Australian news and politics live: Mark Speakman resigns as NSW Liberal leader, endorses Kellie Sloane

Losing COP is a win for Anthony Albanese domestically, but it undermines Labor’s facile claim that they were “back” on the world stage, merely for ejecting the Morrison government from office in 2022.

After months of tortured negotiations that culminated in Belem this week, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen announced a tentative breakthrough.

The details are still being finalised. But so far, it looks like he will be COP President, meaning he can negotiate the outcome of 2026’s round of global climate talks, which the US will boycott, as it did this year.

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Greens leader Larissa Waters accused Labor of wanting to host COP as part of a “half-hearted greenwashing effort” to distract the world from the impact Australia’s coal and gas was having on the Pacific.

“The Greens wanted Australia to host COP31, on the basis that it could be used by other nations to pressure Australia into moving away from coal and gas, not to greenwash our position as one of the world’s worst carbon polluters,” she said.

“This is an embarrassing outcome, but it was clear from the start that the government didn’t really want to host a climate summit,” Senator Waters said.

“The world sees the massive disconnect between Labor’s words and actions. Losing this climate conference is the result.”

Anthony Albanese will become the first Australian Prime Minister to visit South Africa in more than a decade when he attends the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg over the coming days.

Mr Albanese jetted off from Perth to the South African capital on Thursday for a three-day visit.

He’s expected to meet with a number of world leaders on the sidelines of the global summit, including his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

The Australian Prime Minister has also flagged conversations with leaders from Korea, Japan, Europe and Canada during his two days at the G20.

The Labor leader is expected to return to Australia very early on Monday morning, the start of the final parliamentary sitting week of the year.

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A tech giant that’s bigger than Google, Facebook or Microsoft has boasted of a record revenue result that’s powering the AI revolution.

American computer chipmaking giant NVIDIA is the force behind the instant graphics seen in popular artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT, and commands a 92 per cent share of the global graphics processing unit market that produces instant digital images.

Share markets are soaring after it reported a record quarterly revenue result, with the multi-trillion-dollar behemoth behind the rapid emergence of AI exciting Australian investors.

Read the full story.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has labelled the process to bid for hosting rights of the COP climate summit as “quite frankly obscene”.

The Premier’s sour tone about the UN process, which requires a consensus with a string of nations in the same grouping, comes after Turkey has managed to secure the 2026 COP31 event over Australia.

Mr Malinauskas said he was “disappointed” Adelaide won’t have the chance to host the event, adding the result comes after Australia had to “navigate the quite frankly obscene process that exists internationally”.

“It’s very clear that the rest of the world largely would have preferred COP to be in Adelaide,” he said.

“It’s really disappointing that Turkiye’s expression to veto despite the will of the rest of the world.”

As part of the compromise between rival Turkey and Australia’s bids for the COP31 climate summit in 2026, Climate Minister Chris Bowen has been appointed as a “COP president”.

After years of negotiations the nations have come to the deal that the Pacific hosts a “pre-COP” event, Mr Bowen receives a significant presidency role but Turkey ultimately gains hosting rights of the climate conference.

While the host nation always gets the COP presidency rights at the event — meaning Turkey will have that this year — Mr Bowen has been appointed president of negotiations in the lead up to the summit.

It means he’ll attend various engagements globally, deliver speeches and help shape debate in the lead up to the next COP summit.

“Basically, as COP president of negotiations, I would have all the powers of the COP presidency to manage, to handle the negotiations, to appoint co-facilitators, to prepare draft text and to issue a cover decision,” Mr Bowen said, when asked to explain the nuance between the two presidency gigs.

“Obviously it’s tradition that the COP president is the host and handles the venues and the operation of the COP session.”

Anthony Albanese says the location of the pre-COP event in the Pacific will be decided by leaders in the region.

Speaking outside ABC Perth on Thursday, the Prime Minister said he had been up at 4am talking to his Climate Minister Chris Bowen in Brazil about the COP bid compromise.

If a deal wasn’t struck by the end of this week’s COP30 summit in Brazil, hosting rights would have defaulted to Germany’s city of Bonn.

“We didn’t want the conference to go to Bonn. We consulted our Pacific neighbours. What we did is come up with an outstanding result,” he said.

“Part of that will be a pre-COP meeting to be held in the Pacific at a location to be determined by our Pacific family friends.

“That will enable us to invite world leaders to make sure that the issues confronting this region… will be front and centre,

o it’s an outstanding outcome.

“The fact that we have managed to secure a significant role for the Pacific as part of this, that’s enough to offset the loss of Adelaide as host.

“I thank Turkiye as well for the constructive engagement. Two countries putting bids, they both have compromised which is in the interests of climate change action.”

Sussan Ley tells people to “watch this space” for the Coalition’s immigration policy, which she has pledged to release over the next couple of weeks.

The Opposition Leader said her party is “looking at the integrity of the entire system” as it considered which visa classes should be cut or restricted to bring migration numbers down.

“This is not a failing of any migrant or migrant community, it is a failing of infrastructure delivery in this country,” she says.

“Unfortunately, the infrastructure has fallen well behind.

“Labor governments have not got this right. Communities are telling me everywhere I go in Australia that the pressures on roads, schools, hospitals and public transport mean that balance is not right.”

The Opposition’s immigration policy might only offer underpinning principles to start with.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insists a failed three-year bid to host the COP31 climate conference is still a “big win” because a settlement reached with Turkey will still see Australia playing a leading role.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced on Thursday that as part of the deal he has been appointed COP31 president for the process of negotiations and that a Pacific destination will host a “pre-COP” event.

Mr Albanese has declined to say how much the government has spent on the failed hosting bit but says it was a “relatively small amount” that had the benefit of promoting Adelaide to the world.

“What we’ve come up with is a big win for both Australia and Turkey,” Mr Albanese told the ABC in Perth before he flies to the G20 meeting in South Africa.

“It is because our priority our bid was Australia and the Pacific co-hosting. So what has been agreed is that Chris Bowen Australia will be COP President, for negotiations, the conference and the cop presidency will go to Turkey and there’ll be a pre COP meeting, particularly focusing on climate financing.”

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has described COP — which is the world’s main conference to work together to tackle climate change — as a “talkfest”.

It comes as Turkey beat a rival bid by Australian to host COP31 in 2026 after both nations came to a compromise on the sidelines of the COP30 summit in Brazil this week.

“I think Turkey is doing the Australian Government a big favour because we had a $12 billion deficit last year,” Ms Ley said.

“We’re hearing (that there is a) $42 billion deficit this coming year. (And he) wants to spend $2 billion on hosting a talk-fest here and at the same time can’t look Australians in the eye and answer a simple question — which is when will energy prices come down?”

In a press conference on Thursday morning in Melbourne the Liberal leader doubled down — calling it a “largely symbolic gathering”.

She also continued their criticism of the Labor Government for pitching to host the costly event as Australian household energy bills rise.

“The COP summit is a largely symbolic gathering of, I think, about 200 countries. What I want from every exercise that this government engages with is a real demonstration of how they are going to bring prices down.”

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