Foreign Minister Penny Wong says her Israel visit will not include Israeli towns attacked by Hamas, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirms stage three tax cuts will go ahead, and Alex de Minaur gets ready to play Milos Raonic in his first match of the Australian Open.
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TRANSCRIPT
- Foreign Minister Penny Wong says her Israel visit will not include a tour of Israeli towns attacked by Hamas.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirms stage three tax cuts will go ahead.
- And in sport, Alex de Minaur gets ready to play Milos Raonic in his first match of the Australian Open.
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Penny Wong will not visit Israeli towns where the Hamas attacks took place when she visits the Middle East in a bid to help put an end to the conflict in Gaza.
Senator Wong will meet with the Israeli families of hostages and survivors of Hamas' October 7 attacks, as well as Palestinians impacted by Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.
The foreign minister leaves today to travel to Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates over the week in the most senior visit by an Australian politician since the attacks.
Speaking in Adelaide before her departure, the foreign minister deflected a question about why she was not visiting the sites of the massacres perpetrated by Hamas militants, as other leaders have done.
Senator Wong says she will balance Australia's unequivocal condemnation of Hamas' attack, with calls for Israel to respect international law amid high numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza.
"Obviously this is a conflict which is has been devastating and tragic. And so many Australians with different perspectives are deeply worried about it. What I would say to Australians is we are not a central player in this, but we have a respected voice and we will be using it to advocate. Ultimately, the pathway out of the conflict is something that must be found by the parties to that conflict."
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Israeli airstrikes have rained down on Deir al-Balah city and the Maghazi and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza just hours after the Israel-Hamas war entered its 100th day.
Nearly 24,000 people in the Gaza Strip have been killed by Israel's bombardment of the Hamas-controlled region since October 7 according to local health authorities, which amounts to more than 1 per cent of the region's population.
This follows the attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants which killed about 1200 people and saw approximately 240 hostages abducted.
In Deir al-Balah, Ahamd al-Ostaz dug through the debris and remains of his building with a shovel, after Israeli strikes killed at least 15 people according to local reports.
He says the first missile landed by his neighbor’s house without detonating but killed two people.
"A missile landed at our neighbors but didn’t detonate. The missile came like this, almost vertically and there it is on the other street. We go out, we see our neighbor has two martyrs. We picked up things with him and helped him a bit, then a drone hit another missile. We didn’t have time to get to the other street before a third missile hit. And as you see, this is the situation: destruction after destruction. You’re sitting happily and safely at your home, with everything secured with your children, and the children of other displaced people, and then within seconds you lose everything."
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says high income Australians will still receive tax cuts, even as the government remains committed to managing inequality.
The prime minister has reaffirmed the controversial stage three tax cuts, under which high income earners are set to receive the highest gains, will come into effect from July 1.
The package, a policy of the former Coalition government, will abolish 32.5 per cent and 37 per cent brackets and bring in a single 30 per cent bracket for incomes between $45,000 and $200,000.
Nationals MP Barnaby earlier told Channel 7's Sunrise the Albanese government should not alter a policy it did not mention in its 2022 election campaign.
"The stage three tax cuts is about giving some of your money back to you. It's very easy to get a surplus, if I take some of your skyrocket and put it back in the government's treasury bucket, and we've got to start giving this money back."
Mr Albanese has told ABC tax cuts had been factored into policy on inflation and that Labor will continue to look at measures to help Aussies doing it tough, in the lead-up to the federal budget.
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In tennis,
Alex de Minaur is preparing for a gruelling physical battle against Milos Raonic in his first-round match on the second day of the Australian Open.
Australia's World Number 10 faces off against the former-world-number-three Canadian at Rod Laver arena this evening.
Australia's big home hope is riding high off the back of a strong performance at the United Cup, including a defeat of world number one Novak Djokovic.
But despite being sidelined for almost two years with a catalogue of injuries, Raonic retains a supersonic serve that could easily snatch the match away from de Minaur.
