Australia declines to cancel Chinese lease of port after security review

Australia’s government has determined that it is not necessary to cancel a Chinese company’s lease of a major port following a national security review.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office said on Friday that the review found there was a “robust regulatory system” in place to manage risks to Port Darwin and other critical infrastructure and that “existing monitoring mechanisms are sufficient and will be ongoing”.

'National shame': 147 Indigenous people die in custody in Australia in a decade

Australia’s shocking treatment of Indigenous people has been laid bare with the publication of new figures by the Guardian showing 147 Indigenous people – some of them children – have died in custody in the past 10 years.

Opposition parties have declared it a “national shame” and Aboriginal groups have demanded the government immediately allow independent monitoring of all detention centres, with Indigenous prisoners as the priority.

A Major Bank Slipped Up And Showed Why Women Rarely File Sex Discrimination Cases

Of all the tactics companies use to silence women who speak up about sexual harassment, the way corporate lawyers question victims in depositions may be the most brutal.

In these taped confrontations, defense lawyers interrogate people on every aspect of their sexual histories, medical records and traumas from childhood.

Australia Plans to Become Leading Defense-Industry Exporter

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s government announced a strategy Monday to create high-tech jobs and become one of the top 10 defense-industry-exporting countries within a decade through arms sales to liked-minded nations while also keeping those weapons from rogue regimes.

Australia will create a 3.8 billion Australian dollar ($3.1 billion) fund to lend to exporters that banks are reluctant to finance, a central defense export office and expand the roles of defense attaches in Australian embassies around the world.

Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull said that with AU$200 billion budgeted to increase Australian defense capabilities in the next decade, Australia should rank higher than 20th among arms-exporting countries. The planned Australian military build-up was the largest in its peace-time history, he said.

Burst your bubble: Australia's 'African gang crisis' has been brewing for years

How do you end up with a neo-fascist propounding his views on immigration on national television? To answer this question, you need to understand how a racially motivated moral panic has brewed in right-leaning media over months, and even years. You then need to see how such a panic is part of a political project, which includes state and federal politicians.

The panic over Sudanese immigrant gangs has reached fever pitch in this new year of 2018. Even though it’s rooted in selective distortions, both of crime rates, and the concept of a “gang”, it’s triggered a hasty policy response.

Australia's energy policy is a world-class failure and Abbott wears the gold medal of blame

If you’ve watched the inglorious spectacle of the failure of Australian politics on climate and energy policy over the last 10 years, it’s a bit hard to look out on the wreckage without feeling sick to the stomach.

But look we must and, if we look now, we are able to chart the consequences of abject failure in highly specific ways.

What Australians are experiencing now – rising prices, rising emissions and a grid that creaks and sputters in extreme weather – is the logical consequence of a decade of unconscionable public policy failure.

Australia suspends air missions over Syria amid US-Russia tensions

Australia has suspended air combat missions over Syria after Russia threatened that it would treat any plane from the US-led coalition flying west of the Euphrates river as a potential target.

Russia said it was responding to US planes shooting down a Syrian air force jet on Sunday. The US said its planes had acted to defend US-backed forces seeking to capture Raqqa, the Islamic State (Isis) stronghold in north-east Syria.

Climate scepticism is a far-right badge of honour – even in sweltering Australia

It hits you in the face and clings to you. It makes tall buildings whine as their air conditioning plants struggle to cope. It makes the streets deserted and the ice-cold salons of corner pubs get crowded with people who don’t like beer. It is the Aussie heatwave: and it is no joke.

Temperatures in the western suburbs of Sydney, far from the upmarket beachside glamour, reached 47C (117F) last week, topping the 44C I experienced there the week before. For reference, if it reached 47C in the middle of the Sahara desert, that would be an unusually hot day.

Catholic church claims 'seismic shift' after child sexual abuse scandals

The Catholic church says it has made a seismic shift in holding its leaders accountable for protecting Australian children after decades of abuse by hundreds of pedophiles.

The church says its new national professional standards body will ensure consistency across its autonomous dioceses and orders.

Each bishop and religious leader will sign a contract agreeing to abide by the standards and be monitored, audited and subject to public reporting, the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council chief executive, Francis Sullivan, said.
“It is quite a seismic shift for the Catholic church in holdings leaders to account,” Sullivan said. “It is necessary in order to achieve consistency for survivors.

4,444 victims: extent of abuse in Catholic church in Australia revealed

Seven per cent of Australia’s Catholic priests were accused of abusing children in the six decades since 1950, according to new data from the royal commission.

On Monday the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse released damning statistics on the scale of the crisis within the Catholic Church. The numbers confirm the extent of sexual predation already suggested by four years of royal commission hearings involving the church, which are now entering their final weeks.

Australia and New Zealand to pursue 'TPP 12 minus one'

The US-led 12-nation agreement was set to cover 40% of the world's economic output.

Pulling out of the TPP was one of Mr Trump's first executive orders and fulfils a long-held campaign promise.

Australia has already devised a name for a possible new agreement: TPP 12 Minus One.

Australia’s Emissions Keep Growing Despite Government Claims

In November, just before nearly 200 nations met in Paris to hammer out an international agreement on climate change, Australia — long an outsider in global climate policy — made an impressive announcement: the country had succeeded in meeting its 2020 climate goal, a full five years ahead of schedule.

But, according to a new analysis released by the carbon market analysts at Reputex, that announcement might have been misleading — instead of achieving robust reductions in their national emissions, Australia’s emissions are actually growing, and will likely not peak before 2030, an official goal set forth by the Australian government. And despite being one of the 196 parties to sign onto the Paris agreement pledging to keep global temperatures increases well below 2 degrees Celsius, Reputex found that Australia’s projected growth rate for emissions would be one of the worst growth rates in the developed world between 2000 and 2020.

Australia Approves Coal Mine That Environmentalists Call ‘A Complete Disaster’ For Coral Reef

Australia will soon be home to one of the world’s biggest coal mines, now that the government has given its approval for the controversial project.

This week, Australia’s government approved the Carmichael mine, a project that’s backed by India’s Adani Enterprises. Environmentalists have staunchly opposed the mine, which will be located in central Queensland, because they say the increase in coal shipping that the mine will spur threatens the Great Barrier Reef. And, they say, the emissions that will come from burning the coal will contribute to the ocean warming and acidification that’s already threatening the reef.

Edward Snowden and Allies Issue Warnings as Australia Unleashes Mass Spying

As new controversial metadata laws went into effect in Australia on Tuesday, whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter to warn the country’s residents about the privacy violations that accompany the legislation.

The new laws require Australian telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) to store user metadata—such as phone records and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses—for two years, during which time it may be accessed by law enforcement without a warrant. Civil liberties and Internet freedom groups have criticized the laws as invasive and unconstitutional.

What's Powering The Revolving Door?

Is it our fault?

An understandably shattered Tony Abbott this afternoon served up his own analysis of the political climate which has landed us with our fifth Prime Minister in five years.

Australia's Divisive Prime Minister Tony Abbott Is Out. Meet the New Guy.

Australia has a new prime minister. Again. The turbulent tenure of now former conservative PM Tony Abbott—infamous around the world for repealing Australia's groundbreaking carbon pricing system and extending the country's draconian immigration policies, which include locking up refugees in offshore detention centers—has come to an end after a dramatic day in Canberra, the nation's capital.

The Experience Economy: Why Aussies Want Less Stuff, More Living

How many dresses or suits are hanging in your closet pleading with you to wear them? How much food do you throw out of your fridge every week?

We live in a disposable culture where ubiquity of items means that we derive less meaning from stuff.

Detention centre staff speak out in defiance of new asylum secrecy laws

Social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers and humanitarian staff who have worked inside Australia’s detention centres have united in an unprecedented show of defiance against new laws that could see workers in detention centres jailed for speaking out about abuses.

More than 40 staff who have worked at detention centres on Manus Island, Nauru and across the Australian mainland have spoken out on the same day that a new offence comes into force that criminalises the disclosure of information.

Citizenship for sale: government explores price-based immigration system

The Australian government would sell the right to immigrate to Australia - with migrants no longer accepted based on their skills or family connections - under radical proposals being examined by the government's independent think tank.

The Productivity Commission is investigating a price-based immigration system that would use entry fees as the primary determinant for who gains entry to Australia.

Australia Again Wages War on Its Own People

Australia has again declared war on its Indigenous people, reminiscent of the brutality that brought universal condemnation on apartheid South Africa. Aboriginal people are to be driven from homelands where their communities have lived for thousands of years. In Western Australia, where mining companies make billion-dollar profits exploiting Aboriginal land, the state government says it can no longer afford to "support" the homelands.

Vulnerable populations, already denied the basic services most Australians take for granted, are on notice of dispossession without consultation, and eviction at gunpoint. Yet again, Aboriginal leaders have warned of "a new generation of displaced people" and "cultural genocide."