Australia news live: calls grow for PM to reveal if he spoke to Xi about naval divers injured by Chinese sonar | Australia news
PM under pressure to clarify discussions with Chinese president
As we brought you just earlier, Kevin Rudd was pressed on whether prime minister Anthony Albanese spoke to Xi Jinping about injured naval divers (you can read more here).
This comes as calls grow from the opposition and crossbenchers for Albanese to reveal whether he raised the issue with Xi.
The independent senator Jacqui Lambie said the issue should have been raised and called for the government to be upfront and answer questions. She told Sky News:
You can’t sit there and pretend you’re going to be nice on trade while this is going on with your own navy people that could have bought more harm to them.
This is just ridiculous. What happened to the friendship and the trust that we’re building and all the rest?
This is a pretty big issue, it should have been raised but more importantly, [the prime minister should] come out this morning … come and answer some questions, tell Australia what’s going on, keeping us in the dark is not helpful.
Meanwhile, the opposition’s defence spokesperson, Andrew Hastie, said if the prime minister knew about the incident and deliberately withheld the information, it was “outrageous and unacceptable”.
He said Albanese needed to come clean about whether he raised the incident with his counterpart as the two nations try to repair their frosty relationship.
He also needs to have petitioned Xi and asked for an apology, Hastie said.
– with AAP
Key events
South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas and his wife Annabel have welcomed a baby boy into the world – George Robert Malinauskas.
George has born last Thursday afternoon, and the SA premier shared some photos this morning:
On Thursday afternoon Annabel and I welcomed George Robert Malinauskas into the world, weighing 4.14kg.
Both Annabel and George are doing very well, we feel so incredibly fortunate. pic.twitter.com/tnFoGMwaCi
— Peter Malinauskas (@PMalinauskasMP) November 19, 2023
He wrote on X/Twitter that Annabel and George are both doing well and “we feel so incredibly fortunate”.
Thanks so much to all the medical staff who have assisted George and Annabel, particularly Dr Chris Sexton who has done an amazing job delivering all our children.
Family is everything.
Plibersek won’t comment on what Albanese said to Xi
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has also been grilled about whether the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, spoke to Xi Jinping about the Chinese warship that injured Australian navy divers.
Speaking on Channel 7’s Morning Show, Plibersek said she couldn’t “comment on the timing” but the Australian government “made it very clear at the highest level” that this was “unacceptable and unsafe and unprofessional behaviour”.
But she wouldn’t confirm whether Albanese spoke to Xi on the matter:
I am not going to comment on what the prime minister says to other world leaders.
Pointing to former PM Scott Morrison’s leaking of a text from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Plibersek stressed the importance of confidential meetings between leaders:
It does not help international relations to behave in that way.
Police investigating after car crashes into power pole in Sydney
An investigation is under way after a single-vehicle crash in Sydney early this morning, where a car collided with a power pole.
About 2.45am this morning, emergency services were called to Hurstville after reports a Toyota Prado SUV lost control and collided with a power pole and a fence.
Crews freed a 19-year-old female passenger and the driver, an 18-year-old man, while authorities worked to isolate power from the fallen lines.
Both have been taken to Royal Prince Alfred hospital for treatment.
Two further passengers – a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl – were both taken to St George hospital for treatment to minor injuries.
Officers established a crime scene which will be examined by the crash investigations unit.
Due to the crash, a number of powerlines have been damaged and debris from the crash damaged nearby homes.
Victoria police confirm search ongoing after mid-air plane collision
A spokesperson for Victoria police confirmed the search was continuing this morning for two passengers involved in a mid-air collision off the coast of Melbourne’s Mornington peninsula yesterday:
The investigation is ongoing.
In a statement yesterday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority confirmed search assets had “located a wreckage in the area”. This morning, Amsa confirmed it had now handed over coordination of the search to Victorian police.
‘McBride believes what he did was right, and he still does’: lawyer
Asked what penalties McBride faces, Davis said he needed to “be cautious here” and said:
They’re all very lengthy jail sentences … His honour won’t be expecting McBride to exhibit remorse and throw himself on the ground and asking for mercy. Clearly, McBride believes what he did was right, and he still does. That can be an element of sentencing that we can say openly and will be – we say his action was well intentioned and there was no harm with what he did. We believe there was incredible public benefit from what he did.
McBride’s actions initially taken ‘in defence of Australia soldiers’: lawyer
Defence lawyer Mark Davis was asked what David McBride’s intention was with releasing the documents:
We were hoping to put it before a court. That has been denied to us.
He had in effect two intentions and it lies within the material itself, it’s correct, and it’s one of the complexities of McBride, his initial complaint, the thing that angered him most was what he thought was inappropriate judging of soldiers for war crimes.
These were trivial incidents and suddenly, he’s being written very heavily to prosecute people and he says, well, they haven’t done anything, so that’s absolutely – it was in defence of Australian soldiers, that he kicked off his his actions.
But in that process, he reveals other incidents that had happened just before his time, that were clearly of the most serious nature and clearly had not been investigated properly.
Both of those things were evident.
David McBride’s lawyer describes separation between state and courts as ‘paper-thin’
Mark Davis claimed that on the last day when David McBride changed his plea, evidence was removed from the brief.
He told ABC RN:
They came in and removed evidence, from us, from the defence, that we could not present.
It really seemed very normal to them, this is Canberra supreme court, that was the new powers that the attorney general now wields, there is a paper-thin division between the state and the courts.
We were smacked in the face with it, that paper thin barrier was denying McBride evidence to put before a jury. You can’t get more …
He trailed off and said “I’ll be careful what I say” and argued there was no need to remove evidence because it was a “completely secret court”.
How many powers can you strip away from the citizen and give to the government and expect a trial to proceed?
It was too great a burden.
David McBride’s lawyer says court’s ‘narrow definition’ of McBride’s duty ‘cornered’ them
The defence lawyer for whistleblower David McBride, Mark Davis, spoke to ABC RN earlier this morning.
David said “we were cornered” when asked why his client McBride pleaded guilty:
[There were] a number of reasons, I won’t articulate them all, obviously he hasn’t been sentenced yet but in essence, the court ruled the most narrow definition of the duty of an officer imaginable and it was a shock to us, I think would be a shock to many.
The judge was indicating that he was instructing the jury, an element of this offence was what his duty was as an officer, and the instruction was his duty was to follow orders 100%. Now, we were maintaining that he had a duty and an obligation to Australian people under his oath that on occasion … he had another duty … and that was to reveal information of the type that he had.
Once that was denied to us, he was walking into an execution.
‘Heartwarming’ support after alleged hit-and-run death of SA police commissioner’s son: deputy commissioner
South Australia police deputy commissioner Linda Williams spoke to the Today show earlier this morning about the death of the SA police commissioner’s son following an alleged hit and run.
She said SAPOL were “uniting as the team” amid the tragic incident.
The support we get from the broader community has been fantastic. It’s been heartwarming. We are just overwhelmed by it.
Williams said commissioner Grant Stevens is an “amazing leader”, but now is the time for him to be with family:
It’s the right place for him to be. I would say it’s just been enormous on him and Emma, and them and the four children and the wider family … They are definitely in grief. It is going to take some time.
Williams said there was nothing more to be said at this stage about the alleged hit and run incident:
It was a tragic event that unfolded and now the matter’s before the courts. In time, the fullness of time that will be the process.
Victoria police now in charge of search for pilot and passenger, Amsa says
We reached out to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) earlier this morning for an update on the search for the pilot and passenger onboard a jet that crashed off the coast of Melbourne’s Mornington peninsula yesterday after a mid-air collision.
Amsa said in a statement it had concluded its search last night and has now “handed over coordination of the search to Victoria Police”.
Here was their statement in full:
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) concluded its search for the two people on board the aircraft at approximately 7:30pm (AEDT) last night.
AMSA has now handed over coordination of the search to Victoria Police.
We’ll continue to bring you the latest updates here on the blog.
Congratulatory posts have been shared across social media this morning, after Australia was crowned Cricket World Cup champions for the sixth time overnight:
PM under pressure to clarify discussions with Chinese president
As we brought you just earlier, Kevin Rudd was pressed on whether prime minister Anthony Albanese spoke to Xi Jinping about injured naval divers (you can read more here).
This comes as calls grow from the opposition and crossbenchers for Albanese to reveal whether he raised the issue with Xi.
The independent senator Jacqui Lambie said the issue should have been raised and called for the government to be upfront and answer questions. She told Sky News:
You can’t sit there and pretend you’re going to be nice on trade while this is going on with your own navy people that could have bought more harm to them.
This is just ridiculous. What happened to the friendship and the trust that we’re building and all the rest?
This is a pretty big issue, it should have been raised but more importantly, [the prime minister should] come out this morning … come and answer some questions, tell Australia what’s going on, keeping us in the dark is not helpful.
Meanwhile, the opposition’s defence spokesperson, Andrew Hastie, said if the prime minister knew about the incident and deliberately withheld the information, it was “outrageous and unacceptable”.
He said Albanese needed to come clean about whether he raised the incident with his counterpart as the two nations try to repair their frosty relationship.
He also needs to have petitioned Xi and asked for an apology, Hastie said.
– with AAP
