Defence Minister Richard Marles says Australia will not facilitate the return of Australian children held in a Syrian detention camp, even as some of their mothers plead for them to be brought home alone.
Some women detained in the Roj camp in northern Syria have indicated they would accept their children being repatriated at any cost — even if it meant permanent separation.
In an interview with The Guardian, Melbourne mother-of-three Zahra Ahmad said she has “continuously asked” for her children to be saved.
Asked whether Australia would accept or facilitate the return of the children alone, Marles was unequivocal.
“Australia is not facilitating the return of any of this cohort. It is as simple as that,” Marles said on Thursday.
Marles also declined to elaborate on reports two Australian women being held separately at the Al-Roj camp and considered extremists by camp authorities.
“Our security agencies are monitoring this very closely, we have a temporary exclusion order in place in respect to one individual,” he said.
“It is also the case that any Australian returning to this country that has been in breach of Australian law will face the full force of the law.”
Thank you for following our national news live blog for Thursday, February 26. Stay with us as we continue to bring you rolling updates throughout the afternoon. Here’s what we have covered so far today.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has apologised if his description of former Australian of the Year Grace Tame as “difficult” was misinterpreted, saying he meant she had had a difficult life. Supporters rallied behind Tame after Albanese used the word to describe her during a word association game at the Herald Sun’s Future Victoria Summit yesterday.
- Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie did not rule out the possibility of the Coalition and One Nation taking on Labor together when asked if they would “join forces”. “No one’s saying that those on the non-Labor side of parliament won’t be doing everything we can to stop a Labor government,” she told Channel Nine’s Today this morning.
- Sydney’s Mardi Gras route has been added to the national heritage register in recognition of the parade’s immense historical and cultural significance to Australia, the federal government has announced, just days before more than 10,000 people are set to march in the 48th annual parade on Saturday.
- Families of Australian diplomats have been directed by the federal government to leave Israel and Lebanon amid heightening tensions in the Middle East. The updated advice for both countries on Smartraveller notes the direction has been made “in response to the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East”.
- A blaring siren will sound on every mobile phone within mobile range around the country, when a test alert is sent by the Commonwealth’s AusAlert emergency warning system on Monday, July 27 at 2pm AEST. The federal government will test the new national warning system, which is designed to replace the current patchwork of state-based emergency alerts.
- And data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning showed the average wage has climbed beyond $106,000 a year, while keeping track with inflation.
I’m Emily Kaine, handing over now to my colleague Isabel McMillan.
The average wage has climbed beyond $106,000 a year while keeping track with inflation.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning said the average weekly ordinary time wage increased by 3.8 per cent over the 12 months to November to reach $2051.10.
The gap between men and women continues to narrow. The male average wage increased by 3.6 per cent over the past year to $2147.80, while for females it climbed by 4.1 per cent to $1900.60.
The highest-paid workers are men in the mining sector with an average wage of $3267.60 a week or almost $170,000 a year. The worst-paid are women in the hospitality sector at $1400.40 a week or $72,821 a year.
West Australian men have the highest wages among the states and territories at $2539.70, or more than $132,000. The best-paid women are in the ACT at $2183.30, or $113,532 a year.
NSW’s average wage is $2084 a week, an increase of 5 per cent over the past year, while in Victoria the rate climbed by 4.5 per cent to $2013.70.
Average weekly earnings measure incomes paid to workers and can be affected by the make-up of the population. It is different to the wage price index which tracks the increase in incomes paid businesses to their staff.
Opposition finance spokeswoman Claire Chandler has criticised the government’s proposal to impose a discount on capital gains tax, labelling it “just another tax on the housing market”.
“At the end of the day … you don’t tax something if you want to make or create more of it,” she told Sky.
“And of course, we want to see more Australians able to access housing. I particularly want to see more young Australians in a position to access housing. But that doesn’t come from putting a new tax on housing.”
Chandler said CGT was an important issue to young voters, and that increasing the discount would not help young Australians whose hopes of getting into the housing market were slipping from their reach.
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern was spotted attending open home viewings on Sydney’s northern beaches earlier this week, as a spokesperson confirmed she was living and working from Australia with her family, The Guardian reported.
Her office told the masthead: “The family has been travelling for a few years now.”
Rumours that Ardern was considering a permanent move to Australia started to swirl on Thursday after reports that she, along with her husband and seven-year-old daughter Neve, had attended property viewings in Sydney suburbs Curl Curl and Freshwater.
“For the moment they’re basing themselves out of Australia – they have work there, and it brings the added bonus of more time back home in New Zealand,” the spokesperson said.
Ardern served two terms as prime minister of New Zealand, from 2017 to 2023.
A blaring siren will sound on every mobile phone within mobile range around the country, when a test alert is sent by the Commonwealth’s AusAlert emergency warning system on Monday, July 27 at 2pm AEST.
The federal government will test the new national warning system, which is designed to replace the current patchwork of state-based emergency alerts.
AusAlert can be triggered to all phones within a designated area, from nationwide to street by street, and will be used to warn of impending natural disasters like fires, floods and cyclones. It will also be used to warn the public in relevant areas of threats to public safety, for example shooting incidents, as well as biosecurity threats like a disease outbreak.
There are two levels of alert, with the “critical” level of emergency sounding regardless of the phone’s setting and appearing on the home screen. Phones can be set to opt out of the lower level “priority” alert.
AusAlert cost $132 million to develop and works on cell technology, which means it does not rely on telco providers networks and will function regardless of the volume of traffic on any network.
Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain said: “This is an important project that will help us and emergency services organisations warn people when they are in harm’s way, saving lives and protecting property during a disaster, delivering on a key finding from the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.”
Before the national event, an alert will be sent to nine locations in June: Majura in the ACT, Launceston in Tasmania, Port Douglas in Queensland, Liverpool in NSW, Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, Geelong in Victoria, Goomalling in Western Australia, Port Lincoln in South Australia and Queanbeyan in NSW.
Qantas has announced a major change to its popular loyalty program and flagged a job hiring spree for future growth.
The airline will begin to allow loyalty program members to spend their way to earning status credits through everyday spending, rather than relying on flying. Status credits allow lounge access, priority boarding and a more generous baggage allowance, no matter the class of their ticket. Status credits differ from regular Qantas frequent flyer points.
Qantas has also unveiled direct flights between Australia and Las Vegas.
The announcements came as the airline posted $1.46 billion in pre-tax half-year profits, helped by strong demand, rising efficiencies from new Airbus aircraft, and Jetstar’s continued growth. The result is up $71 million on the previous half.
Qantas Group chief executive Vanessa Hudson said the airline’s earnings have been helped by the delivery of new, more efficient planes, strong consumer appetite for Qantas loyalty points, and robust earnings from Jetstar.
Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek says reports of surging violent crimes against gay and bisexual men, who have been lured to parks via dating apps and assaulted on camera for social media, are a timely reminder ahead of Mardi Gras that the work is not yet done in the fight for equality for the LGBTQI+ community.
“It’s important to acknowledge the political and the cultural aspects of Mardi Gras. It’s been a fight for almost 50 years for equality and safety and inclusion, and these most recent attacks show that the work is not yet done.
“That struggle from 50 years ago is still alive today,” she told ABC Sydney radio this morning.
Asked whether Australia’s hate crime legislation needed to be tightened to account for these types of crimes, Plibersek said the government’s new laws already applied increased penalties for hate crimes against any protected group.
She said dating apps also needed to take responsibility for making their platforms safer, particularly for marginalised groups.
“A lot of these young men are being lured into dangerous situations by dating apps. It’s really important that the dating app companies take responsibility to make their apps safer as well,” Plibersek said.
The prime minister has apologised for calling former Australian of the Year Grace Tame “difficult”, saying he meant that she had had a “difficult life”.
Survivors, influencers and activists lined up to support Tame after Anthony Albanese made the comment during a one-word answer word association game at the child abuse survivor at the Herald Sun’s Future Victoria Summit yesterday.
“Grace Tame, you certainly can’t describe in one word. She has had a difficult life, and that was what I was referring to,” Albanese told reporters in Melbourne.
“[She is] a strong advocate for others, which is why she received, quite rightly, the Australian of the Year award,” he said.
“If there was any misinterpretation, then I certainly apologise. I think that Grace Tame has taken such a personal trauma, and that awful experience that she had, and channelled that into helping, in particular, other young women being a strong and powerful advocate.”
Greens leader Larissa Waters has responded to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese labelling former Australian of the Year Grace Tame “difficult”.
Albanese is under fire after he took a swipe at Tame during the Herald Sun’s Future Victoria Summit yesterday, where during a word association game he called the activist and child abuse survivor “difficult”.
Waters posted on X and suggested the PM instead try the words “unbreakable”, “warrior” or “fierce” to describe Tame.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
