Scott Morrison says Donald Trump gave 'warm reception' to AUKUS pact at Trump Tower meeting. Donald Trump has given a "warm reception" to the AUKUS defence pact during a meeting with Scott Morrison in New York, the former prime minister says. Mr Trump has never publicly endorsed the pact, which was announced by Australia, the US and the UK in 2021, when Mr Morrison was prime minister. That's raised questions about whether the former president — who has questioned America's commitment to some international alliances — would support AUKUS if re-elected in November. But in a social media post, Mr Morrison said the pair discussed AUKUS on Tuesday night, local time, and it "received a warm reception" from Mr Trump. In an interview with the ABC in Washington on Wednesday, Mr Morrison declined to reveal specifically what Mr Trump told him about his position on AUKUS.
"I'm not going to go into that because obviously [it was] a private conversation," he said. Central to the pact is a plan to supply Australia with American-built nuclear-powered submarines. Albanese was so desperate to prove he cares about gendered violence, he forgot one thing: if you're a proper leader, it's not about you. The world is full of imponderables at the moment. And for Australian women, you can add a new one to the list: How long is it going to take for us to get a prime minister whose response to reasonable female anger isn't to trip spectacularly over his own tackle? The footage of Anthony Albanese attempting to cope with the febrile environment outside Parliament House at Sunday's domestic violence rally is nearly unwatchable. Not because he's a bad guy. But because it is just difficult to watch a political leader — whose entire skill set is supposed to be about competent judgement under fire — get it so horribly wrong.
Today, that prime minister will convene a meeting of the COVID-era national cabinet to consider urgent action on the escalating rate at which women in this country are murdered by their partners or ex-partners. More on that in a moment, but first, it's worth a recap of what exactly happened on Sunday. Sunday's rally was one of several around the nation in recent weeks. Loading... India's Modi government operated 'nest of spies' in Australia before being disrupted by ASIO. Indian spies were kicked out of Australia after being caught trying to steal secrets about sensitive defence projects and airport security, as well as classified information on Australia's trade relationships. The so-called foreign "nest of spies" disrupted by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in 2020 was also accused of closely monitoring Indians living here and developing close relationships with current and former politicians.
ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess first alluded to the spy ring in his annual threat assessment delivered in 2021, but did not disclose which country was behind the activity, saying to do so would be an "unnecessary distraction". "The spies developed targeted relationships with current and former politicians, a foreign embassy and a state police service," Mr Burgess said during his March 2021 speech inside ASIO's Canberra headquarters. "They monitored their country's diaspora community. Anthony Albanese reminded how rallies have the ability to haunt the nation's leaders. It was meant to be a moment in which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined with tens of thousands of people nationally to demand an end to men's violence.
What resulted was anything but. An organiser was left in tears, accusations of lies were levelled and the prime minister swept away in a hurried exit. In attending the Canberra rally against gender violence, one of 12 across the country, Albanese did what few of his prime ministerial predecessors have attempted. But like so many of those who came before him, he now faces being haunted by the consequences of what played out on the grass outside Parliament House. The tone was set, the message was clear The Canberra rally started a little after 2pm and the tone was set from the start.
As participants were taught three chants for the march, one of the organisers made clear that if anyone was there just to meet the PM, they'd do well to leave now. Within minutes, however, his attendance would go off the tracks. Loading... Loading. Awkward France trip shows how far Australia has fallen in the world's favour. France is showing Australia a new face this week. Gone is the blazing anger over a broken promise, replaced by a series of cold, dismissive snubs levelled at federal Trade Minister Dan Tehan. The abandoned $90 billion submarine contract with France's Naval Group unleashed fury and frustration from one of Europe's most powerful countries, but also put a target on Australia's back.
"Trust was broken, severely broken," said Ross McInnes, who is a special representative for the French government to Australia for trade and economic matters. He was granted special permission from the French to talk to the ABC in Paris. The torn-up contract has the European Union looking at Australia with newfound suspicion and hostility, and it is also now refusing to overlook Australia's "bad performance" in other areas. "Australia is a really bad performer when it comes to climate policy," Kathleen Van Brempt, a Belgian member of the European Union trade committee, told the ABC. Talks with Tehan turned down. For Australia, a secret document raises crucial questions about US foreign policy. When Donald Trump shocked the Washington establishment — and much of the world — when he was elected President of the United States four years ago, the message from diplomats and foreign policy analysts both in Australia and the US was one of quiet reassurance.
No matter how flaky the president might look (and, remember, this was in the days before anyone realised that he wasn't just likely to be flaky but sometimes dangerous), the institutions of government and diplomacy would grind on to plot a steady path through a dangerous world. As what seemed an unending turnover of senior staff in the White House, and open warfare with agency heads continued unabated, it was hard to believe that was possible, let alone happening. Now, the turmoil — at least in the White House itself — is set to stop with the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President on Thursday morning Australian time. An extremely unusual declassification The pointy end of an 'alliance-driven' strategy Growing tensions. Christian Porter is correct — this is an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs. The "rule of law" is a fine thing.
It is, at its simplest, the principle that laws be applied equally, that an accused is innocent until proven guilty, that proper checks and balances exist upon the exercise of power, that access to justice be available for all. Christian Porter — the Attorney-General, the custodian of Australian laws — this week appeared drawn and pale as he confronted the disorienting prospect of a world in which the rule of law did not apply. Anyone who has witnessed the frightening power of online mobs or the ability of demagogues to inflame real-world violence with lies cannot help but feel sympathy for his shaken plea that order be restored, that due process govern the dispensing of justice amid the most "wild, intense and unrestrained series of accusations I can remember in modern Australian politics".
For the first law officer, this was a development of existential import. His shock and grief were raw and apparent. Media is the message Both outcomes are terrible. There's a sense Scott Morrison's edifice of processes is teetering. Will it come crashing down? It was at some point shortly after 8:00am on Thursday that the full extent of the political chaos currently seeming to engulf the Prime Minister's mind became crystal clear. "Can you categorically say," asked Sabra Lane, the host of the ABC's AM program, "that your office hasn't been backgrounding against one of [Brittany Higgins] loved ones? " "No one," Scott Morrison primly responded. "There has been no one in the gallery, nothing has been raised with my office from anyone in the gallery making any of those accusations or any discomfort about anything that my office has done. " People make allegations "all the time second, third-hand," he said.
"But there's no one who has raised that with my Chief of Staff out of the gallery, no. " What? We (the media) had been failing to complain to the Prime Minister's chief of staff about the Prime Minister's staff "backgrounding" (in this case, roughly translated as bad mouthing) Brittany Higgins's partner. The processes behind the discoveries What? A new power has risen in Australian politics — and it's not coming quietly. What we're seeing right now in federal Parliament is something you very rarely get to see: The emergence of a new head of power. Power shifts in politics are not rare. They happen all the time, in ways either big or small. Someone gets promoted or resigns in disgrace; that's a small shift. A minor party acquires the balance of power in the Senate, and suddenly the members of that party go from "Random Nutter" status in the Prime Minister's Rolodex to "Invite to Lodge Immediately".
As are tectonic rearrangements of factions in major parties, which occur at a subterranean level away from the public eye but sometimes burst forth in spumes of spectacular red-hot lava in the periodic events known as leadership spills. This upheaval we're witnessing right now in Australia is entirely different, however, from the routine rearrangements we're used to seeing in Parliament House. It's a new head of power. How bad was the situation before? A generation breaking the pattern What about Liberal women? The government's credentials for dealing with COVID are turning to dust amid vaccine confusion. Let's start with the one thing Scott Morrison has definitely gotten right in the past couple of weeks, and then move on from there. Well, actually he didn't actually get his facts right.
But accidentally, he rather nailed an issue, even if it was a nail hammered through his own boot. It was his "mea culpa" press conference on March 23, following the revelation of a now notorious masturbatory offence against a piece of Parliament House furniture where, when challenged about his lack of control over government staff, he threatened a journalist from Sky News about people in glass houses not throwing stones.
Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, his claim that a person "in your own organisation" was under investigation "by your own HR department" about "harassment of a woman in a women's toilet" was wrong. Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. But he got his facts wrong and issued a late night apology via Facebook. Morrison's foreign policy shift has been remarkable, but as the G7 Summit looms, Australia needs back-up. As Scott Morrison jets off for an actual, real-life, face-to-face gathering of world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall, he's completed a remarkable transformation in his foreign policy approach.
The Prime Minister's evolution from globalism sceptic to champion of international cooperation has occurred gradually over the past 18 months. This evolution hasn't had as much to do with the pandemic as it has with Australia's deteriorating relationship with China and the end of the Trump era in the United States. Morrison completed the journey yesterday, during a speech in Perth aimed at framing his agenda for the week ahead. To understand the significance of the Prime Minister's shift on globalism, we need to go back to October 2019. Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. It became known as the "negative globalism" speech, which many viewed as Morrison's attempt at "Trump-ism". The sound of 'positive globalism' AUKUS submarine deal with Australia was 'clumsy', US President Biden tells French President Macron.
US President Joe Biden says America was "clumsy" in its orchestration of a secret US-British submarine deal with Australia during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. Australia cancelled a $90 billion French contract in favour of nuclear-powered submarines France briefly recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia over the diplomatic rift Mr Biden says he thought Australia had informed the French long before the new deal was announced Australia cancelled a $90 billion contract with France just hours before the AUKUS alliance was announced, under which the UK and US will provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines instead of conventionally-powered French subs.
The arrangement took France by surprise and they described the act as a stab in the back. Mr Biden didn't formally apologise to Mr Macron, but conceded the US should not have caught its oldest ally by surprise. The truth is hard to find in Scott Morrison's standoff with Emmanuel Macron over subs and AUKUS. It's hard to remember a prime ministerial trip abroad running off the rails quite so spectacularly. Just six days ago, after touching down in Rome, the Prime Minister was optimistic. He had finally received a call from French President Emmanuel Macron and assured the public the worst of France's fury over the cancelled submarine contract had passed.
We don't know exactly what was said on the call, but Scott Morrison's take was that they had "started the way back" to a more normal relationship. Sure, there was lingering disappointment, but things were looking up. The following day, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome, Morrison spotted Macron in the crowd and (with his official photographer on hand) seized the moment. "I went up and just put my arm on his shoulder", the Prime Minister told reporters.
Morrison described it as a "pleasant and friendly exchange" and repeated things were "on the road back". As it turns out, the relationship was far from being on a road back. Australia's nuclear submarine deal fundamentally changes our relationship with the world. Emmanuel Macron should perhaps have been on his guard when he greeted Scott Morrison in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace in June this year, complete with ceremonial pomp.
Our Prime Minister seems to have a bit of form in courtyards. Just over three years ago, on August 22, 2018, at a press conference in the prime minister's courtyard at Parliament House, the then treasurer was asked whether he had ambitions for Malcolm Turnbull's job. He responded by throwing a reassuring arm around his prime minister's shoulder and declaring: "This is my leader and I'm ambitious for him! " "Thanks ScoMo," Turnbull responded, perhaps just a little uncertainly. Two days later, Morrison had replaced him as PM. Throw forward to June 15 this year, and Macron was welcoming Morrison to the presidential palace in Paris after the G7's meeting in Cornwall. Excruciating COVID elbow bumps protocol almost prevailed, except Macron warmly threw his arms around Morrison. 'It's a stab in the back' Let's rewind 18 months. Australia's borders may be opening but it feels like Hermit Kingdom conditions still reign in Canberra.
Australia was dubbed the "new Hermit Kingdom" earlier this year by Washington-based Australian journalist Amelia Lester in Foreign Policy magazine, and it's a term that's been used a fair bit ever since as Australia's international borders have remained firmly closed as the rest of the world opened up. We had the official photo opportunity early on Friday morning to celebrate the opening of the borders: the Prime Minister and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet beaming in an airport hangar in front of a Boeing 787 as Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce announced the opening of international flights from November 1. Thousands of stranded Australians will hopefully be able to come home, and others leave, ahead of a broader opening return of international students, skilled migrants and other travellers. It was an event to cap a generally celebratory day as Melbourne came out of lockdown and there were more and more announcements that domestic travel restrictions would be ending.
Scott Morrison's awkward Grace Tame photo opportunity brings a string of other unfortunate images back to haunt him. Grace Tame's frosty exchange with Prime Minister Scott Morrison brings tenure as Australian of the Year to an end. Scott Morrison hasn't quite apologised for pandemic failures, but has copped to making three COVID 'mistakes'
Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex Turnbull says he was contacted by Chinese agents. Unnamed 'traitor' politician cultivated by spies puts loyalty of all politicians in question, says former treasurer. Liberal colleagues reveal inside story of Tony Abbott's brutal demise. Scott Morrison's political feats and faux pas, from refused handshakes to coal in parliament. Anthony Albanese invites Xi Jinping to Australia after landmark summit at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Did Indigenous people want a Voice? The results from some of Australia's most remote communities suggest many did. The Voice campaign was infected with disinformation. Who's in charge of inoculating Australians against lies? The No victory in Voice to Parliament referendum reveals more than a divide between urban and regional Australia.
South Australian MP James Stevens clashes with Natasha Wanganeen over Voice and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price during ugly Q+A. The Voice: how do other countries represent Indigenous voices in government? The bitter politics and hypocrisy of the Voice debate will mark it as yet another ugly chapter in Australia's history. How a soap opera star pushed a conspiracy theory linking the Voice to Parliament to a UN takeover. Is it ethical non-Indigenous people get to decide on the Voice? Is it OK for one group to have rights others don't? An ethicist weighs in.
Watch full speech: Liberal senator blasts Morrison, calling PM a 'bully' with 'no moral compass' Jacqui Lambie unloads on Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Q+A over Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and the federal budget. Cult that defines Trump's power is just a few scratches away from the surface in Australia. NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane's home, office raided by police - ABC News. If press conferences are anything to go by, the brief sparkle of better politics has come to an end - ABC News. 'Better for Her Majesty not to know': palace letters reveal Queen's role in sacking of Australian PM Whitlam | Australia news. Scott Morrison: how he went from Artful Dodger to political shapeshifter | Katharine Murphy | Australia news. The Australian Constitution. Remembering the Tasmanian Dam Case | Opinions on High. Why Australian MPs are heading for the high court over dual citizenship – explainer | Australia news.
Scott Morrison says Trump travel ban shows 'world is catching up' to Australia | Australia news. Theconversation. Wiradjuri woman sings Linda Burney into parliament for her maiden speech – video | Australia news. Paul Keating's challenge: view Australia through Aboriginal eyes. Tony Abbott: top 10 bloopers of his prime ministership – video | Australia news. How to waste 200 words. Fifty-four adults and children 'captive for decades' rescued from Shining Path. Why Tony isn't pointing fingers. Coalition MPs demand proper say on next Speaker as Bronwyn Bishop quits | Australia news. Queensland sovereign citizen loses bid to carry guns after Rockhampton arrest attempt. Mark Latham's Downfall Started With This Very Intense Handshake.
Greens senator Jordon Steele-John calls on Australia to question AUKUS pact as Jacinta Price continues to rail against Voice on Q+A. Inside the late night meetings that came to define Anthony Albanese's Voice referendum gamble. AUKUS is Australia's message to China that the Western alliance is strong. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin aren't buying it. What legal woes does former US President Donald Trump face? | Donald Trump News. From climate emergencies to war, COVID and living costs, the future is now: What will our politicians learn from 2022? The Bell inquiry shreds Scott Morrison's credibility and for Labor the timing couldn't be better.
Government 'looking hard' at Russia's presence in Australia, amid diplomatic tensions and spying concerns. Log into Facebook. Trump openly embraces, amplifies QAnon conspiracy theories | AP News. After Queen Elizabeth II's death, Australia is talking about a republic again. How could it be achieved? Scott Morrison's secret self-appointments point to an insidious weakening of the guardrails of Australia's democracy.
Scott Morrison's horror show isn't over — and there's a high risk of more damage to come. Grattan on Friday: The Scott Morrison horror show has a way to run yet. Scott Morrison gave two reasons for secretly taking on five ministerial roles. But his lack of trust is what's most extraordinary. PM to outline proposed referendum question on Indigenous Voice to Parliament. After more than 200 years of waiting, Albanese puts forward a 'simple' proposition for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.