
Paul Sakkal
@paulsakkal
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Chief Political Correspondent @theage and @smh [email protected] / Signal @paulsakkal.14
Melbourne, Australia.
Joined January 2012
A right-wing activist group that came to prominence campaigning against the proposed Indigenous Voice has launched a campaign to kill off “weakling” Liberals who support the net zero climate target, heightening Coalition tension over energy policy.
theage.com.au
“Our message is simple: Dump Net Zero, or we dump YOU,” lobby group Advance said in an email to Coalition MPs.
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Labor is about to dump proposed new laws to regulate artificial intelligence as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s caucus splits on whether to clamp down on the sprawling technology.
theage.com.au
The sprawling technology has become a subject of intense debate within Labor’s inner sanctum.
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Australia poised to recognise Palestinian state as soon as today.
theage.com.au
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made the announcement on Monday, staring down criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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RT @CroweDM: Writing on AI in recent days, I've spoken to people who fiercely oppose the way programs "scrape" personal data like images, w….
smh.com.au
A united front of news media bosses are raising the alarm about the issue of AI and altering copyright laws – “to even contemplate making this behaviour legal is beyond comprehension”.
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Albanese, who came up with the idea of the roundtable, wears some of the blame for lobbing up an idea without making clear its contours. His establishment of the summit cuts across a narrative that Chalmers, like Keating, is pushing a cautious PM to action
smh.com.au
The prime minister, sometimes blunt with his frustrations, let slip his private views on the limits of Labor’s upcoming economic summit.
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Peter Dutton ends post-election silence to weigh into security debate
smh.com.au
Anthony Albanese’s backflip on a critical national security issue has drawn the attention of the former opposition leader.
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RT @CroweDM: Does the Pentagon really think Australia should promise to send its subs to a possible conflict with China. The UK’s peak AUK….
theage.com.au
Sir Stephen Lovegrove has countered the idea that US President Donald Trump can expect pledges from Australia on how to deploy the submarines in times of war.
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Anthony Albanese has declared Australia must not be subservient to its allies as his government pushes back on a possible US demand to guarantee the use of AUKUS submarines in any conflict with China on the eve of his trip to that country.
theage.com.au
Listen to the prime minister’s closed-door remarks on the US alliance, made days before this masthead revealed how the Trump administration could reshape AUKUS.
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AUKUS review reported as being a 30-day probe will actually take weeks or months longer. The influential China hawk running the review has told Australian sources he wants a firmer guarantee Australia would join the US in any conflict w China over Taiwan
theage.com.au
Australia is facing the prospect of a Trump administration review demanding it pay more for the $368 billion AUKUS pact – and a guarantee that it supports the US in any conflict.
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Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is preparing to order a radical investigation into the future of the Liberal Party, going beyond a standard post-election review, as she seeks to rebuild it after its historic electoral loss.
theage.com.au
The new investigation will examine an existential crisis that threatens to keep the party out of government for a generation.
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US beef could be allowed into Australia for the first time in decades through a biosecurity rule review to secure the removal of tariffs as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to meet President Donald Trump later this month.
smh.com.au
The government is aiming to secure a carve-out from steel and aluminum tariffs which Trump unexpectedly doubled last week at a rally in Pennsylvania.
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”How can they sleep at night knowing they are giving the richest state in the country $8 billion more than it needs while simultaneously saying they can’t afford to increase the JobSeeker allowance?” - Saul Eslake
theage.com.au
The cost blowout stemming from Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison’s special GST deal for WA is now the federal budget’s biggest and comparable only with the NDIS.
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One source said Cox confronted Waters and told the new leader that she needed to “grow a spine”. Another MP said the scenes were “ugly” and unjustified, especially given Cox had not made clear to colleagues until late in the piece that she would run
theage.com.au
The leak from a party source comes as Greens leader Larissa Waters also wrote of Cox’s “betrayal” in an email to members, in a sign of escalating tensions between the minor party and the government.
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Ley told colleagues privately Jane Hume was not being punished for the party’s work-from-home backflip or her election eve remarks about “Chinese spies” that inflamed the Chinese-Australian community, arguing she could one day return to the shadow cabinet
theage.com.au
Sussan Ley revealed a Coalition frontbench on Wednesday afternoon – just over a week after the Liberals and Nationals split. The shadow ministry selection reveals further fractures.
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Matt Canavan has chosen not to join the frontbench so he can continue to speak his mind about the net zero climate target he is intent on removing as Coalition policy, creating a powerful new anti-net zero backbench grouping with Barnaby Joyce.
theage.com.au
Sussan Ley revealed a Coalition frontbench on Wednesday afternoon – just over a week after the Liberals and Nationals split. The shadow ministry selection reveals further fractures.
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The Liberal and National parties are inching closer to reforming the Coalition after Liberal MPs authorised leader Sussan Ley to get a deal done with counterpart David Littleproud, agreeing to policies demands with two minor exceptions
smh.com.au
Read the national news blog for rolling coverage on today’s top stories.
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A reformed Coalition would drastically scale back the nuclear energy plan it took to the election, according to a leaked document outlining policy negotiations between Sussan Ley and David Littleproud that reveals disagreements on divestiture and $20b fund.
smh.com.au
As senior Nationals MPs expressed dismay about the Coalition split, Liberal MPs will meet as a group again on Friday afternoon to keep examining the demands.
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RT @swrighteconomy: As always, there are bad hot takes after an election. The sore losers going all elements of preferential voting - a cen….
smh.com.au
The growing complaint about the historic May 3 election isn’t only that our voting system is busted. To some, it represents a full-blown conspiracy.
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Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud are in crisis talks to reverse the Coalition split as senior Nationals including Michael McCormack and Darren Chester push for a peace deal.
theage.com.au
Nationals leader David Littleproud announced the dramatic about-face on Coalition talks in a snap press conference in Canberra on Thursday.
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Liberals expect Jacinta Price’s portfolio of government efficiency to be scrapped over comparisons to Elon Musk as Liberals try to "un-DOGE" the party. Angus Taylor, Tim Wilson to be on frontbench and Andrew Hastie likely to have non-defence portfolio
smh.com.au
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is remaking the Liberal Party to reflect modern Australian values, which could deliver a seismic shift from old Coalition policies.
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