and China – and the developing world.

Shell’s vice president says the financial gap between the Western and the developing worlds will determine how quickly the world transitions to net zero.Credit: Jason Alden

The other is what Varro refers to as the “technology interface,” or being able to leverage China’s “unique capabilities” within a “challenging” geopolitical context.

The good news, he said, is that the technology that makes a transition plausible is solar and most developing countries are close to the equator. Scale “leapfrogging” – largely bypassing fossil fuel-based energy systems and jumping straight to solar or hydro while using natural gas as the reserve – is already occurring in Africa and elsewhere.

Read more from Stephen Bartholomeusz here.

A Royal Australian Air Force plane has touched down in New Caledonia after the federal government was given clearance for two flights to repatriate stranded citizens.

The French territory in the Pacific has been marred by deadly riots that have led to at least six deaths following controversial electoral reform being passed in Paris.

There are about 300 Australians in New Caledonia registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs.

A C-130 Hercules touched down in Noumea after leaving Amberley airbase outside of Brisbane on Tuesday, according to publicly available flight data.

It can carry 124 passengers, according to the Defence Department.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong says Australia will continue to work on further flights.

“Passengers are being prioritised based on need,” she wrote on social media platform X.

Australia’s consul-general in New Caledonia, Annelise Young, posted on X her team had been working “round the clock with teams in Canberra and Paris and closely with the French authorities to ensure safe passage for Australian tourists”.

AAP

World leaders are expected to adopt a new agreement on artificial intelligence when they gather virtually on Tuesday to discuss AI’s potential risks but also ways to promote its benefits and innovation.

The AI Seoul Summit is a follow-up to November’s inaugural AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom, where participating countries agreed to work together to contain the potentially “catastrophic” risks posed by galloping advances in AI.

The two-day meeting – co-hosted by the South Korean and UK governments – also comes as major tech companies such as Meta, OpenAI and Google roll out the latest versions of their AI models.

Google’s Liz Reid announces new AI features are coming to Google’s search engine.Credit: Google

On Tuesday evening, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are to meet other world leaders, industry leaders and heads of international organisations for a virtual conference. The online summit will be followed by an in-person meeting of digital ministers, experts and others on Wednesday, according to organisers.

“It is just six months since world leaders met at Bletchley, but even in this short space of time, the landscape of AI has changed dramatically,” Yoon and Sunak said in a joint article published in South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper and the UK’s online inews site on Monday. “The pace of change will only continue to accelerate, so our work must accelerate too.”

The leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies – the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain – were invited to the virtual summit, along with leaders of Australia and Singapore and representatives from the UN, the EU, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon and Samsung, according to South Korea’s presidential office.

China doesn’t plan to participate in the virtual summit though it will send a representative to Wednesday’s in-person meeting, the South Korean presidential office said. China took part in the UK summit.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen says he respects the work of the International Criminal Court and slammed Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s comments about The Hague.

On Monday, the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said he believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, bore criminal responsibility for war crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Chris Bowen says he respects the work of the International Criminal Court. Credit: Evan Maclean

This morning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to weigh in, diverging from US President Joe Biden’s attack on The Hague.

Dutton criticised Albanese for this, saying he was “selling out Australia” and that Khan’s allegations were antisemitic.

Asked about Dutton’s comments on Sky, Bowen said they were irresponsible.

“I respect the International Criminal Court and I respect the work they do. International law must be respected and, of course, [it] was not respected by Hamas. Israel must respect international law,” he said.

“I heard ... Peter Dutton’s comments which were, in and of themselves, highly irresponsible by Peter Dutton to drag this through a domestic political debate ... international law must always be observed and nobody gets a free pass for that.”

New Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele said the Pacific Island nation was ready to discuss “much, much larger bilateral co-operation” with Australia, as Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles visited today.

A security pact struck with China in 2022 by the previous pro-Beijing leader Manasseh Sogavare, who encouraged Chinese infrastructure projects, alarmed Canberra and Washington amid concern over China’s naval ambitions in the region.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

As Solomon Islands’ biggest aid donor, Australia provided policing support for national elections in April. China also has a policing presence on the archipelago, strategically located 1600 kilometres north-east of Australia.

“Australia remains Solomon Islands’ partner of choice and I want to see our relationship grow to new heights during my tenure as prime minister,” Manele told Marles in his first meeting as leader, the islands’ government said in a statement.

Marles, who is also defence minister, is on a one-day visit to Honiara, during which he also met Sogavare, the new government’s finance minister.

Australia has provided extra budget support of $7 million, and is in further talks, the statement added, while welcoming opportunities to send more citizens to work in Australia under a labour migration program.

“I am ready to discuss the possibility of much, much larger bilateral co-operation partnerships to fast-track transformational undertakings,” Manele said.

Such steps would hasten Solomon Islands’ efforts to achieve economic, social and security goals, he added.

Reuters

Energy markets will continue to be rocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, says Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, Woodside Energy.

“The fallout has been massive, and the volatility is not over,” Woodside chief executive officer Meg O’Neill said in a speech today to the Australian Energy Producers Conference in Perth. “It is instability absolutely nobody wants.”

Meg O’Neill of Woodside at the Australian Energy Producers conference in Perth earlier this month.Credit: Trevor Collens

Liquefied natural gas prices are currently at the highest level since early January, and Brent, the global oil benchmark, has risen around 9 pe cent this year.

The Australian government this month backed the development of new gas resources, arguing production of the fossil fuel will be necessary to sustain the nation’s export sector and also to avoid domestic energy shortfalls as coal plants are shuttered.

“To my mind the best solution to a shortage is always supply, supply, supply,” O’Neill said in the speech. “We as industry are ready to roll up our sleeves.”