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Key posts
- Hope for families facing deportation for having disabled children
- Home Affairs minister says 46 Australians in Gaza
- Labor won’t look back on Yes campaign but hamstrung on next steps
- Why Cheng Lei did not see her family for three years
- Hamas says hundreds killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza City hospital
- This morning’s headlines at a glance
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Teal MP says she was disappointed by referendum result
Independent MP Zoe Daniel was also asked about the Voice referendum over the weekend, and the support she had in her seat of Goldstein.
The MP said on RN Breakfast this morning that she was told that 94 per cent of booths across so-called teal seats voted in favour of the referendum.
“I think that’s a reflection of a lot of hard work in those seats by the MPs and volunteer teams,” the former ABC correspondent said of the result in her electorate.
She said she had teams across the electorate for weeks, they leafleted at train stations, held nearly 300 events and had public forums on the Voice to parliament.
“We really made an effort to try to help people understand without telling them, you know, you can’t vote No, but trying to provide them with the facts to make an informed decision.”
The MP added that she was disappointed about the result of the referendum.
“I was really sad to see the result of the referendum, but I was very pleased and grateful for the result in Goldstein.”
Zoe Daniel condemns attack on Gaza hospital as a war crime
Independent MP Zoe Daniel says that bombing hospitals is a war crime, following the attack on a hospital in Gaza.
The Israel Defence Force (IDF) is blaming a failed Palestinian rocket for the strike, while Palestinian officials have pinned it on the IDF.
“I would say that if this is a deliberate bombing of a hospital, that’s a war crime,” Daniel told ABC radio this morning.
She said she had been very clear in her response, that Israel had the right to self-defence after the terror attack carried out by Hamas.
Independent MP Zoe Daniel has condemned the attack on a hospital in Gaza. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“That is that Israel has a right to self-defence within the parameters of the international rules of war. Bombing hospitals, bombing civilians, withholding humanitarian supplies are not within the rules of war.”
She said the governments around the world would wait for the evidence to stack up on who was behind the attack.
“I think if nothing else, it proves that the situation will spiral out of control without some very calibrated thinking,” she said.
Her comments come after teal independents Dr Sophie Scamps and Kylea Tink supported a Greens motion in parliament that condemned the bombing of Palestinian civilians.
Daniel who represents Goldstein, in Melbourne’s southeast, spoke about their decision to support the motion his morning.
“We vote according to the needs of our communities and our conscience,” she said.
“ I have a large Jewish community in my electorate, and you know, I’ve been talking to and interacting with my community a lot, understandably over the last couple of weeks … Kylea has a different community, therefore she took a different position,” Daniel said.
“That’s what independents do.”
Australia’s terror threat level hasn’t changed: O’Neil
The home affairs minister says Australia’s terror threat level hasn’t changed despite recent attacks overseas.
Clare O’Neil has told Seven’s Sunrise program that she was in constant contact with ASIO directors about the domestic situation.
“This is something I’m working very hard on,” the minister said.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says Australia’s risk of a domestic terror attack remains “possible”. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“What I can report back to people is that the terror threat in Australia has not changed.”
The threat level remained at possible, she said.
The minister said the only thing that had changed was the constant vigilance and focus of Australian government security officials.
“I’m confident that we can get through this. But please know we are watching very, very closely and carefully.”
Hope for families facing deportation for having disabled children
Australia’s practice of deporting migrant families with disabled children over their costly care will be reviewed in return for the Greens’ crucial support for Labor’s delayed Pacific visa lottery, as the government moves to fortify its regional presence while overhauling immigration.
In a significant deal clinched amid international pressure to pass the Pacific Engagement Visa through parliament, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles agreed to review the mechanism the Australian government uses to order temporary visa-holding households with disabled family members to leave the country.
Shaffan (right), 9, has a rare genetic condition that meant his family faced deportation to Pakistan before Immigration Minister Andrew Giles intervened.
Labor has been negotiating crossbench support for its much-hyped, US green card-style ballot system for Pacific migrants, after the Coalition opposed it. The Greens have been pushing for the government to scrap a controversial migration exemption from the Disability Discrimination Act that allows families to be deported.
The mechanism for deportation is the “significant cost threshold”, which calculates the cost of care for the disabled child over 10 years and triggers deportation if it exceeds $51,000, the level considered too burdensome for the Australian community.
Greens disability spokesperson, Senator Jordon Steele-John said Australia’s migration system was ableist, and its “blatant discrimination belongs in the dustbin of history”.
Continue reading this exclusive here.
Home Affairs minister says 46 Australians in Gaza
Turning now to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, who says there are 46 Australians in Gaza, one more than previously reported.
“I can’t give you the demographic information of who it is, all I know is that there are 46 Aussies with Australian passports in their hands,” she just told Seven’s Sunrise program this morning.
Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil says there are 46 Australians in Gaza.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The home affairs minister said the government had already helped 1500 people to leave the region, but they were now focused on the Australians in Gaza.
“We’ve got to now focus our attention on those 46 people, and we’re doing everything we can.
“We hope that we’ll be able to report back something positive,” O’Neil said.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles revealed yesterday there were 45 Australians in Gaza, which was more than double the number the government said it knew about the day before.
Labor won’t look back on Yes campaign but hamstrung on next steps
And back in Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has told colleagues there won’t be a formal review of Labor’s role in the failed Yes case, as he signalled a mooted crackdown on false and misleading political advertising could look at the Voice campaign.
Indigenous leaders’ decision to observe a week of silence to absorb Saturday’s referendum defeat has left the federal government unable to advance its alternative plans for reconciliation and to tackle disadvantage because of a desire to first consult them.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised consultation with leaders before outlining the government’s next steps to close the disadvantage gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Three days after 61 per cent of voters rejected a Voice to parliament enshrined in the Constitution, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton focused his attack on treaty and truth-telling, which he argued could cost tens of billions of dollars.
Dutton sharply criticised the prospect of a national treaty with Indigenous Australians as something that “goes on for between 20 and 30 years” and in question time demanded the prime minister “inform the house whether or not he remains committed to a treaty and truth-telling?”
Here’s the full story.
Why Cheng Lei did not see her family for three years
Back in Australia, journalist Cheng Lei revealed she was imprisoned in a Beijing cell because she broke an embargo on a Chinese government briefing by just a few minutes.
That lead to national security charges that would cut her off from her two children for the past three years.
In an interview with Sky News correspondent Annelise Nielsen, Cheng said she had been told while being held for six months in isolation that she had eroded the state’s authority and had “hurt the motherland” through her actions.
Australian journalist Cheng Lei, seen here on air on Chinese English-language news channel CGTN, has returned to Australia after a long period of detention in China.Credit: CGTN
“The aim [is] to drive home that point,” she said. “That in China, that is a big sin.”
Media embargoes are widely used in Australia and around the world as a public relations strategy by governments, companies and organisations to ensure that information is digested and then distributed by news networks at the same time.
Learn more about Lei’s detention here.
Hamas says hundreds killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza City hospital
Health authorities in Gaza say an Israeli airstrike killed hundreds of Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people.
The reported strike on Tuesday, Israel time, was the bloodiest single incident since Israel launched an unrelenting bombing campaign against Gaza in retaliation for a deadly cross-border Hamas assault on southern Israeli communities on October 7.
Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Wednesday.Credit: AP
A civil defence chief in Hamas-ruled Gaza said on Al-Jazeera television that more than 300 people were killed at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital. A Gaza Health Ministry official said at least 500 people were killed and injured.
Read more on the airstrike here, or tune into our live blog for the latest updates.
This morning’s headlines at a glance
Good morning, and thanks for your company.
It’s Wednesday, October 18. I’m Caroline Schelle, and I’ll be anchoring our live coverage for the first half of the day.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has told colleagues there won’t be a formal review of Labor’s role in the failed Yes case.
- The manufacturer of a popular engineered stone is warning against a blanket ban on the dangerous product as the federal government keeps a key Safe Work report under wraps.
- Australia’s mechanism to deport migrant families with disabled children requiring costly care will be reviewed in return for the Greens’ support for Labor’s Pacific visa lottery.
- Minutes of the Reserve Bank’s most recent meeting show it is worried inflation won’t come down fast enough without more interest rate pain.
- Intelligence chiefs from Australia and around the world have lashed out at China for what they say is the most sophisticated program of intellectual property theft in history.
- Australian journalist Cheng Lei was imprisoned in a Beijing cell because she broke an embargo on a Chinese government briefing by just a few minutes.
- Overseas, health authorities in Gaza said Israeli air strike killed hundreds of Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people.
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo has distanced himself from a controversial court decision that clears the path for his eldest son to stand for the vice-presidency.
Let’s get into it.
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