Australian politics live updates: Albanese flies to COP31 in Turkey, Chalmers ‘undermined’
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has flown the coop again, jetting off to join Chris Bowen at COP31, amid talks Jim Chalmers is being undermined in his role as Treasurer. Here are today’s political updates.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has flown the coop again, jetting off to join Chris Bowen at COP31, amid talks Jim Chalmers is being undermined in his role as Treasurer. Here are today’s political updates.
Follow our live blog of today’s politics news
Jake McCallum and Caitlyn Rintoul are reporting live.
‘Jim’s doing an excellent job’: Watt jumped to Treasurer’s defence
One of the Prime Minister’s closest allies, Environment Minister Murray Watt has called on colleagues to stop undermining Treasurer Jim Chalmers, praising his fellow Queenslander’s record and reminding Labor MPs to “work together”.
Asked by The Nightly whether he’d “like to see an end to the undermining and leaking against your Treasurer?”, the Environment Minister and senior Left faction member responded: “Yes, I would”.
“As a member of the Government, I take seriously the responsibility to work together to support Government policies and also to get our work to support each other in what are very difficult times.”
“I think that Jim Chalmers is doing an excellent job as a Treasurer in what are very difficult economic times, many of the features that are impacting on our economy are sort of well outside any treasurer’s control, and I very much support Jim Chalmers in his efforts.”
Read Andrew Greene’s full report here.
PM’s economy pledge before jetting off to COP
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is traveling to the annual UN climate conference in Antalya in Turkey this week where Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will serve as negotiations chief.
His latest international trip comes as he promised Australia’s economy would not go backwards before the next Federal Election - declaring there would be no negative quarter of economic growth.
It comes after Mr Albanese was in the Caribbean with King Charles and Commonwealth allies while the RBA hit homeowners with a fifth interest rate rise.
Albanese flies to Türkiye today, and is expected to speak during the leaders’ summit segment of COP31 this week.
While Türkiye was successful in its bid to host the UN climate conference, Australia was granted the concession of leading the formal negotiations, with Chris Bowen selected to serve as president of negotiations.
