Trade Minister Don Farrell says China set to remove remaining trade barriers in 2024, Hundreds in Israel demand immediate deal to return hostages held in Gaza, The tennis community is celebrating Naomi Osaka's imminent return to the sport at the Brisbane International.
- Trade Minister Don Farrell says China set to remove remaining trade barriers in 2024.
- Hundreds in Israel demand immediate deal to return hostages held in Gaza.
- The tennis community is celebrating Naomi Osaka's imminent return to the sport at the Brisbane International.
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TRANSCRIPT
Trade Minister Don Farrell is optimistic that China will remove remaining trade barriers to Australian exports in 2024.
The Albanese government has been working diplomatically with China to get them to drop all $20 billion in trade sanctions that were levied against Australia following a diplomatic feud between Beijing and the former Morrison government in 2020.
These sanctions included tarriffs of between 107 per cent and 212 per cent on Australian wine, reducing Australian wine exports from a value of over $1 billion to just over $10 million.
Due to a thawing in relations, China has scrapped tarriffs on barley and lifted suspensions on a number of meat exporters, although restrictions on wine and lobster remain.
Minister Farrell told Sky News that a reversal on Australian wine restrictions is expected and his focus is now getting China to allow the free trade of lobster once more.
"We started with something like $20 billion worth of trade impediments with China. Bit by bit, we’ve whittled that down and really the major product now that has not been let back into China is lobster, and I’ve raised this issue now five times with my Chinese counterpart, and I’m hoping that sometime in the near future that final product will be allowed back in and that that $20bn worth of trade will be resumed."
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Several hundred people in the centre of Tel Aviv have called for the Israeli government to immediately seek a deal to bring all hostages held in Gaza home.
The protest comes as the country's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that new talks were underway with Qatar, which has been a key mediator between Israel and Hamas for hostage negotiations.
It also follows the news that the Israeli military had mistakenly shot and killed three hostages in Gaza.
One Tel Aviv resident Itamar Baruch says he has lost faith in Israel's actions in Gaza and is pleading for Israeli leaders to get the hostages home immediately.
"I've never trusted this government, and now it's even worse. And it's starting to feel that the panic from the beginning of this war is now lower, but it's very frightening that this government is going leading us all to more destruction and death and it all feels a bit pointless at this point. So, I believe that we should promote another deal of releasing hostages and keeping more people safe."
Meanwhile in Gaza, close to 19,000 Palestinians have been killed in an ongoing Israeli bombardment of the region since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel according to Gaza's health authorities.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Minister Bill Shorten says the government will be cracking down on service providers who have inflated costs for those with disabilities.
Minister Shorten says some greedy providers have been exploiting the government disability support scheme by charging people more for the same services and equipment when they are receiving the support package.
Next week, the Albanese government will be outlawing the practice and strengthening laws which will allow the government to ban guilty providers.
Mr Shorten has called the over-charging of services immoral and soon-to-be illegal.
"In Australia right now, if you say you're on the N-D-I-S, everything from aluminium shower chairs to wheelchairs to go into the physio costs more, because some service providers think that if you're on an NDIS package, they can rip you off and charge you more than if you weren't on the NDIS package. Not only is it immoral to rip off people with disability when you're a service provider, from the middle of next week, it's going to become illegal and we're going to keep chasing to you stop doing it."
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Leading tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou says former world number one Naomi Osaka's grand return to tennis at the Brisbane International is great news for the women's tour.
The four-time grand slam winner and double Australian Open champion has had a 15-month break from the sport, last playing in a W-T-A tournament at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo in September 2022.
She had a daughter, Shai, in July this year.
Osaka will return to action for the Brisbane warm-up event ahead of the Australian Open, which takes place at Melbourne Park from January 14th to the 28th.
Mouratoglou, famed former coach of Serena Williams, says the news of her return is "the best news for women's tennis".
