Australian news and politics live: ‘No starvation in Gaza’, Israel’s Canberra embassy says

Barnaby Joyce is putting his bill to scrap Australia’s commitment to net zero and associated other climate action measures to Parliament this morning.

Ahead of the parliamentary grandstanding – which comes before either the Nationals or Liberals internal reviews of the policy are anywhere near finalised – Mr Joyce is giving a press conference flanked by his Nationals backers, including former leadership rival Michael McCormack.

Queensland Liberal MP Garth Hamilton is also present.

Senator Matt Canavan, who has never supported Australia aiming for a net-zero emissions target, says the party should have had the debate about dumping the targets three years ago, when it was first thrust into opposition.

“We need to get on with it, we need to get back to prioritising Australian interests, Australian jobs,” he says.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr has ripped into Israel over its actions in Gaza, saying it was using “mass starvation against a civilian population as a weapon of war”.

“That’s the massive thing we’re looking at here and we’re having that reinforced every day for us by terrible, terrible photos of babies with their vertebrae showing through their starved skin, their internal organs, according to the paediatricians, collapsing,” Mr Carr told ABC’s Radio National

“They will bear the marks of this starvation for all their lives, suffering, stunting. Of a 14-year-old youngster on a pallet, wounded after being shot by these heroes of the IDF because he presented at a food distribution centre seeking food for his family at the wrong time and was shot.

“There’s a pattern of behaviour here that really demands comparison with the worst of the last hundred years of Stalin’s Ukraine, of the Warsaw Ghetto, of Mao’s Great Leap Forward.

“Families who have now gone for five days without a crumb of food and the point is that the IDF controls all the levers. It controls food access and it’s opted to use its power, even on occasions, to shoot the people who are distributing the food.”

Mr Carr said Israel had “dropped any pretence” of commitment to a two-state solution and said Australia could apply diplomatic pressure by using recognition as a tool to help resolve the conflict.

Coalition MP Dan Tehan has strongly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza, saying it is Hamas that is responsible for the current dire humanitarian situation.

Speaking on ABC’s Radio National, Mr Tehan said it was the terrorist organisation that was the “sole actor responsible for the situation we find ourselves in, and that is where the condemnation should be placed.”

Last week Anthony Albanese released a strongly-worded statement on the “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza conflic, urging Israel to follow international law and let the UN and aid groups do their humanitarian work safely and freely.

The forceful statement was critical of Israel, saying it was blocking aid and killing people trying to get food.

Mr Tehan said Israel had tried to provide humanitarian aid but it was, according to the Israeli government, going directly to Hamas.

He said Israel had tried to act according to international law and Mr Albanese’s allegations about the lawlessness of Israel’s actions “should not be made lightly”.

“Obviously Israel are trying to provide humanitarian relief into Gaza,” he said.

“Hamas keeps on trying to disrupt those efforts.

“Now what the Prime Minister has said takes this whole situation to a new level and we would like to see the Prime Minister produce the facts because it is an incredibly serious allegation that the Prime Minister has now made.”

Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson has flagged her intention to push for changes to Labor’s move to cut student debt, putting her odds with Liberal Leader Sussan Ley.

Labor took its pledge to slash for student debt to the Federal election campaign, and last week Ms Ley indicated her willingness to wave the through the change that would see HECS debts cut by 20 per cent.

But Senator Henderson, a former opposition education spokeswoman who was dumped from the shadow cabinet by Ms Ley, has revealed she wants Labor’s student debt bill ammended to allow for indexation.

She told The Australian, “While the Coalition should not oppose the 20 per cent student debt discount, let’s not forget this is a one-off sugar hit at a cost of $16bn which does nothing for future students or to provide the certainty young Australians deserve.”

Independent MP Kate Chaney will today introduce a bill to outlaw technology that assists in the creation of child sexual abuse material.

Under the bill it would be an offence to posess AI tools designed for the sole purpose of creating child sexual abuse material.

“This is a clear gap in our Criminal Code that I think we need to be able to respond quickly on so we can make sure we’re keeping kids safe,” she said on ABC.

“Currently, possession of these images is illegal, but it’s not illegal to possess these particular types of AI tools that are designed for the sole purpose of creating child sexual abuse material.

“So, it means that perpetrators can generate the material using images of real children, delete the images, and then recreate them whenever they want and avoid detection.

“This bill is focused on making it illegal to download these tools that are designed to create this material.”

Ms Chaney said action was needed now.

“The challenge that we have is that we’re creating a lot of reports and consultations, and the technology is moving so fast, so I think there’s a need for urgent action on this.

“We need to be able to plug the gaps as we go, while addressing the broad issues about how we’re going to encourage take-up of AI for its productivity benefits but creating appropriate guardrails so that people can have faith in it.”.

Australians will pay no more than $25 for selected medicines for the first time in more than 20 years under a proposal to be brought before parliament.

It will be the second cap on medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) introduced by the Albanese government in three years, after it cut the maximum price of PBS prescriptions from $42.50 to $30.

“The size of your bank balance shouldn’t determine the quality of your health care,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

“My government will continue to deliver cost-of-living relief for all Australians.”

PBS medicines would be capped at $7.70 for pensioners and concession card holders until 2030.

The bill’s introduction is largely a formality, with its passage through the lower house all but assured thanks to Labor’s massive 94-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives.

​​Read the story​​

West is best again in economic circles but big gains made on the other side of the Nullarbor have surprised economists and left eastern states languishing.

A boost in housing construction has propelled South Australia to second position, above Queensland and Victoria, in CommSec’s latest State of the States report released on Monday.

Western Australia remains the nation’s top performer for the fourth straight quarter with strong returns on retail spending and business investment, but an upheaval could be on the horizon.

“We are seeing Western Australia lose a little bit of momentum,” CommSec chief economist Ryan Felsman told AAP.

“It’s been growing at a breakneck speed the last two or three years, and the reason for that is population growth has been the highest for some time.”

​Read the story​

A plan to boost the number of fully bulk-billing general practice clinics is likely to fall dramatically short of forecasts, a healthcare directory operator warns.

Labor’s $7.9 billion plan to expand the Bulk Billing Incentive Program to include non-concession patients projected the number of fully bulk-billing GP clinics to rise to 4800.

But healthcare directory operator Cleanbill estimates the number of entirely bulk-billing clinics will rise by just 740 to 2081 because incentive payments will not cover consultation costs for certain clinics.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler slammed the report as inaccurate and fundamentally flawed.

“This is a headline-grabbing phone poll conducted by a private company whose own website says their data is not ‘reliable, accurate, complete or suitable’,” Mr Butler said in a statement.

“For the first time, Labor will expand bulk-billing incentives to all Australians and create an additional new incentive payment for practices that bulk bill every patient.”