That's it for today, thanks for reading
Here are the main stories on Saturday 12 April:
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said she wanted to “make Australia great again” during an election campaign appearance with the Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, in Perth, but denied trying to channel Donald Trump;
Prime minister Anthony Albanese also held a campaign event in Perth, a day before Labor’s official launch;
Albanese pledged $60m to expand Perth ferry services during an announcement with the WA premier, Roger Cook;
Dutton described himself as a “pussycat” compared with his family, after recent alleged threats against him;
Tanya Plibersek, the environment minister, said Americans don’t want “a Big Mac tax” and “no one likes to look on as the two biggest economies in the world play chicken” as US tariff dramas rage on;
But Plibersek played a straight bat to questions about whether she could succeed Albanese should Labor lose the 3 May election; and
Dutton described the teals as “a con job”.
Enjoy the rest of your Saturday afternoon, and we will see you here again tomorrow.
Updated
Easter might be approaching but Albanese has to skip a Bunnies match
Anthony Albanese says he is so focused on campaigning that he “won’t even be going to the Bunnies” later today, a reference to his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs playing an NRL game in Perth, this afternoon.
Roger Cook is going on his behalf, Albanese says, and he plans to lend a cap the WA premier.
The prime minister finished his press conference by saying he will return to WA before the campaign ends.
Updated
Albanese highlights what he thinks is strange behaviour by some Liberal candidates
There’s another interesting parallel to the US election in some of Albanese’s comments about Coalition candidates.
He didn’t use the word “weird”, as Kamala Harris and Tim Walz did to describe Trump and his allies during their 2024 campaign, but Albanese made a point of highlighting what he thought was strange behaviour by some Liberal candidates.
We mentioned earlier that he called one candidate “a cooker”.
Regarding the Liberal candidate for Bennelong, Scott Yung, being the subject of a complaint by a school principal for handing Easter eggs to children outside a public school, Albanese said:
Who doesn’t know that you can’t hand sweets to children who are not yours outside a school?
Does anyone here not know that’s not what you do? No wonder that principal … put in a complaint.
These people are just … across the country there are incidents like this.
Updated
PM says WA Liberals ‘too busy fighting’ each other
Anthony Albanese was asked why WA had become a stronghold for Labor, both in state politics and at the 2022 federal election.
He said:
The truth is the WA Liberals used to have significant figures, Mathias Cormann, Julie Bishop.
But the WA Liberals are now too busy fighting amongst themselves to fight for the people of WA.
Updated
Albanese not worried voters will lose election focus because of public holidays
I’m just going back to the Albanese press conference, which was held shortly before Dutton’s and only a few kilometres away in a different part of Perth.
When asked about whether voters might be distracted during the campaign by public holidays, Albanese said he did not wait for the campaign to begin to announce policies that outlined his vision for the country.
He tried to contrast this with the Coalition, who he said had few policies, and had backtracked on some of those it did have, including in relation to making public servants return to the office.
Updated
Jacinta Price's MAGA moment
Peter Dutton has joined a party rally in the Mount Pleasant Bowling Club in the Perth seat of Tangney.
The opposition leader is among friends here with a sea of blue Liberal shirts and a number of the local candidates running for Labor-held seats.
Michaelia Cash revs up the crowd of supporters, introducing Dutton as the next prime minister of Australia.
Dutton tells the crowd 3 May will be a “sliding doors moment” saying:
“When we look here to the west on election night … we’re going to be looking for you to bring the election home. It is going to be tight.”
Price is then handed the mic where she makes a reference, perhaps unintentional, to a familiar Donald Trump war cry:
Unlike the Albanese government, who try to subsidise the way out of a crisis that they’ve created in this country, and we have incredible candidates right around the country that I’m so proud to be able to stand beside and to ensure that we can make Australia great again, that we can bring Australia back to its former glory, that we can get Australia back on track.
The leader and his colleagues then serve a sausage sizzle for the party faithful outside on the lawns.
Updated
Laming in high court bid over AEC fines
Former Liberal MP Andrew Laming has appealed a $40,000 fine for Facebook posts that did not have authorisations, arguing that the fine should reflect the number of posts made, not how many people saw them.
Laming was initially fined $20,000 after being taken to court by the Australian Electoral Commission for three Facebook posts. The federal court found his posts on the “Redland Hospital: Let’s fight for fair funding” Facebook page in the months before the 2019 federal election did not carry his name and town or city, as required for proper authorisation.
The fine was doubled on appeal with the full federal court in 2024 finding 28 people had seen the three posts.
Laming appealed to the high court and in a hearing on Wednesday – for which the transcript was released on Friday – Laming’s counsel, Nick Ferrett, argued against the fine being determined on the basis of each time a communication reaches a recipient, because the number of people who see a Facebook post is outside the user making the post’s control.
Ferrett said:
The best you can say in that scenario is that the person who is uploading it, particularly if they are savvy about social media, will have an idea of the number of people who might look at it. That is [the] best you can say about it.
But it is out of their control how many may look at it, and that sort of comes back to the point about whether what parliament really meant was to make people liable for circumstances, which are entirely out of their control, to vastly raise the possible maximum penalty.
Tim Begbie, counsel for the AEC, used the example of a fictitious billionaire candidate, arguing that counting one communication for a single fine, regardless of how many people it reached, would be a very low fine to issue:
If a billionaire candidate wanted to promulgate to half of Australia, over the course of the AFL grand final, messaging that was attacking opponents without any identification of where that messaging was coming from, that might be a very powerful communication strategy, and it might be a very cheap one to add $25,000 to whatever the cost of running those ads was, if it meant having a meaningful impact on candidates getting elected, and that means, if it involved a meaningful impact on the free voting choices of each elector that watched the grand final.
The court reserved its decision.
Laming did not contest the 2022 federal election, after losing preselection.
Updated
Labor latches on to Senator Price’s ‘make Australia great again’ quote
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Victorian Labor have already posted the clip of Price saying “make Australia great again” on X, along with the caption:
Breaking: Jacinta Price said the quiet part out loud. We can’t risk the DOGE-style cuts and the Americanisation of our healthcare, education and essential services. But under Peter Dutton that’s exactly what you’ll get.
Updated
Peter Dutton asked if MAGA message helpful to Coalition’s campaign
Just one more “make Australia great again”-related comment that is worth including from Peter Dutton’s press conference in Perth.
Dutton was asked directly: is that a message that you think is helpful to the Coalition at this point in the campaign?
He responded:
You’ve got families out there at the moment, and we’ve spoken to them here in WA, who can’t afford to pay their power bill, who can’t afford to pay their insurance bill … they’re making decisions at the moment about whether they insure their house or not, right?
So let’s just deal with the reality for people. I really think that if we want to make their lives better and we want to get our country back on track, we have to change the government.
Dutton then referred to Price, who provided this answer:
If I said that, I don’t even realise I said that, but no, I’m an Australian and I want to ensure that we get Australia back on track. Absolutely.
Updated
After Price puts her shoulder to the wheel on cultural heritage laws, touching on defunding the Environmental Defender’s Office and Labor apparently being beholden to “radical fringe groups”, Dutton finishes the press conference by saying: “that’s exactly why Jacinta Price will be in a cabinet that I lead”.
Updated
Jacinta Price says Department of Government Efficiency ‘not an ode to Donald Trump’
Jacinta Price is asked about her role as the head of government efficiency, another seemingly clear nod to Trump made before he became wildly unpopular (given its similarity to the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency). She says:
Let me just clarify. The Department of Government Efficiency, it’s not a department. It’s got nothing to do with the department. In fact, it will sit in Prime Minister and Cabinet. And just to clarify, it is not an ode to Donald Trump.
So let’s be very, very clear. The media, you’re all obsessed with Donald Trump. We’re not obsessed with Donald Trump.
Peter Dutton seems particularly keen for reporters to ask more questions of Price, who was seen as a highly effective spokesperson during the voice referendum.
She says she will consider “waste” in the Albanese government if Dutton is elected.
Among the things she rails against are “socialist enclaves in remote communities”, grants about decolonising breastfeeding, and a “reset” of school curriculums which are “teaching people that Indigenous Australians are victims and that white Australians are oppressors”.
Updated
Dutton claims Anthony Albanese is ‘anti-WA’
Peter Dutton pivots from a question about some issues with preselected candidates into an attack on Anthony Albanese.
Dutton says Albanese won’t be photographed with the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, (who Albanese did a media event with on Monday) but that, somewhat conversely, Western Australians should know that far more popular premiers Mark McGowan and current leader Roger Cook were not running in the federal election. He said:
Anthony Albanese won’t be photographed now with Jacinta Allen in Victoria. They used to be joined at the hip and behind the scenes they are joined at the hip.
The prime minister’s been a leader of the left of the Labor party for his entire adult life and so when people see … the real Anthony Albanese, which I think they’re starting to see, they see somebody who is anti-WA, they see somebody who is not lived up to the promises that he’s made.
Updated
Teals 'a con job': Dutton
Dutton says a vote for the teals is a vote for the Greens, which is a vote for Albanese. A bit hard to get your head around but there it is.
He was asked: “Allegra Spender [is] paying social media influencers to promote her cause. Has she crossed a line?”
He responds:
Look, I just think when it comes to the whole teal movement the whole thing is a con job.
And that’s why people are now seeing through the teals, they’re Greens in disguise. And if you vote for a teal, you’re voting for a Green, which means you’re voting for Anthony Albanese.The teals will only support Anthony Albanese in government. That’s the reality. So a Labor-Greens-teal government is a disaster for WA. It’s a disaster for the economy. It’ll mean interest rates go back up. And I just don’t think Australians can afford that.
Updated
Jacinta Price pledges to 'make Australia great again'
Price, who earlier said she wanted “to make Australia great again”, is asked whether it was a nod to Donald Trump. She says:
If I said that, I don’t even realise I said that, but no, I’m an Australian and I want to ensure that we get Australia back on track. Absolutely.
Dutton is asked about the quote, and whether he also wants to MAGA. He says he “wants to get rid of a bad government”.
Updated
Dutton denies Andrew Hastie being kept away from campaign
Dutton is being pressed on whether Andrew Hastie, the Liberal MP for Canning, one of the most marginal seats in WA, is being deliberately kept away from the campaign.
Reporters ask whether this is because it was revealed this week that Hastie previously said women should not serve in ADF combat roles.
Dutton denies this, saying he saw a TikTok of Hastie “just yesterday”.
Price also says she attended Hastie’s campaign launch yesterday.
Updated
Dutton is trying to link the voice to bad economic decisions. It is not immediately clear what the link is.
I think people are starting to see through the lies of the Labor campaign and realise that it started with the voice, and then it went to bad economic decisions, and that has really hurt many parts of our country.
Updated
Opposition leader says treasurer ‘doesn’t know whether there’s a recession coming or not’
Dutton also speaks about how the Morrison government supported WA during the pandemic, before saying:
This prime minister, I think, is out of his depth. And the treasurer too, doesn’t know how to respond to the world’s circumstances at the moment, doesn’t know whether there’s a recession coming or not. They chop and change their position. But what Australians know is that we stand up for what we believe in, that we will fight for what we believe in.
Updated
Peter Dutton says voters ‘have not forgotten’ Albanese’s role in voice referendum
He starts by criticising Albanese for not making the country better in the past three years.
Dutton then says Australians “have not forgotten” that Albanese tried to “divide the country” with the voice referendum.
Updated
I’ll get back to some of Albanese’s comments, but Peter Dutton is also speaking live from Perth now. He is joined by Michaelia Cash and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Asked about his confidence that Labor will hold seats in Western Australia, Albanese says it’s because his candidates are “guns”.
He draws a contrast between Labor’s candidates and a series of people who have been preselected by Liberal, including one he labels “a cooker”.
Updated
Albanese is asked about “nature positive” environment laws, which have been unpopular in WA:
Nature positive laws didn’t have a majority support in the Senate.
They’re not on the table, they’re off the table.
Nothing newsy in that, I’ve said it completely.
Updated
It was a regular love-in in Perth.
Albanese shares that he has known Cook for more than 40 years, after having first met over beers at a conference in 1984. He said:
I reckon there would have been pretty good odds we would have been breath-tested if we said we’d be back here today as prime minister and premier.
Cook welcomes Albanese as “a WA local” saying “Albo gets WA”.
Updated
Albanese says Labor will ‘back WA’
Albanese was with the WA premier, Roger Cook, and Perth MP Patrick Gorman.
Albanese started his comments to the media by praising Cook’s efforts in the state election last month.
Labor won several WA seats in 2022 that were seen as key in it wresting control from the Morrison government.
Albanese is appealing to a particularly strong WA sentiment – the idea they’re forgotten by the rest of the country:
We understand Australia isn’t just Kirribilli House, isn’t just the east coast … we need to represent the whole of Australia.
We need to make sure we back WA.
Updated
PM promises new ferry funds in Perth
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, spoke in Perth earlier today.
He was announcing $60m for an expanded ferry network.
Labor will launch its campaign in Perth tomorrow.
Updated
Worth having a read of this over lunch:
What is the ballot order in some key seats?
Given the AEC has set the ballot order for all 150 electorates, I thought it might be worth a look at how the balls fell in some key seats:
PART THREE
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Boothby: Labor MP Louise Miller-Frost is drawn fourth, with Liberal candidate and former MP Nicolle Flint in the final spot.
Sturt: Liberal MP James Stevens is in third, with Labor challenger Claire Clutterham in top spot.
TASMANIA
Lyons: Labor MP Brian Mitchell is retiring. Labor candidate Rebecca White was drawn last, with Liberal Susie Bower in fourth.
Bass: Liberal MP Bridget Archer drawn third, with Labor challenger Jess Teesdale in first.
ACT
Lower-house seats are safe Labor territory but the battle in the Senate will be more interesting (unlike the states, territory senators serve three-year terms, meaning their spots are challenged every federal election).
NT
Lingiari: Labor MP Marion Scrymgour is first, with her CLP challenger, Lisa Siebert, in last.
Updated
What is the ballot order in some key seats?
Given the AEC has set the ballot order for all 150 electorates, I thought it might be worth a look at how the balls fell in some key seats:
PART TWO
QUEENSLAND
Dickson: opposition leader Peter Dutton was drawn as the fifth of nine candidates, with Labor’s Ali France at second.
Leichhardt: The long-serving member, Liberal Warren Entsch, is retiring. Liberal candidate Jeremy Neal is seventh of 10 candidates, and Labor’s Matt Smith is fifth.
Ryan: Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown drew fourth of eight, with the ALP’s Rebecca Hack in two.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Canning: Liberal MP Andrew Canning is first, and Labor challenger Jarrad Goold is last.
Curtin: Independent MP Kate Chaney is third of eight on the ballot, with main challenger, the Liberal Tom White, in first.
Moore: MP Ian Goodenough, standing as an independent after being disendorsed as a Liberal, is in first, Labor’s Tom French is second, and the Liberals’ Vince Connelly is seventh of eight.
Updated
What is the ballot order in some key seats?
Given the AEC has set the ballot order for all 150 electorates, I thought it might be worth a look at how the balls fell in some key seats:
PART ONE
NSW
Bennelong: Liberal challenger Scott Yang is first on the ballot, with Labor incumbent Jerome Laxale at fourth.
Calare: Held by the National turned independent Andrew Gee (seventh on ballot), but considered a three-way contest with the independent Kate Hook (third) and the Nationals candidate Sam Farraway (10th of 10 candidates).
Gilmore: Held by Labor’s Fiona Phillips is first on the ballot, with her main challenger, the Liberal Andrew Constance, sixth of eight candidates.
VICTORIA
Chisholm: Labor incumbent Carina Garland is the sixth of seven candidates, with Liberal candidate and former MP Katie Allen in fourth.
Deakin: Liberal MP Michael Sukkar drawn second, Labor candidate Matt Gregg first.
Menzies: Liberal MP Keith Woolahan is third of eight candidates on the ballot, with Labor’s Gabriel Ng seventh.
Australian Electoral Commission says almost 1,500 candidates ready for election
The AEC say that 1,456 candidates have nominated to contest the federal election, after nominations were officially declared on Friday.
Candidate lists in ballot paper order have now been verified and are available on the AEC’s website, it said in a statement.
The figures include 1,126 candidates for the 150 House of Representatives seats across Australia and 330 candidates contesting 40 Senate vacancies.
Australian electoral commissioner Jeff Pope said the AEC was now focused on securely printing 60m ballot papers before early voting starts on 22 April.
Pope said:
A record 18 million Australians are enrolled and able to cast their votes between Tuesday 22 April and 6pm on election day (Saturday 3 May), at approximately 8,000 polling locations available across Australia.
Updated
As far as the actual election campaign, Dutton said it was:
All about how do we help families who are doing it really tough in their lives at the moment, and people who are struggling to pay the bills. Insurance is up and every element of their family budget is just through the roof. So it’s really how do we help families and how do we get our country back on track?
Dutton also underlined the importance of submarines set to be built under Aukus.
There are concerns about the deal given Trump’s tariffs and the general chaos that has accompanied his second term.
Updated
Dutton says he’s a ‘pussycat’ compared with his family
Dutton also said during a television appearance on Nine this morning that allegations of a threat against him that resulted in charges against a Queensland youth had not rattled his family.
He said his wife and children “make me look like the pussycat”.
Dutton continued:
So they’re they’re tough and stoic … they don’t miss a beat. And, you know, they’ve never complained about the, you know, the sort of the protection bubble that we live in.
The former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told Nine earlier that she was concerned threats against politicians could change how election campaigns are run.
Dutton seems to agree, but says the Australian federal police worked hard to ensure the safety of politicians.
As the AFP commissioner has pointed out, there’s certainly a greater prevalence [of threats]. And I think people are, you know, sort of the keyboard warriors are brave until they get a knock on the door from the AFP.
Updated
Dutton unfazed by polling showing his seat under threat
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, spoke on Nine earlier this morning.
He said he wasn’t concerned about polling showing his seat of Dickson, which is ultra marginal, was at risk.
Look, I’ve seen this movie before … I’ve held my seat. It’s a marginal seat. I’ve never taken it for granted. And I have worked hard in my seat from day one.
Dutton goes on to say commentary around the polling is a “a scam” designed to funnel donations to his political opponents and activist group GetUp.
Updated
Plibersek praises Labor’s Cockatoo Island pool plan
The main thing that Plibersek appeared energised by during the interview was a Labor announcement to build a pool at Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour.
She said that it had an “amazing history” with First Nations people, as a site for convicts, and then when it was used for shipbuilding in WWII.
A sandstone slipway built by convicts would be transformed into a harbour pool that would become “Sydney’s newest, free, family attraction”.
“Picnic rug, your cozzies and a towel – a wonderful day out.”
When asked about whether it would be weedy, as the ABC presenter appeared troubled by weed at a similar pool in Barangaroo, Plibersek responded “I tell you what, I hope it’s weedy”.
She said that was because establishing seagrass in Sydney Harbour supported seahorses, and she wanted to attract them and other aquatic life such as dolphins and penguins.
I described these as sea dragons in an earlier post, apologies. There will be no dragons.
Updated
Plibersek deflects question over whether she would be opposition leader in event of Labor loss
Plibersek was asked: “If on May 4 prime minister Peter Dutton gets up and does his acceptance speech, will you be opposition leader?
She responded, somewhat jokingly: “I’m feeling very anxious when you say that sentence.”
Plibersek went on to say that she wouldn’t speculate about whether she would throw her hat in the ring if Albanese lost the election.
I’m working very hard for the re-election of an Albanese Labor government. I feel good. I feel like Australians are taking a look at Peter Dutton and they don’t like what he is selling.
We are not cocky about this. It is a very close election, the polls tell you that.
But as Peter Dutton comes under greater scrutiny and … as people take a look at that uncertainty, that chaos … I don’t think they like what they see.
Updated
Plibersek defends Labor’s stance on salmon industry in Tasmania
Plibersek also said she was consulted on laws to safeguard the salmon industry in Tasmania, saying they were necessary to fix a flaw in laws passed by the Howard government 25 years ago that could have led to the closure of the industry overnight.
No Labor government is going to allow the closure of a town like Strachan overnight and the jobs that go with the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour.
Updated
On environmental laws, Plibersek denied that the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had intervened in a bid to strengthen them, saying the blame was squarely at the feet of the Greens and the Liberals in the Senate.
You can read more on the history of these laws here:
Tanya Plibersek says Americans don’t want ‘a Big Mac tax’
Plibersek was asked about tariffs in the US, and made a somewhat laboured segue into saying it showed Australia was on the right track economically before getting into the meat of the issue (pun intended).
We are well-prepared and in a better place than most other nations to deal with this uncertainty.
But no one likes to look on as the two biggest economies in the world play chicken.
I think, for Americans, this is actually also a very confusing time as well. I think a lot of Americans, when they start to see prices rise domestically in the US, will begin to wonder why this is happening in the American economy. Australian beef goes into Big Macs.
I don’t think Americans want a Big Mac tax.
Plibersek on the campaign
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has just spoken to the ABC.
She spoke about the ongoing tumult in the US, the election campaign, whether she would be interested in becoming opposition leader should Labor be defeated on 3 May and sea dragons in Sydney Harbour (really!).
Australian judge resigns from Hong Kong's highest court
An Australian judge has become the latest foreigner to resign from Hong Kong’s highest court before the end of his term on Friday as a security crackdown fans international criticism of a perceived erosion of the rule of law in the financial hub.
Robert French, a former chief justice of Australia’s high court, said he respected Hong Kong and the “integrity and independence” of the remaining foreign judges but that the “role of the non-permanent justices on the court of final appeal has become increasingly anachronistic and arguably cosmetic”.
Britain and China agreed to have non-permanent foreign judges on the court when London handed its former colony over to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula.
Their presence was widely seen by lawyers, businesses and politicians as burnishing the city’s rule-of-law credentials after it lost access to Britain’s privy council for appeals.
Noting that the Hong Kong court was the only one in greater China to have foreign judges serving, French said there “may be a substantive role for international judges in Hong Kong in the future as part of an international commercial court”.
The government confirmed the resignation in a statement, saying it was grateful to French for his valuable contributions and his “support for the rule of law in Hong Kong.”
Last year, another non-permanent judge, Britain’s Jonathan Sumption, quit the court shortly after a landmark verdict in which 14 prominent democratic activists were convicted for subversion, part of a national security crackdown on dissent.
In their latest Back to back Barries podcast, Barrie Cassidy and Tony Barry examine Peter Dutton’s surprise backflip on his work-from-home policy, and ask: what can the Coalition do to recover from a bad week? And can they limit the damage quickly?
Have a listen here:
As promised, we have Malcolm Farr’s take on what’s gone wrong so far for Peter Dutton.
He speaks to the director of public data at the pollsters YouGov, who says the collapse followed Dutton’s “embrace of controversial Trump-style policies such as banning work-from-home arrangements and proposing to sack 40,000 public-sector workers”.
With the US president taking his wrecking ball to the global economy as well, things have just spiralled for the self-styled antipodean Trump.
At a time of global disruption, voters might be seeking a calm hand on the tiller.
Dutton has now realised the US president isn’t a suitable model for Australian politics, no matter what his billionaire acquaintances such as Gina Rinehart say.
Australian voters broadly think American politics is nuts at the best of times and menacingly toxic under Trump. Why vote for a wannabe Trump here?
Here’s the full piece by Malcolm:
Our reporter Henry Belot has an exclusive about Zahid Safi, who is running as the Liberal candidate in the Melbourne seat of Bruce.
Safi is listed as the last author on a 2021 Senate submission which says victims of the Afghanistan war did not suffer “based on ethnicity” – a claim that flies in the face of Australian government and UN opinion.
Read his full report here:
Updated
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live blog of the election campaign as we enter day 16. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you some of the best of the overnight stories and then it will be Nino Bucci with the main action.
Although we’re more than two weeks in, this weekend will see the two major parties officially launch their election campaigns – expected tomorrow. Anthony Albanese will be in Perth and we’ll be there with him to bring you the latest, while Peter Dutton will make his announcement in western Sydney.
We’re looking at what’s gone wrong with the Coalition campaign this morning, specifically of course how Peter Dutton has gone from leading Anthony Albanese in the polls to trailing. Veteran Canberra observer Malcolm Farr is on the case.
And we also have an essay by Paul Daley about the prime minister and how 3 May will define his legacy.
We have an exclusive news story about how the Liberal candidate for Bruce co-authored a parliamentary submission suggesting the Hazara community in Afghanistan was not persecuted on the basis of its ethnicity, contradicting the Australian government and drawing rebuke from international human rights groups. More coming up.
An Australian judge has become the latest foreigner to resign from Hong Kong’s highest court before the end of his term on Friday as a security crackdown fans international criticism of a perceived erosion of the rule of law in the financial hub. More to come.
