News live: Labor dismisses Tony Abbott’s calls for Australia to join war in Middle East

Health minister says Abbott’s calls to join war not a ‘serious contribution’The health minister, Mark Butler, addressed former prime minister Tony Abbott’s opinion piece this morning, saying the idea that Australia should be prepared to join the war in the Middle East was not “a particularly serious contribution”.Butler made the remarks on Channel 7’s Sunrise. He said: double quotation markWith the greatest of respect, I just don’t think this is a particularly serious contribution. I mean, we’ve been asked to provide defensive support, particularly to the UAE, where there are thousands of Australian expats living. We’ve done that. It’s the other side of the world and we want to see it end. I don’t think there’s any sense in the community that we want to see Australian defence force personnel deployed to offensive operations in the way that Tony Abbott has outlined. Butler said the Australian government maintained it wanted to see the conflict end permanently.Mark Butler. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPShareUpdated at 02.03 CESTKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureGrace Tame’s foundation announces closure over funding difficultiesGrace Tame’s foundation has announced it is closing, citing challenges with long-term funding, AAP reports.The former Australian of the Year set up the foundation in 2021 – the year she carried the national honour for her advocacy for abuse survivors and for law reform.In a social media post on Thursday, the foundation said it had reached a crossroads.View image in fullscreenGrace Tame. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPRead more here:ShareTom McIlroyMarles says talks with Europe about how to reopen strait of Hormuz still ongoingTalks with European leaders about how Australia could help in international efforts to reopen the strait of Hormuz are continuing, acting prime minister Richard Marles says.“We’re talking with the countries who are leading these efforts, the United Kingdom, France, about how Australia can best contribute,” Marles told ABC TV on Friday morning.Last week, the foreign minister, Penny Wong, represented Australia at an international summit on the strait.View image in fullscreenRichard Marles. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesBut Marles has cautioned that Australia’s potential involvement is not settled, days into a fragile ceasefire agreed by the US and Iran.“It really is difficult to speculate about the specifics of that without having those conversations in full, until we really understand what is the conditions on the ground,” he said.US president Donald Trump and the UK prime minister discussed the strait overnight.On Thursday, the chief of defence, Adm David Johnston, said the regional priorities could be more important for Australia.“The United States has moved enormous military capacity into the Gulf region at the moment, including a lot of capacity out of the Indo-Pacific. This is an important time for us to be present in the Indo-Pacific to maintain that regional environment that we seek to maintain,” he said.ShareUpdated at 02.10 CESTQueensland premier releases statement after death of ex-Labor MPQueensland premier David Crisafulli has released a statement after the death of MP Jimmy Sullivan.The MP for Stafford since 2020, Sullivan has served on the crossbench since being ejected from Labor last year. Queensland police are treating his death last night as “non-suspicious”.“Queenslanders will be shocked to hear of the sudden passing of Member for Stafford Jimmy Sullivan,” Crisafulli said. double quotation markSullivan was elected to the Queensland parliament in 2020, following in his father’s footsteps. On behalf of all Queenslanders, we extend our heartfelt condolences to his family during this difficult time. ShareUpdated at 02.08 CESTHealth minister says Abbott’s calls to join war not a ‘serious contribution’The health minister, Mark Butler, addressed former prime minister Tony Abbott’s opinion piece this morning, saying the idea that Australia should be prepared to join the war in the Middle East was not “a particularly serious contribution”.Butler made the remarks on Channel 7’s Sunrise. He said: double quotation markWith the greatest of respect, I just don’t think this is a particularly serious contribution. I mean, we’ve been asked to provide defensive support, particularly to the UAE, where there are thousands of Australian expats living. We’ve done that. It’s the other side of the world and we want to see it end. I don’t think there’s any sense in the community that we want to see Australian defence force personnel deployed to offensive operations in the way that Tony Abbott has outlined. Butler said the Australian government maintained it wanted to see the conflict end permanently.View image in fullscreenMark Butler. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPShareUpdated at 02.03 CESTThree arrested after fatal shooting in Melbourne suburbVictoria police have arrested three people following a fatal shooting in the Melbourne suburb of Box Hill yesterday.Officials said emergency services responded to reports of an altercation just before 2am on Wednesday morning. A 32-year-old man died at the scene after the shooting, which police are treating as a targeted attack.Officials said two men, both 47, and a woman, 27, were arrested and will be interviewed in relation to the incident. No charges have been filed.ShareMan pleads guilty to inciting racial violence with calls for new Cronulla riotA man has admitted inciting racial violence in the immediate aftermath of the Bondi Beach massacre by calling for bashings at a beach that was at the centre of infamous race riots 20 years ago, AAP reports.Ryder Roy Shaw, 20, used an alias to post two images on TikTok on 15 December 2025 that urged followers to “stand the fuck up” and riot at Cronulla Beach the following Saturday.His inflammatory posts called for violence towards Middle Eastern people more than two decades after the beach became the centre of infamous race riots.The riots did not eventuate and Shaw was arrested at his home on the NSW Central Coast on 21 December.Through his lawyer, he pleaded guilty to inciting violence towards a group on the basis of race and on the basis of religion in Gosford local court on Thursday.Shaw has been in custody since his arrest and did not appear in court when his matter was mentioned. He faces a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment for each offence when he is sentenced in May.ShareUpdated at 01.08 CESTTony Abbott says Australia should be prepared to go to war: ‘What’s the point of having armed forces’The former prime minister Tony Abbott says Australia should be prepared to go to war amid the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, saying the nation had let our main ally down, “but also betrayed our values and our long-term national interest”.Abbott wrote an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph today, asking why the nation has armed forces if they won’t be used. He said: double quotation markWhat is the point of having armed forces if they’re not to be used to support our allies in a just cause, and what could be a more just cause than the US-Israeli bid to deny Iran nuclear weapons, uphold freedom of navigation in the Hormuz Straits and – if possible – liberate Iran from a monstrous theocracy? Once it became obvious that US action against Iran was imminent, even had we not been officially alerted, the Australian government should have made contact with the White House to offer assistance, as we did in the campaign against Islamic State, where our special forces, military trainers, command and control aircraft, aerial refuellers, and strike fighters did fine work. The RAAF should be doing so again right now. By ostentatiously standing aside from the current conflict, doing even less than the pusillanimous British government, we have not just let down our main ally but also betrayed our values and our long-term national interest. Abbott went on to say Australia needed to be “strong again, as our forebears were”.View image in fullscreenTony Abbott. Photograph: James McCauley/ShutterstockShareUpdated at 01.11 CESTRichard PartingtonHead of IMF says Iran war will permanently scar global economy even if peace is reachedThe head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the Iran war will permanently scar the global economy even if a durable peace deal in the Middle East can be reached.In a speech delivered as the ceasefire in the conflict threatened to unravel, Kristalina Georgieva said the “scarring effects” caused by the war to date would mean slower global growth this year than first anticipated.Had it not been for the outbreak of the conflict six weeks ago, the IMF would have upgraded its global growth outlook for 2026, Georgieva said. double quotation markBut now, even our most hopeful scenario involves a growth downgrade. Even in a best case, there will be no neat and clean return to the status quo. Six weeks into the conflict, the fate of the conditional ceasefire announced late on Tuesday appears at risk as Washington and Tehran disagree on what was agreed.Read more here:ShareGreens says cancelling arms contracts with Israel would be much more powerful than media statementsThe Greens senator David Shoebridge says Australia should cancel arms deals with Israel, a step that would be far more powerful than the foreign affairs minister Penny Wong’s statements that Australia is concerned about the country’s ongoing military assault in Lebanon.Shoebridge spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying: double quotation markPenny Wong’s previous statements, whether it’s concerned or gravely concerned, have had no effect. But cancelling more than a billion dollars in Israeli arms contracts – that would not only respond to the moral situation of the appalling Israeli military attacks, it would also have the benefit of putting a very real material pressure on Israel to pull back from what is a disastrous, illegal, immoral war in Lebanon that is threatening the entire globe’s peace. Shoebridge went on to say the first thing Australia should do is put a “complete, two-way military arms freeze on Israel”. double quotation markWe should not be buying weapons that have been tested by Israeli defence manufacturers in conflicts like Gaza and Lebanon, and we should not be contributing any weapons parts. Right now it also would have the important additional benefit of making it clear to Israel that this comes at a direct and real cost to them. View image in fullscreenGreens senator David Shoebridge. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPShareUpdated at 00.13 CESTQueensland MP Jimmy Sullivan found dead aged 44Andrew MessengerA Queensland member of parliament has died.The member for Stafford, Jimmy Sullivan, had served as a Labor representative for the electorate since 2020. He was expelled from the Labor party last May and sat on the cross-bench.Queensland police confirmed that officers attended a residence at Stafford at 10.15pm last night to a “sudden death”.“Officers are treating the death as non-suspicious, and a report will be prepared for the coroner,” a spokesperson for Queensland police said.“No further information is available at this time”.View image in fullscreenJimmy Sullivan, seen in 2025. Photograph: Darren England/AAP In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.orgShareUpdated at 01.39 CESTMarles says Australia still needs to see strait of Hormuz return to normalThe defence minister, Richard Marles, said the flow of ships through the strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire is not “what we want”.Marles, who is serving as acting prime minister while Anthony Albanese is in Singapore to discuss the nation’s fuel supplies, spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying: double quotation markUltimately, we need to see the strait of Hormuz open. We need to see the disruption of the global fuel supply chain stop. And we very much need this fragile temporary ceasefire become permanent. View image in fullscreenDeputy prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles. Photograph: Franck Robichon/EPAShareUpdated at 23.52 CESTGreens say coalmine extension risks flouting climate lawsA state Greens MP saying the approval risks breaching climate laws, AAP adds.“The state’s top legal minds are clear that any new coal is inconsistent with the current law,” MP Sue Higginson said. She went on: double quotation markIt is therefore highly likely that if tested, this coal approval would be declared unlawful. I have no doubt that environmental defenders will be considering heading to the courts right now, to uphold the climate and environmental laws of the state. The NSW net zero commission found in December any increase in coal mining activity would leave the state at odds with the climate change act and the Paris agreement.While the mine has been cleared for two extra years of digging, its operator, Delta Power and Energy, did not get everything it was seeking.The commission denied its application to allow coal from the mine to be exported, largely because the increased emissions from trucks transporting the coal to the Port of Newcastle would have too great an impact on residents.ShareNSW gives coalmine green light to operate for two extra yearsA large underground coalmine has been given the green light to keep digging for an extra two years because it will eventually shut down a day before net zero targets kick in, AAP reports.The NSW independent planning commission has approved a proposal to extend the life of the consolidated Chain Valley and Mannering coalmines, south of Newcastle, until the end of 2029.The commission said the extension was necessary to keep supplying the nearby Vales Point power station “during NSW’s transition to renewable energy”.Legislated emissions reduction targets for the state don’t kick in until 2030, meaning none of the coal extracted from the mine will be counted in those assessments, the commission said on Thursday.ShareUpdated at 23.24 CESTNick VisserGood morning, and happy Friday. Nick Visser here to pick up the blog. Let’s get to it.ShareUpdated at 23.22 CESTSearch for missing fisher suspendedMartin FarrerA search for a fisher who disappeared in waters off Coffs Harbour has been suspended, police said last night.Emergency services were called to Emerald Beach, Coffs Harbour, on Monday following reports that a 32-year-old man had been washed off rocks while fishing.Coffs Harbour water police, assisted by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter, carried out an extensive search in the past four days but he could not be found and the operation was suspended yesterday afternoon.Water police and other agencies will continue to search the waters off Emerald Beach in the coming days.ShareUpdated at 23.15 CESTAlbanese lands in SingaporeJosh ButlerAnthony Albanese says Singapore and Australia are “strategically aligned” on fuel and energy, ahead of his meeting with Lawrence Wong later today.But the Australian prime minister said the conflict in the Middle East would have “a long tail”, warning of “a difficult period ahead”. double quotation markThere’s been substantial damage in the Gulf and that will have consequences for a period of at least months ahead. Albanese will meet his Singaporean counterpart for an annual leaders’ meeting and they will hold a joint press conference this afternoon, after Albanese tours petrol refining facilities on Jurong Island.Arriving into Singapore last night, Albanese said the two countries were important partners, with Singapore providing around a quarter of Australia’s refined fuels and Australia providing around a third of Singapore’s LNG. double quotation markWe share values and we share a relationship of trust between each other. And that is why it’s so important that at difficult times in the world we can rely upon each other. It’s unclear whether Albanese’s meeting will directly secure any new fuel supplies for Australia, but he says the meeting is important to bolster the bilateral relationship. double quotation markThis is a relationship of trust and of mutual interest as well. We know that it is in both of our countries’ interests to engage with each other to make sure that we are both reliable suppliers. We have each other’s word and indeed we have each other’s back at this time. ShareUpdated at 23.13 CESTWelcomeMartin FarrerGood morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Nick Visser will take the news reins.Anthony Albanese says Singapore and Australia are “strategically aligned” on fuel and energy, ahead of his meeting with Lawrence Wong later today. More coming up in a minute.And locally, a search for a fisher who disappeared in waters off Coffs Harbour has been suspended, police said last night. More details coming.ShareUpdated at 23.08 CEST

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