Australia news LIVE: iMessage issue resolved after widespread outage; Dutton pledges to slash permanent migration to 140,000 a year in budget reply

Circling back to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and NDIS Minister Bill Shorten’s panel interview on Nine’s Today program, the pair got into a heated argument over the Coalition’s proposed ban of foreign property buyers.

Last night in Dutton’s budget reply speech, the Opposition Leader pledged a two-year ban on foreign investors and temporary residents buying existing houses and apartments.

Asked by Shorten how many foreign investors Australia has had over the past two years, Dutton would not say, but Shorten chimed in with the answer.

Shorten: “Quick quiz for Peter Dutton, he says he’s going to stop foreigners buying houses over the next two years. I just wonder … if he knows how many foreigners bought houses in the last two years, over to you Pete.”

Dutton responds with: “well, Bill, back to you. I mean, how did you go in the 2019 election?”

Shorten remains undeterred, snapping back: “did you say you don’t like personal attacks? … oohh zinger! You just said before you didn’t like personal attacks, as soon as you’re under pressure you go personal.”

Shorten again asks Dutton how many people in the last two years who were foreigners bought houses. Dutton begins his answer saying under his policy 40,000 homes will be freed up but conceded the number of foreign buyers is low.

“I’ll tell you how low it is, it’s less than 5000 … two years, less than 5000,” Shorten said.

Today host Karl Stefanovic interrupts, telling Shorten to stop asking questions.

“Bill … Bill, this is not going to work. You are making me redundant. And I don’t like that feeling. If you want to be a TV host, leave politics and get a job here at the Today Show. It’s not that hard. Come on,” Stefanovic joked.

Returning to Victoria briefly, where the Allan government has just announced an extra $15 million in funding for financial counselling services.

It comes after this masthead revealed Victoria had recorded the biggest jump in financial distress of any state in recent months.

Fifty-four per cent of Victorians were experiencing cost-of-living and personal debt distress beyond normal levels as of March, according to Suicide Prevention Australia’s latest quarterly survey.

Leading charities and community organisations have been demanding more funding for some time given calls to the National Debt Helpline in Victoria have surged, middle-income earners have been contacting the service for the first time and waiting lists for financial counselling have blown out.

Friday’s announcement, which builds on the $6.8 million flagged in last week’s state budget for financial counselling services assisting victim-survivors of family violence, will come into effect from July.

Consumer Affairs Minister Gabrielle Williams said the funding would make a tangible difference to Victorians whose bills have started piling up.

“Cost of living continues to put pressure on families right across the state,” she said.

The Australian government has imposed six targeted financial sanctions against companies involved in the illegal transfer of arms and related material from North Korea to Russia for use in the war against Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia condemned North Korea’s illegal export and Russia’s procurement and use of North Korean ballistic missiles in support of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

“The use of North Korean ballistic missiles by Russia increases the suffering of the Ukrainian people, supports Russia’s illegal and immoral war of aggression and undermines the global non-proliferation regime,” Wong said in a statement.

“Australia will continue to work with our allies and partners to hold Russia and North Korea to account, and address the security threat posed by North Korea.”

The six companies with financial sanctions include Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company, Dunay Probable Naval Missile Facility, Marine Trans Shipping, MG-Flot, M Leasing and Sovfracht Joint Stock Company.

Minister for Industry Ed Husic does not believe Labor senator Fatima Payman should have said “from the river to the sea” but has backed her for having the “guts” to call out those overlooking what is happening in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Payman said Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and finished her speech using the slogan “from the river to the sea”.

During Senate question time yesterday, Liberal senator Hollie Hughes was forced to withdraw a comment accusing the government of supporting terrorism that some senators interpreted as being aimed at Payman.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said yesterday it was inappropriate for Payman to have used the phrase “from the river to the sea” as it went against the government’s position calling for a two-state solution, while NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said earlier this morning Payman’s place on the foreign affairs committee should be reconsidered.

“If I was on it, and I had that much disagreement, I probably would decide to make a contribution in some other way,” Shorten told ABC Radio National this morning.

Husic told Sky he would not say if Payman should be removed from the foreign affairs committee, but said he did not use the chant “from the river to the sea” and did not think Payman should have used the slogan.

“What’s gone missing in this is that you’ve got, particularly [it] takes a lot of guts to go out on an issue as tough as this as a first-term member of parliament, and to try to get people to focus on the moral issue at hand, which is the role of silence,” Husic said.

“I don’t use that chant. I don’t believe that chant is right when Israelis use it, or Palestinians use it, because it’s designed to limit our ability to get to a two-state solution. Fatima chose to use that. I wouldn’t have done it and I don’t think she should have.”

Husic would not say if he believed Israel was committing genocide, but said there were a number of politicians who would not stop speaking up on this issue when 35,000 civilians in Palestine have been killed.

“We cannot remain silent on that. And as much as the Coalition wants to focus on slogans, they have never expressed a view seriously about whether or not they believe that the Israeli government’s conduct and their observance of international humanitarian law has been proper,” Husic said.

Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto says he won’t pay any damages as part of two out-of-court defamation settlements.

However, the Liberal leader did confirm at a Friday morning press conference that he has agreed to contribute to the legal fees of both UK anti-trans rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen and Melbourne woman Angela Jones.

That contribution will come from his own pocket as well as donations to his legal defence fund. The specific figures remain undisclosed.

As reported by this masthead last night, the two settlements leave Pesutto fighting just one defamation action in the Federal Court, brought by exiled state upper house Liberal MP Moira Deeming.

Deeming, Keen and Jones launched defamation proceedings against Pesutto after comments he made about a controversial rally attended by the three women on the steps of state parliament. That rally, held last year, was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.

Here’s a taste of the statement Pesutto issued in the early hours of Friday morning as part of his settlement with Keen and Jones:

I have never believed or intended to assert that Kellie-Jay Keen and Angela Jones are neo-Nazis. It is also now clear from public statements made by Ms Keen and Ms Jones that they share my belief that Nazism is odious and contemptible.

People engaged in robust public debate do not always have the ability to express themselves perfectly. This is one reason that we should give those we may disagree with some benefit of the doubt.

I recognise that there have been times when my comments could have more clearly differentiated between the organisers of the 18 March 2023 Let Women Speak Rally and the neo-Nazis who attended the steps of Parliament House on that day.

It has never been my intention to convey that I believed Ms Keen and Ms Jones to be neo-Nazis, or that they were members of neo-Nazi groups. As far as my comments may have been misunderstood as conveying that I believed this to be the case, I apologise for any hurt, distress or harm that has occurred.”

During today’s press conference, Pesutto said he recognised transgender women as women, citing current laws and Liberal Party rules, but said he wouldn’t gag anyone from controversial policy debates.

The statement released early this morning said that “genuine community concerns” about women’s safety and access to single-sex spaces, services and sport warranted “meaningful public discussion”.

The opposition leader added today that he wanted to settle with Deeming before a lengthy trial, currently scheduled for September.

Some of Australia’s largest international student markets are still being granted visas at high rates, while countries such as India bear the brunt of record rejections as the government uses the education sector as a key mechanism to slash migration.

In the year to April, Chinese students were granted visas for university study at a rate of more than 97 per cent, only slightly down on the year before, even as the government told universities to cut reliance on the market.

Other key markets, including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka have maintained visa grant rates above 90 per cent, while the average sits at a record low 83 per cent.

Countries such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Kenya and Nigeria all have approval rates below 70 per cent, in significant drops from previous years.

Learn more about this issue here.

In overseas news, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have pledged a “new era” of partnership between the two most powerful rivals of the United States.

Xi greeted Putin on a red carpet outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where they were hailed by marching People’s Liberation Army soldiers, a 21-gun salute on Tiananmen Square and children waving the flags of China and Russia.

China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the deadliest land war in Europe since World War Two.

Xi, 70, and Putin, 71, signed a joint statement about the “new era” that proclaimed opposition to the US on a host of security issues and a shared view on everything from Taiwan and Ukraine to North Korea and co-operation on new peaceful nuclear technologies and finance.

“The China-Russia relationship today is hard-earned, and the two sides need to cherish and nurture it,” Xi told Putin.

Here’s more on the visit, from Reuters.

In case you missed it, oil and gas producers have expressed relief after the Albanese government cut a deal with the Greens to pass a tax increase for fossil fuel projects in Commonwealth waters.

The deal with the Greens clears the way for the government to pass new laws reforming the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax (PRRT), which applies to offshore oil and gas projects, amid long-held concerns that Australians have not been getting a reasonable return from exports of their natural resources.

The changes are expected to recoup an extra $2.4 billion over the next four years by bringing forward deferred payments and reducing permissible deductions, the government said.

Woodside, the biggest Australian oil and gas company, welcomed the resolution of the PRRT legislation “without further amendments”. Woodside is the largest payer of the PRRT, contributing $681 million under the tax last year.

“The legislation … provides certainty for industry to consider future investment decisions,” a company spokesperson said.

Catch up on the full story here.

The United Firefighters Union has lost its battle against Victoria’s attorney-general after a judge found she did not use unlawful coercion.

The union brought Federal Court action in February, claiming the state’s Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes had acted in a way that was either unlawful, illegitimate or unconscionable.

The dispute centred on letters Symes sent to Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) in August and September 2022, instructing the body not to support a new fire registration board.

The board, set up by the union, would have had complete control over whom FRV could employ as an operational member.

Symes, who is also the emergency services minister, told the fire service the new board had insufficient transparency and oversight measures in place.

She said FRV required her consent to sign the service agreement with the registration board, and she would not provide it, the Federal Court was told in February.

The union argued FRV did not need the minister’s consent and her direction was either unlawful, illegitimate or unconscionable.

But Justice John Snaden disagreed, finding the union could not prove that Symes acted in such a way.

“The minister’s conduct was not conduct that was engaged in … with intent to coerce FRV,” he said in a written judgment on Friday.

The court dismissed the union’s application for declaratory relief and made no order for costs.

AAP

Three A-League soccer players have been arrested after police uncovered an allegedly corrupt betting scheme at a Sydney football club.

Police allege a senior player at Macarthur FC was taking instructions from a man believed to be in South America to organise for yellow cards to be awarded during games to make a profit.

The senior player allegedly controlled the number of yellow cards – which referees give to players for foul play – during a match against Melbourne Victory on November 24, and a match against Sydney FC on December 9.

Failed attempts at yellow card manipulation were also made during games on April 20 and May 4, according to police.

Updates on this breaking story are here.