Australia news live: Trump replies ‘what does that mean?’ when asked if he will discuss Aukus with Keir Starmer
‘What does that mean?’ Trump questioned on Aukus deal
The US president, Donald Trump, needed to be reminded what the Aukus deal was when asked a question about it during a meeting with the British prime minister in the Oval Office.
As broadcast by CNN, a reporter can be heard asking Trump if he would be discussing Aukus with Keir Starmer. Trump responded:
What does that mean?
The reporter then prompted him, reminding him it is “Aukus – the Australia-US defence alliance”.
Trump then said “we will be discussing that” and, pointing to Starmer beside him, said:
We’ve had another great relationship, and you have too, with Australia. We’ve had a very good relationship with Australia.
You can watch the full exchange below:
Key events
Victoria warns of local measles outbreak
The Victorian health department has warned of a measles outbreak in the state, after two people acquired their infection in Melbourne.
In a statement yesterday, the department said these cases had “no history of overseas travel or known contact with other cases of measles.”
This means there is now local transmission of measles in the community.
The people were infectious at multiple locations around Melbourne and the Bendigo area, and you can view a list of exposure sites here. Anyone who visited these sites during the listed times should monitor for symptoms, the department said.
This news comes as the US is dealing with a significant measles outbreak:
Tropical Cyclone Alfred likely to remain offshore but could still impact coast, Bureau says
The Bureau of Meteorology says Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which has been tracking through the Coral Sea well off the shore of Queensland this week, is likely to remain offshore.
The bureau said the tropical cyclone is forecast to continue moving south through the Coal Sea today as a category 4 system, and “while it may move closer to the coast on Saturday it is forecast to move south-east on Sunday away from the coast”.
Regardless of the track Alfred takes, coastal impacts for southern Queensland and north-east NSW are likely … Alfred has a high chance of remaining a tropical cyclone in the southern Coral Sea through much of next week.
Industry bailout steels Labor but poll pain persists
AAP is reporting that a majority of voters have backed the federal government’s $2.4bn rescue package for a troubled major steelworks.
The latest YouGov poll, provided to AAP, found 62% of those surveyed support the steelworks deal and public ownership of the plant announced last week, including 61% of people who intend to vote Liberal at the upcoming election.
But a cut in interest rates that bolstered the fortunes of mortgage holders has failed to translate to an uptick in the political fortunes of the government, the polling shows.
The poll showed the Coalition maintaining a 51% to 49% lead over Labor on a two-party preferred basis. The Coalition’s primary vote stands at 37% compared with the government’s 28%, while the Greens are on 14% and independents on 10%.
The poll showed Anthony Albanese had a net satisfaction of minus 12, with 40% satisfied compared with 52% dissatisfaction.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, had a net satisfaction of minus two, with 44% satisfied and 46% dissatisfied. But Albanese held a narrow lead as preferred prime minister, leading 42% to 40% over the Liberal leader.
The YouGov poll also revealed voters have not flocked to Clive Palmer’s new political venture Trumpet of Patriots – with just 1% of voters indicating they would give it their primary vote.
The poll of 1,501 people was conducted between 21 and 27 February, which had a margin of error of 3.3%.
Hrdlicka says Virgin pilot’s response to China’s live-fire exercise ‘business as usual’
On the Today show, Jayne Hrdlicka was also asked about the revelation it was a Virgin Australia pilot who first learned about China’s live-firing exercises, before authorities.
Asked how she was responding to this, the Virgin Airlines chief executive said this was a “business as usual thing for our team”.
Our pilots are very well trained. They’re very well skilled in navigating anything unusual – and this was definitely unusual … They picked up the radio communication on the airwave from the Chinese warship, so they knew as the Chinese warship was warning everybody in the airspace and they quickly reacted, let our services know. Let us know.
We changed our airspace rules and we quickly reacted. So that was, you know, business as usual for us. And we’re really proud of the team because they did exactly what they were supposed to.
Virgin Airlines CEO touts deal with Qatar
The Virgin Airlines chief executive, Jayne Hrdlicka, was up on the Today show earlier to discuss the Virgin-Qatar deal, which was signed off this week.
You can read an analysis on the deal Elias Visontay and Jonathan Barrett below:
She said fares would be less than $2,000 for a round-trip to Europe and that about 60 Virgin staff are completing secondments with Qatar.
Hrdlicka was also on ABC News Breakfast, where she touted the deal:
This is a partnership with the world’s best airline and one of its largest, and that means for Virgin Australia, while we’re big in Australia, we’re small in the grand scheme of global aviation. This means we get to access Qatar Airways’ scale. So not only do we get access to their international network and the opportunity to start flying long haul, but we get to engage in partnership with them to do things like procurement together with our big supply chain partners, engine manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers – all of our parts, working together with airports.
Watt says government is ‘working very hard’ to fix IT issues in mutual obligations system
Continuing to make the breakfast rounds this morning, the employment minister, Murray Watt, also spoke with ABC RN, where he was asked about reports that welfare payments have being wrongfully suspended amid IT issues with the mutual obligations scheme.
Watt said this was “this is something that we’ve been working on for several months now”, pointing the finger at the Coalition and saying they had introduced this and the government was trying to fix it.
It does have problems with it. We’ve been working very hard to fix it.
Watt said there had been a “number of different IT bugs in the system” that have “resulted, unfortunately, in some jobseekers having payments not made in the way that they should be”.
We’ve done everything we can to try to remediate those payments but what we’re also trying to do is to fix the system. People shouldn’t be having this kind of thing happen to them, based on a government system.
We’re determined to try to fix it. We’ve got reviews under way in terms of the IT bugs but also my department, which is responsible for this system. When it became clear that there was some legal uncertainty about the cancellation of people’s payments, they immediately paused those cancellations.
You know, I think we all accept that the community owes it to jobseekers to support them with income, and jobseekers owe it to the community to seek work, but we don’t need to have a punitive system like we had under the Coalition and that’s what we’re seeking to change.
Caitlin Cassidy
Senate estimates probes new definition of antisemitism adopted by universities
In Senate estimates yesterday, Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi questioned the education department over the adoption by Australia’s universities of a new definition of antisemitism, which closely aligns with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition.
The definition agreed to by universities notes that criticism of Israel is not in itself antisemitic but can be, including “when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel”.
Asked by Faruqi if the education department was concerned that by adopting the definition, “freedom of speech and academic freedom and critique of Israel and anti-racist research will be stifled”, deputy secretary Ben Rimmer said there was “nothing in what we’ve seen that gives us cause for concern”.
Universities have agreed that it is helpful for them to have a working definition of antisemitism as they increase their efforts to tackle antisemitism on campus … that seems like a very reasonable objective.
Asked if universities had a working definition as a collective on Islamophobia, Rimmer said they didn’t, but many universities had a working definition against racism that called out Islamophobia.
For more on the new antisemitism definition, read our explainer:
Dutton says ‘not everyone gets the acronyms’ amid Trump Aukus comment
Taking a final question, Peter Dutton was also asked about Donald Trump’s “What does that mean?” response to a question about Aukus.
Dutton, like Murray Watt, wasn’t too fazed:
Not everyone gets the acronyms, and all the rest of it, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the president strongly supports the alliance between our three countries and strongly supports Aukus.
He stated that previously and the submarine deal, which we negotiated when we were in government, when I was defence minister, will underpin the national security of our country for the next century. And it’s an important relationship.
Dutton says purchase of properties ‘aspirational’
After more back and forth, Peter Dutton again argued the prime minister is “in a desperate position” and “knows that he’s about to lose his leadership to Jim Chalmers or Tony Burke”.
Moving to his property purchases, the host asked about Dutton’s criticism to changes of family trusts and negative gearing – is that because he’s on the market for a 27th property?
Dutton responded that he’s “invested according to the laws and I’ve paid taxes according to the law”.
I’ve claimed deductions according to the law, and I’ve been aspirational in my life. I didn’t start with money. I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth. And I worked hard after school until I started university, and I was fortunate enough to buy a house when I was 20 years of age.
Unfortunately, tragically, under this government, young 20-year-olds and 25-year-olds [and] now 30-year-olds have lost the dream of home ownership. I want to restore it … I’ve worked full-time without, frankly, any absence out of the workforce whatsoever, and my wife’s worked hard.
Dutton again questioned on share purchases
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, was also up on the Today show this morning, where he was again asked about his purchase of bank shares during the GFC and before a bank bailout – the topic of much discussion this week.
Dutton said the accusations were a “sign of a desperate government” and accused Labor of “smearing and throwing mud”.
The host said back “as if you don’t do the exact same thing”, which Dutton rejected:
Well, no, no, we don’t actually. I made no comment in relation to Copacabana and the prime minister renting out his rental properties. I didn’t make any judgment in relation to that whatsoever. It’s a private matter for the prime minister.
The host also referenced a report in the Australian Financial Review, claiming shadow ministers at the time heard whispers of the deal – was he among those in the know?
No … If the prime minister wants to make that claim, he should make it himself … I’ve been honest and transparent in every transaction I’ve done. If I was doing some sort of dodgy share deal, I wouldn’t put it up in lights on my parliamentary register.
