Australia news LIVE: Minimum wage boosted by 3.75 per cent; Frydenberg shuts down comeback rumours

Amelia Hamer, the Liberal party’s pre-selected candidate for Kooyong, has spoken out after former treasurer Josh Frydenberg shut down rumours he was considering another tilt at his former seat.

Frydenberg lost the inner-Melbourne seat to Teal MP Monique Ryan at the 2022 election.

“The issues that matter to the people of Kooyong are all that matters to me. They are certainly not interested in internal politics, and neither am I,” Hamer’s statement read.

“Kooyong deserves a real voice and they want a candidate who can deliver; and I have an unwavering focus on what is important to them.”

Hamer’s statement concluded:

To date I’ve spent 10 weeks on the campaign trail and I’m just getting started.

It has been great to meet with so many constituents, community groups, businesses and hear about what is important to them and what we can do to make this community even better. That is what is driving me each and every day.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt has had to re-word his question three times, as he asks Prime Minister Anthony Albanese if he will condemn former US president Donald Trump after he was found guilty of fraud last week.

Bandt first asks Albanese: “Will you join us in condemning Donald Trump and commit to a full review of Australia’s relationship with the US if this dangerous man is elected president?”

Leader of the House Tony Burke argues against this question, saying Bandt cannot ask for an opinion under the standing orders.

Bandt again asks if Albanese will condemn Trump, which Speaker Milton Dick says he cannot ask because it is still an opinion.

For a third time, Bandt asks: “As prime minister, will you commit to a full review of Australia’s relationship with the United States if candidate Donate Trump is elected president?”

Dick says he still has an issue with that question but allows Albanese to answer because it was broad enough.

“I regard the relationships that we have as being very important,” Albanese says.

Referring to former prime minister John Curtin’s “correct and courageous” decision to put national defence of Australia first during World War II and make an “important alliance” with the United States since then, Albanese said it was more than a relationship depending on who is in power.

“It’s a relationship between people and between nations, it’s one that is very important and enduring and will continue to be into the future,” he said.

Albanese then listed relationships Australia had with countries in Europe, ASEAN countries and that he looked forward to hosting the Premier of China Li Qiang soon.

“We’ll make an announcement at appropriate times about that, that will be a positive thing given that China is our major trading partner and given the important regional relationships,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has taken a swipe at Sky News, saying the outlet “occasionally don’t get things right” when asked about a story the news channel broke about ministerial direction 99.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley asks Albanese: “Sky News reported that following the prime minister’s meetings with Jacinda Ardern and prior to the introduction of direction 99, the prime minister’s department directly instructed the Home Affairs Department to attempt to find a way to stop the deportation of so many New Zealand citizens and to fix the problem … is this true?”

Albanese begins his answer hitting out at Sky News, saying the channel “occasionally don’t get things right”.

“Usually it’s at night … before it becomes dark when truth sort of gets darkened as the day goes on, but the truth is that I, unlike my predecessor, have a job. I don’t have multiple jobs, I haven’t sworn myself into multiple portfolios,” he said.

“Let me be clear – section 501 [of the Migration Act] remains in place, this has not changed. We continue to refuse and cancel visas on character grounds, we continue to deport people who have no right to be here, since coming to government, we’ve deported over 4100 individuals from immigration detention.”

The government is not playing politics, says Immigration Minister Andrew Giles, as he battles through repeated questions from the Coalition on his handling of his portfolio.

Liberal MP Angie Bell asked Giles how the 153 detainees released after the High Court ruling are being continuously monitored when half are not wearing a monitoring device.

Giles begins his answer by again suggesting the Coalition argument is a double standard, saying when Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was immigration minister detainees were released from detention without any monitoring.

“No monitoring, no reporting, no conditions, that person who went on allegedly to commit an attack and he’s been strangely silent about this,” Giles said.

“We are not interested in playing politics on this issue, we are interested in community safety.” This prompted the opposition to erupt into yelling.

The next question from the opposition again goes to Giles, as Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie asks if his office had any questions from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about then-New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern lobbying against the deportation of New Zealanders who had lived in Australia for a long time.

“I can’t speak to meetings that the prime minister had with any other prime minister, or indeed, any other person that the prime minister had meetings with, what I can say is that I did the work for ministerial direction 99 with my office in our national interest,” Giles said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers just landed the government’s first Josh Frydenberg joke, making fun of the rumours around his predecessor’s plans to return to politics (which Frydenberg quashed earlier this afternoon).

After Queensland LNP MP Aaron Violi was booted from the chamber under section 94A, Chalmers quipped, “he should be careful, Mr Speaker, or Josh Frydenberg might be in his seat when he gets back”.

This gets a big laugh from across the chamber.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has gone on the attack, saying if Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had been held to the same standard when he was immigration minister “he would not have lasted a day in the job”.

Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan used the opposition’s second question to ask Giles if he will release the advice from the Department of Home Affairs about the use of drones to monitor detainees.

Giles argued he had answered the question, which Tehan claimed was not relevant to his “very direct and very simple” question.

Speaker Milton Dick allowed Giles to continue with his answer, saying the immigration minister had two minutes and 45 seconds to answer the question.

Giles uses this as an opportunity to go on the attack: “What we’ve seen here is the shadow minister loving it at the dispatch box … because he knows, as we know, that if the leader of the opposition was held to the standard that he seeks to hold others, he would not have lasted a day in the job,” he said.

“This is a bloke who trashed our immigration system, who trashed integrity, who trashed enforcement, who let nearly 1300 people out, not via an accord, or a tribunal, without any constraints on their behaviour. That’s the measure of the man, the shadow minister obviously agrees with me.”

Question time has begun in a familiar manner, with the first question from Coalition spokesman for immigration Dan Tehan asking Immigration Minister Andrew Giles why he told Sky News drones were used to monitor ex-immigration detainees – which Giles has since conceded was not true.

“What was the basis of the advice that led to this latest example of gross incompetence?” Tehan asked.

Giles opens his answer by repeating his statement released earlier (see our last post), saying he has cancelled 30 visas of non-citizens released by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and by the end of this week, there will be a revised ministerial direction.

“As the shadow minister said, last week, in an interview on Sky News, I did state that Operation AEGIS was using drones. I relied on information provided by my department at the time which has since … been clarified,” he said to the house, as the opposition groaned.

“Operation AEGIS draws on information from a range of sources, using different technology, including aerial open source and other imagery through their work with state and territory law enforcement bodies.”

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has clarified comments last week that drones were being used to monitor the 153 former detainees released after the landmark High Court decision last year that indefinite immigration detention was illegal.

Last week, Giles told Sky News that drones were being used to monitor the 153 detainees, which he has since clarified in a statement before this afternoon’s question time.

“Last week, in an interview on Sky News, I stated that Operation AEGIS was using drones,” he said.

“I relied on information provided by my Department at the time, which has since been clarified.

“As part of the work monitoring and supporting community safety, Operation AEGIS draws on information from a range of sources using different technologies including aerial open-source and other imagery through their work with state and territory law enforcement bodies.”

In addition, the visas of 30 non-citizens have since been cancelled, after revelations last week that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was releasing non-citizens with serious criminal histories back into the community due to ministerial direction 99.

“Over the last week I have cancelled 30 visas of non-citizens with serious criminal histories, in the national interest,” Giles said.

“It is clear that the AAT’s decision to reinstate these visas did not meet community expectations, and ministerial direction 99 has not been working as the government intended.

“The government is on track to overhaul this regime and put in place a new direction before the end of the week.”

Question time kicks off at 2pm in the House of Representatives. Watch the session live here:

Something that you might have missed yesterday was Kooyong Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer’s subtle social media nod to the rumours that Josh Frydenberg might be mounting a return to politics.

Hamer, who hadn’t posted to X since 2023, shared an image from a weightlifting event in Hawthorn yesterday.

She shared the photo with the caption: “Here in Kooyong the community loves to support strong women”

The rumour mill had run wild with speculation that former treasurer Josh Frydenberg was considering another tilt at his former seat after the AEC proposed a redistribution that would change the demographics of the inner-Melbourne electorate.

But Frydenberg put the rumours to bed today, with a post to X saying he wasn’t rushing back to politics, and would support Hamer.