Australia news As it Happened: NT Police chief rejects McCarthy’s call for independent death in custody probe; Ley farewells mother; Marles meets US defence secretary Pete Hegseth in Singapore

Thanks for joining us today, we will have more for you in the next live news coverage. Here’s a quick recap:

• Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has farewelled her mother with an emotional tribute at the funeral in Albury, New South Wales today.
• Deputy PM and Defence Minister Richard Marles has been busy defending the government’s defence spending. He met his US counterpart Pete Hegseth at a meeting in Singapore today, where Hegseth “respectfully” said Australia should up its spending.
• Calls for an independent probe into a young man’s death in custody in Alice Springs have been rejected by NT police, while an emotional vigil in honour of the man took place today.
• It was revealed the nation’s finances were in a better position than expected last month as the government raked in more revenue than expected.
• And Commonwealth Bank has fixed an issue this afternoon that led to about 450 customers being unable to make transfers between their accounts or pay people using the Commbank and Netbank apps.

There have also been reports that asylum seekers from China were discovered in Arnhem Land in the NT earlier this week, but the Australian Border Force is not commenting on or confirming those reports.

Enjoy your weekend!

Natural gas will play a bigger role in Australia’s shift to cleaner energy, as Labor advances plans for new gas-import terminals and industry braces for new rules to force gas exporters to reserve more supplies of the fossil fuel for domestic use.

In addition to the federal government’s Woodside decision, Victoria on Thursday finally gave the provisional green light for fuel supplier Viva Energy to build a floating gas-import terminal at the site of its Geelong oil refinery.

This aims to bring in shipments of liquified natural gas from Queensland, Western Australia or overseas for use in the local network.

Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King, meanwhile, is reviewing controls on Queensland’s LNG industry to ensure they boost gas supplies for the eastern seaboard.

Internet personality Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan will return to Britain to face criminal charges once separate legal proceedings in Romania have been concluded, a lawyer for the siblings said.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service confirmed earlier this week that it had previously authorised charges against the brothers including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.

Andrew Tate (right) speaks to the media next to his brother Tristan in a file picture.Credit: AP

The Tates are facing a separate criminal investigation in Romania over trafficking allegations, and the courts there have already approved their extradition to the UK.

The brothers have denied all the allegations.

“Once those proceedings are concluded in their entirety then the Tates will return to face UK allegations,” Holborn Adams, the law firm representing the brothers, said in a statement on Thursday.

Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist who has gained millions of fans by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle, separately faces a civil lawsuit in Britain, which has been brought by four women and is due to go to trial in 2027.

Reuters

One Nation has doubled its Senate representation as the upper house prepares for a reshaped crossbench when the new term of parliament begins in July.

The Australian Electoral Commission announced the final Senate results from the election on Friday, as Labor locked in 28 seats and the Greens 11, meaning the government only needs the support of the left-wing minor party to pass legislation.

It will be a vastly different negotiating structure for the government, after the previous parliament required Labor to win support from the Greens and at least two independents to pass legislation.

The Australian sharemarket has ended the week higher, climbing 0.3 per cent on Friday as investors reacted to a high-stakes US court battle over US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda.

The S&P/ASX 200 rose 24.9 points, or 0.3 per cent, to close at 8434.70, recovering from a slump earlier in the day, helped by gains from utilities, the big banks and consumer staples.

The choppy session followed a US federal appeals court decision overnight, allowing Trump to continue collecting tariffs under an emergency powers law.

Returning to one of today’s main stories, and three protesters who targeted a 2023 Woodside annual general meeting with stench gas and flares will be sentenced on downgraded charges.

The trio faced court as protests continue over the extension this week of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project.

Campaign group Disrupt Burrup Hub on Friday gathered outside the WA District Court, arguing the decision to extend the project’s life showed the government “cannot be trusted with protecting First Nations culture or our climate”.

The protest doubled as a show of solidarity for the trio.

Gerard Mazza, Jesse Noakes and Tahlia Stolarski have pleaded guilty to charges laid over their protest at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre in April 2023, saying they had pulled off “a successful hoax”.

An amended indictment and statement of facts means their sentencing has been adjourned for a week.

Other snap protests against the approval took place nationwide today.

AAP

Returning to Defence Minister Richard Marles on ABC News this afternoon, and he was also quick to criticise the Australia Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) over its report yesterday, which concluded the ADF is unprepared for conflict.

Marles made it clear he does not agree with that.

“What we saw, in my view with the ASPI report, is not a report which is particularly intellectually satisfying or at the end of the day, deep in analysis,” Marles said.

“It is the easiest thing in the world to go out there and say that you should spend more, in fact, we are, we are spending significantly more.”

Asked whether he had confidence in the ASPI and its leader Justin Bassi, Marles did not give a direct answer.

“Everybody should be held to account and that includes ASPI,” he replied.

“It’s also what you spend it on, and it is having strategic clarity about the direction of your Defence Force, giving shape and sharpness to the way in which we [spend] and none of that was reflected in the report.

“The report also spoke about AUKUS as being something which is impacting other areas. Again, that is not right.”

Former Liberal MP Bridget Archer is open to running again in politics as she says the Coalition needs to work better together.

Speaking on ABC News’ Afternoon Briefing, Archer said the party needed to be open to being challenged and facing criticism.

Former Liberal MP Bridget Archer.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Look, I would never say never,” she asked if she would run in politics again.

“I think about all of the reasons I got involved in politics in the first place, which was, in the beginning, to serve my community and make where I live a better place and that remains a sort of driving motivator for me,” she said.

“Those remain really important things for me and I will look for some other ways that I can be involved and to do those things that I think, you know, provide service to my community, but yeah, I would never say never, but not at the moment.”

Archer lost her Tasmanian seat of Bass at the election this month. She crossed the floor several times when the Coalition was last in government, including on climate change and the then-proposed national anti-corruption commission.

Australia’s approval of a 40-year extension for a huge gas project has overshadowed its bid to host COP 31 – a United Nations climate summit – next year and tarnishes its green credentials, experts and two Pacific climate ministers said.

This week’s decision clears Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf project to run until 2070, subject to a final review.

Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project in WA.

It’s been criticised by climate ministers from Tuvalu and Vanuatu, who say the project’s emissions could put at risk their nations’ very existence, as well as by climate scientists worried about Australia’s role in global emissions.

“It’s just a staggering number of extra emissions,” said Malte Meinshausen, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne.

Woodside estimates the extension will pump out a further 4.3 billion tons of carbon emissions over the plant’s lifetime.

That is equivalent to 200 years of combined emissions from 14 Pacific Island nations, says the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, backed by 11 Pacific Island nations and territories.

“This goes beyond politics,” said Tuvalu’s Climate Minister Maina Talia. “It is about the moral clarity to stand with those most affected by climate change.”

Tuvalu’s capital Funafuti in November 2023.Credit: Getty Images/Mario Tama

The criticism comes as the government published its latest quarterly update into greenhouse gas emissions on Friday. Emissions were 446.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in the 2024 calendar year, roughly the same as 2023 and 27 per cent below 2005 levels.

Australia has pledged to drop emissions to 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“Two climate tests so far – and Labor’s failed both,” said Greens leader Larissa Waters, in a statement commenting on both the Woodside decision and emissions figures.

With Reuters

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles met the US Defence Secretary in Singapore today, where Hegseth talked about wanting to see an increase in Australia’s defence spending.

The Trump administration has previously called on Australia to lift its defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP , and last year Marles announced a $50 billion funding boost for defence over the next decade.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth in Singapore.Credit: DFAT

For the past decade, Australia’s defence spending has hovered around 2 per cent of its GDP.

Marles was just on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing. Asked whether Hegseth specifically said whether he desired Australia to raise defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP, Marles replied, “I wouldn’t put a number on it.

“The need to increase defence spending is something that he definitely raised, and you have seen the Americans in the way in which they have engaged with all of their friends and allies asking them to do more, and we can completely understand why America would do that,” he said.

“What I made clear is that this is a conversation that we are very willing to have, and it is one that we are having, having already made very significant steps in the past.”

Marles said he did not discuss with Hegseth the recent US proposal to buy the Port of Darwin.