Jane Hume rejects Dreyfus’ attack on ‘attempts to politicise the Holocaust’
Liberal senator Jane Hume has responded to attorney general Mark Dreyfus’ comments earlier, which implied the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, had been “politicising” the Holocaust and antisemitism.
Speaking to Sky News, Hume said:
Antisemitism is grotesque … We’ve seen 15 months, here in Australia, where antisemitism has been on the rise. Where has Mark Dreyfus been all this time? He’s been part of a government which has seen the greatest rise in antisemitism that this country has ever seen.
For Mark Dreyfus to come out 15 months later and say that the problem is politicisation is nonsense. He did say one thing, that antisemitism shouldn’t be an issue of left or right, that’s exactly right, and had the left dealt with this problem earlier on, had it dealt with it appropriately now, it wouldn’t have been a problem in Australia.
Key events
PM says Grace Tame’s ‘Fuck Murdoch’ T-shirt was ‘disrespectful’ to Australian of the Year event
Anthony Albanese said a T-shirt that read “Fuck Murdoch”, worn by the 2021 Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, when she was greeted by the prime minister at the event for recipients of this year’s awards on Saturday, was “disrespectful of the event and of the people who that event was primarily for”.
Albanese said:
It was clearly designed to get attention. I don’t know intent to add to that attention because I do think that it takes away from what the day should be about – which is the amazing people who were nominated as Australians of the Year.
PM says Sussan Ley comparing the First Fleet to SpaceX was ‘very strange’
The prime minister has responded to Sussan Ley’s comments yesterday, in an Australia Day address, in which she compared the arrival of the First Fleet to Elon Musk’s SpaceX seeking to reach Mars.
“I thought when someone said that to me yesterday they were making it up,” Anthony Albanese said.
He continued:
This is the second most senior person in the Coalition – the deputy leader of the Coalition has suggested that there is an analogy here.
Well, there weren’t people – there aren’t people that we know of on Mars. Australia was not terra nullius when Captain Phillip and the First Fleet came through Sydney Cove.
And I thought that was a very strange analogy to draw, and one that was disrespectful of the fact that there were people here. Of course First Nations people here for tens of thousands of years and that we have a great privilege of sharing this continent with the oldest continuous culture on Earth.
You can read more about Ley’s comments here:
Albanese says WA Labor a ‘stark contrast’ to Coalition
Albanese has called the Coalition in WA “a rabble” as he reiterates his support for Cook’s state Labor party before the WA state election.
Albanese said:
[WA Labor] stands in stark contrast with the Coalition. The Coalition are a rabble here as well. You got the situation in Moore where they have got a bloke who was the member for Stirling, then wanted to be the member for Cowan, and then knocked off the member for Moore to try to get back into the House of Representatives and the sitting member for Moore who used to be a Liberal, who was endorsed by Peter Dutton, didn’t seem to count for much, is running as an independent. It is chaos here.
PM says antisemitism must be ‘opposed in all its forms’
Albanese continues to talk about the rise of far-right extremism. In response to a question about why those groups are attracting more attention, he said:
We need to call it out. That’s the first thing that occurs. There is, of course, some evil forces that seek to divide and seek to point towards people who don’t look like them or have the same faith as them and say, ‘this is the reason for your lot in life’ to try to promote hatred. Tragically that is occurring. We know that the director general, Mike Burgess, has warned of this.
Labor will commit $2m for the upgrade of the WA Holocaust Education Centre, Albanese said, along with a new $4.4m for a national centre for Holocaust education.
It’s important that any antisemitism be opposed in all of its forms and it’s important here in Australia.
Albanese says there is no place for ‘hateful ideology’ after Adelaide arrests
Albanese was asked by a reporter about the arrests of 16 members of a far-right organisation in Adelaide yesterday.
Albanese said there is “no place for this hateful ideology here in Australia or, indeed, anywhere else”.
He said:
They were horrific scenes yesterday, to have people openly identifying as neo-Nazis and fascists. White supremacists marching through the street. I congratulate the South Australian police on the action they took.
Mike Burgess, the head of Asio, has been warning for some time about the rise of far-right groups in Australia. It’s a phenomenon, unfortunately, we have seen in other parts of the industrialised world as well. There is no place for this hateful ideology here in Australia or indeed anywhere else.
Today, of all days, when we commemorate 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau concentration camp from the Nazis, from the atrocities that occurred during the Holocaust which cost 6 million lives, today of all days, the fact that that footage that I saw this morning, I was travelling yesterday, I was in Canberra, then Sydney, then travelled across to here, I was – I was shocked by that.
The Western Australian premier, Roger Cook, has taken the mic, saying that last week he announced a re-elected WA Labor government would expand the Kwinana freeway through to the city “as an important part of de-constraining a real chokepoint for 100,000 commuters that use that line, that road, every day”.
Cook said:
And so without the hint of conflict of interest, we announced that we would be funding that to the tune of $350m. Today’s announcement by the feds means that we are now in a position to step forward with that project immediately and as soon as possible.
WA is an export state. We are a trade exposed state, and making sure we have transport corridors to our ports is an important part of ensuring that we can continue to be competitive as we trade with our south-east Asian trading partners but also we want to see those transport corridors developed for our future ports.
Westport is an important part of our vision for the state, which is about making sure that come the 2030s we will see Westport come to life, which will set the state up for the future, making sure that we have a state-of-the-art container and bulk terminal facility which can serve the state for generations to come.
Albanese announces upgrade to Kwinana freeway in WA
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is in Western Australia today to announce a $700m upgrade to the Kwinana freeway.
He’s speaking to the media right now about the project. He says:
This widening of the Kwinana freeway will be great for the [Fremantle] Port but it will also be good for people getting to and from work, commuting throughout this great growing city of Perth, and that’s why the partnering between us and the WA government of $350m each for this $700m project will create jobs in the short term, will make it easier to commute around Perth in the medium term and in the long term will make such an enormous difference to the WA and the national economy.
We have already funded through $33.5m for the planning work and other work to be done to identify the infrastructure needs associated with the port, but this is a great announcement. My government is backing WA as we always do and this announcement today is about building Australia’s future and Western Australia is a key part of that.
Petra Stock
Temperatures surge past 40C at Birdsville and Moomba by mid-morning
With hot and dry conditions forecast across much of south-eastern Australia today, the Bureau of Meteorology expected several inland towns near the South Australian, Queensland and New South Wales borders to reach temperatures in the mid-40s today.
A top of 46C was forecast for Birdsville, in western Queensland, with the tiny outback town already at 40.8C by mid-morning. The town holds the all-time record for the state’s hottest temperature – 49.5C in 1972.
Moomba, in north-east South Australia has a forecast maximum of 45C, and had already reached 41.5C by 10.30am.
Meanwhile, in NSW, the town of Tibooburra – home to 95 people at the last census – was forecast for 44C, and had already reached 39.3C by mid-morning. The NSW town of Smithville, located closer to Adelaide than Sydney, had recorded the hottest temperature for the state so far, at 39.6C.
At the time of writing, the highest recorded temperatures in other states included:
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Jervois, NT – 38.8C by 9.20am.
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Hopetoun, Vic – 37.4C at 10.47am.
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Gudai-Darri Mine in WA – 37.2C at 7.59am.
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Low Rocky Point, Tas – 28C at 10.55am.
Joe Hinchliffe
Woman charged with murder of boy in Townsville
A woman has been charged with the murder of a boy who was in her care inside what police describe as a “normal suburban” house in the suburbs of Townsville.
The woman and the boy shared “loose family connections” and her own children were also present at the time of the alleged killing, Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Miles told press Monday morning.
The boy was dead when emergency services arrived at the crime scene after 7pm on Saturday night, having suffered a significant and obvious head injury, apparently caused by a weapon, Miles said.
Police believe his injuries were inflicted within a period of eight hours before their arrival but are awaiting the results of an autopsy for further details about when and how he was allegedly murdered.
The woman was arrested at the home and is to face Townsville magistrates court on Monday.
Total fire ban in parts of Victoria
A reminder for those in Victoria’s Mallee, Wimmera, south west, central and north central regions that there is a total fire ban in force today due to the hot and dry conditions and gusty winds, which are expected to reach 70-80km per hour.
The Country Fire Authority chief officer, Jason Heffernan, said in a statement last night that the conditions would “make it difficult for firefighters to suppress a fire should one start”.
We’re asking people to follow the strict conditions associated with the total fire ban declaration. Understand the how the increased fire risk will impact you and ensure your fire plan covers all possible contingencies.
At the moment, the Vic Emergency website shows two grassfires burning (one in Long Forest, and one in Altona) but both are at low advice level.
Petra Stock
The Grampians globe-pea, a critically endangered wiry shrub, had finished flowering and was fruiting when fires tore through its home in the Grampians national park, in western Victoria. The spiny plant with vibrant orange and yellow flowers is extremely rare and restricted to a handful of sites, including areas within the 76,000ha that burned over December and January.
Finding the globe-pea will be a priority when a plant rescue mission led by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria heads to the Grampians to search for survivors and signs of life amid the charred landscape.
“We do not yet know the extent of the damage,” says the RBGV director and chief executive, Chris Russell, adding that the work of creating backup populations of species before they are “lost forever” is urgent and ongoing, as climate change causes “disruption to the whole system”.
Along with the state’s environment department and local community groups, the RBGV is increasing its conservation efforts in the Grampians, known as Gariwerd to Indigenous peoples, after recent bushfires.
What happens next is critical.
Read the full story here:
Jane Hume rejects Dreyfus’ attack on ‘attempts to politicise the Holocaust’
Liberal senator Jane Hume has responded to attorney general Mark Dreyfus’ comments earlier, which implied the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, had been “politicising” the Holocaust and antisemitism.
Speaking to Sky News, Hume said:
Antisemitism is grotesque … We’ve seen 15 months, here in Australia, where antisemitism has been on the rise. Where has Mark Dreyfus been all this time? He’s been part of a government which has seen the greatest rise in antisemitism that this country has ever seen.
For Mark Dreyfus to come out 15 months later and say that the problem is politicisation is nonsense. He did say one thing, that antisemitism shouldn’t be an issue of left or right, that’s exactly right, and had the left dealt with this problem earlier on, had it dealt with it appropriately now, it wouldn’t have been a problem in Australia.
Josh Butler
On 22 January, Gina Rinehart said: “If we are sensible, we should set up a Doge [Department of Government Efficiency] immediately, reduce government waste, government tape and regulations.”
Mere days later, on 25 January, Peter Dutton appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as the shadow minister for government efficiency (Smoge?), describing her new job as to cut “wasteful spending”.
Correlation isn’t causation, but the political and narrative threads connecting Dutton’s Coalition opposition to Donald Trump’s American presidency and his mega-billionaire offsider Elon Musk grow more numerous by the day.
Leading up to a cost-of-living election, the change makes sense; after Price helped defeat Labor’s referendum on an Indigenous voice, the new role puts a strong media performer in the spotlight.
The links only grew when Dutton pointed a finger at, as his first example of “wasteful spending that is out of control”, the “36,000 additional Canberra public servants employed under this government”.
Read the full analysis here:
