Australia news as it happened: Albanese to set out agenda as parliament returns; Coalition support falls to near-record low

Thanks for reading the national news blog. We’re going to wrap up today’s coverage and be back soon with more live coverage in the morning.

To recap, here’s a look at today’s major stories:

• Environment Minister Murray Watt has announced a $14 million one-off payment to help support South Australia manage the toxic algal bloom. Now in its fourth month, and with no sign of abating, the toxic algal bloom has killed sharks, rays, fish, dolphins and seals along thousands of kilometres of SA coastline, though the federal government has stopped short of classifying it as a national disaster.
• Mark Latham’s portrait will remain hanging in federal Labor’s caucus room in Parliament House following a decision by the new caucus, but with a note below it condemning his behaviour. The note will read: “In 2017 Mark Latham was expelled from the Australian Labor Party and banned for life. His actions do not accord with Labor values and failed to meet the standards we expect and demand.”
• As politicians returned to Canberra for the first parliamentary sittings since Labor’s big election win, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese implored his bulging caucus to maintain the same level of discipline as it did in the government’s first term, labelling the upcoming period as the “year of delivery”.
• Opposition Leader Sussan Ley insisted the Coalition would not roll over and accept the government’s agenda. Fresh polling revealed Coalition support has fallen since its crushing election defeat in May, which delivered Anthony Albanese a bumper majority for the 48th parliament.
• Nationals leader David Littleproud responded to party colleague Barnaby Joyce’s call for the Coalition to abandon the 2050 net zero emissions target, saying it was crucial to offer a “sensible position” and that it would be no use “trying to achieve the impossible”. Littleproud said the official party position on the target would follow an ongoing internal review, though conceded that supporting such a target cannot occur at the expense of regional communities.
• Health Minister Mark Butler has conceded difficulties in understanding the movements of the Trump administration, as it looks to place trade penalties on Australian goods.
• Activists scaled the roof of a weapons factory in Canberra to shut down its operation in the lead-up to the new parliament sitting. The group scaled the Electro Optic Systems weapons manufacturer in the Canberra suburb of Hume before dawn and unfurled a large banner which read: “Stop arming Israel”. It will be the first of three days of action by the group, AAP reports.

Thanks again for joining us. This is Grant McArthur, signing off.

A lawsuit brought on behalf of Australian cattle farmers who exported to Indonesia over a decade ago has been criticised for moving at a “glacial pace”.

The class action was brought in October 2014 by farmers who allege they lost income after then-Labor senator Joe Ludwig banned live cattle exports to Indonesia in June 2011.

The government had reacted to public outcry after an ABC Four Corners program showed graphic footage of cattle being inhumanely slaughtered.

At a brief hearing on Monday, Federal Court Justice Tom Thawley criticised the lawsuit’s slow pace.

“It has taken an inordinate amount of time for these proceedings to be heard,” he told lawyers representing both the class action and Ludwig.

“The parties have carried on at a glacial pace for years.”

In June 2020, Justice Steven Rares found Ludwig committed misfeasance in public office by suspending the export of live cattle to Indonesia for six months from June 2011.

An additional 88,000 head of live cattle would have been sent to Indonesia in 2011 if the minister had acted properly, the court found.

In a June judgment, Justice Thawley limited the potential compensation farmers could receive over the then-senator’s unlawful order.

On Monday, class action barrister Patrick Holmes said his clients were still considering whether to appeal the June decision.

Settlement talks are ongoing.

AAP

To Adelaide, where Environment Minister Murray Watt has announced a $14 million one-off payment to help support South Australia manage the toxic algal bloom.

The outbreak of the microalgae, Karenia mikimotoi, which starves the ocean ecosystem of oxygen killing everything in its wake, has covered thousands of kilometres of coastline from Spencer Gulf to the Fleurieu Peninsula.

The toxic algal bloom in South Australia is killing marine life.Credit: Narelle Autio @chillioctopus

Watt said the funding met the request from the state government and there would further discussions about what the money would be used for.

“It’s intended to deal with a number of short-term requirements and some of the longer term needs that South Australia is going to face as it recovers from this event,” Watt said.

“It’s likely this funding from the federal government will support activities like cleaning up the beaches and removing some of that marine life that has been washed on shore, it’s likely to support business assistance … provide further community awareness about what this event involves and how people should be dealing with it.

“Importantly in the longer term, there’s clearly a need to invest more in science and research about this event,” he said.

Watt said it was a “very serious environmental event facing South Australia” but did not meet the definition of a natural disaster, which automatically attracted federal funding, so his goal was to ensure he secured the funding regardless.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said it was “welcome news”.

Federal Labor has decided that former leader Mark Latham’s portrait will remain in its caucus room in Parliament House but with a note below it condemning his behaviour.

The note will read: “In 2017 Mark Latham was expelled from the Australian Labor Party and banned for life. His actions do not accord with Labor values and failed to meet the standards we expect and demand.”

Federal Labor has decided that former leader Mark Latham’s portrait will remain in its caucus room.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Latham’s former girlfriend Nathalie Matthews, a Liberal Party member and former OnlyFans creator, is pursuing a private apprehended violence order accusing Latham of a “sustained pattern” of emotional, physical and financial abuse, and pressuring her into “degrading sexual acts”.

Latham, who has a history of fallings out over his behaviour, has denied those allegations, emphasised police and the NSW Parliament have not been involved, and accused the media of taking a prurient interest in his sex life. “I have broken no law,” he said on Saturday.

Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt is set to speak about the algal bloom in South Australia alongside SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and SA Minister for Climate, Environment and Water Susan Close.

Major Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia sowed chaos at major airports serving Moscow on Monday, with thousands of passengers waiting in lines or sleeping on the floor after flights were cancelled or delayed, Russian media reported.

Videos published by Russian media showed people sleeping on the floor of Sheremetyevo, Russia’s busiest airport by passenger numbers, amid long queues.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had downed 117 drones overnight, including 30 over the Moscow region, after downing 172 drones, including 30 over the Moscow region, the previous day.

Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, briefly imposed restrictions on flights overnight at Moscow’s main airports - Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovskiy.

Several thousand people were stranded in the far east of Russia due to the cancellation of flights in European Russia, while extra trains were put on to bring passengers back to Moscow from the northern Russian city of St Petersburg, Russian media said.

Moscow and its surrounding region have a population of at least 21.5 million.

Reuters

A flight evaluation check has gone tragically wrong after a light plane crashed in a “fireball”, killing two people.

Investigators said a pilot and an external flight examiner were undergoing an instrument proficiency check before tragedy struck west of Brisbane on Sunday.

The twin turboprop Reims Cessna F406 aircraft owned by Aero Logistics crashed into a grassy area at Devon Park near Oakey about 3pm, killing the two people on board.

Investigators rushed to the scene to try and piece together how Australia’s 11th fatal plane crash this year occurred.

They said the two people on board were conducting the instrument proficiency check, which pilots must go through every 12 months, at the time of the crash.

They likely began an instrument landing system test when arriving into Oakey, Australian Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said.

“Something (has) obviously quite tragically gone wrong,” he told reporters on Monday.

“What our job now is to try and piece together the sequence of events leading into what occurred ... and then more broadly the environment that potentially may have influenced that.”

The plane was about 35-years-old and seated around 12 people.

It had a previous incident in 2014 when the oxygen system on board failed, causing a pilot to become hypoxic.

AAP

Continuing his address to Labor MPs in Canberra, Albanese has turned the blowtorch on the opposition, questioning whether it had learnt the lessons of the election.

“They will have to decide whether they’ll continue the course that they set last term, which essentially was a cul-de-sac - didn’t lead anywhere at all, just saying, ‘No’, and not being constructive,” he said.

Coalition leader Sussan Ley, in her own rev-up to MPs earlier on Monday, said the prime minister was misguided if he thought the opposition would acquiesce to Labor’s agenda.

In this fortnight of parliamentary sittings, Labor wants to pass a cut to student loans and a bill to enshrine penalty rates in law.

A more contentious item on hiking superannuation tax will not be debated this month.

The opposition criticised Albanese’s trip to China last week, but the Labor leader pointed to the tangible benefit of the visit in his speech on Monday.

“For those opposite who said last week, ‘What was the objective there?’ The objective was pretty simple: jobs,” he said.

“In a place like Geraldton, protecting the crayfish industry. In the Barossa and the McLaren Vale and the Hunter Valley and the Yarra Valley and Margaret River and Tasmania, protecting the wine industry and those jobs.”

“Throughout South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, the barley industry. In Queensland, the meat industry”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has implored his bulging caucus to maintain the same level of discipline as it did in the government’s first term.

In his first speech to Labor MPs in Canberra since the election, the prime minister said MPs should not forget that for most of the post-war period Labor had found itself sitting on the opposition benches.

Dubbing this year the government’s “year of delivery”, Albanese said his team must keep focus on its election mandate and remain focused.

“If we maintain that sense of discipline, sense of purpose … there is no reason why every single one of you can’t just be returned to the next parliament,” he said, adding that the caucus could even grow its record 94 lower house seats at the next election.

“They expect that we will put them first, rather than be focused internally on what goes on in this building.”

Parliament returns this week for the first time since Labor’s big election win. PM Anthony Albanese will soon be speaking.