Pressure on Hamas and Israel to extend their truce as it enters its final 24 hours. The government's Murray-Darling buyback scheme under scrutiny from the Opposition. Climber Ocean Mackenzie has qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
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TRANSCRIPT
- Pressure on Hamas and Israel to extend their truce as it enters its final 24 hours...
- The government's Murray-Darling buyback scheme under scrutiny from the Opposition...
- Climber Ocean Mackenzie has qualified for the 2024 Olypmic Games in Paris.
The four-day truce between Israel and Hamas has entered its final 24 hours on Monday, with attention now turned to whether it will be extended.
Israel is facing mounting pressure from the families of hostages, as well as allies such as the United States, to extend the pause in hostilities.
Its leaders have been keen to dismiss any suggestions of a lasting halt to the offensive, but say they are open to using the built-in mechanism which will extend the truce by one day for every 10 Israeli captives released.
Hamas has signalled willingness to extend the truce by two to four days.
However one potential complicating factor is the fact that some hostages are believed to be held by groups other than Hamas, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera has reported that the PIJ is currently evaluating the merits of extending the truce.
Nationals Party senator Perin Davey has criticised the deal struck between Labor and the Greens which will allocate hundreds of gigalitres of water to the environment in the Murray-Darling Basin through Commonwealth buy-backs.
Labor agreed to key amendments in exchange for Greens' support for the bill, including improvements to transparency and ensuring First Nations people play a stronger role in decision-making.
But Ms Davey says the amendments have also stripped protections for farmers, which had allowed buybacks only if their socio-economic impact was netural or positive.
"We've just heard that the minister acknowledges that buybacks hurt rural and regional Murray Darling Basin communities, but they don't care because this bill removes the socio and economic test for water recovery under that 450 gigalitre plan."
But Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young says the return of water to the environment is a necessity that requires immediate attention.
"Now for the first time the minister for environment will have a legal, enforcable obligation to recover the 450 gigalitres and deliver real water for the environment, in full, and on time. The truth is you can't eat cotton, and you can't drink mud, and there are no jobs on a dead planet or a dead river."
New research from R-M-I-T university shows that highly-skilled migrants are often faced with barriers to employment that leave them doing low-skilled work while skill shortages continue throughout the economy.
Dr June Tran is a lecturer of business at the university and led a study looking at 50 recently arrived Vietnamese skilled migrants who were subject to discrimination throughout the recruitment process.
She says barriers to employment leave migrants under-utilised and the Australian economy under-developed.
"We need migrants to fill different positions. But then when they come in, it takes them a few years in order to bounce back to work. That time is wasted, or underutilised. And that has a really negative impact for the economy because those ones who come in and who are supposed to join the workforce and fill the skill shortage, they can't find jobs."
Greens leader Adam Bandt says the Labor government should draft a new mandatory gas code of conduct that does not incentivise new gas projects.
It comes as the Greens prepare to move to disallow Labor's code, saying it encourages corporations to open new gas fields.
Mr Bandt says while there are elements of the code the Greens are open to discuss such as price controls and keeping gas onshore, the code in its current form would contribute to the worsening climate crisis.
"If Labor wants to come back with a different version of the code that doesn't encourage the opening of new gas deals we're up for that discussion. But Labour's answer to the climate crisis is to open new gas fields and that's not something the greens can support."
In sport,
Climber Oceana Mackenzie has qualified for her second Olympics after winning the boulder and lead event at the Oceania selection trials in Melbourne.
The 21-year-old was Australia's first female Olympic climber when the sport debuted in Tokyo, and she proved untouchable in the weekend competition.
The medal events have doubled for the 2024 games, after the speed format was separated from the boulder and lead tandem, which is Mackenzie's speciality.
